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Figure 1.1 Overview map of Ethiopia
Source: Perry Castaneda
Library Map Collection
(www.lib.utexas.edu/maps/ethiopia.html)
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Chapter 1: Introduction
Federalism the Ethiopian way
Federalism was introduced in Ethiopia in 1991 when the Ethiopian People’s
Revolutionary Democratic Front (EPRDF) came to power and launched the
idea of “self-determination for the nationalities”, up to and including secession,
devolving political, administrative and economic power to ethnically defined
regional states. The 1994 constitution assured that
both the federal and the
regional governments have their own legislative, judicial and executive power
and the right to levy taxes and allocate budgets. The federal government with a
bicameral parliament and a constitutional president was assigned the
responsibility of national defence,
foreign relations, and the setting of national
standards for major policies. Regional governments, governed by the state
president/chief executive and the state council and the woreda (district)
councils, was empowered to establish its own administration and formulate
and execute economic, social and political strategies and plans. The most
comprehensive
rights of the regions, however, were probably the powers to
adopt their own constitution, and if certain conditions were fulfilled, to secede
from the federation.
The federalisation of Ethiopia was introduced after a long period of
attempted centralisation in the country and was
received with both hope and
scepticism from the international community and political groupings within the
country. Certain Western academics considered “ethnic federalism” as
innovative, “giving room for thinking differently about ethnicity in the political
evolution in Africa” (Chabal and Daloz 1999: 58), while others saw it as a
recipe for state disintegration (Ottaway 1994). But during ten years of
federalisation, the Ethiopian state has neither disintegrated nor eradicated
conflicts between ethnic groups in the country. Instead,
the most prevalent
political development during this period is the consolidation of a centralised
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