Transposing
Ethiopia while Concurrently Preserving Its
Institutional Heritage and Its Political Economy
Achievements
Ghelawdewos
Araia, PhD
January 23, 2019
The
purpose of this article is to systematically
analyze and critique the present Ethiopian
politics, policies, and initiatives in the context
of change and reform and yet to propose the
continuation of Ethiopia’s achievements in the
last two and half decades, and use the latter as a
convenient platform to constructively guide the
future developments of the country. This paper
will further discuss the developmental state
(hereafter DS) and the neo-liberal policy agenda,
in an effort to garner theoretical clarify on
concepts and policy spectrums and the impact they
would have on Ethiopian politics and the larger
Ethiopian society.
There
is no doubt that Ethiopia has achieved economic
growth at 10 to 11% per annum in the last 15 to 18
years and it has proved to the world its
substantial progress in foundation economy such as
roads that connected the whole of Ethiopia;
railways that served as nerves of transportation
between Ethiopia and Djibouti; another railroad,
still under construction, that is planned to
connect Djibouti with the Ethiopian towns and
cities of Awash, Woldia, Hara Gebeya, Kombelcha,
and Mekellle; public housing projects that
virtually transformed Addis Ababa, not to mention
the light railroad that is now serving Addis Ababa
commuters; industrial parks in major Ethiopian
cities that heralded the slow but real transition
Ethiopia is making from traditional plow and hoe
farming to irrigation and mechanized agriculture,
and eventually to full-fledged manufacturing
industry.
On
top of the above achievements, in the last 27
years, Ethiopia made a remarkable progress in
education, although quality education still
remains the country’s major challenge. The
expansion of elementary and high schools in all
nine regional states quadrupled compared to the
era of the Derg military regime and Emperor Haile
Selassie’s government; incidentally, there are
now fifty universities, coupled by the Technical
and Vocational Education & Training (TVET)
institutions, in all Ethiopia, and this is another
major achievement of Ethiopia under the rule of
the EPRDF.
The
EPRDF, however, miserably failed in the areas of
democracy in general and the human rights and
justice spheres in particular. Although there was
so much talk on democracy, including the slogan
and/or guiding principle of the ruling party’s
‘revolutionary democracy’, democratic rights
were virtually absent in Ethiopia. It is
abundantly clear that there was no democracy in
Ethiopia, and as a result Ethiopians were unable
to exercise basic democratic rights such as
freedom of speech and press despite the fact that
these rights were granted by the Ethiopian
constitution. Moreover, EPRDF’s major
shortcoming was that it virtually monopolized
state power by excluding contending political
parties and keeping at bay Ethiopian intellectuals
and professionals. I hope that the systematic
avoidance of intellectuals and professionals will
not happen again under the reformist Abiye’s
government, and I truly believe that a government
that deliberately ignores the country’s major
asset commits the highest crime that has yet to be
defined by the justice system. Now, one could
surmise which one weighs more, EPRDF’s
achievements or its failures? I will leave the
answer to the reader?
With
the advent of Dr. Abiye Ahmed as the new prime
minister of Ethiopia nine months ago, ‘change’
and ‘reform’ have become the buzz words in
Ethiopia. I personally welcomed the initiatives
and reforms undertaken by the new regime,
including the release of political prisoners, the
unifying and rallying slogans of PM Abiye’s
‘love, forgiveness, and togetherness’ that
were effective in the mobilization of the
Ethiopian people. Additionally, the structural
change initiative in the government of Dr. Abiye
was remarkable; now that we have ten female
ministers from the cabinet of ministers that
constitute a total of twenty ministers, is unheard
of in the annals of Ethiopian history, and this
government action, without doubt, signals a
promising cornerstone for the equality of women,
not only at government level but also at the level
of the larger Ethiopian society. Abiye’s
initiative in reconciling with the opposition
parties and brokering peace between Ethiopia and
Eritrea, as well as between the religious leaders
of the Ethiopian Orthodox Tewahedo Church (EOTC)
are also milestones in Ethiopian history
However,
while the above initiatives are great in and of
themselves, the great instability, chaos, and
ethnic confrontations that gripped most of
Ethiopia under the watch of the Prime Minister are
quite troubling; and more troubling and enigmatic
is the fact that Ethiopia’s huge defense force
and federal police, ironically were made
bystanders vis-à-vis the political morass in
almost all Ethiopia. Subsequently, Ethiopians
(excluding the verbose and opportunist elite) have
questioned the existence of the government that
was unable to maintain law and order in order to
quell the disturbances. So, which weighs more, PM
Abiye’s positive contributions or the chaos
engendered by some unknown elements/agents, that
are provoking innocent Ethiopians for violent
ethnic confrontations?
What
is to be done now? As the title of this article
suggests, first and foremost, Ethiopia’s forward
march should be considered seriously and with
conscious intention to preserve its institutions
and its development achievements. As a matter of
policy, the twin agenda of preserving prior
projects and new vistas in reform and
transformation requires the realization of a
historically posterior moment (looking back and
looking forward!). In other words, Ethiopia must
break away from the present without losing touch
with the past; a good, solid, and effective policy
is one that constantly reassesses the past and
that kind of policy must be adopted by PM
Abiye’s government. That is what Dr. Abiye
should do before he ventures into eliminating
durable projects and institutions (e.g. the
constitution, parliament, federalism, the
developmental state, Grand Ethiopian Renaissance
Dam (GERD) etc.)
PM
Abiye should be extremely careful not to err in
policy and instruct his government to engage in a
disempowering function and consequently diluting
existing projects and institutions (a good example
is the slowly vanishing EPRDF). The Prime Minister
could sometimes encounter a moral dilemma and this
is quite normal and natural in a changing society.
As Susan Sontag ones said, “Generally a moral
principle is something that put one at variance
with accepted practice,”1 and if the
Prime Minister endorses my proposal and/or accepts
other similar ideas put forth by other Ethiopians
and Ethiopian observers, he won’t face any major
dilemma.
What
we need to do now in Ethiopia is establish a
delicately balanced ecology that is more
harmonious and less confrontational, a policy that
ultimately enables us to achieve constancy and
change. By maintaining ‘constancy and change’,
we can successfully transpose Ethiopia through
series of reforms while concomitantly preserving
its institutions and its political economy
achievements. In the following paragraphs, thus, I
will present my own stand and others viewpoints on
how to undertake reforms while at the same time
advocating for the conservation of the present
political structures of Ethiopia.
Back
in February 2018, I contributed an article
entitled “Misreading History and Political
Science and the Exigency of Smooth Transition in
Ethiopia,” and this is how I argued then:-
I personally
would recommend the continuation of the current
federal structure with some amendments of the
Constitution in regards to article 39 and its
clause on secession; the latter should be
discarded and only the self-determination clause
should be preserved. The regional states must
continue as autonomous states but the mono-ethnic
composition should change to multi-ethnic diverse
and yet inclusive polities. In other words, while,
for instance, Oromia, Amhara, Tigray, Debub, Afar,
Somali, Benishangul-Gumuz, and Gambella maintain
their present status, they should simultaneously
accommodate other Ethiopian ethnic groups in their
respective turfs, and gradually graduate from
mono-ethnic to multi-ethnic states, very much like
the Debub Kilil of Southern Nations,
Nationalities, and Peoples (SNNP)2
The
article was written at a time when the former
Prime Minister Hailemariam Desalegn announced his
intention to resign from his post; and about the
same time, Goitom Gebreleul and Biniam Bedasso
authored “Managing Ethiopia’s Political
Crisis”, and her is how they advance their
argument:-
Managing
Ethiopia’s political crisis requires going
beyond democratic reform and instead thinking
about the political economy and institutions that
shape elite competition along ethnic lines. The
two most important measures that should be
embarked upon immediately in this regard are
devolving more power to the regional states in
accordance to the constitution and deethnicising
elite competition at the federal level.3
In
a similar vein to Goitom and Biniam’s thesis and
to that of mine quoted above, Alemayehu
Weldemariam, also recommends the retention of the
Ethiopian federal system. In his article,
“Ethiopian Federation needs reviving, not
reconfiguring”, Alemayehu argues, “The
promised democratization is a necessary, but not
sufficient condition, unless the ethnic bargaining
on display in Kenya or Nigeria is considered a
model to follow. What is needed is not less, but
more federalism.”4
Mahmood
Mamadani, writing in the New York Times, argues
that the “TPLF…turned to ethnic federalism to
dissolve and fragment Ethiopian society into
numerous ethnic groups – each a minority – so
it could come up with a “national” vision. In
a way it replicated the British system.” Though
Mamadani is correct on TPLF’s ethnic federalism,
I personally don’t believe the TPLF deliberately
wanted to dissolve and fragment Ethiopia. on
Mamadani’s part, this kind of reasoning is a
slippery and wrong conceptualization of the
Ethiopian reality, but his argument as shown below
is convincing and more palatable to my own
perception and analysis of Ethiopian politics:-
Mr Abiye can
achieve real progress if Ethiopia embraces a
different kind of federation – territorial and
not ethnic – where rights in a federation unit
are dispensed not on the basis of ethnicity but on
residence. Such a federal arrangement will give
Ethiopians an even chance of keeping an
authoritarian dictatorship at bay.”5
Within
the framework of the theme of federalism, I like
to add two more views, one presented by Samuel
Huntington in 1993 and the other by myself in
1995. “Ethnicity is likely to be central to
Ethiopia’s political parties, elections and
politics generally,” says Huntington, and
“attempts to suppress ethnic identifications or
to prevent ethnic political appeals are not likely
to be successful. If broad-based ideological party
exists, which appeals across ethnic lines, then
ethnic territorial lines can be tolerated”6
But
the most important argument that Huntington
advanced, and one that comes close to my own
thesis is his following reasoning: “The
combination of ethnic territorial units and ethnic
parties…cumulates cleavages and can have a
disastrous effect on national unity and political
stability.”7 My argument with respect
to the federal structure of Ethiopia and the
formation of the nine regional states, locally
known as Kilil, was made in my debut book in 1995:
“The TGE [Transitional Government of Ethiopia]
policy of Kilil
and self-determination is commendable, but the
consequence of fragmentation as a result of new
wave of ethnic political consciousness, and the
inability of some minority nationalities to become
economically and politically viable, would
ultimately preoccupy Ethiopians to otherwise
unforeseen problem.”8
Ethiopia
should learn from its own political experience of
the last three decades in general, and the pros
and cons of its devolution of power experiment in
particular. As I have noted above, the negative
consequence of the language-based Kilil
structure actually has now torn asunder the
larger Ethiopian society; ethnic clashes are
everywhere although in the very strict sense they
are not the making of the people; they are, by and
large, engineered and provoked by shadowy
elements. Having said that, the positive aspect of
Ethiopian federalism is quite apparent; in terms
of enabling autonomous regions to flourish their
languages and cultures, and exercising
self-administration, the federal system needs to
be admired. I say this, because there has never
been a moment in Ethiopian history whereby
minority nationalities have realized their
fundamental rights of self-determination.
Therefore, Ethiopia should redeem the negative
attributes of the federal structure and preserve
its positive dimensions while at the same time
reforming the system in general. Even if the
government attempts to dissolve the federal
system, the people of the various regional states
would not easily yield their hard won self-rule
rights, and in this context thus the Government
should consider my proposal of gradual
transformation of the regional states from
mono-ethnic to multi-ethnic entities and from
language demarcation to geography delimitation.
With
respect to economic development policy, the
present government is going to face major
challenges and impediments if it completely
abandons the developmental state (DS). I am of the
opinion that Ethiopia should carry on the DS while
reforming its economic policy; it is better to
start from a given base instead kicking off from
the scratch; thus far, the DS served as the
economic and development base for Ethiopia as I
have extensively discussed in my book, Ethiopia:
Democracy, Devolution of Power and the
Developmental State (2013); I was particularly
interested in the success stories of the DS states
like the Tigers or the High Performing Asian
Economies (Republic of Korea, Taiwan, Hong Kong
and Singapore), China, Japan etc. To some extent,
Ethiopia emulated the DS experiment of these
countries and successfully scored economic growth
and achieved impressive foundational economy as
already discussed above.
If
the Ethiopian DS was effective in transforming the
economies in many countries, why then discard and
abandon it? However, if Ethiopia under the
leadership of PM Abiye decides to relegate its DS
agenda into the backburner, it should at least
replace it with a viable development strategy that
could transform Ethiopia and uplift Ethiopians
from poverty. What could be that new economic
policy? One could safely assume that it is the
neo-liberal economic policy because the PM, while
addressing the parliament, has told Ethiopians
that his government would establish a capitalist
system.
Before
I delve into the neo-liberal parameters, I like to
make it crystal clear that I have no problem with
capitalism, because, after all, this mode of
production was a historically constituted economic
system and one of the most effective and
productive economic systems hitherto known in
human history; it has made an indelible impact in
the transformation of societies and in the making
of wealth, especially in Western Europe and North
America. However, capitalism is also known for its
inherent crisis (recession, depression etc.) for
its exploitation of the labor force with minimum
wages, and for degrading and contaminating the
environment, just to mention some of its defects.
In
order to correct the defects of capitalism, thus,
some Nordic countries in Europe (Sweden, Norway,
Finland, and Denmark) have adopted a
social-democratic (SD) system or ‘capitalism
with a human face’, if you will. Unlike the
naked and unfettered capitalism, social democracy
gives priority to the greater welfare of its
citizens, and in order to ensure the latter
agenda, the SD governments interfere in the making
of the economy as a whole and economic policies in
particular; while most of Western Europe and North
American countries are regulatory states (the
government regulates the economy but does not make
industrial policy), the Tigers, Japan etc. are
interventionist states because they heavily
intervene in the economy and development projects
and also lead, guide, and furnish industrial
policies; in brief, they are interventionist DS
nations, and the DS in these countries actually
plays a positive role in humanizing capitalism and
that is why I argue Ethiopia must continue to
utilize the DS and preserve it as part of its
overall economic development package.
If
the government of Dr. Abiye finds defects in the
Ethiopian DS, it should restructure and correct
its shortcomings, but it should not altogether
abandon it, and as our colleague in the academia,
Professor Asayehgn Desta contextually use the
ubiquitous maxim, ‘if it ain’t’ broke,
don’t fix it’, in his recent article entitled
“Transforming Ethiopia’s Developmental State
Model for the Future”,9 leave alone
the Ethiopian DS. The message conveyed by the
maxim is pretty much clear: if things are working
sufficiently and efficiently, don’t make
unnecessary improvement or amendment, but if you
do it could backfire.
On
the other hand, if the government wants to make a
departure from the DS in favor of the neo-liberal
economic policy agenda, it should at least
tolerate and implement the coordinated market
economy (CME) as opposed to the liberal market
economy (LME), which I have discussed in my
article entitled “Political Leadership and
Political Economy in Contemporary Ethiopian
Politics”; in the LME system, governments and
the respective countries are completely dependent
on the “market” and the latter is mythologized
as if it is a supernatural force that can correct
itself every time it encounters crisis, but that
is not true; in point of fact, the market economy,
as pointed out earlier, is bedeviled and bewitched
by inherent crisis, and the belief that the market
has an ‘invisible hand’ (ẚla Adam Smith)
to refurbish itself is mythology par excellence.
Before
I close this paper, I like to explore the nature
and characteristics of the neo-liberal agenda,
policy, and ideology, for the sake of theoretical
clarity and to benefit the broad-range of
Ethiopian academic circles and the policymakers at
all government levels in Ethiopia.
Neo-liberalism,
rooted in classical liberalism of Adam Smith and
David Ricardo, is an ideology-cum-policy framework
that advocates free market competition,
deregulation of capitalist markets, privatization,
the non-intervention of governments in the
economy, and fiscal austerity (e.g. lowering
government spending and laying off workers).
Neo-liberalism as a concept was born in the Paris
Meeting of 1938, but it became more prominent
after WWII when it was adopted by the Bretton
Woods institutions (World Bank, IMF etc.), and
ever since it became the ideology and philosophy
for policymakers of capitalist nations and/or
market economies.
What
I have provided above is only a brief sketch of
the essence of neo-liberalism. In order to give
the bigger and deeper picture of this political
economy “beast”, however, I like to furnish to
my readers George Manbiot’s penetrating analysis
at length:-
Neo-liberalism
sees competition as the defining characteristic of
human relations. It redefines as consumers whose
democratic choices are best exercised by buying
and selling, a process that rewards merit and
punishes inefficiency. It maintains that the
“market” delivers benefits that could never be
achieved by planning.
Attempts to
limit competition are treated as inimical to
liberty. Tax and regulation should be minimized,
public services should be privatized. The
organization of labor and collective bargaining by
trade unions are portrayed as market distortions
that impede the formation of natural hierarchy of
winners and losers. Inequality is recast as
virtuous: a reward for utility and a generator of
wealth, which trickles down to enrich everyone.
Effects to create a more-equal society are both
counterproductive and morally corrosive. The
market ensures that everyone gets what they
deserve. …In a world of competition, those who
fall behind become defined and self-defined as
losers.11
Beyond
the essence of the neo-liberal policy, it is
imperative that we must see the downside and
drawbacks of neo-liberalism as opposed to its
claim, “the market ensures that everyone gets
what they deserve,” as stated above. For the
purpose of this discussion, I will make reference
to John Gray’s review of Naomi Klein, “The
Shock Doctrine: The Rise of Disaster Capitalism”
that was put out by The Guardian in 2007.
Many writers
have pointed to the havoc and ruin that have
accompanied the imposition of free markets across
the world. Whether in Africa, Asia, Latin America
or post-communist Europe, policies of wholesale
privatization and structural adjustment have led
to declining economic activity and social
dislocations on a massive scale.
As Klein sees
it, the social breakdowns that have accompanied
neo-liberal economic policies are not the result
of incompetence or mismanagement. They are
integral to the free-market project, which could
advance against a background of disasters….these
disasters are manufactured as part of a deliberate
policy framed by corporations with hidden
influence in government.12
Finally,
I urge all Ethiopians to open dialogue on
pertinent issues to current Ethiopian affairs and
spread the word of the above discussion and
contribute for Ethiopia’s development and
progress, and the welfare of the Ethiopian people.
Notes
1.
Susan
Sontag, “Courage and Resistance,” The
Nation, May 5, 2003, p. 12
2.
Ghelawdewos
Araia, “Misreading History and Political Science
and the Exigency of Smooth Transition in
Ethiopia,” February 18, 2018 www.africanidea.org/Smooth_Power_Ethiopia.html
3.
Goitom
Gebreleul and Biniam Bedasso, “Managing
Ethiopia’s Current Crisis”, quoted in
“Misreading History and Political Science…”
4.
Alemayehu
Weldemariam, “Ethiopian federation needs
reviving, not reconfiguring”, www.ethiopia-insight.com
January 10, 2019
5.
Mahmood
Mamdani, “The Trouble with Ethiopia’s Ethnic
Federalism”, New York Times, January 3, 2019
6.
Samuel
Huntington, “Political Development in Ethiopia:
a Peasant-Based Dominant Party Democracy? Quoted
in Alemayehu Weldemariam; it was originally
published in a PDF format as “Report to USAID/Ethiopia:
Consultations with the Constitutional
Commission”, March 28 to April 1, 1993
7.
Samuel
Huntington, Ibid
8.
Ghelawdewos
Araia, Ethiopia:
The Political Economy of Transition,
University Press of America, 1995, p. 166
9.
Asayehegn
Desta, “Transforming Ethiopia’s Developmental
State Model for the Future”, www.africanidea.org/transforming_ethiopia.html
10.
Ghelawdewos
Araia, “Poltical Leadership and Political
Economy in Contemporary Ethiopian Politics”,
www.africanidea.org/Contemporary_Ethiopian_Politics.html
August 16, 2018
11.
George
Monbiot, “Neo-liberalism, the ideology at the
root of all our problems,” The
Guardian, April 15, 2016
12.
Review
by John Gray: Naomi Klein, The
Shock Doctrine: The Rise of Disaster Capitalism www.theguardian.com/books/2007/sep/15/politics
All Rights
Reserved Copyright © Institute of Development and
Education for Africa (IDEA), 2019. For educational
and constructive feedback, contact Dr. Ghelawdewos
Araia via dr.garaia@africanidea.org
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