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

party and federal structures. Nevertheless, his conclusions are useful because
they point out that institutional and legal frameworks are not implemented in a
political vacuum, but are determined in the interplay with other political
structures, and in most cases the political party system is the most important of
these. In the analysis of the Ethiopian federation, Riker’s assumptions will be
used to guide the analysis of the role played by the ruling EPRDF. An essential
part of this analysis is to reveal the relationship between the central EPRDF
party and the regional affiliated parties. Does the EPRDF in Addis Ababa
control the affairs of its regional member and allied parties or do the regional
parties have a power base of their own?
As previously mentioned, the majority of the literature written on federalism
and federations are based on experiences from Western political systems. Does
this imply that federal theory is less relevant for political systems outside the
Western world, for example for federations in Africa, Asia or Latin America?
Do we need additional theoretical perspectives to analyse the federal systems in
the developing world? I would argue that the basic principles of federalism and
federations would essentially have the same content independent of where the
federal systems are found. But there might be different characters of political
structures that are determining the functioning of the federal systems in the
Western and in the developing world. Authors like Bratton and van de Walle
(1997) and Chabal and Daloz (1999) point to the facts that states in Africa
have a different history of state building from the states of Europe and North
America. The colonisation of Africa and the following development of neo-
patrimonial systems necessitate a special attention on informal and
uninstitutionalised political structures in analyses of African systems. A neo-
patrimonial system implies that patrimonial customs and patterns co-exist with
rational-legal institutions. Parallel and unofficial structures may well hold more
power and authority than the formal administration (Bratton and van de Walle
1997:62). Chabal and Daloz talk about the “informalisation” of African
politics and formulate their paradigm in this way: ”[…] we would argue that
all African states share a generalised system of patrimonialism and an acute
degree of apparent disorder, as evidenced by a high level of governmental and
administrative inefficiency, a lack of institutionalisation, a general disregard for
the rules of the formal political and economic sectors, and a universal resort to
personal (ized) and vertical solutions to societal problems” (1999: xix).
Do these arguments have any relevance for the study of the Ethiopian federal
model? Ethiopia is an exception on the African continent by the fact that it has
not been colonised by a foreign power, and has had a bureaucratised political

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system since the beginning of the 20
th
century. Chabal and Daloz (1999: xxi)
admit that parts of their analysis do not apply equally well to Ethiopia as to
other African countries. Nevertheless, their analysis points to the fact that
Ethiopia, like other African states, has a less institutionalised political system
than we find in the West. I should therefore be aware of the political structures
outside the formal institutions in the Ethiopian federation. It would be
necessary to have a wide approach in the analysis of the functioning of the
system and not only relying on predetermined variables that the federal theory
might provide.

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