On the Political Regime of post-1991 Ethiopia: Evidence from the Literature1
Steve Troupin
Lecturer, KU Leuven Public Governance Institute
[email protected]
ABSTRACT
This paper addresses the research question “what political regime rules post-1991 Ethiopia?” It relies on Linz
(2000) to distinguish three political regimes having different values on the definitional attributes of pluralism,
ideology and mobilization. In democratic regimes, citizens mobilize themselves in plural political groups, which bear
ideological values and may seize political power. Authoritarian regimes discourage political mobilization, and adopt
a limited set of values, reflecting a minimal social contract with some independent group with limited influence.
Totalitarian regimes are guided by an ideology, and systematically mobilize citizens in its realization through
political groups it ultimately controls. The paper first examines whether political groups exist independently of the
power center, and are able of exercising political influence. Second, it examines whether normative ideals are borne
by political groups or by the power center, and amount or not to a full knowledge system. Third, it wonders whether
political mobilization is top-down organized, an emerging phenomenon, or simply discouraged. This is done through
a review of the relevant academic literature, complementing own observations.
The paper finds that, in post-1991 Ethiopia, the power center controls all political groups, is guided by a centrally
defined ideology and systematically mobilizes its citizens to realize it, suggesting that post-1991 Ethiopia has all
attributes of a totalitarian regime.
This finding contradicts the consensual narrative brought forward by the literature, according to which post-1991
leaned towards democracy before firmly returning in the authoritarian camp. Such a narrative, the author argues,
neglects the strong ideological and mobilizational elements of post-1991 Ethiopia, and leads to wrong expectations
as to the possibility for the regime to incrementally evolve under internal or external pressure: reforms, if any, will
flow from ideological updates, and the recent integration of the developmental state doctrine into the regime’s ideology
offer some opportunities therefore.
The recent ‘Oromo’ protests, brutally repressed by the regime, provide particular relevance to this discussion.
This research has been supported by the Belgian Development Cooperation through VLIR-UOS. VLIR-UOS
supports partnerships between universities and university colleges in Flanders (Belgium) and the South looking for innovative
responses to global and local challenges. Visit www.vliruos.be for more information.
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INTRODUCTION
The Ethiopian Studies literature has addressed the question as to the kind of
political system that post-1991 Ethiopia is belonging to.
The consensual answer arrived at is that an authoritarian regime seized the power
in 1991, evolved step-by-step towards democracy up to the 2005 federal elections, whose
brutal repression leaves no doubt that it has firmly returned in the authoritarian camp
since then.
Drawing on Linz’s (2000) typology of political regimes, this paper argues that
another hypothesis deserves consideration, according to which the Ethiopian regime
complies with the definitional attributes of a totalitarian regime.
This typology is addressed in the next section. In the methodological section, this
typology is operationalized, and a data collection method is devised. The empirical
findings are organized in three sections, examining successively the political pluralism in
the Ethiopian society, the ideology of the regime, and the political mobilization of the
population. In the final section, the political regime of post-1991 Ethiopia is considered
as totalitarian: the contrast with the literature, and the implications of this findings, are
shortly discussed.
THEORY
According to Linz (2000: 51), political systems are ways of organizing political
life and the relationship between citizens and government.
Next to the two highly specific cases of traditional authority and personal
rulership that won’t be discussed any further, Linz distinguishes three kinds of political
regimes: democratic, totalitarian and authoritarian ones.
Linz (2000: 58) calls a political regime a democracy when it allows (1) “the free
formulation of political preferences, through the use of basic freedoms of association,
information, and communication”, (2) “for the purpose of free competition between
leaders to validate at regular intervals by nonviolent means their claim to rule”, (3)
“without excluding any effective political office from that competition or prohibiting any
members of the political community from expressing their preference by norms
requiring the use of force to enforce them”.
In totalitarian regimes, there is (1) “a monistic but not monolithic center of
power” from which all other existing political groups derive their legitimacy, (2) an
“autonomous ideology with which the ruling group or leader […] identify and which they
use as a basis for policies or manipulate to legitimize them”, which sets boundaries of
legitimate political action and provides a sense of meaning and historical purpose, and (3)
a single mass party and related groups organizing participation and active mobilization of
citizens for political and collective social tasks (Linz 2000: 70).
The concepts of democracy and totalitarianism are necessary-sufficient concepts
(Sartori 1970, Goertz 2006): in order to be considered as an instance of them, political
regimes have to comply with all definitional attributes. Inversely, the concept of
authoritarianism is considered as residual: political regimes that are not fully democratic
or totalitarian are considered as authoritarian. Authoritarianism’s definitional attributes
are therefore a less than complete or a negative version of those of the other two kinds
of political regimes. Linz (2000: 159-65) qualifies a political regime as authoritarian when
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(1) the political pluralism is limited, (2) there is no ideology, and (3) no intensive political
mobilization.
This intermediate definition of authoritarianism – between democracy and
totalitarianism – emphasizes that the three regimes share the same definitional attributes,
and score differently on each of these.
Regarding pluralism, groups exercising political influence exist in all regimes. But
they have different levels of independence from the political center and of political
influence. Democracies have an “almost unlimited pluralism” (Linz 2000: 161): groups can
emerge independently from the center and have actual chances of exerting political
influence. In authoritarian regimes, there should “remain groups not created by or
dependent on the state which influence the political process” (ibid.) without however
leading it or holding the rulers into account; typical examples of such groups include the
Church and the army, which are simultaneously constrained by the regime and capable of
influencing it to a limited extent. Under totalitarian rule, a whole constellation of groups
exists; these groups can represent certain interests, but are only accountable and totally
subordinated to the center of power (Linz 2000: 68).
Linz (2000: 162) defines ideologies as “belief systems” with “a strong utopian
element”, “characterized by strong affect and closed cognitive structure, with
considerable constraining power, important for mass mobilization and manipulation”.
Under authoritarianism, normative ideas as to what individuals and groups should think,
do and live exist, but tend to consist of a limited set of less controversial and rather
conservative values as to the role of science, family and religion in society. These offer a
minimal social contract in the limitedly pluralistic system, but don’t offer a firm basis for
mobilizing the citizens (Linz 2000: 164). In democracies, political groups can bear
ideologies or values, and can compete on this or other bases.
On mobilization, Linz (2000: 70-1) finds many common points between
totalitarianism and democracy: “It is this participation and the sense of participation that
democratic observers of totalitarian systems often find so admirable and that make them
think that they are faced with a democracy, even a more perfect democracy than one in
which citizens get involved in public issues only or mainly at election time. However, the
basic difference between participation in a mobilizational regime and in a democracy is
that, in the former, in each realm of life for each purpose there is only one possible
channel for participation and the overall purpose and direction is set by one center,
which ultimately defines the legitimate goals of those organizations and ultimately
controls them”. By default, authoritarian regimes tend to sustain the apathy of the
population “to avoid to make good the promises they made in the process of
mobilization” (Linz 2000: 167).
Table 1 summarizes how the democratic, authoritarian and totalitarian regimes
should theoretically ‘score’ on the definitional attributes of pluralism, ideology and
mobilization.
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Regimes/Attributes
Pluralism
Ideology
Mobilization
Democratic
Almost unlimited: political
groups may emerge
independently from the
power center and seize
political power
Weak or strong, borne by
political groups on a
strong or weak way
Citizens freely choose to
mobilize or not, through
the channel and for the
purpose they want
Authoritarian
Limited: some political
groups independent from
the power center exist, and
exert a limited political
influence
Weak, less controversial
and conventional, ensuring
a minimal social contract
Apathy is generally
preferred
Totalitarian
Internal: no political group
has an independent
existence from the power
center and all derive their
influence from it
Strong enough to allow
mobilization of the masses
The power center mobilize
citizens in each realm of
their life through the
channels and for the
purposes it defines
Table 1 – Democratic, authoritarian and totalitarian regimes ranked on pluralism, ideology and
mobilization
METHODOLOGY
This paper addresses the research question “what is the political regime of post1991 Ethiopia?” In the theoretical section, three kinds of political regimes were
distinguished on basis of three definitional attributes. Accordingly, to answer our
research question, we sequentially examine how post-1991 Ethiopia scores on each
definitional attribute.
Regarding pluralism, we first examine which groups are susceptible of having
political influence. We limit the analysis to the political parties, the levels of government,
the economic actors and the non-profit sector. We then wonder whether they are
independent from the power center and examine the extent to which they have actual
political influence. Independent groups with limited influence are an indication of
authoritarianism, independent groups with potentially unlimited influence of democracy,
the absence of independent groups of totalitarianism.
Regarding ideology, we examine which normative principles guide the Ethiopian
political life, whether these principles are borne by decentralized political groups or the
power center, and whether they constitute a coherent thinking system. The presence of
competing rationalities will be considered as an indication of democracy. Having such
principles set by a power center will point at an totalitarian or authoritarian regime,
depending on whether these principles constitute an articulated whole, providing a sense
of historical meaning and purpose, allowing to distinguish between the good and the bad,
or not.
Regarding mobilization, we examine whether post-1991 Ethiopia encourages
citizen mobilization and participation in public affairs, and whether the particular forms,
channels, and purposes of such a mobilization is controlled by the power center or the
citizens. Limited or absent reliance on citizen mobilization and participation points at
authoritarianism; citizen-controlled participation and mobilization at democracy; topdown organized participation and mobilization at totalitarianism.
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A review of the relevant Ethiopian Studies literature provides the necessary
empirical evidence. A review of the relevant Ethiopian Studies literature provides the
secondary sources. From the comprehensive list established by Abbink (2016) of
focusing on Ethiopia and Eritrea, all papers dealing with the political organization of
post-1991 Ethiopia were selected. Their respective reference lists were systematically
searched, and the relevant sources added to the sample. Own, unstructured observations
of the Ethiopian political reality complement this literature review.
EMPIRICAL EVIDENCE
Pluralism
In this section, we provide a brief overview of the social groups existing in the
Ethiopian society and of their level of political influence upon and independence from
the power center. We examine the system of political parties, the governance levels, the
corporate sector, and the non-profit sector. We conclude the section with an overall
assessment of the extent of political pluralism in Ethiopia.
Political parties
Before 1991, Ethiopia used to be ruled by the Dergue regime, a military junta
linked to the USSR. In 1975, the Tigray People Liberation Front (TPLF) was created as a
guerrilla movement against the Dergue regime in the Northern region of Ethiopia. In the
regions it controlled, it fulfilled the functions of a political party, mediating between the
citizens and rule-making and enforcement (Behre 2004, Vaughan 2011).
As it progressed towards the capital city, the TPLF was rebranded as the
Ethiopian People’s Revolutionary Democratic Front (EPRDF). The EPRDF evolved
toward a coalition of TPLF-like ethnic-based political parties. Some of these parties were
a direct top-down creation by the EPRDF while other parties are said to have joined the
coalition2 (Gudina 2011: 677). Commentators agree that the EPRDF is actually led by the
TPLF. The EPRDF has been ruling Ethiopia since 1991.
Some limited political pluralism has been occasionally authorized in post-1991
Ethiopia. First, after it had overthrown the Dergue regime in May 1991, the EPRDF had
invited opposition parties to the National Conference, which approved the establishment
of a transitional government led by the EPRDF and of a committee in charge of drafting
a constitution. But the EPRDF was, according to Gudina (2011) very selective when
choosing which opposition party was invited to the Conference, and most opposition
parties were swiftly ejected from the transitional government. Second, for the first time
in the Ethiopian history, opposition parties were effectively authorized to participate to
the electoral competition in 2005. Despite a much-contested electoral process, the
opposition parties could secure one third of the Parliament’s seats. A number of laws
were passed whose effect was to make the representation of dissent political voices
practically impossible (Aalen & Tronvoll 2009).
EPRDF coalition includes the Amhara National Democratic Movement (ANDM), the Oromo
People Democratic Organization (OPDO), the Southern Ethiopia People’s Democratic Movement
(SEPDM) and, of course, the TPLF (Harbeson 2005: 149).
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Government levels
Under Haile Sailassie, who ruled the country until 1974, Ethiopia was a unitary
state. Under the Dergue, the local government levels of kebele (village) and woreda
(district) were created to implement the land reform (Vaughan & Tronvoll 2003). The
kebeles “worked as the extended arm of central government in communicating the
Marxist ideology and the political orders of the day [and] operated as a tool of
intelligence […] keeping the grassroots under surveillance and reporting any ‘antirevolutionary’ and ‘anti-government’ activities back to the party” (ibid. 41).
Nowadays, the woredas have own police and security forces, judges and
prosecutors, and an authority over social and economic planning in their jurisdiction.
The kebeles are in charge of implementing decisions from upper government levels (ibid.:
42)
The TPLF came to power equipped with the strong concept of ethnic federalism
and related reformist claims. Until 1991, the Amhara ethnic group had been dominating
Ethiopia from a social, political and economical point of view (Baxter 1978, Abbay
2004). The TPLF originated from another ethnic group – the Tigrayans. Imbued by
Stalin’s theory of the national question (Clapham 2006, Abbink 2015), the TPLF
embarked Ethiopia in a process of deconstruction of its national identity, culminating in
the article 39.10 of the constitution, which transformed Ethiopia into a voluntary
federation of ethnic based nations, involving the right of secession for each nation3.
Accordingly, nine regional states were created and equipped with a Parliament, a
government, and a local branch of the EPRDF. Commentators converge to negate much
actual influence to the regional states: “in spite of the extensive constitutional devolution
of power to ethnic groups […], the ruling government holds a firm grip on cultural
affairs over the country” (Aalen 2006: 243).
Corporate sector
In 1991 the TPLF had inherited of a bankrupt country, plagued by famine. In
1990, the per capita income was around $120, and public employment rate was as high as
75% in 1989 (Vaughan & Gebremichael 2011: 17-8).
Post-1991 Ethiopia soon benefited from large volumes of development aid,
conditioned, from 1993 onwards, by a Structural Adjustment Programme whose longterm goal was to facilitate the transition from a planned to a market economy. Shortterm reforms included: devaluation of the currency, liberalization of its exchange rate,
tariffs and tax cuts, deregulation, and privatization of state enterprises (Feyissa 2011:
790).
Nevertheless, as Vaughan & Gebremichael (2011: 20) put it, “doubts persisted
about the commitment of EPRDF to the transition to a liberal economy”, particularly
regarding the privatization programme. Indeed, the EPRDF kept control over key
economic assets.
First, as under the Dergue, government remains the sole owner of every land in
the country: farmers may exploit it but not own it, and can be displaced at any moment.
This prevents the emergence of an agricultural class of landowners. Recently however, a
3
To date, Eritrea is the single Ethiopian ‘nation’ that made use of this right of sessesion.
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land-leasing system has been introduced, allowing – mainly foreign – companies to
secure the use of land for over 99 years (Bertelsmann Stiftung 2016).
Second, the key sectors of banks, telecom, power, water, airlines and agricultural
inputs were never privatized and remain under full control of the political center
(Vaughan & Gebremichael 2011: 20; Chinigò & Fantini 2015: 31). According to
Bertelsmann Stiftung (2016: 8), relying on Human Rights Watch, government used its
monopoly over telecommunications to install a complete control system over
Ethiopians.
Third, many privatized assets were sold to endowment funds (Vaughan 2011).
Endowment funds are non-profit companies, established and controlled by the regional
branches of the EPRDF, and aiming at supporting development through investment
projects (Vaughan & Gebremichael 2011).
Ultimately, the Ethiopian private sector consists of three categories: the
MIDROC conglomerate of companies owned by the Saudi-Ethiopia Sheik Mohammed
Al Amoudi, the endowment-owned companies, and the rest, consisting of small and
micro enterprises owned by Ethiopian citizens (Vaughan & Gebremichael 2011: 25-6).
According to Lefort (2012: 684), from these three groups, only the last one used to
provide counterweight to government, by massively voting for the opposition during the
2005 elections.
Non-profit sector
Humanitarian aid was absolutely necessary to address the famines of the 1980’s.
Yet international donors were unwilling to channel aid through the pro-soviet Dergue
regime and, as a consequence, aid “was channelled at an unprecedented level through the
[non-profit] sector precisely because it was non-governmental” (Vaughan &
Gebremichael 2011: 62). The TPLF has established an own NGO to channel
humanitarian aid in the Tigray region – this NGO would become the TPLF endowment
fund (Vaughan 2011).
There is a consensus in the literature to state that the EPRDF distrusts the nonprofit sector, for ultimately financing foreigners, for being “funnels for civil and political
discontent and mouthpieces of the opposition”, and for negatively affecting the
development of the country, by creating networks of patronage tapping development aid
for their own sake (Feyissa 2011: 805)
Consequently, the wild development of the non-profit sector was curtailed as
soon as the EPRDF came to power. Donors, willing to establish good relations with the
new regimes, increasingly channelled its aid through government. Government required
NGOs to design and implement their projects in collaboration with local structures,
severely limiting their leeway (Vaughan & Gebremichael 2011).
The tensions between government and the non-profit sector reached a peak
during the 2005 elections. Some NGOs, which “were opinion makers [pointing] to the
oppressive nature of government policies”, were illegally clamped down. In general, as
Aalen & Tronvoll (2009: 200-1) put it, “even though an organization is properly
registered and licensed, its mandate and operations can be questioned at all times by the
authorities if they are found to be critical of government positions (ibid.: 201).
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In its Charities and Societies Proclamation, the Ethiopian government has
confirmed the subordinated character of the non-profit sector. The act distinguishes
international from national NGOs: the former may not engage in any advocacy activity,
while the latter may not receive more than 10% of their resources from international
partners, what actually condemn them to close their doors (Aalen & Tronvoll 2009: 202).
Moreover, government now has the legal right to “oversee, sanction and dismantle
entities it considers troublesome” (International Crisis Group 2009: 20).
Ideology
In 2000, Linz outlined a three-pronged characterization of totalitarian states. […] This article’s description of the
policies of […] Ethiopia fit well within […] Linz’s framework. However, the regime’s commitment to a
developmental economic agenda and their adoption of nominal democracy differentiate [this state] from those
typically characterized as totalitarian (Matfess 2015: 183-4)
Through a series of academic papers he mostly authored himself, the Ethiopian
Prime Minister Meles Zenawi proclaimed, in the second half of the 2000’s, the adherence
of his country to the Developmental State (DS) doctrine, and justified the reasons
therefore on scientific grounds. DS refers to an authoritarian mode of government that is
alleged to have ignited development in Taiwan and South Korea in the 70’s, thanks to
the competence of their bureaucracy, which allowed making the right strategic decisions
for the long-term economic development, and its insulation from short-term political
pressures typical of democratic regimes (Wade 1990, Leftwich 1994, Headey 2009).
Hereby, Zenawi confirmed the conclusions many commentators observing the initial
openings of the regime towards democratization being clamped down in the aftermath of
the 2005 elections had arrived at: Ethiopia won’t be a democracy for a while. Matfess
(2015) and many others endorsed Zenawi’s claim, considering DS as an authoritarian
mode of governance oriented towards development.
In this section, we take a slightly different approach, analyzing DS not so much
as a tool for policy results than as an update of the ideological apparatus of the EPRDF.
From the outset, the EPRDF has proclaimed its adherence to the concept of
revolutionary democracy. Later, it developed its own variant of the developmental state
doctrine. In-between lie the concepts of Bonapartism and rent-seeking, which allowed a
strong leader to capture power from the EPRDF, and purge the party and the society.
Revolutionary democracy
According to Behre (2004), the TPLF emerged from a nationalist student
movement of Addis Ababa University imbued with Marxist-Leninist ideals. Opposed to
the USSR-linked Dergue regime, it pragmatically shifted to Maoism first, and ultimately
the Albanian model (Milkias 2003, Bach 2011). This combination of deep-rooted
ideological convictions with short-term tactical moves for purposes of external
consumption by the international community may be argued to typify the EPRDF mode
of governing.
Bach (2011: 642) identifies two intellectual origins of the ideological concept of
revolutionary democracy: Marx’s thesis on the proletariat’s dictatorship, leading to
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oppose revolutionary and liberal democracy, and Lenin’s ‘What Is To Be Done?’, leading
to democratic centralism under a vanguard party.
Central to the revolutionary democratic concept is an assumption as to the purely
collectivist character of society, composed of a “homogeneous mass with common
needs, interests and political outlook” (Vaughan & Tronvoll 2003: 117). Such a mass is
“backward, uneducated and unorganized” (Lefort 2013: 461), and thus prone to capture
by self-interested political groups threatening the collective project. In such a view of
society, pluralism is not only irrelevant but also a threat.
To avoid this threat, the undistinguished mass needs guidance by a “vanguard” of
“party cadres” shaping the minds, mobilizing, organizing and coordinating social forces
towards the collective project and away from individual ones (Abbink 2011).
Democracy, in this revolutionary sense, is achieved through vertical discussions
among different levels: debates between the vanguard and the mass for the purpose of
“arriving at the information, clarification and persuasion required to reach a consensus”
is not totally ruled out (Vaughan & Tronvoll 2003: 117). But horizontal discussions
among factions at the same level are totally excluded: revolutionary democracy
“envisages the party as a vanguard political force, which is not inclined to compromise
with opposition forces because it is convinced it has the solution for everything”
(Abbink 2006: 195).
At the end, as official EPRDF documents put it (Barata 2012: 67):
When revolutionary democracy permeates the entire Ethiopian society, individuals will start thinking alike, and all
persons will cease having their independent outlook. In this order, individual thinking becomes simply part of
collective thinking because the individual will not be in a position to reflect on concepts that have not been prescribed
by revolutionary democracy.
Bonapartism and rent-seeking
The adhesion of the TPLF to the revolutionary democratic ideal was clear as
early as in 1994 (Bach 2011: 655). It provides an idea of the basic human condition, its
disturbing forces and end state – collectivism unhampered by factional disputes – but
does not amount to a full-fledged ideology yet. In 2001, disputes inside the TPLF
provide the opportunity of completing the ideological apparatus with two essential
building blocks: a clear identification of enemies to the revolutionary democratic project,
and a sense of where Ethiopia stands in a transition to revolutionary democracy.
To overthrow the Dergue, the TPLF had allied with a similar guerrilla movement
from Eritrea. Their pact included the right of secession for Eritrea, which was secured in
1993. The leaders of both movements, Meles Zenawi and Isaias Afeworki became
leaders of Ethiopia and Eritrea respectively. The common Marxist-Leninist ideology of
their movements, the battles they had fought and won together, and the respected
agreements as to the peaceful secession of Eritrea had led Zenawi to trust his neighbour,
and neglect, against the opinion of a powerful faction of the TPLF, internal signals that
Eritrea was preparing a military aggression of Ethiopia (Milkias 2003).
The outbreak of the Ethio-Eritrean war in 1998 led this faction to seriously
challenge Zenawi’s leadership. His reaction was to push for bringing the topic of
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Bonapartism at the agenda of the TPLF central committee. Bonapartism is a kind of
political regime coined by Marx and Engels, characterized by the extreme dominance and
autonomy of the executive over and from the other branches of government and society.
Such a regime would have characterized France under Napoleon Bonaparte from 1851
to 1870, in a period when the ancien regime had already lost control over the executive but
was not replaced yet by an utopian order. The concept of Bonapartism allowed Zenawi
to make sense of the state of Ethiopia in the early 2000’s and of its End of History, and
to attack his opponents for their behaviour considered unproductive in relation to this
end:
“[Under Bonapartism] There is no strong bourgeoisie with enough capital networks in place. The classes have not
yet ostensibly been divided. It is a twilight zone where in the name of extreme leftism everybody wishes and clamours
to be capitalist through the process of capital accumulation. It is a chapter of capitalism in which land has not yet
been appropriated and where there is a tremendous amount of looting in the society. The government […] is neither
in position to dictate the right course nor is it revolutionary in its vision. As the looting for capital accumulation
ensues, government officials use their position to nimble at the society’s estates and wealth and jockey for a
permanent position of opulence. [T]he major characteristic of the system is then corruption.” (Milkias 2003: 12)
According to Milkias, Zenawi relied on his Bonapartist analysis of the Ethiopian
development to “very selectively” purge the ranks of the TPLF and its satellite parties of
its corrupted members, significantly strengthen his individual leadership and entrust him
with the duty of guiding the Ethiopian transition from Bonapartism to revolutionary
democracy.
Together with this charge of Bonapartism formulated against opposed TPLFfaction, another long-standing concept enters the ideological glossary of the EPRDF:
that of ‘rent-seeking’.
Rents are considered as additional benefits of financial or other nature, emerging
from a situation of imperfect market competition, and secured over the long run by
individual actors (Zenawi 2012). Rents are for instance corporate benefits flowing from a
situation of monopoly. Or bribes structurally perceived by civil servants whose position
allow them affecting individual interests. Rent-seeking is a behavioural pattern where
individual interests systematically try to reach and secure those positions that will
generate a sustained flow of rents.
According to Vaughan & Gebremichael (2011: 14), ‘rent-seeker’ has become “the
Ethiopian government’s most common condemnatory insult. [It] denote[s] an individual
or group that is simultaneously ‘anti-democratic’ (N.B.: in the revolutionary sense of the
word) and determined to stand in the way of national [development] plans”. Eliminating
rent-seeking behaviour became a natural objective of government, as official EPRDF
document attest:
“[Rent-seeking] will be the line of quickest enrichment for private entrepreneurs in a situation of pre-capitalism
such as Ethiopia, thus Revolutionary Democracy has explicitly to make rent-seeking difficult”
(Vaughan & Gebremichael 2011: 15).
Developmental State
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Revolutionary democracy now has its place in the historical path Ethiopia is
following: it is an utopian end state that should follow that of Bonapartism where
Ethiopia now stands, and which is characterized by pervasive rent-seeking behaviours.
From this flows an historical duty for the EPRDF to eliminate rent-seeking behaviour.
From 2001 to his death in 2012, the now uncontested Ethiopian leader, Meles Zenawi,
will elaborate the last building block until now of the EPRDF ideology: the DS.
This intellectual production takes place in a particular context, which witnesses of
the increasing emancipation of Zenawi from TPLF circles. He had started a Master in
Economics at the Erasmus University of Rotterdam. He never completed it due to the
outbreak of the Ethio-Eritrean war in 1998, but had nevertheless drafted a Master thesis
(de Waal 2013: 151).
In the international academic world, critics were piling up against what had been
called the Washington consensus (Williamson 1990), whereby international donor
agencies were promoting, through structural adjustment programmes, the establishment
of a minimal government implementing neoliberal policies as a universal recipe for
development (Zack-Williams & Mohan 2005, Headey 2009). An heterogeneous
intellectual coalition emerged, held together by the conviction that “there is no
consensus [anymore] except that the Washington consensus [does] not provide the
answer” (Stiglitz 2004: 1). Founded in 2000 by Nobel Prize laureate Joseph Stiglitz, the
Columbia University-based Initiative for Policy Dialogue (IPD) gathers heterodox
intellectuals to initiate a North-South policy dialogue on this basis
(http://policydialogue.org/about/).
In 2004, an IPD team notably composed of Joseph Stiglitz, Akbar Noman and
Robert Wade visited Ethiopia to initiate such a dialogue (Initiative for Policy Dialogue
2004). The project was rebranded as the Africa Taskforce, which met four times from
2006 to 2009. During the first meeting, Zenawi presented his draft Master thesis (Zenawi
2006a) and gave a speech on the Ethiopian economic policy (Zenawi 2006b). Ultimately,
the project led to the publication of a collective opus (Noman et al. 2011) featuring a
chapter authored by Zenawi, where he details his DS doctrine (Zenawi 2011). This
contribution is established in English, is of an academic nature and thus easily available,
and situated in the economic field.
Zenawi situates the Ethiopian approach as a third way to development, situated
between the neoliberal approach of the Washington consensus, and that of the
predatory, kleptocratic or Bonapartist states where an authoritarian elite seize a country’s
resources for its own interest (White 1995, Alemayehu 2009, Kelsall et al. 2010).
Zenawi undertakes to justify, on economic theoretical grounds, why developing
countries need an intervening state, as opposed to the small, ‘nightwatchman’ one of the
neoliberal model. Neoliberal theory, he asserts, justifies a small state by the rational
choice assumption: a big state, through the many monopolies it has, would create rentseeking opportunities for its clientele. If this assumption holds, Meles argues, the state
would be big, because its agents would strive to attract as many resources possible to
them. Since not all states are big, he proposes that normative ideals he calls institutions
supplement individual interests to guide individual behaviours. He shows that these
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institutions are a public good and infer, from a classical economic perspective, that the
state should supply these: develop these individual and social norms needed for
individuals to avoid rent-seeking behaviour en engage in socially productive value
creation (Zenawi 2011).
He then makes a similar point with technologies: markets do not supply these
adequately; they have the characteristics of a public good, justifying state intervention.
Such intervention is expected to take the form of national innovation policies, whereby
the state equips the population with the necessary knowledge and skills to fully exploit
and incrementally improve existing technologies and creates industrial clusters. Such
conditions are said to provide private entrepreneurs with enough incentives to invest in
technology acquisition instead of engaging in rent-seeking (Zenawi 2011).
Beyond the function of enforcing contracts and ensuring private property – the
sole one entrusted by the neoliberal paradigm to the ‘nightwatchman’ state – such a state
thus moreover develops the national social capital and runs a national innovation system.
Recalling East-Asian experiences, he labels such a state a DS, which he defines by two
attributes. First is autonomy, and refers to the ability of the DS to implement decisions
regardless of the views of the private sector on the issue. Autonomy is opposed to
subordination, where the state is captured by coalitions of rent-seekers. This implies that
the DS is “semi-democratic, semi-parliamentarian at best” (Zenawi 2011: 167). Second,
such a state has development as its hegemonic ideology: DS actively reward growthenhancing activities and penalize socially wasteful rent-seeking activities, establish a
broad societal consensus therefore, and draw its legitimacy from these means and the
developmental outcomes.
Mobilization
EPRDF System of Mobilization
Since its inception, the EPRDF has always relied on an extensive system of
organizations and practices aimed at mobilizing the masses to realize its revolutionary
democratic ideals.
According to Vaughan (2011: 623-6), the way the TPLF organized political
control over the Tigrayan territories it liberated as a guerrilla movement still provides the
template for current mobilization practices.
In each village, the TPLF organized mass meetings of the population for purpose
of identifying candidates to staff baito institutions – a system of council and militia in
charge of ensuring security and other basic services to the population. As its sovereignty
extended, comparable structures were established at higher government levels, and
staffed by the brightest members of the lower levels. On their turn, these higher-level
structures were in charge of establishing baito institutions in newly liberated zones. At
central level, an NGO was established to channel international humanitarian help to the
populations through this network of party structures, providing an economic incentive
above a patriotic one for Tigrayans to mobilize for the liberation and show loyalty vis-àvis the rulers.
This system of party-state organizations work through several interrelated means.
12
First, each mass organization has the duty to organize meetings for its base:
youth leagues organize meetings for young people; women organizations regularly
organize meetings for women, etc… Such meetings are always organized top-down.
Participation is not compulsory, but more than welcome.
During such meetings, second, instructions as to the desired behaviour are
passed over from the vanguard to the masses, in a pyramidal fashion. As Segers et al.
(2008: 105) report from fieldwork in Tigray:
As a TPLF member everything finds its way to you. Whatever programme or rule, party members are the first ones
called on. They explain to us the content of the programme and the arguments to convince people to participate in it.
Party members then start to put things into practice to set an example to others. We, party members, are expected
to carry out everything the government proposes. It does not matter whether you feel sympathetic to it or not. You
accept it. As a party member you have taken your decision in advance.
Third, mobilization relies on an indigenous technique of evaluation, self-criticism,
and accountability. Called gim gema or gem gema (alternatively written in one or two words),
the practice aims at confronting individual actions with revolutionary ideals in a collective
deliberative setting. According to Vaughan & Tronvoll (2003), while gim gema originally
aimed at ensuring accountability of the administrators vis-à-vis the peasant masses, it
would have largely evolved toward a tool of the vanguard to question individual party
members. Or, as Segers et al. (2008: 103-4) put it, gim gema is “a top-down process and a
tool of party control […] used for the purpose of evaluating farmers’ development
achievements [and] publicly denounce the inferior performance of one or more
individuals in the audience”.
Fourth, mobilization relies on two sets of economic incentives. On the one hand,
the scarce resources with which mass organizations are entrusted are distributed on a
reciprocal basis. The extract of an interview of a youth league officer reported by Di
Nunzio (2010: 424) illustrates this point:
Recently, we have organized a training programme for 33 young people on computer skills. Everybody was free to
participate [there were no “political requirements”]. After they had completed their training, we asked the clever
ones to join the party and the associations. ‘And what happens next?’ If you are clever and educated, the party
could give you good opportunities.
On the other hand, progression inside the party structure depends on
achievements in terms of mobilization vis-à-vis the lower level (Segers et al. 2008; Di
Nunzio 2010).
Agricultural Development-Led Industrialization
According to Ohno (2009), the TPLF revolutionary democratic project has
always gone together with a development policy entitled Agricultural Development-Led
Industrialization (ADLI).
ADLI aims at improving the agricultural productivity in order to generate capital
that can be invested in a limited number of industries. Closely linked to the agricultural
sector, these industries should further increase its productivity, by providing agricultural
inputs and transforming agricultural outputs. Step by step, this policy is expected to lead
13
to a general industrialization of the country (Zenawi 2006). ADLI was progressively
implemented from the 2000’s (Ohno 2009).
According to Lefort (2012), ADLI relies on three main building blocks for its
implementation. The state-owned cooperatives, first, are expected to provide agricultural
inputs (fertilizers and seeds) to peasants. Second, development agents are civil servants at
kebele level in charge of training and advising peasants on the way to manage crops and
livestock. Third, ADLI actively mobilizes peasants, by requesting them to contribute,
financially or in nature, to collective infrastructure works (pond digging for instance).
Political Moblization after the 2005 Elections
A distinction deserves being made in the overwhelmingly peasant population of
Ethiopia between the smallholder farmers, engaged in subsistence agriculture and mainly
targeted by ADLI, and the commercial farmers who could secure larger fields and engage
in capital generating ‘cash crops’ (Chinigò & Fantini 2015).
According to Lefort (2012), these commercial farmers constitute a rural elite
opposed to government because they perceive the mobilization as a distraction from
their business activities, because they belonged to the now ostracized elite under the
Dergue regime, and because they complain about poor government effectiveness. Before
the 2005 elections, this social group would have successfully campaigned for the
opposition.
These elections were followed by an intense mobilization campaign aimed at
strengthening and broadening the electoral basis of the EPRDF. The most striking
measure taken was to expand the size of the kebele councils from 15 to 300 members.
With one kebele for 1000 to 3000 citizens, this measure led to the practical requirement,
for any political party willing to present candidates all over the country, to have a
minimum of 3,6 million members. The EPRDF itself only had 760 000 members then.
Mass organizations were mobilized to expand the membership figures up to 4 million
(Aalen & Tronvoll 2009).
According to Lefort (2012), these results were achieved to a significant extent by
enrolling the commercial farmers in the party. They were upgraded as model farmers and
were entrusted with vanguard mobilization functions vis-à-vis the smallholder famers.
Post-ADLI
From 2005 onwards, another layer of development policies came to supplement
ADLI. These new policies differ from ADLI in two important respects. First, they do
not aim at lifting smallholder farmers – the political basis of revolutionary democracy
with which the EPRDF had to enter into a developmental coalition – out of poverty but
at generating economic growth (MoFED 2010, Lefort 2012). Second, instead of being
mobilized, smallholder famers are now expected to be apathetic in front of projects
negatively affecting them.
The main cause of this policy change seems to be the failure of ADLI as an
economic development policy. During the first years of serious implementation,
productivity seemed to improve in the agricultural sector. These initial gains were
however destructed by two consecutive years of drought. Overall, the respective shares
14
of agriculture and industry in the economy have remained unchanged, while Ethiopia
remained dependent upon humanitarian aid (Lefort 2012).
The formal adhesion of Meles to the DS doctrine had brought a new range of
policy advisers to Ethiopia. Ohno (2009, JICA & GRIPS 2011) notes that in no historical
case of DS development was driven by agriculture only. Instead, infant export-oriented
industries drove development there. And the capital needed to industrialize did not come
from surpluses of the agricultural sector, but mainly from foreign direct investments.
Ohno suggested decoupling efforts in the industrial and the agricultural sector: attract
foreign direct investments in a limited number of industrial sectors on the one hand, and
improving the quality of life of farmers on the other.
In a similar vein, Rodrik doesn’t see any reason to limit industrial projects to
those sectors whose inputs are delivered by the agriculture. He instead invites Ethiopia to
be opportunistic and to provide ad hoc policy stimuli: “Cheap land and holidays on
profits taxes may suit some investors just fine; but others may have different needs. One
firm may need relief on payroll taxes, another from tariffs on inputs, and a third may
want the relaxation of some regulation or legislation” (Rodrik 2008 in Ohno 2009).
The main reform undertaken was to generalize a land leasing system, to allow –
mainly foreign – private investors to secure actual ownership over land, which is on
paper still collectively owned.
These lands were put to two different uses. It allowed, first, initiating an import
substitution policy: while ADLI focused on exports to restore the payment balance,
industries are now built to reduce the dependence of Ethiopia on key inputs such as
cement. Second, these lands allowed agricultural exploitation on a much larger scale than
the smallholder and commercial farmers discussed above.
Such settlements generally require displacing smallholder farmers and fuel a longstanding resentment, among disadvantaged ethnic and social group against land grabbing.
According to Chinigò & Fantini (2015), this policy is preferentially implemented in
regions outside the traditional TPLF power base. In the Oromia regional state, heavy
protests erupted against the government’s will to implement the Addis Ababa Master
Plan, which aimed at expanding twentyfold the capital city, expelling millions of citizens.
Protests occurred in three rounds: spring 2014, November 2015, and January 2016
(EHRP 2016). HRW (2016), estimates at 400 the number of people killed by security
forces. Under pressure, the Ethiopian government has withdrawn the plan, and
apologized for the casualties (HRW 2016). For the first time in post-1991 Ethiopia, the
EPRDF has been seriously challenged by its population.
CONCLUDING DISCUSSION
The evidence brought forward in the previous section allows answering our
research question as to the type of political regime that is ruling post 1991-Ethiopia.
Political pluralism is almost totally absent from post-1991 Ethiopia. Most
political parties are satellites from the power center, and the others do not have any
actual chance of exerting political influence, at least since the 2005 elections. The ethnicbased regional governments, having a constitutional right to secession, do not provide a
15
counterweight against the power center either: in the practice, they are subordinated to
the federal government, and ruled by the satellites of the ruling party. The private sector
is in hands of “party-statals” (IMF 2011), a friendly conglomerate, of the governments’
subjects and is not in position of challenging the power center. The non-profit sector
used to represent dissent voices, what has been made impossible after the 2005 elections.
Overall, the Ethiopian situation regarding pluralism shows totalitarian traits: there are
many political groups, but none is independent from the power center, the EPRDF. It
could be argued, however, that a limited pluralism typical of authoritarian systems existed
before 2005, with NGOs being engaged in policy advocacy, and opposition parties being
able to present candidates and getting votes. No evidence from the literature suggests
that an almost unlimited pluralism typical of democratic system has ever been
approached in post-1991 Ethiopia.
On basis of selective borrowings from the French revolution (Bonapartism), the
Marxist-Leninist theory (revolutionary democracy), the neo-classical (rent-seeking) and
heterodox (developmental state) economic theories, the EPRDF has assembled, from
1991 to 2012 an idiosyncratic set of normative principles, “a serious attempt to develop,
and apply, an authentically African philosophy of the goals and strategies of
development” (de Waal 2013: 152). Bricolage (Bach 2011) or paradigm (Ohno 2009), this
set of principles complies with the conditions set by Linz to be considered as a
totalitarian ideology: it goes beyond commonplace values, allows guiding mobilization
and justifying policies, and it is controlled by the center. Overall, this ideology views the
Ethiopian society as a homogeneous collectivist, as opposed to a sum of individualities.
This justifies the elimination of every organized interest on the one hand, and a layered
society with the higher layer fulfilling a vanguard function vis-à-vis the lower one. The
utopian end state is developed collective society.
On ideology, two remarks are nevertheless worth making. First, the regime’s
ideological production has stopped with the death of his leader Meles Zenawi – his
successor Hailemariam Delasegn is generally presented more as a pragmatic chairman
than as a bright ideologue (Lefort 2014). Second, the capitalistic projects on which
Ethiopian development increasingly relies create a theoretical tension with the
revolutionary democratic concepts, which may require an ideological adjustment at term.
These two emerging trends may point at a gradual evolution of the Ethiopian regime
towards post-totalitarian authoritarianism, but could equally be a temporary bracketing of
ideological principles – the selective application of ideological principles being a hallmark
of totalitarian regimes.
The systematic top-down mobilization by the regime of the masses is another
indicator of the fundamentally totalitarian character of post-1991 Ethiopia. But the
spontaneously emerged Oromo protests, followed by the historic backward step of
government, which withdrew the Addis Ababa Master Plan and apologized for the
brutality of the repression indicate anew an emerging trend away from totalitarianism: the
EPRDF lost the monopoly over political mobilization, and seems to expect apathy from
its citizens regarding capitalistic development projects.
The narrative that emerges from this analysis of post-1991 Ethiopia through
Linz’s (2000) typology is one of a fundamentally totalitarian regime, aiming at controlling
all aspects of the life of the masses, at eliminating every dissent voice, and at actively
16
mobilizing the masses for the realization of its ideological project. This project may have
been pragmatically paused for a while in the initial years, but it was nevertheless there
from the outset, and fully pursued from 2005 to 2012 at least. Emerging evidence
suggests that the regime may be now following a de-totalitarianization route: recent
development projects rely on rent-seeking behaviour by capitalists, and on an apathetic,
‘let do or die’ behaviour on behalf of citizens. The ideology has not been updated since
2012.
This narrative departs from the consensual one the Ethiopian Studies literature
arrived at. There, two phases are distinguished. In a first phase, the EPRDF liberated
Ethiopia from a socialist regime, endorsed liberal principles in the political and
economical realms and started implementing these – albeit with understandable delays –
as the relatively free 2005 elections evidence.
Up to 2005, Ethiopia was following a democratization path, and brutally and
somewhat unexpectedly shifted to an authoritarian one, as evidenced by the repression
that followed the elections, the clamping down of the non-profit sector, and the
adherence to the authoritarian East-Asian DS model. The ideological developments of
the regime, and the extensive mobilization machinery are considered as a mere mean to
perpetuate the political power of an ethnic minority and oppress the majority, not as a
hegemonic political project.
Implicit calls to the restoration of democratic principles are generally brought
forward, and the historical evolution of Taiwan and South Korea from authoritarian DS
to democratic regimes offer some hope therefore, tempered by references to the deeply
hierarchical culture that would characterize the Ethiopian society.
Seeing post-1991 Ethiopia as a case of totalitarian regime possibly en route
towards post-totalitarianism rather than as a case of failed third-wave democratization
has some implications.
As benchmarks for political transition, the cases of post-Stalin USSR and postMao PRC may offer researchers and donors more accurate insights and recipes than the
cases of Taiwan and South Korea: one cannot assume that Ethiopia is a DS that will
“successfully dissolve” its regime through the very success of its development strategy
(Ohno 2009: 11-2).
Also, pressurizing a totalitarian regime to democratize itself is likely to be as
unsuccessful as it has been since 1991: working through the realms of ideas, inside the
ideological framework of the regime may be a more promising route.
Overall, the strategies and tactics of the Western donors united in the
Development Assistance Group are too predictable: the EPRDF has integrated these in
its decision-making process to such an extent that it seems to control them. The advent
of the Sustainable Development Goals offers the opportunity to experiment with
alternative, less predictable forms of conditionality.
17
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