The Post 2018 Ethiopia’s State Building Approach: Responsive and/or Unresponsive Federalism Approach?

Abstract

The change in leadership, following the 2018 reform in Ethiopia, evidently created many expectations. The general objective of this study is to critically examine whether the post-2018 state-building approach is responsive and/or unresponsive. The study employed a qualitative approach using both primary and secondary data. The key findings of the study were twofold: the continuity of business-as-usual politics (employing unresponsive strategies and approaches); and massive deconstruction indicating key departures in historical, political, security, and economic aspects. Although the grand new way forward approach has come along with the leadership of Prime Minister Abiy Ahmed who has brought the Medemer (literally to mean addition, synergy or coming together) approach, the real politics in the aftermath of June 2018 has reinvented suspicious politico-security environments. The results have further shown that the reformist government had labelled the Tigray People's Liberation Front (TPLF) and the Oromo Liberation Front (OLF) as reactionary forces; the tactical alliance between the Oromo and Amhara forces was successful in overthrowing TPLF, which had full supremacy over the Ethiopian Peoples’ Revolutionary Democratic Front (EPRDF) from the centre, and yet eventually the alliance was collapsed; and the implicit hegemonic role of the EPRDF has been sustained, though there have been endeavours to peripheralize conflicts. There have been also ongoing responsive paths (like the light under a bowl): merging up all incumbent ethno-national (regional) political parties, economic liberalization, establishing national dialogue commission, urban beautification, etc. It has, therefore, been recommended that all stakeholders need to commit to a responsive approach to the constitutional federal state-building and give up cynical unresponsive approach(es).