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

party officials in running regional affairs. Special attention will be given to
Tigray and SNNPRS. These two regions are selected for analysis in order to
show how the same political framework works differently in two very different
regional contexts.
The asymmetry of the federal units
The Ethiopian federal system is constitutionally symmetrical: all regular
constituent units have the same formal and legal relationship to the federal
government. Tarlton (1965) suggests that all federal systems, despite their
constitutional symmetry, have an element of asymmetry in federal-regional
relations. Various social, economic and political conditions determine each
regional state’s relationship to the centre and its commitment to the federation.
According to Tarlton, the more a federal system is asymmetrical, the more
unlikely is it that the federation will develop harmoniously, due to the diverse

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interests of the constituent units. The diversity of the regional states and lack of
commitment to the federation must be compensated by increased central
control in order to keep the system together.
Ethnic delimitation of the federal units
The Ethiopian federal system is definitely asymmetrical when it comes to the
social, economic and political conditions of each unit. Due to the fact that
“ethnic identity”, or language in practice, has been the determinant factor in
the delimitation of the constituent units, the various regions are very different
from one another when it comes to ethnic composition, size of population and
area, economic development and political landscape. The constituent units have
therefore very different capacities to implement the constitutional provisions
and the central government’s intervention in each region varies.
Table 6.1 Population, area, number of zones and woreda of the regional states