Ethnic Federalism in a Dominant Party State: The Ethiopian Experience 1991-2000 Lovise Aalen r 2002: 2

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In the planning and in the first period of my data collection, I was more
concerned with the first group of interviewees than the other groups. With
experience from Western political systems (particularly the Norwegian system),
one of my assumptions was that the people in power, having formal positions,
could provide crucial information about the functioning of the federal system.
They are dealing with the daily operation and should be expected to know
where the shoe pinches. During the process, it became more evident to me that
although these people provided essential information, they were generally not
willing to expose conditions that harmed the image of the ruling party and the
incumbent government, and were less inclined to give information on informal
structures that are essential to the de facto functioning of the federal system. In
many cases, the government officials confirmed the existence of extra-
governmental mechanisms, such as the presence of central party cadres in the
regional administration, but did not admit the importance of these in the
operation of the Ethiopian federation. In these cases, I had to rely on other
sources, such as literature written by academics and information provided by
other groups of interviewees, and based on this, make my own interpretations.
Generally, there were no major problems in making contacts and arranging
interviews with governmental officials. The majority of those whom I
approached were willing to share their views. My experience shows, however,
that higher officials were harder to get hold of than those at lower levels. Some
of them did not bother to reply to my requests, while others delegated the task
to deputies or other lower officials. Examples of people whom I did not succeed
to interview were the regional presidents of Tigray (Gebru Asrat) and SNNPRS
(Abate Kisho) and the head of Regional Affairs Department at the Prime
Minister’s Office (Bitew Belay). The reason behind this might be ascribed to the

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fact that I, as a junior researcher, was not considered important enough to
occupy their time. There might be other reasons too, but I see no advantage in
speculating on this. Nevertheless, I do not suspect that the information
provided by these higher officials would have changed the outcome of my
research in any fundamental way. Although their views might have given my
reports more weight and credibility, it is more or less predetermined what
conclusions they would make, as all of them are closely connected to the ruling