Ethiopia & Political Renaissance in Africa

The Federal Democratic Republic of Ethiopia has made fresh attempts to deal with the intra-state challenges to the nation-state' in multi-ethnic societies. This book examines how that country is trying to implement a programme of decentralising state power to ethnically-based regional constituencies, which could be of interest to other countries in Africa. The study reveals that the Ethiopian Experiment questions conventional images of polyethnic states. This book presents a practical example of the formulation of new approaches towards ethnicity, federalism and objective nation-/statehood, attempting to examine the changing meaning of ethnicity and nationalism throughout history in Western Europe, to discuss how they impacted on state formations in Africa, and to consider why Ethiopia stands unique in the process of state-building versus ethnicity. The study elaborates the factors which convinced the new Ethiopian leadership to embark on such a revolutionary path, one on which each of the country's Nations, Nationalities and Peoples is guaranteed the right to self-government, self-determination and even independence. The thesis analyses the parallel developments in post-1991 Ethiopia of ethnic federalism and the transition to democracy.