Chapter Three: Ethical Decision Making and Moral

Judgments
Chapter Introduction
One has to make decisions about which desire to satisfy and which to give up or postpone. How
to make a right or correct decision and by what standard that one decision is right and another
wrong is always a puzzle. One of the functions of morality is to give guidance in dealing with these
puzzles. On the other hand, there are always conflicts among people. It is always a problem for a
society to maintain order and to prevent or solve the conflicts among people reasonably. Another
function of morality is to provide principles and rules that are acceptable to everyone and
encourage people to live together peacefully and cooperatively. Many problems will arise in people’s
lives and in society. It is better to go back to the ethical theories to reflect upon the meaning and
the end of morality and see what kind of principles can be a guide in taking action or in making
moral judgments. One also needs to know why one should be moral. This chapter aims to
introduce ethical decision making process and the need to be moral.

Chapter Objectives
After reading this chapter, students will be able to:
o Identify the moral foundations we base our ethical standards.
o Understand those standards how they applied to specific situations we face.
o Identify how good ethical decision made.
o Understand why we need to be moral.

How Can We Make Ethical Decisions And Actions?

In real life conditions we may get difficulties to always do the right thing. What we often considered
as right and correct might put us in difficult condition with others and affect our social relation
adversely. Individuals could give their own justification to testify that they are Right or correct!
We often claim that we make right decision and actions. We regret when we make wrong
decision and action. The ethical nature of our action and decision, however, is very much
dependent upon our notion of ``Good’ and ``Bad, `` Right and`` wrong``. Before we see how
human beings judge the morality of their actions, let raise some puzzling questions: What things
are good or bad?
There are things which we consider good or desirable for their result-for what they lead to. There
are also things which we consider good not because of what they lead to but because of what
they are in themselves: this are considered as worth having or perusing not merely as way of getting
other things but because of their own intrinsic nature. The first kind of good is called
instrumental good because the goodness of these things lies in their being instruments towards
the attainment of the other things which are considered good not simply as instruments. The
second category of good is called intrinsic good because we value these things (whatever they
may turn out to be) not for what they lead to but for what they are.

Have you ever think of the opposite. Yes, there are things which are instrumentally bad and
intrinsically bad. Some things can fulfill both qualities. In our country things such as Female Genital
Mutilation, early marriage, kidnapping, abduction, Ignorance, poverty, corruption, murder some
of the things which are considered to be unethical or bad or evil practices which are to be
eradicated.

Activity:
Would you give examples of the things instrumentally and intrinsically good and bad in a society you
come from?

One of the key tasks of ethical reasoning, generally, is to analyze and critically consider the values we
hold and the claims we make in relation to the perceived obligations that we might have towards one
another. Applied to the processes of death and dying and the care provided at end of life, key
values that arise include sanctity of life (the fact of being alive is itself deeply valued), quality of life
(the fact of having positive experiences and avoiding negative experiences is considered deeply
morally significant), autonomy (respecting someone’s preferences in relation to where, how and
when they die is, increasingly, considered to be deeply morally significant and challenging).

A second key task of ethics is to evaluate the adequacy of reasons that we give for our actions: it
considers, for example, whether the reasons offered to support a particular course of action are
based on sound evidence and/or logical argument. Applied to the processes of death and dying,
reasons that are evaluated might be the arguments a health professional offers in support of
resuscitating an incompetent terminally-ill patient or a parent’s reasons for refusing medical
treatment for a severely disabled neonate.
 The tasks of weighing ethical values and evaluating different ethical arguments are unlike many other
kinds of human tasks. Ethical values are usually not as easy to understand as other kinds of
values, e.g., it is probably easier to explain the (mainly) practical value of energy than it is to
explain the ethical value of courage. In turn, it is easier to test a person’s blood pressure than it is
to determine whether or not they are virtuous.

Moreover, ethical problems are often not as clear as other kinds of problems and resolving
ethical problems as definitively is not always possible. The aim of ethics then, is not, despite
popular opinion, to take the high moral ground and tell people what to do, but, rather, to offer
tools for thinking about difficult problems. Good ethical thinking purposefully seeks out the grey in
questions and concerns in order to acknowledge the diversity and complexity of roles, situations
and circumstances that arise in human life and relationships.

As complex as ethical situations may be, however, there is still an obligation on everyone involved in
ethically-challenging situations to resolve any problems that arise in the most sincere, reasonable and
collaborative way possible. This means that they must be prepared to review and revise their
position in the light of reflection, discussion and changing circumstances.

Activity:
Form a group and develop a list of behaviors that are always right and behaviors that are always
wrong. Keep a record of those behaviors that were nominated but rejected by the team and why.
Report your final list, as well as your rejected items, to the rest of the class. What do you
conclude from this exercise?

Ethical Principles and Values of Moral Judgments

The branch of philosophical study that focuses on ‘ethics’ is concerned with studying and/or
building up a coherent set of ‘rules’ or principles by which people ought to live. The theoretical
study of ethics is not normally something that many people would regard as being necessary in order
for them to conduct their everyday activities. In place of systematically examined ethical
frameworks, most people instead carry around a useful set of day-to-day ‘rules of thumb’ that
 influence and govern their behavior; commonly, these include rules such as ‘it is wrong to steal’, ‘it is
right to help people in need’, and so on.

But sometimes the vicissitudes and complexities of life mean that these simple rules are
sometimes put to the test. Consider the idea that it is wrong to kill. Does this mean that capital
punishment is wrong? Is it wrong to kill animals? Is killing in self-defence wrong? Is the
termination of pregnancy wrong? Is euthanasia wrong? If we try to apply our everyday notions of
right and wrong to these questions, straightforward answers are not always forthcoming. We need to
examine these questions in more detail; and we need theoretical frameworks that can help us to
analyze complex problems and to find rational, coherent solutions to those problems. Whilst
some people attempt to do this work individually, for themselves, philosophers attempt to find
general answers that can be used by everyone in society.

Think about a significant decision that you have made that had an effect (either for good or bad)
on the lives of other people. This could be a decision about changing a job, moving home,
responding to a dilemma, helping somebody who was in difficulty, etc.
How did you arrive at your decision? Was your decision based explicitly on ideas of what was
right and wrong? Try to examine and record precisely the justifications for your decision. Can you
identify any underlying principles or rules which you used to reach your decision?
Examples of such underlying principles or rules might include:
 ‘I should do the best thing for my career in the long run.’
 ‘It is OK to tell someone a lie if it prevents someone from being hurt by the truth.’
 ‘I should always help someone in difficulty.’

Moral intuitions and Critical Reasoning

The study of ethics involves reasoning about our feelings. In other words, it involves making
sense of and rationalising our intuitions about what is ‘right’ or ‘good’. Almost all people, to a
greater or lesser extent, are capable of experiencing feelings of empathy towards others. Empathy
provides us with a sense of what others are feeling and may thereby allow us to identify with
other people. Empathy therefore gives us what Traer (2013) refers to as our moral sentiments;
and ethical reasoning about these sentiments gives us our moral principles. The integration of
these moral
sentiments and principles, Traer (2013) argues, is our conscience. Our moral conscience, then, is
based on emotions, but should also be supported by reason.

All societies are characterised by their own ethical ideas – expressed in terms of attitudes and beliefs
– and their own customs (their notions of what is considered customary). Some of those ethics
are formalised in the laws and regulations of a society, nation or state. Such customs and laws
can influence the consciences and the moral sentiments of those living in a society, as individuals
acquire ideas and attitudes from their families and from their wider society. Philosophical ethics,
however, asks us to take a step back from these influences and instead to reflect critically on our
sentiments and attitudes.

Rationalisation
Studying ethics, then, involves attempting to find valid reasons for the moral arguments that we
make. Most people already have general ideas – or what philosophers call ‘intuitions’ or
‘presumptions’ – about what they think is ‘right’ or ‘wrong’. But a philosophical approach to
ethics requires people to think critically about the moral ideas that they hold, to support or refute
those ideas with convincing arguments, and to be able to articulate and explain the reasons and
assumptions on which those arguments are based. In moral philosophy, an argument is not
simply about our beliefs or opinions; instead, it is about the reasons underlying those beliefs or
opinions. This means that the real value of discussing and debating ethical questions is not to
‘win the argument’ or to ‘score points’ against the other person! It is more important to provide
carefully considered arguments to support our ideas, and to allow for rational – and deeper –
understanding of the reasons underlying our beliefs, ideas and attitudes. Crucially, this requires
careful listening to, analysis of and learning from the arguments that others make.

One common fault with many arguments about what is ‘right’ or ‘wrong’ – and – involves what
is known as a rationalisation. A rationalisation occurs when we use what at first glance seem to
be rational or credible motives to cover up our true (and perhaps unconscious) motives. For example,
if a landowner seeks to build a plastic recycling plant and states that this is driven by a desire to
create local employment opportunities – whereas in fact their true motive is to make a profit –
then this is a rationalisation. The landowner is not giving their true reasons for wanting to build
the plant. If,
however, they argue that they want to make a personal profit and create local jobs, then they may
be giving two true reasons for their motives.

Types of reasoning
We can uncover these types of errors in our own and others’ arguments by using what he calls
‘critical reasoning’. Three forms of critical reasoning that individuals can use to justify their
arguments are outlined below;

Three forms of critical reasoning:

‘Reasoning by analogy explains one thing by comparing it to something else that is similar, although
also different. In a good analogy, the similarity outweighs the dissimilarity and is clarifying. For
instance, animals are like and unlike humans, as humans are also animals. Is the similarity sufficiently
strong to support the argument that we should ascribe rights to nonhuman animals as we do to
humans?’
‘Deductive reasoning applies a principle to a situation. For instance, if every person has human
rights, and you are a person, then you have human rights like every person.’
‘Inductive reasoning involves providing evidence to support a hypothesis. The greater the
evidence for a hypothesis, the more we may rely on it.’ The fact that there is mounting evidence
that the burning of fossil fuels is having a detrimental effect on global climate, for example, is
used to substantiate the argument that we have a moral duty to reduce carbon emissions.
Ethics and Religious Faith
There is another important argument that people use when making ethical arguments: religious faith.
For many people, ’morality and religious faith go hand in hand’. Rather than relying on rational
arguments, some people view actions as being right or wrong in terms of whether they are
commanded by a god. Some moral philosophers do not view arguments based on religious faith
as being rationally defensible. They believe that we can determine through rational reflection
what is right and wrong. If a god commands only what is right then, logically, this makes divine
commands unnecessary; we are able to know what is right or wrong without relying on any
divine commandments, as we can use rational reflection.

However, faith-based arguments are relevant to moral philosophy for several reasons. For a start,
people do not always agree on what is right or wrong. It is not therefore clear that we can
determine
what is right and wrong simply through rational reflection. Additionally, given that so many
people in the world do look to religion for moral guidance, we should not underestimate the
ability of ‘the moral teachings of a religious tradition […] to persuade the public to embrace a
higher moral standard’. While we may insist that moral principles and decisions should be
justified by rational arguments, and thus consideration of religious arguments should not be
excluded from the study of ethics. Whether or not one personally chooses to accept faith-based
arguments as valid within ethical discussions is a decision that requires careful consideration.

Testing moral arguments

Critical reasoning is about asking questions whenever anyone gives us a reason to support an
argument. What kind of reasoning are they using? If they are using a principle to support their
argument (deductive reasoning), then what kind of principle is it? Is the principle rational? If
they are providing evidence to support their argument (inductive reasoning) then is the evidence
reliable? Have any motives that might be behind their arguments been clarified (ie are they giving
rationalisations, not reasons)? Does the conclusion drawn make sense, given the reasons they
have given? All of these questions that we ask about peoples’ arguments may seem a little
onerous and off-putting. With such rigorous criteria, some people may feel that they don’t want
to make any argument at all, as they are bound to make mistakes in their reasoning! However,
most people already use critical reasoning when they make arguments and question other people’s
arguments. We have an idea of what we think is right based on our experience (our ethical
presumptions), and we explain those ideas to other people based on our feelings (intuitions) and
reasons. It is important and useful to develop the ability to test your own arguments and those of
others, both to address the dilemmas that occur in our personal lives, our communities and the
organisations for which we work.

There are three main ways of testing a moral argument. These are outlined in below;

Three ways to test a moral argument:

(1) Factual accuracy. The 18th century philosopher David Hume (1711—1776) argued that we
should not derive an ‘ought’ from an ‘is’. This means that we cannot say that something is wrong
or right simply based on how things are. This is reasonable, but it does not mean that ethical
discussion should be divorced from fact; the accuracy of the factual content of a discussion is
very important.
Consider the example — of someone who maintains that giving aid to charities working in Africa is
wrong because they believes that 90% of the money donated in fact goes to paying wealthy
consultants and NGO workers, and only 10% goes to alleviate poverty. If this person were
shown that this was factually incorrect, and that in fact 90% of all donations were used to alleviate
poverty, then their moral argument would lose its force.
(2) Consistency. Arguments need to be consistent. One can only argue that it is morally wrong to kill
one person and yet morally acceptable to kill another, if one can demonstrate that there is a
morally relevant difference between the two individuals. For example, the moral argument that
debts owed by poorer nations to international lenders should be cancelled. Does this therefore
mean that all poor people who owe money to banks should also have their debts cancelled? If you
don’t think that all individual debts should be cancelled but you do think that poorer countries’
debts should be cancelled, then you have to show that there is a moral difference between the
two. Otherwise your arguments are inconsistent.
(3) Good will. This one is the most difficult criterion to quantify. While arguments may be factually
correct and consistent, they also need to ‘exemplify good will’. This involves resorting to our
intuitions and emotions, which are notoriously difficult to integrate with rigorous theoretical debate.
Thinking Ethically: A framework for
Moral Decision Making
The first step in analyzing moral issues is obvious but not always easy: Get the facts. Some
moral issues create controversies simply because we do not bother to check the facts. This first
step, although obvious is also among the most important and the most frequently overlooked. But
having the facts is not enough. Facts by themselves only tell us what is; they do not tell us what
ought to be. In addition to getting the facts, resolving an ethical issue also requires an appeal to
values.

Although ethics deals with right and wrong, it is not a discipline that always leads everyone to
the same conclusions. Deciding an ethical issue can be equally difficult for conservatives and liberals.
Of course, there are situations that are wrong by any standard. But there are other issues where
right and wrong is less clear. To guide our reflection on such difficult questions, philosophers,
religious teachers and other thinkers have shaped various approaches to ethical decision-making.
The five different approaches to values to deal with moral issues are: Fairness and Justice, the
common Good, the Utilitarian (remember this idea is discussed previously), the Rights, and the
Virtues.
 Fairness and Justice Approach
The fairness or justice approach to ethics has its roots in the teachings of the ancient Greek
philosopher Aristotle who said that “equals should be treated equally and unequal’s unequally”. The
basic moral question in this approach is:

 How fair is an action?

 Does it treat everyone in the same way, or does it show favoritism and discrimination?

Favoritism gives benefits to some people without a justifiable reason for singling them out;
discrimination imposes burdens on people who are no different from those on whom the burdens
are not imposed. Both favoritism and discrimination are unjust and wrong. Aristotle believed that
ethical knowledge is not precise knowledge, like logic and mathematics, but general knowledge like
knowledge of nutrition and exercise. Also, as it is a practical discipline rather than a theoretical
one; he thought that in order to become "good", one could not simply study what virtue is; one
must actually be virtuous. Analogously, in order to become good at a sport like football, one
does not simply study but also practices. Aristotle first establishes what was virtuous. He began
by determining that everything was done with some goal in mind and that goal is 'good.' The
ultimate goal he called the Highest Good: happiness. Aristotle contended that happiness could
not be found only in pleasure or only in fame and honor. He finally finds happiness "by
ascertaining the specific function of man". A human's function is to do what makes it human, to
be good at what sets it apart from everything else: the ability to reason or logos. A person that
does this is the happiest because he is fulfilling his purpose or nature as found in the rational
soul.

Depending on how well he did this, Aristotle said humans belonged to one of four categories: the
virtuous, the continent, the incontinent and the vicious. Generally, this approach focuses on how
fairly or unfairly our actions distribute benefits and burdens among the members of a group. This
approach asks what is fair for all stakeholders, or people who have an interest in the outcome.”
Fairness requires consistency in the way people are treated. The principle states: “Treat people
the same unless there are morally relevant differences between them.”
 The Common Good Approach
The Greek philosophers have also contributed the notion that life in community is a good in
itself and our actions should contribute to that life. This approach suggests that the interlocking
relationships of society are the basis of ethical reasoning and that respect and compassion for all
others especially the vulnerable are requirements of such reasoning. This approach also calls
attention to the common conditions that are important to the welfare of everyone. This may be a
system of laws, effective police and fire departments, health care, a public educational system, or
even public recreation areas.

This approach to ethics assumes a society comprising individuals whose own good is
inextricably linked to the good of the community. Community members are bound by the pursuit
of common values and goals. The common good is a notion that originated more than 2,000
years ago in the writings of Plato, Aristotle, and Cicero. More recently, contemporary ethicist John
Rawls defined the common good as "certain general conditions that are equally to everyone's
advantage." In this approach, we focus on ensuring that the social policies, social systems,
institutions, and environments on which we depend are beneficial to all. Examples of goods
common to all include affordable health care, effective public safety, peace among nations, a just
legal system, and an unpolluted environment.

Appeals to the common good urge us to view ourselves as members of the same community,
reflecting on broad questions concerning the kind of society we want to become and how we are
to achieve that society. While respecting and valuing the freedom of individuals to pursue their
own goals, the common good approach challenges us also to recognize and further those goals
we share in common. It presents a vision of society as a community whose members are joined
in a shared pursuit of values and goals they hold in common.

The principle of the common good approach states;

“What is ethical is what advances the common good.”

The Rights Approach:

The other important approach to ethics has its roots in the philosophy of the 18th century thinker
Immanuel Kant and others like him who focused on the individual’s right to choose for her or
himself. According to these philosophers, what makes human beings different from mere things
is that people have dignity based on their ability to choose freely what they will do with their lives,
and they have a fundamental moral right to have these choices respected. People are not objects
to be manipulated; it is a violation of human dignity to use people in ways they do not freely choose.
Many different but related rights exist besides this basic one. These other rights can be thought of
as different aspects of the basic right to be treated as we choose. Among these rights are:

o The Right to the Truth: We have a right to be told the truth and to be informed about
matters that significantly affect choices.
o The Right of Privacy: We have the right to do, believe, and say whatever we choose in our
personal lives so long as we do not violate the rights of others.
o The Right not to be injured: We have the right not to be harmed or injured unless we
freely and knowingly do something to deserve punishment or we freely and knowingly
choose to risk such injuries.
o The Right to what is agreed: We have the right to what has been promised those with
whom we have freely entered into a contract or agreement.

In deciding whether an action is moral or immoral using this approach, we must ask, does the
action respect the moral rights of everyone? Actions are wrong to the extent they violate the
rights of individuals; the more serious the violation, the more wrongful the action.

Activity:
Reflect on one of your ethical decisions. Which approach(es) did you use when making your
determination? Evaluate the effectiveness of the approach(es) as well as the quality of your
choice. What did you learn from this experience?

The Rights Approach identifies certain interests tests or activities that our behavior must respect,
especially those areas of our lives that are of such value to us that they merit protection from
others. Each person has a fundamental right to be respected and treated as free and equal rational
person capable of making his or her own decisions. This implies other rights (e.g. privacy free
consent, freedom of conscience, etc.) that must be protected if a person is to have the freedom to
direct his or her own life.
 Generally, in Ethical Problem Solving;
 Once facts have been ascertained, consider five questions when trying to resolve a moral issue:
1) What benefits and what harms will each course of action produce, and which alternative will
lead to the best overall consequences?
2) What moral rights do the affected parties have, and which course of action best respects
those rights?
3) Which course of action treats everyone the same, except where there is a morally
justifiable reason not to, and does not show favoritism or discrimination?
4) Which course of action advances the common good?
5) Which course of action develops moral virtues?

To Whom or What Does Morality Apply?

In discussing the application of morality, four aspects may be considered: religious morality, morality
and nature, individual morality, and social morality.

Religious Morality
Religious morality refers to a human being in relationship to a supernatural being or beings. In
the Jewish and Christian traditions, for example, the first three of the Ten Commandments (See
the figure below) pertain to this kind of morality. These commandments deal with a person’s
relationship with God, not with any other human beings. By violating any of these three
commandments, a person could, according to this particular code of ethics, act immorally toward
God without acting immorally toward anyone else.

The Ten Commandments

1. I am the Lord, Your God; do not worship false gods.
2. Do not take the name of God in vain.
3. Keep holy the Sabbath Day.
4. Honor your father and your mother.
5. Do not kill.
6. Do not commit adultery.
7. Do not steal.
 8. Do not bear false witness against your neighbor.
9. Do not covet your neighbor’s spouse.
10. Do not covet your neighbor’s belongings.
(Exod. 20:1–17)

Morality and Nature

“Morality and nature” refers to a human being in relationship to nature. Natural morality has
been prevalent in all primitive cultures, such as that of the Native American, and in cultures of
the Far East. More recently, the Western tradition has also become aware of the significance of
dealing with nature in a moral manner. Some see nature as being valuable only for the good of
humanity, but many others have come to see it as a good in itself, worthy of moral consideration.
With this viewpoint there is no question about whether a Robinson Crusoe would be capable of
moral or immoral actions on a desert island by himself. In the morality and nature aspect, he
could be considered either moral or immoral, depending upon his actions toward the natural
things around him.

Individual Morality
Individual morality refers to individuals in relation to themselves and to an individual code of
morality that may or may not be sanctioned by any society or religion. It allows for a “higher
morality,” which can be found within the individual rather than beyond this world in some
supernatural realm. A person may or may not perform some particular act, not because society,
law, or religion says he may or may not, but because he himself thinks it is right or wrong from within
his own conscience.

Social Morality
Social morality concerns a human being in relation to other human beings. It is probably the
most important aspect of morality, in that it cuts across all of the other aspects and is found in
more ethical systems than any of the others. Returning briefly to the desert-island example, most
ethicists probably would state that Robinson Crusoe is incapable of any really moral or immoral
action except toward himself and nature. Such action would be minimal when compared with the
potential
 for morality or immorality if there were nine other people on the island whom he could
subjugate, torture, or destroy. Many ethical systems would allow that what he would do to himself is
strictly his business, “as long as it doesn’t harm anyone else.”

Who is Morally/Ethically Responsible?

Morality pertains to human beings and only to human beings; all else is speculation. If one wants
to attribute morality to supernatural beings, one has to do so solely on faith. If one wants to hold
animals or plants morally responsible for destructive acts against each other or against humans, then
one has to ignore most of the evidence that science has given us concerning the instinctual
behavior of such beings and the evidence of our own everyday observations.

Recent experimentation with the teaching of language to animals suggests that they are at least
minimally capable of developing some thought processes similar to those of humans. It is even
possible that they might be taught morality in the future, as humans are now. If this were to
occur, then animals could be held morally responsible for their actions. At the present time,
however, most evidence seems to indicate that they, as well as plants, should be classified as
either non-moral or amoral - that is, they should be considered either as having no moral sense or
as being out of the moral sphere altogether.

Therefore, when we use the terms moral and ethical, we are using them in reference only to
human beings. We do not hold a wolf morally responsible for killing a sheep, or an eagle morally
responsible for killing a chicken. We may kill the wolf or fox for having done this act, but we do
not kill it because we hold the animal morally responsible. We do it because we don‘t want any
more of our sheep or chickens to be killed. At this point in the world‘s history, only human
beings can be moral or immoral, and therefore only human beings should be held morally
responsible for their actions and behavior.

Moral Judgments
Moral judgments refer to deciding what is right and what is wrong in human relations. Individuals are
continually judging their own conduct and that of their fellows. They approve of some acts and
call them ―right‖ or ―good. They condemn other acts and call them ―wrong‖ or ―evil or bad.
Moral judgments always have to do with the actions of human beings and, in particular, with
voluntary
actions - those actions freely chosen. Involuntary actions - those over which people have no control -
are rarely open to moral judgment, as a person usually is not held responsible for an action that
she or he did not initiate. Moral judgments are evaluative because they place value on things or
relation or human actions; determine what is right or wrong, good or bad. They are also
normative because they evaluate or assess the moral worth of something based on some norms
or standards.

Finding the right course of action, choosing the right alternative, is not always simple. We can
have no algorithm for judgment, since every application of a rule would itself need
supplementing with further rules. Onora O’Neill argues that moral principles do not provide us
with an ―auto-pilot for life‖ and that ―judgment is always needed in using or following – and in
flouting – rules or principles, as you have saw above. When conflicts of interest arise, the
solution may require the greatest sensitivity, experience, discernment, intelligence and goodwill, and
even then we may doubt whether we have acted rightly. However, in judging conduct or action we
have to consider motives, means, and consequences and sometimes the situation.

1. Motives: Motives, as Jesus, Kant, and others have pointed out, are basic for a determination of
morality. The motive refers to the intention or why an action is done. A good motive is a prerequisite
to conduct that we approve without qualification. If a good motive is present when an act,
through some unforeseen factor, leads to harmful effects, we tend to disapprove less severely and
to say,
―Anyway, he meant well.‖

Kant, for example, defined the good as the ―good will.‖ ―Nothing can possibly be conceived in the
world, or even out of it, which can be called good without qualification, except a good will.‖ For
Kant, a rational being strives to do what he or she ought to do and this is to be distinguished from
an act that a person does from either inclination or self-interest. In other words, a person must act out
of duty to the moral law - that is, ought what one to do. The truly moral act, for Kant, not only
agrees with the moral law, but is done for the sake of the moral law - not only as duty requires
but because duty requires. In Kantian thinking the seat of moral worth is the individual’s will, and
the good will acts out of a sense of duty.

2. Means: Just as there may be many motives for desiring something, there may be many means
for achieving it. The term means can be defined as an agency, instrument, or method used to
attain an end. Though we expect people to use the best available means to carry out their
purposes, we
condemn them if their choice of means impresses us as unjust, cruel, or immoral. On rare
occasions we may approve of an act when means are used that under other conditions would be
condemned. However, there is a danger in proposing that any means may be used, provided the
end is good, or that ―the end justifies the means.Once chosen, the means become part of the
general effect of an act.

3. Consequences: Consequences are the effects or results of a moral decision based on a value. We
expect the consequences of an act that we call ―right‖ to be good. Ordinarily, when people ask,
―what is right? they are thinking about the consequences of the action. This depends on what
ethical principle is in operation. Kant agrees to the good motive, utilitarians to the result.

In general, society judges conduct ―right‖ if it proceeds from a good motive, through the use of
the best available means, to consequences that are good. If these conditions are not fulfilled, we
condemn the action or approve it with reservations. We rarely approve an action when the results
are evil or wrong.

4. The Moral Situation: A moral situation involves moral agents - human beings who act, are
empowered to make choices, and consciously make decisions. As moral agents, demands are made on
us and place us under obligations: we have both duties and rights. We are faced with moral
alternatives, and we can better weigh those alternatives when we have an understanding of the
ingredients of the moral situation.

What Makes an Action Moral?

Sometimes we think of ―moral‖ means morally good. But, philosophically, it refers to an action
which comes within the scope of morality, that is, an action which is morally significant either in
positive way ( because it is good or right) or in a negative way (because the action is good or
bad). Not all actions have a moral sense. Many of the actions we perform in life , such as putting
on a raincoat, sharpening a pencil, or counting apples, standing on your head, are not in themselves
either good or bad acts. Such actions are morally neutral or non-moral. By contrast, stealing from
your libraries, punching people or helping the disadvantage are considered as morally significant
actions. But, what makes an act enter the moral arena or what features of action make us judge
them to be good or bad, right or wrong? The following are features that make an action moral:
 A. A moral act involves an agent: If something is a natural event or an action performed by
animals, then it is morally neutral - it does not appear on our moral radars. Humans can be moral
agents, or any creatures that can freely and thoughtfully choose its actions will count as a moral
agent.

B. A moral act involves intention: An intention here refers to our motives that are important to
determine the rightness or wrongness of an action. If an action is done accidentally, it may be
counted as a morally neutral action. However, some unintentional acts, such as those done
through negligence, can be moral. Neglecting our duties, even accidentally, make us morally
culpable.

C. A moral act affects others: A moral action needs not only an agent and to be deliberate but
also needs to affect others (those we might call moral patients) in significant ways, that is, an
action that has harmful (be it physical, psychological, emotional, or depriving others of happiness) or
beneficial consequences for others.

The claim that morality only governs behavior that affects others is somewhat controversial.
Some have claimed that morality also governs behavior that affects only the agent herself, such
as taking recreational drugs, masturbation, and not developing one's talents. Confusion about the
content of morality arises because morality is not always distinguished from religion. Regarding self-
affecting behavior as governed by morality is supported by the idea that we are created by God
and are obliged to obey his commands, and so may be a holdover from the time when morality
was not clearly distinguished from religion. This religious holdover might also affect the claim
that some sexual practices such as homosexuality are immoral; but those who distinguish
morality from religion do not regard homosexuality, per se, as a moral matter.

Generally, a moral action is one which:

 Is performed by agents, creatures that are capable of free choice/ free will
 Is the result of intention; the action was done on purpose with a particular motive
 Has a significant consequence on others in respect of harm or benefits it brings about.

Why Should Human Beings Be Moral?

The question that is worth mentioning at this point is ―Why should human beings be moral?‖
Another way of putting the problem is as follows: Is there any clear foundation or basis for
morality
- can any reasons be found for human beings to be good and do right acts rather than be bad and
do wrong acts? Let us assume for the moment that there is no supernatural morality and see if we
can find any other reasons why people should be moral.

There can be no society without moral regulation; man is man only because he lives in a society; take
away from man all that has a social origin and nothing is left but an animal compare with other
animals.
We should be moral because being moral is following the rules designed to overrule self-interest
whenever it is in the interest of every one alike that everyone should set aside his interest. John
Hospers
A.Argument from Enlightened Self-Interest
One can certainly argue on a basis of enlightened self-interest that it is, at the very least,
generally better to be good rather than bad and to create a world and society that is good rather
than one that is bad. As a matter of fact, self-interest is the sole basis of one ethical theory,
ethical egoism. However, it is not being suggested at this point that one ought to pursue one‘s
own self-interest. Rather, an argument is being presented that if everyone tried to do and be good
and tried to avoid and prevent bad, it would be in everyone‘s self-interest. For example, if within
a group of people no one killed, stole, lied, or cheated, then each member of the group would
benefit. An individual member of the group could say, ―it‘s in my self-interest to do good rather
than bad because I stand to benefit if I do and also because I could be ostracized or punished if I
don‘t.‖ Therefore, even though it is not airtight, the argument from enlightened self-interest is
compelling.

B.Argument from Tradition and Law

Related to the foregoing argument is the argument from tradition and law. This argument
suggests that because traditions and laws, established over a long period of time, govern the
behavior of human beings, and because these traditions and laws urge human beings to be moral
rather than immoral, there are good reasons for being so. Self-interest is one reason, but another
is respect for the human thought and effort that has gone into establishing such laws and
traditions and transferring them from one historic period and one culture to another. This can be
an attractive argument, even though it tends to suppress questioning of traditions and laws - a
kind of questioning that is at the core of creative moral reasoning. It is interesting to note that
most of us
probably learned morality through being confronted with this argument, the religious argument, and
the experiences surrounding it. Don‘t we all remember being told we should or should not do
something because it was or was not in our own self-interest, because God said it was right or
wrong, or because it was the way we were supposed to act in our family, school, society, and world?

C.Common Human Needs

Are there any other reasons we can give as to why human beings should be moral? If we
examine human nature as empirically and rationally as we can, we discover that all human beings
have many needs, desires, goals, and objectives in common. For example, people generally seem
to need friendship, love, happiness, freedom, peace, creativity, and stability in their lives, not
only for themselves but for others, too. It doesn‘t take much further examination to discover that
in order to satisfy these needs, people must establish and follow moral principles that encourage
them to cooperate with one another and that free them from fear that they will lose their lives, be
mutilated, or be stolen from, lied to, cheated, severely restricted, or imprisoned.

Morality is not of course identical with following self-interest. If it were, there could be no
conflict between morality and self-interest and no point in having rules overriding self-interest.
John Hospers

Morality exists, in part, because of human needs and through recognition of the importance of
living together in a cooperative and significant way. It may not be the case that all human beings
can be convinced that they should be moral, or even that it will always be in each individual‘s self-
interest to be moral. However, the question ―why should human beings be moral?‖ generally can
best be answered by the statement that adhering to moral principles enables human beings to live
their lives as peacefully, happily, creatively, and meaningfully as is possible.

Activity:
Apply all ethical approaches presented in the chapter. Keep a record of your deliberations and
conclusions using each one? Did you reach different solutions based on the theory you used?
Were some of the perspectives more useful in this situation? Are you more confident after
looking at the problem from a variety of perspectives? Write up your findings.
In general, in a society wherein morality is declined, crime, death, looting, instability, social deviance,
suicide, human right violation/ gross human right violation/, corruption and other socio,
economic and political crises will prevail. With human self-interest as strong as it is, what can
motivate us to always follow the rules of morality? Asked more simply, “Why be moral?”
Among the more common answers are these:

 Behaving morally is a matter of self-respect.

 People won’t like us if we behave immorally.
 Society punishes immoral behavior.
 God tells us to be moral.
 Parents need to be moral role models for their children.

These are all good answers, and each may be a powerful motivation for the right person. With
religious believers, for example, having faith in God and divine judgment might prompt them to
act properly. With parents, the responsibility of raising another human being might force them to
adopt a higher set of moral standards than they would otherwise. However, many of these
answers won’t apply to every person: nonbelievers, nonparents, people who don’t respect
themselves, people who think that they can escape punishment.

There are two distinct components to the question “Why be moral?”

1) Why does society need moral rules?
2) Why should I be moral?

From Hobbes’s perspective, morality consists of a set of rules such that, if nearly everyone
follows them, then nearly everyone will flourish. These rules restrict our freedom but promote
greater freedom and wellbeing. More specifically, the five social benefits of establishing and
following moral rules accomplish the following:

a) Keep society from falling apart.

b) Reduce human suffering.
c) Promote human flourishing.
d) Resolve conflicts of interest in just and orderly ways.
e) Assign praise and blame, reward and punishment, and guilt.
All these benefits have in common the fact that morality is a social activity: It has to do with
society, not the individual in isolation. If only one person exists on an island, no morality exists;
indeed, some behavior would be better for that person than others—such as eating coconuts
rather than sand—but there would not be morality in the full meaning of that term. However, as
soon as a second person appears on that island, morality also appears. Morality is thus a set of
rules that enable us to reach our collective goals. Imagine what society would be like if we did
whatever we pleased without obeying moral rules.

(“Why should I be moral?”) Is more complicated as the game Cooperate or Cheat shows. Ultimately,
I should be moral because, by occasionally allowing some disadvantage for myself, I may obtain
an overall, long-term advantage. Even when it seems as though I can break moral rules without
getting caught, I still need to consistently follow them because, although an individual moral act
may sometimes be at odds with my self-interest, the complete moral form of life in which the act
is rooted is not against my self-interest.

Chapter Summary
Ethical reasoning ability is considered vitally important in the shared concepts and principles that
guide common ethical issues. It offers a rationale that provides the impetus for elaborating on an
ethical reasoning structure. Ethical theories and principles are the foundations of ethical analysis
because they are the viewpoints from which guidance can be obtained along the pathway to a
decision.
A person making an ethical decision needs a procedure to follow to insure that s/he makes
her/his decision with rationality and respect--a decision procedure that can insure that s/he has
considered all the relevant factors and have taken into account the interests of others as well as
her/himself. Thus one has to develop a habit of pursuing justice or a disposition to be just if one
wants to be a just person. What Aristotle means by saying this is that moral practice is a very
important factor in being a moral person. One cannot have a moral character or become a moral
person if one does not constantly practice to be moral, even though one might have correct moral
ideas. This is just like a pianist who would not be a good pianist if she did not practice regularly
even though she knows in her mind how to play the piano.
One often has to give up some benefits for morality and one would not do so or at least would
not be willing to do so if one did not know why one should be moral or why it is good to be
moral. This is like taking medicine. Nobody is willing to take medicine not knowing what is
good about it. But one would if one knew that it would promote health. What Aristotle wishes to
bring out is the importance of moral theory that shows the significance or the good of morality. The
focus is on why one should be moral and what the moral principles that one should observe are.
References;
A Framework for Thinking Ethically.” ETHICS 1, no. 2 (Winter 1988).

Barry, V. (1983) Philosophy: A Text with Readings.2nd ed. Belmont, Wadsworth Publishing com.

Bonevac, D. (1999) Today’s Moral Issues: Classic and Contemporary Perspectives, 3rd ed.
California, Mayfield

Boss, J. A. (1999) Analyzing Moral Issues. Mayfield Publishing Company.

Thiroux, J. (1995). Ethics: Theory and Practice. 5th Ed. New Jersey, Prentice Hall.

Titus, H. H. (1947) Ethics for Today. 2nd Ed. New York, American Book Company
 Chapter Four: State, Government and Citizenship

Chapter Introduction
Dear learners, this chapter discusses the issue of the notion of state, basic features of state, the
role of state and the state structure, government types and systems and citizenship. It starts by
defining the terms and then proceeds to the dimensions and theories of state, government and
citizenship. Though, there are many theories of on these areas, in this chapter we will focus on
the major schools of thoughts and perspectives.

Chapter Objectives
After the successful completion of this lesson, students will be able to:
 Define the terms of state, government, citizen, nationality and citizenship.
 Understand the contending theories of state, government and citizenship.
 Discern the rights and duties of citizens’ vis-à-vis to the attributes of a good citizenship.
 List and explain the differences and similarities of these state, government and citizenship
theories.
 Comprehend the weaknesses and strengthens of the various state structures and government
systems.
 Enumerate and understand the ways of acquiring and losing Ethiopian citizenship.

Understanding State
Brainstorming:
Define state? What do you think are the essential features of the state?

Defining State
The term ‘state’ has been used to refer to a bewildering range of things: a collection of institutions,
a territorial unit, a philosophical idea, an instrument of coercion or oppression, and so on. This
confusion stems, in part, from the fact that the state has been understood in four quite different
ways; from an idealist perspective, a functionalist perspective, an organizational perspective and
an international perspective. The idealist approach to the state is most clearly reflected in the
writings of Hegel. Hegel identified three moments of social existence: the family, civil society
and the state. Within the family, he argued, a particular altruism operates that encourages people
to set aside their own interests for the good of their children or elderly relatives. In contrast, civil
society was seen as a sphere of ‘universal egoism’ in which individuals place their own interests
before those of others. Hegel conceived of the state as an ethical community underpinned by mutual
sympathy – ‘universal altruism’. The drawback of idealism, however, is that it fosters an uncritical
reverence for the state and, by defining the state in ethical terms, fails to distinguish clearly
between institutions that are part of the state and those that are outside the state.

Functionalist approaches to the state focus on the role or purpose of state institutions. The
central function of the state is invariably seen as the maintenance of social order (see p. 400), the
state being defined as that set of institutions that uphold order and deliver social stability. Such
an approach has, for example, been adopted by neo-Marxists (see p. 64), who have been inclined
to see the state as a mechanism through which class conflict is ameliorated to ensure the long-term
survival of the capitalist system. The weakness of the functionalist view of the state, however, is
that it tends to associate any institution that maintains order (such as the family, mass media,
trade unions and the church) with the state itself. This is why, unless there is a statement to the
contrary, an organizational approach to the definition of the state is adopted throughout this
book.

The organizational view defines the state as the apparatus of government in its broadest sense;
that is, as that set of institutions that are recognizably ‘public’, in that they are responsible for the
collective organization of social existence and are funded at the public’s expense. The virtue of
this definition is that it distinguishes clearly between the state and civil society. The state
comprises the various institutions of government: the bureaucracy, the military, the police, the
courts, and the social security system and so on; it can be identified with the entire ‘body politic’.
The organizational approach allows us to talk about ‘rolling forward’ or ‘rolling back’ the state, in
the sense of expanding or contracting the responsibilities of the state, and enlarging or
diminishing its institutional machinery.
The international approach to the state views it primarily as an actor on the world stage;
indeed, as the basic ‘unit’ of international politics. This highlights the dualistic structure of the
state; the fact that it has two faces, one looking outwards and the other looking inwards. Whereas
the previous definitions are concerned with the state’s inward-looking face, its relations with the
individuals and groups that live within its borders, and its ability to maintain domestic order, the
international view deals with the state’s outward-looking face, its relations with other states and,
therefore, its ability to provide protection against external attack. The classic definition of the state
in international law is found in the Montevideo Convention on the Rights and Duties of the State
(1933). According to Article 1 of the Montevideo Convention, the state has four features: a
defined territory, permanent population, an effective government and sovereignty. Let us now
discuss details of the abovementioned attributes as follows:

Population: Since state is a human association, the first essential element that constitutes it is the
people. How much people constitute state? No exact number can be given to such a question.
The fact is that the states of the world vary in terms of demographic strength. There are states
with a population of greater than 1 billion like that of China and India, and with a constituency of
few thousand people like Vatican and San Marino.

Another question that comes up at this stage is whether the population of a state should be
homogenous. Homogeneity is determined by any factor like commonness of religion, or blood,
or language or culture and the like. It is good that population of a state is homogeneous, because
it makes the task of national integration easy. But it is not must, because most of the states have a
population marked by diversity in respect of race, religion, language, culture, etc. All problems
of nation building are solved and people of a state, irrespective of their differences, become a
nation. It signifies the situation of ‘unity in diversity’. In short, it is to be noted that without
population there can be no state, ‘it goes without saying that an uninhabited portion of the earth,
take in itself, cannot form a state.

Defined Territory: There can be no state without a territory of its own. The territory of a state
includes land, water, and airspace; it has maritime jurisdiction extending up to a distance of three
miles, though some states contend for a distance of up to 20 miles. The territorial authority of a
state also extends to ships on high seas under its flag as well as its embassies and
legations/diplomat’s
residence in foreign lands. As seen in the case of the factor of population, so here it should be
emphasized that the size of a state’s territory cannot be fixed. There are as large states as China
and Russia and as small states of Fiji and Mauritius in respect of their territorial make-up. It also
possible that states may be in the form of islands as Indonesia, Philippines, and Japan. It is,
however, certain that the boundary lines of a state must be well marked out. This can be done
either by the geographical make up in the form of division by the seas, rivers, mountains, thick
forests, deserts, etc., or it may be done by creating artificial divisions in the form of digging
trenches or fixing pointed wire fencing.

Government: Government is said to be the soul of the state. It implements the will of the
community. It protects the people against conditions of insecurity. If state is regarded as the first
condition of a civilized life, it is due to the existence of a government that maintain law and order
and makes ‘good life’ possible. The government is the machinery that terminates the condition of
anarchy. It is universally recognized that as long as there are diverse interests in society, some
mechanism is needed to bring about and maintain a workable arrangement to keep the people
together. The government of a state should be so organized that it enforces law so as to maintain
the conditions of peace and security. The form of government may be monarchical, aristocratic,
oligarchic, democratic, or dictatorial and the like, what really needed is that if there is no
government, there is anarchy and the state is at an end.

Sovereignty: As already pointed out, sovereignty is the fourth essential attribute of the concept
state. It is the highest power of the state that distinguishes it from all other associations of human
beings. Sovereignty, in its simplest sense, is the principle of absolute and unlimited power. It has two
aspects - Internal and External. Internal Sovereignty implies that inside the state there can be no
other authority that may claim equality with it. The state is the final source of all laws internally.
On the other hand, External sovereignty implies that the state should be free from foreign control
of any kind. It is, however, a different matter that a state willingly accepts some international
obligations in the form of membership to some international intergovernmental and other
organizations such as the United Nations. Conceptually, the existence of sovereign authority appears
in the form of law. It is for this reason that the law of the state is binding on all and its violation
is resulted with suitable punishment. It is universally accepted that a sovereign state is legally
competent to issue any command that is binding on all citizens and their associations.
 In addition to the essential attributes of the state agreed in the 1933, the contemporary political
theorists and the UN considered recognition as the fifth essential attribute of the state. This is
because, for a political unit to be accepted as a state with an ‘international personality’ of its
own, it must be recognized as such by a significant portion of the international community. It is
to mean that, for a state to be legal actor in the international stage; other actors (such as other
states, international intergovernmental and non-governmental organizations… etc.) must
recognize it as a state. Thus, recognition implies both approaching of the necessary facts and the
desire of coming in to effect of the legal and political results of recognition. Likewise, for a
government of a state to be formally to act on its behalf, the government must be recognized as
legitimate government of the state by other governments.

Rival Theories of State

Brainstorming:
What is the nature of state power, and whose interests does the state represent?

There are various rival theories of the state, each of which offers a different account of its
origins, development and impact on society. Indeed, controversy about the nature of state power
has increasingly dominated modern political analysis and goes to the heart of ideological and
theoretical disagreements in the discipline. These relate to questions about whether, for example,
the state is autonomous and independent of society, or whether it is essentially a product of
society, a reflection of the broader distribution of power or resources. Moreover, does the state
serve the common or collective good, or is it biased in favor of privileged groups or a dominant
class? Similarly, is the state a positive or constructive force, with responsibilities that should be
enlarged, or is it a negative or destructive? Andrew Heywood (2013) classified the rival theories
of state into four: the pluralist state, the capitalist state, the leviathan state and the patriarchal
state.

The Pluralist State

The pluralist theory of the state has a very clear liberal lineage. It stems from the belief that the
state acts as an ‘umpire’ or ‘referee’ in society. This view has also dominated mainstream political
analysis, accounting for a tendency, at least within Anglo-American thought, to discount the state
and state organizations and focus instead on ‘government’. Indeed, it is not uncommon in this
tradition for
‘the state’ to be dismissed as an abstraction, with institutions such as the courts, the civil service
and the military being seen as independent actors in their own right, rather than as elements of a
broader state machine. Nevertheless, this approach is possible only because it is based on
underlying, and often unacknowledged, assumptions about state neutrality. The state can be
ignored only because it is seen as an impartial arbiter or referee that can be bent to the will of
the government of the day.

The origins of this view of the state can be traced back to the social-contract theories of thinkers
such as Thomas Hobbes and John Locke. The principal concern of such thinkers was to examine
the grounds of political obligation, the grounds on which the individual is obliged to obey and
respect the state. They argued that the state had arisen out of a voluntary agreement, or social
contract, made by individuals who recognized that only the establishment of a sovereign power
could safeguard them from the insecurity, disorder and brutality of the state of nature. Without a
state, individuals abuse, exploit and enslave one another; with a state, order and civilized
existence are guaranteed and liberty is protected. As Locke put it, where there is no law there is
no freedom.

In liberal theory, the state is thus seen as a neutral arbiter amongst the competing groups and
individuals in society; it is an ‘umpire’ or ‘referee’ that is capable of protecting each citizen from the
encroachments of fellow citizens. The neutrality of the state reflects the fact that the state acts in
the interests of all citizens, and therefore represents the common good or public interest. In
Hobbes’ view, stability and order could be secured only through the establishment of an absolute
and unlimited state, with power that could be neither challenged, nor questioned. In other words,
he held that citizens are confronted by a stark choice between absolutism and anarchy. Locke, on
the other hand, developed a more typically liberal defense of the limited state. In his view, the
purpose of the state is very specific: it is restricted to the defense of a set of ‘natural’ or God-given
individual rights; namely, life, liberty and property. This establishes a clear distinction between
the responsibilities of the state (essentially, the maintenance of domestic order and the protection
of property) and the responsibilities of individual citizens (usually seen as the realm of civil
society). Moreover, since the state may threaten natural rights as easily as it may uphold them,
citizens must enjoy some form of protection against the state, which Locke believed could be
delivered only through the mechanisms of constitutional and representative government.
These ideas were developed in the twentieth century into the pluralist theory of the state. As a
theory of society, pluralism asserts that, within liberal democracies, power is widely and evenly
dispersed. As a theory of the state, pluralism holds that the state is neutral, insofar as it is
susceptible to the influence of various groups and interests, and all social classes. The state is not
biased in favor of any particular interest or group, and it does not have an interest of its own that
is separate from those of society. As Schwarzmantel (1994) put it, the state is ‘the servant of
society and not its master’. The state can thus be portrayed as a ‘pincushion’ that passively absorbs
pressures and forces exerted upon it.

Two key assumptions underlie this view. The first is that the state is effectively subordinate to
government. Non-elected state bodies (the civil service, the judiciary, the police, the military and
so on) are strictly impartial and are subject to the authority of their political masters. The state
apparatus is therefore thought to conform to the principles of public service and political
accountability. The second assumption is that the democratic process is meaningful and effective. In
other words, party competition and interest-group activity ensure that the government of the day
remains sensitive and responsive to public opinion. Ultimately, therefore, the state is only a weather
vane that is blown in whichever direction the public-at-large dictates.

Modern pluralists, however, have often adopted a more critical view of the state, termed the neo-
pluralist theory of the state. Theorists such as Robert Dahl and Charles Lindblom (1953) have
come to accept that modern industrialized states are both more complex and less responsive to
popular pressures than classical pluralism suggested. Neo-pluralists, for instance, have acknowledged
that business enjoys a ‘privileged position’ in relation to government that other groups clearly cannot
rival. In Politics and Markets, Lindblom (1980) pointed out that, as the major investor and largest
employer in society, business is bound to exercise considerable sway over any government, whatever
its ideological leanings or manifesto commitments. Moreover, neo-pluralists have accepted that the
state can, and does, forge its own sectional interests. In this way, a state elite, composed of senior
civil servants, judges, police chiefs, military leaders and so on, may be seen to pursue either the
bureaucratic interests of their sector of the state, or the interests of client groups. Indeed, if the
state is regarded as a political actor in its own right, it can be viewed as a powerful (perhaps the
most powerful) interest group in society. This line of argument encouraged Eric Nordlinger
(1981) to
 develop a state-centered model of liberal democracy, based on ‘the autonomy of the democratic
state.

The Capitalist State

The Marxist notion of a capitalist state offers a clear alternative to the pluralist image of the state
as a neutral arbiter or umpire. Marxists have typically argued that the state cannot be understood
separately from the economic structure of society. This view has usually been understood in
terms of the classic formulation that the state is nothing but an instrument of class oppression:
the state emerges out of, and in a sense reflects, the class system. Nevertheless, a rich debate has
taken place within Marxist theory in recent years that has moved the Marxist theory of the state a
long way from this classic formulation. In many ways, the scope to revise Marxist attitudes
towards the state stems from ambiguities that can be found in Marx’s own writings.

Marx did not develop a systematic or coherent theory of the state. In a general sense, he believed
that the state is part of a ‘superstructure’ that is determined or conditioned by the economic
‘base’, which can be seen as the real foundation of social life. However, the precise relationship
between the base and the superstructure, and in this case that between the state and the capitalist
mode of production, is unclear. Two theories of the state can be identified in Marx’s writings.
The first is expressed in his often-quoted dictum from The Communist Manifesto (1848): ‘The
executive of the modern state is but a committee for managing the common affairs of the whole
bourgeoisie’. From this perspective, the state is clearly dependent on society and entirely dependent
on its economically dominant class, which in capitalism is the bourgeoisie. Lenin thus described
the state starkly as an instrument for the oppression of the exploited class.

A second, more complex and subtle, theory of the state can nevertheless be found in Marx’s analysis
of the revolutionary events in France between 1848 and1851, The Eighteenth Brumaire of Louis
Bonaparte (1852). Marx suggested that the state could enjoy what has come to be seen as
‘relative autonomy’ from the class system, the Napoleonic state being capable of imposing its
will upon society, acting as an ‘appalling parasitic body’. If the state did articulate the interests of
any class, it was not those of the bourgeoisie, but those of the most populous class in French
society, the smallholding peasantry. Although Marx did not develop this view in detail, it is clear
that, from this
perspective, the autonomy of the state is only relative, in that the state appears to mediate
between conflicting classes, and so maintains the class system itself in existence.

Both these theories differ markedly from the liberal and, later, pluralist models of state power. In
particular, they emphasize that the state cannot be understood except in a context of unequal
class power, and that the state arises out of, and reflects, capitalist society, by acting either as an
instrument of oppression wielded by the dominant class, or, more subtly, as a mechanism
through which class antagonisms are ameliorated. Nevertheless, Marx’s attitude towards the state
was not entirely negative. He argued that the state could be used constructively during the
transition from capitalism to communism in the form of the ‘revolutionary dictatorship of the
proletariat’. The overthrow of capitalism would see the destruction of the bourgeois state and the
creation of an alternative, proletarian one.

In describing the state as a proletarian ‘dictatorship’, Marx utilized the first theory of the state, seeing
the state as an instrument through which the economically dominant class (by then, the
proletariat) could repress and subdue other classes. All states, from this perspective, are class
dictatorships. The ‘dictatorship of the proletariat’ was seen as a means of safeguarding the gains
of the revolution by preventing counter-revolution mounted by the dispossessed bourgeoisie.
Nevertheless, Marx did not see the state as a necessary or enduring social formation. He predicted
that, as class antagonisms faded, the state would ‘wither away’, meaning that a fully communist
society would also be stateless. Since the state emerged out of the class system, once the class
system had been abolished, the state, quite simply, loses its reason for existence. Marx’s
ambivalent heritage has provided modern Marxists, or neo-Marxists, with considerable scope to
further the analysis of state power. This was also encouraged by the writings of Antonio
Gramsci, who emphasized the degree to which the domination of the ruling class is achieved by
ideological manipulation, rather than just open coercion. In this view, bourgeois domination is
maintained largely through ‘hegemony’: that is, intellectual leadership or cultural control, with
the state playing an important role in the process.

Since the 1960s, Marxist theorizing about the state has been dominated by rival instrumentalist
and structuralist views of the state. In The State in Capitalist Society (1969, 2009), Miliband
portrayed the state as an agent or instrument of the ruling class, stressing the extent to which the
state elite is disproportionately drawn from the ranks of the privileged and propertied. The bias
of the state in
 favor of capitalism is therefore derived from the overlap of social backgrounds between, on the
one hand, civil servants and other public officials, and, on the other, bankers, business leaders
and captains of industry. Nicos Poulantzas, in Political Power and Social Classes (1968),
dismissed this sociological approach, and emphasized instead the degree to which the structure
of economic and social power exerts a constraint on state autonomy. This view suggests that the
state cannot but act to perpetuate the social system in which it operates. In the case of the
capitalist state, its role is to serve the long-term interests of capitalism, even though these actions
may be resisted by sections of the capitalist class itself. Neo-Marxists have increasingly seen the
state as the terrain on which the struggle amongst interests, groups and classes is conducted.
Rather than being an ‘instrument’ wielded by a dominant group or ruling class, the state is thus a
dynamic entity that reflects the balance of power within society at any given time, and the
ongoing struggle for hegemony.

The Leviathan State

The image of the state as a ‘leviathan’ (in effect, a self-serving monster intent on expansion and
aggrandizement) is one associated in modern politics with the New Right. Such a view is rooted
in early or classical liberalism and, in particular, a commitment to a radical form of individualism.
The New Right, or at least its neoliberal wing, is distinguished by a strong antipathy towards
state intervention in economic and social life, born out of the belief that the state is parasitic
growth that threatens both individual liberty and economic security. In this view, the state,
instead of being, as pluralists suggest, an impartial umpire or arbiter, is an overbearing ‘nanny’,
desperate to interfere or meddle in every aspect of human existence. The central feature of this
view is that the state pursues interests that are separate from those of society (setting it apart from
Marxism), and that those interests demand an unrelenting growth in the role or responsibilities of
the state itself. New Right thinkers therefore argue that the twentieth century tendency towards
state intervention reflected not popular pressure for economic and social security, or the need to
stabilize capitalism by ameliorating class tensions but, rather, the internal dynamics of the state.

New Right theorists explain the expansionist dynamics of state power by reference to both
demand-side and supply-side pressures. Demand-side pressures are those that emanate from
society itself, usually through the mechanism of electoral democracy. The New Right argue that
electoral competition encourages politicians to ‘outbid’ one another by making promises of
increased spending and more generous government programs, regardless of the long-term
damage that such
 policies inflict on the economy in the form of increased taxes, higher inflation and the ‘crowding
out’ of investment. Supply-side pressures, on the other hand, are those that are internal to the
state. These can therefore be explained in terms of the institutions and personnel of the state
apparatus. In its most influential form, this argument is known as the government oversupply
thesis. The oversupply thesis has usually been associated with public-choice theorists, who examine
how public decisions are made on the assumption that the individuals involved act in a rationally self-
interested fashion.

While Marxists argue that the state reflects broader class and other social interests, the New
Right portrays the state as an independent or autonomous entity that pursues its own interests. In
this view, bureaucratic self-interest invariably supports ‘big’ government and state intervention,
because this leads to an enlargement of the bureaucracy itself, which helps to ensure job security,
improve pay, open up promotion prospects and enhance the status of public officials. This image
of self-seeking bureaucrats is plainly at odds with the pluralist notion of a state machine imbued
with an ethic of public service and firmly subject to political control.

The Patriarchal State

Modern thinking about the state must, finally, take account of the implications of feminist
theory. However, this is not to say that there is a systematic feminist theory of the state. Feminist
theory encompasses a range of traditions and perspectives, and has thus generated a range of very
different attitudes towards state power. Moreover, feminists have usually not regarded the nature
of state power as a central political issue, preferring instead to concentrate on the deeper
structure of male power centered on institutions such as the family and the economic system.
Some feminists, indeed, may question conventional definitions of the state, arguing, for instance,
that the idea that the state exercises a monopoly of legitimate violence is compromised by the
routine use of violence and intimidation in family and domestic life. Nevertheless, sometimes
implicitly and sometimes explicitly, feminists have helped to enrich the state debate by
developing novel and challenging perspectives on state power.

Liberal feminists, who believe that sexual or gender equality can be brought about through
incremental reform, have tended to accept an essentially pluralist view of the state. They
recognize that, if women are denied legal and political equality, and especially the right to vote,
the state is
biased in favor of men. However, their faith in the state’s basic neutrality is reflected in the belief
that any such bias can, and will, be overcome by a process of reform. In this sense, liberal
feminists believe that all groups (including women) have potentially equal access to state power,
and that this can be used impartially to promote justice and the common good. Liberal feminists
have therefore usually viewed the state in positive terms, seeing state intervention as a means of
redressing gender inequality and enhancing the role of women. This can be seen in campaigns for
equal-pay legislation, the legalization of abortion, the provision of child-care facilities, the
extension of welfare benefits, and so on.

Nevertheless, a more critical and negative view of the state has been developed by radical feminists,
who argue that state power reflects a deeper structure of oppression in the form of patriarchy.
There are a number of similarities between Marxist and radical feminist views of state power. Both
groups, for example, deny that the state is an autonomous entity bent on the pursuit of its own
interests. Instead, the state is understood, and its biases are explained, by reference to a ‘deep
structure’ of power in society at large. Whereas Marxists place the state in an economic context,
radical feminists place it in a context of gender inequality, and insist that it is essentially an
institution of male power. In common with Marxism, distinctive instrumentalist and structuralist
versions of this feminist position have been developed. The instrumentalist argument views the
state as little more than an agent or ‘tool’ used by men to defend their own interests and uphold
the structures of patriarchy. This line of argument draws on the core feminist belief that
patriarchy is rooted in the division of society into distinct ‘public’ and ‘private’ spheres of life,
men dominating the former while women are confined to the later. Quite simply, in this view, the
state is run by men, and for men.

Whereas instrumentalist arguments focus on the personnel of the state, and particularly the state
elite, structuralist arguments tend to emphasize the degree to which state institutions are
embedded in a wider patriarchal system. Modern radical feminists have paid particular attention
to the emergence of the welfare state, seeing it as the expression of a new kind of patriarchal
power. Welfare may uphold patriarchy by bringing about a transition from private dependence
(in which women as ‘home makers’ are dependent on men as ‘breadwinners’) to a system of
public dependence in which women are increasingly controlled by the institutions of the
extended state. For instance, women have become increasingly dependent on the state as clients
or customers of
 state services (such as childcare institutions, nursery education and social work) and as employees,
particularly in the so-called ‘caring’ professions (such as nursing, social work and education).

The Role of the State

Brainstorming Questions:
What should states do? What functions or responsibilities should the state fulfil, and which ones
should be left in the hands of private individuals?

Contrasting interpretations of state power have clear implications for the desirable role or
responsibilities of the state. With the exception of anarchists, who dismiss the state as fundamentally
evil and unnecessary, all political thinkers have regarded the state as, in some sense, worthwhile.
Even revolutionary socialists, inspired by the Leninist slogan ‘smash the state’, have accepted
the need for a temporary proletarian state to preside over the transition from capitalism to
communism, in the form of the ‘dictatorship of the proletariat’. Nevertheless, there is profound
disagreement about the exact role the state should play, and therefore about the proper balance
between the state and civil society. Among the different state forms that have developed are the
following:

 Minimal states
 Developmental states
 Social-democratic states
 Collectivized states
 Totalitarian states
 Religious states

Minimal States
The minimal state is the ideal of classical liberals, whose aim is to ensure that individuals enjoy
the widest possible realm of freedom. This view is rooted in social-contract theory, but it
nevertheless advances an essentially ‘negative’ view of the state. From this perspective, the value
of the state is that it has the capacity to constrain human behavior and thus to prevent individuals
encroaching on the rights and liberties of others. The state is merely a protective body, its core
function being to provide a framework of peace and social order within which citizens can
conduct their lives as they
 think best. In Locke’s famous simile, the state acts as a night watchman, whose services are
called upon only when orderly existence is threatened? This nevertheless leaves the ‘minimal’ or
‘night watchman’ state with three core functions. First and foremost, the state exists to maintain
domestic order. Second, it ensures that contracts or voluntary agreements made between private
citizens are enforced, and third it provides protection against external attack. The institutional
apparatus of a minimal state is thus limited to a police force, a court system and a military of some
kind. Economic, social, cultural, moral and other responsibilities belong to the individual, and are
therefore firmly part of civil society.

The cause of the minimal state has been taken up in modern political debate by the New Right.
Drawing on early liberal ideas, and particularly on free-market or classical economic theories,
the New Right has proclaimed the need to ‘roll back the frontiers of the state’. In the writings of
Robert Nozick (1974), this amounts to a restatement of Lockean liberalism based on a defense of
individual rights, especially property rights. In the case of free-market economists such as
Friedrich von Haye and Milton Friedman, state intervention is seen as a ‘dead hand’ that reduces
competition, efficiency and productivity. From the New Right perspective, the state’s economic
role should be confined to two functions: the maintenance of a stable means of exchange or
‘sound money’ (low or zero inflation), and the pro motion of competition through controls on
monopoly power, price fixing and so on.

Developmental States
The best historical examples of minimal states were those in countries such as the UK and the
USA during the period of early industrialization in the nineteenth century. As a general rule,
however, the later a country industrializes, the more extensive will be its state’s economic role.
In Japan and Germany, for instance, the state assumed a more active ‘developmental’ role from
the outset. A developmental state is one that intervenes in economic life with the specific
purpose of promoting industrial growth and economic development. This does not amount to an
attempt to replace the market with a ‘socialist’ system of planning and control but, rather, to an
attempt to construct a partnership between the state and major economic interests, often
underpinned by conservative and nationalist priorities.
 The classic example of a developmental state is Japan. During the Meiji Period (1868–1912), the
Japanese state forged a close relationship with the Zaibutsu, the great family-run business
empires that dominated the Japanese economy up until World War II. Since 1945, the
developmental role of the Japanese state has been assumed by the Japanese Ministry of
International Trade and Industry (MITI), which, together with the Bank of Japan, helps to shape
private investment decisions and steer the Japanese economy towards international
competitiveness. A similar model of developmental intervention has existed in France, where
governments of both left and right have tended to recognize the need for economic planning, and
the state bureaucracy has seen itself as the custodian of the national interest. In countries such as
Austria and, to some extent, Germany, economic development has been achieved through the
construction of a ‘partnership state’, in which an emphasis is placed on the maintenance of a close
relationship between the state and major economic interests, notably big business and organized
labor.

More recently, economic globalization has fostered the emergence of ‘competition states’, examples
of which are found amongst the tiger economies of East Asia. Competition states are
distinguished by their recognition of the need to strengthen education and training as the
principal guaranteeing economic success in a context of intensifying transnational competition.

Social Democratic (Welfare) States

Whereas developmental states practice interventionism in order to stimulate economic progress,
social-democratic states intervene with a view to bringing about broader social restructuring, usually
in accordance with principles such as fairness, equality and social justice. In countries such as Austria
and Sweden, state intervention has been guided by both developmental and social democratic
priorities. Nevertheless, developmentalism and social democracy do not always go hand-in-hand. As
Marquand (1988) pointed out, although the UK state was significantly extended in the period
immediately after World War II along social-democratic lines, it failed to evolve into a
developmental state. The key to understanding the social-democratic state is that there is a shift
from a ‘negative’ view of the state, which sees it as little more than a necessary evil, to a positive
view of the state, in which it is seen as a means of enlarging liberty and promoting justice. The
social-democratic state is thus the ideal of both modern liberals and democratic socialists.
 Rather than merely laying down the conditions of orderly existence, the social-democratic state is an
active participant; in particular, helping to rectify the imbalances and injustices of a market economy.
It therefore tends to focus less upon the generation of wealth and more upon what is seen as the
equitable or just distribution of wealth. In practice, this boils down to an attempt to eradicate
poverty and reduce social inequality. The twin features of a social democratic state are therefore
Keynesianism and social welfare. The aim of Keynesian economic policies is to ‘manage’ or
‘regulate’ capitalism with a view to promoting growth and maintaining full employment.
Although this may entail an element of planning, the classic Keynesian strategy involves
‘demand management’ through adjustments in fiscal policy; that is, in the levels of public
spending and taxation. The adoption of welfare policies has led to the emergence of so called
‘welfare states’, whose responsibilities have extended to the promotion of social well-being amongst
their citizens. In this sense, the social-democratic state is an ‘enabling state’, dedicated to the
principle of individual empowerment.

Collectivized States
While developmental and social-democratic states intervene in economic life with a view to guiding
or supporting a largely private economy, collectivized states bring the entirety of economic life under
state control. The best examples of such states were in orthodox communist countries such as the
USSR and throughout Eastern Europe. These sought to abolish private enterprise altogether, and
set up centrally planned economies administered by a network of economic ministries and
planning committees. So-called ‘command economies’ were therefore established that were
organized through a system of ‘directive’ planning that was ultimately controlled by the highest
organs of the communist party. The justification for state collectivization stems from a
fundamental socialist preference for common ownership over private property. However, the use
of the state to attain this goal suggests a more positive attitude to state power than that outlined in
the classical writings of Marx and Engels (1820–95).

Marx and Engels by no means ruled out nationalization; Engels, in particular, recognized that,
during the ‘dictatorship of the proletariat’, state control would be extended to include factories,
the banks, transportation and so on. Nevertheless, they envisaged that the proletarian state would
be strictly temporary, and that it would ‘wither away’ as class antagonisms abated. In contrast,
the collectivized state in the USSR became permanent, and increasingly powerful and
bureaucratic.
 Under Stalin, socialism was effectively equated with statism, the advance of socialism being reflected
in the widening responsibilities and powers of the state apparatus. Indeed, after Khrushchev
announced in 1962 that the dictatorship of the proletariat had ended, the state was formally
identified with the interests of ‘the whole Soviet peoples.

Totalitarian States
The most extreme and extensive form of interventionism is found in totalitarian states. The
essence of totalitarianism is the construction of an all-embracing state, the influence of which
penetrates every aspect of human existence. The state brings not only the economy, but also
education, culture, religion, family life and so on under direct state control. The best examples of
totalitarian states are Hitler’s Germany and Stalin’s USSR, although modern regimes such as
Saddam Hussein’s Iraq arguably have similar characteristics. The central pillars of such regimes are
a comprehensive process of surveillance and terroristic policing, and a pervasive system of
ideological manipulation and control. In this sense, totalitarian states effectively extinguish civil
society and abolish the private sphere of life altogether. This is a goal that only fascists, who
wish to dissolve individual identity within the social whole, are prepared openly to endorse. It is
sometimes argued that Mussolini’s notion of a totalitarian state was derived from Hegel’s belief
in the state as an ‘ethical community’ reflecting the altruism and mutual sympathy of its
members. From this perspective, the advance of human civilization can clearly be linked to the
aggrandizement of the state and the widening of its responsibilities.

Religious States
On the face of it, a religious state is a contradiction in terms. The modern state emerged largely
through the triumph of civil authority over religious authority, religion increasingly being
confined to the private sphere, through a separation between church and state. The advance of
state sovereignty thus usually went hand in hand with the forward march of secularization. In the
USA, the secular nature of the state was enshrined in the First Amendment of the constitution,
which guarantees that freedom of worship shall not be abridged, while in France the separation
of church and state has been maintained through a strict emphasis on the principle of laïcité. In
countries such as Norway, Denmark and the UK, ‘established’ or state religions have
developed, although the
 privileges these religions enjoy stop well short of theocratic rule, and their political influence has
generally been restricted by a high level of social secularization.

Nevertheless, the period since the 1980s has witnessed the rise of the religious state, driven by
the tendency within religious fundamentalism to reject the public/private divide and to view
religion as the basis of politics. Far from regarding political realm as inherently corrupt,
fundamentalist movements have typically looked to seize control of the state and to use it as an
instrument of moral and spiritual regeneration. This was evident, for instance, in the process of
‘Islamization’ introduced in Pakistan under General Zia-ul-Haq after 1978, the establishment of
an ‘Islamic state’ in Iran as a result of the 1979 revolution, and, despite its formal commitment to
secularism, the close links between the Sri Lankan state and Sinhala Buddhism, particularly during
the years of violent struggle against Tamil separatism. Although, strictly speaking, religious states
are founded on the basis of religious principles, and, in the Iranian model, contain explicitly
theocratic features, in other cases religiously-orientated governments operate in a context of
constitutional secularism.

Understanding Government
Brainstorming:
What is government? What are the functions of government? Discuss on the systems of
government?

What is Government?
In its broadest sense, to govern means to rule or control others. Government can therefore be
taken to include any mechanism through which ordered rule is maintained, its central features
being the ability to make collective decisions and the capacity to enforce them. A form of
government can thus be identified in almost all social institutions like families, school,
businesses, trade unions and so on. However, government in our context, is to refer to the formal
and institutional processes that operate at the national level to maintain public order and facilitate
collective action. It is a body or organ that administers a country and main organization dealing
with affairs of the whole country. Thus, government is one of the most essential components and
also an administrative wing of the state.
In other words, government can also refer to political organization comprising individuals and
institutions authorized to formulate public policies and conduct affairs of state. Governments are
empowered to establish and regulate the interrelationships of the people within their territorial
confines, the relations of the people with community as a whole, and the dealings of the
community with other political entities. Thus, government applies both to the governments of
national states, for instance the federal government of Ethiopia and to the governments of
subdivisions of national states such as the regional states, provinces, and municipal governments,
etc. of Ethiopia. Any form of government, to be stable and effective, must possess two essential
attributes: authority and legitimacy.

Authority: In politics, the word authority implies the ability to compel obedience. It can simply
be defined as ‘legitimate power.’ While power is the ability to influence the behavior of others,
authority is the right to do so. Authority is therefore, based on an acknowledged duty to obey
rather than on any form of coercion or manipulation. Thus, authority is the legitimacy,
justification and right to exercise that power. Authority can be expressed as naked force and
terror as was the case in many undemocratic governments or through a series of more or less
transparent public hearings as in the case of most democratic states.

Legitimacy: The term legitimacy (from the Latin word legitimare, meaning ‘to declare lawful’)
broadly means rightfulness. Thus, legitimacy is the attribute of government that prompts the
governed to comply willingly with its authority. It confers on an order or commands an authoritative
or binding character, thus transforming power in to authority. Thus, legitimacy is the popular
acceptance of a governing regime or law as an authority.

Legitimacy is considered as a basic condition to rule; without at least a minimal amount of

legitimacy, a government will deadlock or collapse. Thus, as long as legitimacy stays at a certain
level, stability is maintained, if it falls below this level it is endangered. For instance, most of the
times regimes are seen as requiring the consent of a large proportion of the population to retain
power, but this is not necessarily be the case, since many unpopular regimes have been known to
survive provided they are seen as legitimate within a small but influential elite. Therefore,
legitimacy is gained through the acquisition of power in accordance with recognized or accepted
standards or principles. That is to say that a legitimate government will ‘do the right thing’ and
therefore deserves
 to be respected and obeyed. The concept legitimacy differs from legality in the sense that the
term legality does not necessarily guarantee that a government is respected or that its citizens
acknowledge a duty of obedience.

Purposes and Functions of Government

One of the central questions of political philosophy is the purpose of government. Many great
political philosophers have conceived themselves with this question. One common formulation is
that the main purpose of the state is to protect rights and to preserve justice. There are several
ways to conceive the differences between the different political views. For example, one might as
in what areas should the government have jurisdiction, to what extent it may intervene in those
areas, or even what constitutes intervention in the first place. A lot of institutions can be said to
exist only because the government provides the framework for their existence; for instance,
Marxist argue that the institution of private property only exists due to government. Mostly, the
constitutions of various countries codify views to the purposes, powers, and forms of their
governments, but they tend to do so in rather vague terms, which particular laws, courts, and
actions of politicians subsequently flesh out. In general, various countries have translated vague talk
about the purposes of their governments in to particular state laws, bureaucracies, enforcement
actions, etc.

Evidently, depending on the character of the society of which they are an expression, different
governments may serve various purposes and functions. In the contemporary world, however,
the purposes and functions of governments have greatly expanded with the emergence of
government as the most active force vehicle in the political, social, and economic developments.
Accordingly, the major purposes and functions of government include, among other things, the
following:

 Self-Preservation: Nearly all governments at least claim to have as their purposes the
establishment of an order that permits predictability, which in turn promotes a sense of
security among the governed. This may be true whether a government is authoritarian or
democratic. Sovereign states also take as a primary purpose the defense of the country’s
territory against external attack. Thus, as their first and primary purpose and function,
governments are responsible to prevail order, predictability, internal security, and external
defense.
 Distribution and Regulation of Resources: All governments invariably play the role of
distributing resources in their societies. In addition, governments are the only institutions that
 determine whether resources are going to be controlled by the public or private sector. Some
governments may decide that the resources should be controlled by the public, which commonly
known as socialist states and others may decide to be controlled by the private sector, which
are capitalist states. In addition, other states may place in between, that is the resources could
be controlled by both the public and private sector.
 Management of Conflicts: Governments usually develop and consolidate institutions and
procedures for the management of conflicts. These may include the legislative, executive,
and judicial institutions with established procedures for the supervision and resolution of
conflicts that may arise in the society.
 Fulfillment of Social or Group Aspirations: In addition to the aforementioned purposes
and functions, governments also strive to fulfill the goals and interests of the society as a
whole and of various groups within the society. These aspirations may include the promotion
of human rights, common good, and international peace.
 Protection of Rights of Citizens: Some governments, especially those of constitutional and
democratic governments, are established for the protection of every citizen’s human,
democratic, political, social, economic and cultural rights. Constitutional and democratic
governments are created to serve and protect every citizen’s rights, not to dominate them.
 Protection of Property: States or governments provide means such as police and the court
systems that protect private and public property. As such, protection of private and public
property is, therefore, one among the major purposes and functions of any government.
 Implementations of Moral Conditions: Some governments’ attempts to improve the moral
conditions of their citizens that is why, in all countries, laws and institutions are designed to
shape citizens character in accordance with some standard of morality.

 Provision of Goods and Services: Some governments, especially those of the poor
countries, participate heavily in the provision of goods and services for the public. Some of
the necessary common goods and services provided by governments may include, provision
of healthcare, education, development of public works, provision of food, shelter, clothing
for the public, Developing social services, etc.
Understanding Citizenship

Brainstorming Question:
What does the term citizenship means for you?

Defining Citizenship
As you can remember, in chapter one of this course, we have seen the definitions of citizen and
citizenship. In simplest terms, citizen refers to the person who is a legal member of a particular
State and one who owes allegiance to that State. To describe it in a different mood, citizen is a
person who is legally recognized as member of a particular, officially sovereign political community,
entitled to whatever prerogatives and encumbered with responsibilities.

The means by which we determine whether a person is legal member of a particular State or
otherwise is called ‘citizenship’. At the formal level, citizenship simply denotes to the network of
relationships between the State and the citizen. As such, citizenship refers to the rules regulating
the legal/formal relations between the State and the individual with respect to the acquisition and loss
of a given country’s nationality. However, from political and social perspectives and at a
substantive level, citizenship is beyond a legal status. Though many agree that citizenship is a
political and legal artefact that creates a condition of civic equality among those who possess it
with regard to the prerogatives and responsibilities it bestows and requires, the term citizenship
has been defined differently by scholars and practitioners. For this reason, citizenship is a
polysemy term which has had different meanings depending on the historical legacies, political
organization of the state, ideologies and socio-cultural context of societies. Several countries
refer to the term citizenship in their national language as expressing merely the judicial
relationship between the citizen and the State while others denote it with the social roles of citizens
in their society. Generally, the concept of citizenship varies from society to society, depending on
the place, the historical moment and political organization. Although differences may exist, there
are common elements such as rights, duties, belonging, identity and participation one can find in
definitions of the term.

i) Citizenship as a Status of Rights: The mere fact of being a citizen makes the person a
creditor of a series of rights. In this sense, current political discourse often tends to identify
citizenship with
rights. Marshall 1998, distinguishes three types of rights that historically have been established in
succession: the civil, or the rights necessary for the development of individual liberty; political, i.e. the
right to participate in the exercise of political power, as an elected member or as a voter and
social rights, which are those that guarantee the right to public safety, health, the right to
education, etc., that is the right to a decent life (these rights are discussed in detail in Chapter
four of this module). It is precisely these rights that give us the status of citizens, to enjoy these
means to be a full member of a democratic society. Each right is often pursued in specific
institutional forums: legal/civil rights are mainly exercised in the courts; political rights are used in
voting booths, legislatures and street protests; social rights are often activated or disputed in
government buildings.

Oldfield (1990), Mouffe (1992) and Lister (1997) conceptualize citizenship as both a status and
an active practice. Citizenship as a status accords a range of rights and obligations. That is why;
Jones and Gaventa (2002) assert that rights and obligations lie at the heart of the language of
citizenship. Hence, legally and sociologically speaking, a citizen is a person who has the
privilege to enjoy the citizenship rights that are essential for agency. Hohfeld (1978), for
instance, discovered four components of rights known as ‘the Hohfeldian incidents’ namely,
liberty (privilege), claim, power and immunity.

a) Liberty Right: is a freedom given for the right-holder to do something and there are no
obligations on other parties to do or not to do anything to aid the bearer to enjoy such rights. The
beholder got benefits from liberty rights without obliging others. Furthermore, no one including
the State has any legitimate authority to interfere with the citizen’s freedom except to prevent
harm to others. For instance, every citizen has the right to movement. His/her right to movement
goes to the level where another’s claim right limits his/her freedom (see also through articles 25 to
34 of the FDRE constitution). But what does it means by claim rights?

b) Claim Rights: are the inverse of liberty rights since it entails responsibility upon another
person or body. The duty bearer has to accomplish something that is indispensable for right
holders to enjoy the claim rights. That is, there must be somebody who is there to do or refrain
from doing something to/for the claim holder, i.e., claim rights are rights enjoyed by individuals
when others discharge their obligations. Hence, in contrast to liberty rights, claim rights impose a
corresponding duty on others to help respect and protect the bearers. For instance, social
rights such as
unemployment and public service benefits are claims that directly depend on taxes paid by others. To
mention, a contract between employer and employee confers on the employee a right to be paid
his/her wages. The employee has a claim that the employer has a duty to the employee to pay
those wages. Article 41(3 and 4) of the FDRE constitution underlines the responsibility of the
government to avail publicly funded social services such as health and education since all Ethiopian
citizens have the rights to enjoy such basic privileges, claim rights.

Liberty and claim rights termed as primary rules, rules requiring that people perform or refrain from
doing particular action. There are two other rights termed as secondary rules, according to
Hohfeldian incidents. These secondary rules specify how agents/beholders can introduce, change
and alter the primary rules (liberty and claim rights).

c) Powers Rights: are rights regarding the modification of first-order rights. They are
cooperative controls that are imposed on others. The holder of a power, be it a government or a
citizen, can change or cancel other people and his/her own entitlements. For example, Article
40(1) of the FDRE constitution asserts that Ethiopian citizens have the rights to the ownership of
private property and to modify, sale, donate or transfer their property to a third party. As it is
stated in Article 33(3) the FDRE constitution, every Ethiopian citizen has the right to renounce
his/her Ethiopian citizenship/nationality which shows the power rights of the citizens. Similarly,
a government has also the power to modify legal rights through imposing to or removing duties
from citizens.

d) Immunity Rights: allow bearers escape from controls and thus they are the opposite of power
rights. Immunity rights entail the absence of a power in other party to alter the right-holder’s
normative situation in some way. For instance, civil servants have a right not to be dismissed
from their job after a new government comes to power. Witness in the court has a right not to be
ordered to incriminate himself/herself. Additionally, as it is affirmed in Article 18(3) of the
FDRE constitution, “no one shall be required to perform forced or compulsory labour”.
Immunities also comprise compensation for rights violations that occurred in the past and at least
partially make up for past injustices or uneven burdens.

Discussion Question:
Assume that you have a smart phone. Then, discuss with your class mates about your liberty, claim,
power and immunity rights over your smart phone.

ii) Membership and Identity: Citizenship is associated with membership of a political community,
which implies integration into that community with a specific identity that is common to all
members who belongs to it. The criteria for membership have been linked to shared territory,
common culture, ethnic characteristics, history, etc. However, nowadays, we often use citizenship to
signify not just membership in some group but certain standards of proper conduct. Some people
–those who contribute to the well-being of their community are understood to be the ‘true’
citizens. Those who free-ride are mere members who do not seem to understand, embrace, or
embody what citizenship really means. When communities, public or private, bestow citizenship
awards to some of their members, it is this usage they invoke. It obviously implies that only
‘good’ citizens are genuine citizens in the full meaning of the term.

iii) Participation: Participation occupies a key position in citizenship. Nonetheless, individuals

differ in what approaches they find important – some people focus on their private affairs while
others actively participate in the life of the society, including politics. There are two approaches
in this regard; minimalists and maximalists. A minimalist approach to citizenship characterized
by a kind of basic passive compliance with the rules of a particular community/State, while the
maximalist approach imply active, broad participation of citizens engagement in the State.

However, as Ferguson (1999) asserts, people cannot realize their rights (be it social, economic
and political rights), if they fail to exercise their democratic rights to participation in decision-making
that affect, directly or indirectly, their affairs. Since citizens are embodies with social relations, “to act
as a citizen requires a sense of agency: the belief that one can act; acting as citizen, especially
collectively” (Lister, 1998: 38). Therefore, framing citizenship as agency place undue obligation
on people to consciously exercise their citizenship rights. For example, the involvement of
service users in the decision-making process of public services helps them to consider
themselves as active agents making and creating the services they receive rather than being
passive beneficiaries. That is why there is a dichotomy between passive and active citizenship.

iv) Inclusion and Exclusion: All individuals living in a particular state do not necessary mean that
all are citizens. For instance, there are non-citizens visiting, working and living in Ethiopia
branded
 as foreigners/aliens. Foreigners have the likelihood of staying in the territorial administration of
Ethiopia as far as they have authorized visas. The aliens, therefore, have rights just like the
Ethiopian citizens such as the right to life, movement, and protection of the law. Additionally,
there are also responsibilities shared by both the non-citizens and citizens domiciled in Ethiopia
particularly in respecting the laws of the country. However, citizens are fundamentally different from
aliens in enjoying privileges and shouldering responsibilities. There are some political and economic
rights that are reserved to and duties to be discharged by citizens only. For instance, an Ethiopian
citizen has the right to get access to land, vote and to be elected and get Ethiopian passport.
Likewise, defending the constitution as well as Ethiopia territory from foreign aggressors are
solely the duty of Ethiopian citizens. Generally, citizenship as legal relationship between a
person and a State is different from the specific legal relation exist between foreigners and the
host State.

Citizenship status, however, is not only restricted to persons. Organizations and [endemic]
animals could also be considered as citizens. The term "corporate citizenship" (CC) has been
used increasingly by corporations, consultants and scholars to echo, underscore, extend, or
reorient certain aspects of corporate social responsibility. This is important, for it offers
innovative conceptual aspect for understanding business-society relation, and in particular for
identifying specific roles and responsibilities for corporate, governmental, and other actors in
society. Just like citizens, corporations and private organizations do have the right to make profits
and maximize their benefits. As well, they have the duty to pay tax and protect the environment
similar to individual persons of citizens. In the modern time, corporations’ duty is not restricted
to protecting the environment and paying tax. Beyond the formal responsibilities, they have also
corporate social responsibility (CSR). CSR requires corporations to engage in social and
development affairs such as helping individuals with disabilities, HIV/AIDS carriers, constructing
schools and health centers. Moreover, in the era of globalization, it has become increasingly
customary to use ‘citizen’ in a different way to indicate membership of a person beyond a particular
political community, the State. Terms like ‘global citizen’ or ‘cosmopolitan citizen’ are commonly
used to refer to every human living in the earth planet.

Theorizing Citizenship
Citizenship is not an eternal essence rather a cultural artifact mold by people through time and
that is why the notion of citizenship and the meaning attached to it changes with the change in
political
thoughts, ideologies, policies and government. While some States relies on markets to allocate
citizenship rights with very restricted government/State intervention, other States acknowledge
government intervention in the market. Besides, all citizenship rights haven’t got institutional
recognition at the same period. Some of the citizenship rights such as women’s rights are
recently endorsed into law. For instance, the way citizenship has been framed and defined in the
post-1991 Ethiopia is different from the time before, and the list and scope of constitutional
rights too. Citizenship obligations vary too, ranging from States where military service is required
(like Eritrea and North Korea) to those states (including Ethiopia) where every citizen, under
normal circumstances, is not obliged to take military trainings or serve. As a result, various
citizenship theories emerge out of such historical trajectories.

Therefore, to realize the notion of citizenship, what it is and what it could become, understanding
its theoretical explanations come out to be the crucial one. Though there are different approaches
to citizenship, most contemporary works that address the issue of citizenship speak of the
following four approaches: liberal, communitarian, republican and multicultural citizenship.

Citizenship in Liberal Thought

Class Discussion:
Have you ever heard the word liberalism? What comes to your mind when you heard/read the
word?

Liberal theory of citizenship begins with the individual person (the self). The self exists as the
true symbol of liberal theory. Accordingly, it gives a strong emphasis to the individual liberty of
the citizen, and rights that adhere to each and every person. The self is represented as a
calculating holder of preferences and rights in a liberal society. Hence, in liberalism the primary
political unit as well as the initial focus of all fundamental political inquiry is the individual person.

Liberals insist that individuals should be free to decide on their own conception of the good life,
and applaud the liberation of individuals from any ascribed or inherited status. Advocators of this
though argue that individual citizens act rationally, corresponding to the constitutions and laws
of the State, to advance their own interests. As well, individuals conceive of themselves and of
one another as having the moral power to have a conception of the good. John Locke (1960),
one
among the influential early expositors of liberal theory, viewed individuals as endowed with
reasoning skills, through which they can discern and act upon the dictates of divinely given
natural law. If individuals act irrationally, it means that they debase their natural faculties and
misapprehend what natural law requires. Locke argued that natural law and the reason to
apprehend compel individuals to consider their own and others interests, to enter into civil and
political society, act in the community and thus to value social cooperation and self-restraint. Thus,
the individual is morally prior to the community: the community matters only because it
contributes to the well-being of the individuals who compose it. If those individuals no longer
find it worthwhile to maintain existing cultural practices, then the community has no independent
interest in preserving those practices, and no right to prevent individuals from modifying or
rejecting them.

Likewise, liberals deem internal factors as the primary reasons that determine personal identity. They
provide little consideration to the environmental factors in the process of shaping the self.
Beyond this, liberalists claims that the individual person shapes all other social aggregations,
including the state. Therefore, citizenship and other political institutions in a given State are
means that are accepted only conditionally – i.e., as long as they, in the individual’s calculations,
foster the maximization of the citizen’s preferences/benefits. John Stuart Mill, for instance,
regarded individuality and self-interest as the source of social, not just personal, progress and
well-being. He has insisted that untrammeled freedom of individual thought, inquiry, worship, and
expression is the surest path to truth and social improvement. Under this thought, the role of the
State is to protect and create convenient environment to help citizens enjoy and exercise of their
rights; the State has an instrumental function. According to Mill, individual liberty and State
action tend to be opposed to each other. Increasing the power of the State means reducing
individual liberty describing the myopia, corruptibility, and other defects of state officials
exercising coercive powers, the better outcomes when individuals pursue their own ends, and the
natural sociability of private actors in a liberal.

The pursuit of one’s own interests that do not affect others is entirely the province of the
individual, within which one must be free to do as one pleases without the law’s interference. It
follows that individuals have the right to choose their level of participation in the community in
order to fulfill and maximize their own self-interest. If they choose not to do so, their citizenship
is not jeopardized. Where others’ interests are affected, however, the State may be justified in
regulating
the activity. There are three fundamental principles which a liberal government must provide and
protect: (1) equality, whereby the government has to treat individuals who are similarly situated
in the same way and afford them the same rights; (2) due process, such that the government is
required to treat individuals over whom it exercises power fairly; and (3) mutual consent by
which membership in the political community rests on the consensual relationship between the
individual and the state. By protecting these three values, the government ensures that it provides
protection for individuals' rights and liberties, so they can effectively participate in the political
sphere.

In line with this, Berlin (1969) and Held (2001) consider a dual characterization of liberalism ranging
from a protective, defensive, conservative liberalism focused on negative liberty, subjective
rights and individualism, ideals that emphasize individuals’ right to be left alone and to pursue
their own projects free of the State compulsion, all the way to a liberalism oriented to
development, which is affirmative, progressive and focused ‘positive liberty’ notions. Common to
positive liberty accounts is the claim that the State should act affirmatively to create or secure
those substantive entitlements (e.g. income, health care, and education) that individuals need in
order to lead the dignified, independent lives essential to their freedom. However, freedom under
government, as John Lock (1960 cited in Schuck, 2002: 133) has already described it, embraces
living in conformity with a predictable, non-arbitrary law to which one has directly or indirectly
consented.

Generally, the bedrock principles of liberal theory of citizenship are: individuals are free to form
their own opinions, pursue their own projects, and transact their own business untrammeled by
the State’s political agenda and coercive power, except in so far as individual actions implicate
the interests of other members of society. Liberal citizens are thus left to their own devices
without much guidance from the state. They must decide for themselves how to use their
constitutionally secured freedoms, decide what kind of citizen to be – including the possibility
that they will decide to forswear any political activity at all, preferring to retreat into an entirely
private world of family, friends, market transactions, and self-absorption and gratification, into a
world largely indifferent to any public goods not generated within these parochial domains.
Citizenship cannot be defined based on shared identity or a common culture; the individual
chooses his own affections, and any identification with other individuals is rather a product of their
legal status as citizens. Equal rights bind citizens together in a legal community of free individuals.
This does not imply the complete rejection of culture and identity as such, but identity and culture
are not a priori foundations for citizenship.
Group Discussion:
Do you agree that liberal theory of citizenship is the current guiding citizenship approach of
Ethiopia?

Critics of Liberal Theory of Citizenship

First, how can individuals be/are prevented from destroying each other and from destroying the
basis of their mutually beneficial interaction? The most common problems related with
advocating individualism are free-raiders problem and the tragedy of the commons.

The free raiders problem occurs when those who benefit from resource or service do not pay for
it, which results in an under provision of the resource/service. Particularly it occurs when
property rights are not clearly defined and imposed. Whereas, tragedy of the commons is a
dilemma arises when individuals act independently and rationally consulting their own self-
interest ultimately deplete shared limited environmental resources. Since no one owns the
commons, e.g. atmosphere and grazing lands, each individual has an incentive to utilize common
resources as much as possible they can. Consequently, environmental pressures and humanitarian
emergencies pose great challenges to liberal States, demanding a larger State role in allocating
scarce resources, rights, and statuses among competing interests often bearing compelling moral
claims. Action to protect the environment involves international agreements to collectively
reduce emissions or regulate other activities. These sorts of agreements involve countries giving
up short-term advantages for a longterm common benefit and are designed to prevent any one of
them free-riding on the actions of others – for example, by continuing to pollute while other
countries cut their emissions, thereby reaping the environmental advantages without paying any
of the costs.

Second, liberalists affirmatively valorize the privatization of personality, commitment, and activity.
Hence, the problem has to do with is the ways in which individuals and their ideas are framed.
The preferences and insights of autonomous individuals might originate from impure process,
the information they were provided might be biased or meaningless, or their preferences might
have arisen from a fit of anger.

Third, as we have seen in the above, individuals have absolute freedom either to actively engage
in politics or ignore at all. Deducing from this, the citizens do not only have the right to
participate in
the political affairs of their country but also the right not to engage in it and then retreat into their
private pursuits if they wish. Needless to say, liberal thought facilitate the pursuit of wealth and
the indulgence of material pleasures and thus, as a matter of fact and preference, liberal societies tend
to be less egalitarian. This not only leaves less time available for public regarding activities but
also diminishes the social prestige. All in all, if many citizens are not willing to devote time or
give attention to politics, power will become an instrument of the few rather than of the many,
and polity’s very survival in a democratic form will be endangered.

Fourth, liberalists justify that inequalities arise out of differences in individual talents, values,
and choices – differences, moreover, that the State cannot seek to efface without endangering
citizens’ liberties. Perhaps the most daunting challenge to liberalism, then, is to reduce inequalities to
socially acceptable and politically sustainable from the views of the disadvantageous groups,
while at the same time vindicating the liberal commitment to the protection of individual
liberties. For several reasons, however, liberalism may actually increase economic and other
kinds of inequalities rather than reduce them. The persistence of inequalities among liberal
citizens and between them and aliens are bound to engender much social and political unrest and
tensions, unless and until the benefits of market-driven economic growth ‘trickle down’ to the
socially disadvantaged. Structurally, as well as ideologically, liberal states make redistributive
policies difficult to enact, implement, and legitimate. In a liberal social system, the private sector
controls most of the incentive systems that drive and shape individual and group behavior; these
systems are largely immune from State control. More fundamentally, liberalism contrives to keep
the State weak and permeable to private interests, institutionalizing its endemic fear of state
power through political structures and practices that widely disperse and carefully confine the
state’s influence.

Finally, liberalism posits a State that maintains substantial normative neutrality. In this
conception, the liberal State should neither choose among competing visions of the good society
nor place its thumb on the scales in other ways, such as redistributive policies, that favor
particular visions. It should instead play a far more modest, supplementing role, facilitating
individuals’ pursuit of their own projects or visions. The issues of how liberal State’s role
remains modest become a matter of great controversy and of course history has proved
impossibility of the State to maintain neutral. Hence scholars in the field devise alternative thoughts
to citizenship like republican, communitarian and multicultural approaches to citizenship.
Class Discussion:
Discuss with your classmates about the criticisms of the liberal citizenship approach.

Citizenship in Communitarian Thought

The debate on citizenship as the expression of community revived with the emergence of
communitarianism since the 1980s. Charles Taylor, Michael Sandel, Michael Walzer and
Alisdair MacIntyre are some among the proponents of communitarianism. Mainly, Taylor’s Sources
of the Self (1989) Walzer’s Spheres of Justice (1983), Sandel’s Liberalism and the Limits of Justice
(1982) and MacIntyre’s After Virtue (1981) established the foundations of communitarianism.

Communitarianism is as an approach emphasizes on the importance of society in articulating the

good. The communitarian (also known as the nationalist) model argue that the identity of citizens
cannot be understood outside the territory in which they live, their culture and traditions, arguing
that the basis of its rules and procedures and legal policy is the shared common good. The
political subject, above all, belongs to a community, a community to which he/she owes
allegiance and commitment. Thus, rather than viewing group practices as the product of
individual choices, communitarians view individuals as the product of social practices.

Moreover, communitarians often deny that the interests of communities can be reduced to the
interests of their individual members. Privileging individual autonomy is seen as destructive of
communities. A healthy community maintains a balance between individual choice and protection of
the communal way of life and seeks to limit the extent to which the former can erode the latter.
As a result, the good of the community is much above individual rights and citizenship comes
from the community identity, enabling people to participate. The State must provide a policy for the
common good, according to the way of life of the community. Communitarians examine the ways
shared conceptions of the good are formed, transmitted, justified and enforced.

“Whether citizenship as membership of a political community rests on the individual or a prior

cultural or moral community is what divides the protagonists, the liberal and communitarian theories
of citizenship” (Delanty, 2002: 159). For liberalists, citizenship rests on the individual and it is
the individual that determines its aspects, but for Communitarians citizenship is rooted and lies with
the people who surround the individual. Communitarianism claims that an individual’s sense of
identity
is produced only through relations with others in the community that nourish him/her. An
individual person cannot escape from the control of his/her culture and thus the self/individuality
is culturally constructed, socially-embedded. Describing in another mood, whatever individuality
the citizen has is derived from and circumscribed by the community. According to this thought,
individual interests, identity, freedom and equality can only be meaningfully practiced and
realized through the prioritization of the common good, and once the members of the polity share
common virtues and goals.

All in all, the two defining features of communitarian perspective are: first, no individual is
entirely self-created; instead the citizen and his/her identity is deeply constructed by the society
where he/she is a member. Newcomers such as children and immigrants to a society must
assimilate themselves in order to participate in community activities. Only when an individual
successfully assimilates can the society achieve its common goals and become effective. Second,
as a consequence of assimilation, a meaningful bond is said to occur between the individual
person and his/her community. Insofar as an individual understands that what is good for the
community is good for him as well, he will also understand that if he does not participate in the
community, the common good will be diminished.

Communitarian citizenship thought has been criticized for various reasons. Communitarianism is
hostile towards individual rights and autonomy – even that it is authoritarian since it melts the
self into the society. A community push people to sacrifice large parts of their individual
differences in order to follow shared values. Other critics argue that communities are dominated
by power elites or that one group within a community will force others to abide by its values.

Communitarian theorists tend to emphasize the communal construction of social individuals and
social formations, and of values and practices. A problem is that these constructive processes
themselves need to be analyzed in terms of power - power which can account for when
individuals manage to reconstruct their circumstances, when they move from context to context,
when they get trapped, when they rest content.

Group Discussion:
Discuss, in group, the strong and weak sides of communitarian citizenship approach.
 Citizenship in Republican Thought
Republican citizenship theory put emphasis on both individual and group rights. Means
republican though attempts to incorporate the liberal notion of the self-interested individual
within the communitarian framework of egalitarian and community belonging. Like communitarian
thought, it emphasizes on what bind citizens together in to a particular community. Citizenship
should be understood as a common civic identity, shaped by a common public culture. It requires
citizens to bring together the facets of their individual lives as best they can and helps them to
find unity in the midst of diversity. However, republicans don’t pressurize individuals to
surrender their particular identities like the communitarian thought. Instead, it is underpinned by
a concern with individual obligation to participate in communal affairs. It encourages people to
look for the common ground on which they stand, despite their differences, as citizens. At this
juncture, an effective balance between toleration and obligation is required. Toleration involves
citizens participating politically as advocates of particular interests, with their concern focused on
‘fairness between different sections of the community and the pursuit of common ends.

Just like liberal citizenship though, republican school advocate self-government. Yet, republican
thought do not agree with the case that all forms of restraints deprive people’s freedom.
Liberalism, as we have already discussed, advocates absolute freedom of individuals and gives
insignificant consideration towards nurturing the public virtues that lead people to do their duties
as citizens. In contrast to liberalism, individuals must overcome their personal inclinations and
set aside their private interests when necessary to do what is best for the public. Republicans,
thus, acknowledge the value of public life. To them, public life draws people out, and it draws
them together. It draws out their talents and capacities, and it draws them together into
community – into connection and solidarity, and occasionally conflict, with other members of
the public.

In view of that, there are two essential elements of the republican citizenship: publicity and self-
government. Publicity basically refers to the condition of being open and public. The public is
not a mere collection of people but a sphere of life where people joined by common concerns
that takes them beyond their private lives. Besides, public affairs such as politics, as the common
concern of the public, must be conducted openly in the public for reasons of convenience. In this
case, the rule of law and civic virtue are central elements. Politics requires public debate and
decisions, which in turn require regular, established procedures – the rule of law is the
standard formula for the
republicans. The citizens and governments in a republican State shall not act arbitrary,
impulsively, or recklessly but according to the laws of the State.

However, without citizens who are willing to take an active part in the government, a republic
State could not survive. True citizenship requires commitment to the common good and active
participation in public affairs – civic virtue. Republics must thus engage in what Sandel (1996: 6)
calls “a formative politics… that cultivates in citizens the qualities of character that self-government
requires”. Constitutional safeguards may be necessary to resist corruption in the forms of
avarice, ambition, luxury, and idleness, but they will not suffice to sustain freedom under the rule
of law in the absence of a significant degree of virtue among the citizens. To say that ‘Amare’ is
a citizen of a republican State, it is to mean that he enjoys the protection of the State’s laws and
is subject to the laws. It is also to say that, as a citizen, ‘Amare’ is supposed to be on an equal
footing with other citizens. The rule of law thus requires not only active and public-spirited
participation in public affairs – the civic virtue of the republican citizen – but also the proper
form of government.

Republican citizenship has been criticized by scholars who advocate multicultural and other
approaches of citizenship. The first is that the republican conception of citizenship is no longer
realistic. Republican citizenship is an irredeemably nostalgic ideal in this age of globalization. To be a
citizen, in the republican view, is to be a partner in a common enterprise, and people will be likely
to put the common interest ahead of their own – to act as true citizens – only when they feel
themselves to be part of such an enterprise. The Internet and satellite television are unlikely to
inspire this sense of community on a global basis. The second is that the conception poses a
threat to an open, egalitarian, and pluralistic society. This second criticism is put forcefully by Young
(1990: 117), who detects a denial of ‘difference’ in republican attempts because in practice
republican politicians enforced homogeneity by excluding from citizenship all those defined as
different. To be sure, Young’s point is that the search for common ground serves to justify the
dominance of a particular – and typically male – group.

The third point concerns the claim that citizenship involves a false ideal of impartiality. Here, the
republican response is to deny that the ideal is false. We should indeed strive to think and act,
when establishing laws and policies, as members of the public rather than self-interested
individuals. But
this does not mean that we cannot take account of the particular needs and interests of the people
–even people who ‘stand in different social locations’ – who compose the polity.

Multicultural Citizenship
The increasing diversity in States challenges particularly the liberal conceptions of citizenship.
The liberal view the rights of the individual as paramount and group identities and rights as
inconsistent with and inimical to the rights of the individual. A number of factors have caused
scholars to raise inquires about the liberal analysis and expectations for identity groups in
democratic States. These factors include the rise of the ethnic revitalization movements
demanding recognition of group rights as well as individual rights; the structural exclusion of
racial, gender, ethnic, and language groups; and increasing immigration throughout the world
that made States multinational and polytechnic. They raise complex and divisive questions about
how States can deal effectively with the problem of constructing civic communities that reflect
and incorporate the diversity of citizens and yet have an overarching set of shared values, ideals,
and goals to which all of the citizens of a State are committed. Consequently, the conception of
citizenship in a modern State should be expanded to include cultural rights and group rights
within a democratic framework.

There is a need to move towards a new type of multicultural citizenship appropriate to highly
diverse societies and contemporary economic trends. Recognition of group difference implies
departing from the idea of all citizens as simply equal individuals and instead seeing them
simultaneously as having equal rights as individuals and different needs and wants as members
of groups with specific characteristics and social situations which is basically the focus of
multicultural citizenship discuss four principles of multicultural citizenship which are presented
here under.

i) Taking equality of citizenship rights as a starting point. It is essential to ensure that all members of
society are formally included as citizens, and enjoy equal rights and equality before the law. Just
like the liberal perspective, multicultural citizenship concerns with the universal rights of members.

ii)Recognizing that Formal equality of rights does not necessarily lead to equality of respect, resources, opportunities or
welfare. Formal equality can mask and legitimize disadvantage and discrimination. It is necessary to
consciously recognize group difference and to understand its causes. While liberal theorists
believe that the universal rights accorded through citizenship safeguard the cultural membership
of individuals, theorists within multicultural school of thought envisage the need for additional
rights
for vulnerable minority groups, in order for such groups to sustain themselves amidst the
dominant culture(s).

iii)Establishing mechanisms for group representation and participation. Despite formal equality, disadvantaged
groups are often excluded from decision-making processes. It is necessary to make arrangements
to ensure the participation of people directly affected, wherever important decisions are made.

iv) Differential treatment for people with different characteristics, needs and wants. Liberalists’ universal
conception of citizenship within a stratified society results in the treatment of some groups as
second-class citizens because group rights are not recognized and the principle of equal treatment
is strictly applied. Treating people equally, despite the fact that past actions have made them
unequal, can perpetuate inequality. Government should take measures to combat barriers based
on gender, sexual preference, age, disability, location, Aboriginality, ethnicity, religion, area of origin
and culture (Castles, 1999: iii). In this view, multicultural citizenship allows for marginalized voices
to be heard. A differentiated conception of citizenship is needed to help marginalized groups attain
civic equality and recognition in multicultural democratic nations. Society is formed of different
groups which are either dominant or oppressed (Young, 1989). This strand of differentiated
citizenship therefore concerns the denouncing of universal rights and the provision of special
rights for oppressed groups. This suggests a politics for difference and not one geared towards
the possibility of integration.

Critics of differentiated citizenship worry that if groups are encouraged by the very terms of
citizenship to turn inward and focus on their 'difference' (whether racial, ethnic, religious, sexual,
and so on), then the hope of a larger fraternity of all Americans will have to be abandoned.
Citizenship will cease to be a device to cultivate a sense of community and a common sense of
purpose. Nothing will bind the various groups in society together and prevent the spread of
mutual mistrust or conflict.

Critics also worry that differentiated citizenship would create a "politics of grievance." If, as
Young implies, only oppressed groups are entitled to differentiated citizenship, this may
encourage group leaders to devote their political energy to establishing a perception of
disadvantage-rather than working to overcome it-in order to secure their claim to group rights
(Kymlicka and Norman, 1994: 372).
 Group Discussion:
What is the citizenship theory that fits to Ethiopia?

Modes/Ways of Acquiring and Loosing Citizenship

Citizenship right was one of the rights guaranteed to individuals by the Universal Declaration of
Human Rights adopted in 1948. According to Article 15 of the declaration, “everyone has a right
to a nationality” and that “no one shall be arbitrarily deprived of his nationality.” Hence, in the
following sections we will discuss the ways of acquiring and loosing citizenship.

Ways of Acquiring Citizenship

Since the grant of citizenship remains within the discretion of the state concerned, the means of
acquiring a particular State’s citizenship vary from country to country. However, the common
ways of acquiring citizenship can be grouped in to two: citizenship by birth and citizenship
through naturalization/law.

i) Citizenship from birth/of Origin: individuals can get citizenship status of a particular State
either because he/she is born in the territorial administration of that or his/her mother and/or
father are citizens of the State in question. That is, there are two principles of citizenship from
birth commonly known as Jus Soli (law/right of the soil) and Jus Sanguinis (law/right of blood).
Whereas Jus Soli is a principle whereby an individual is permitted to obtain citizenship status of
a particular State because he/she was born in the territorial administration of that country, Jus
Sanguinis is a norm where citizenship acquired claiming one’s parents citizenship status.
However, jus soli could not apply to children born from diplomats and refugees live in a host
State. Children born from diplomats in a host State where jus soli is allowed do not have the right
to claim citizenship status of the host country because of two special principles (international
diplomatic immunities): extraterritoriality and inviolability principles.

ii) Citizenship by Naturalization/Law: is the legal process by which foreigners become citizens
of another country. The common sub-principles of acquiring citizenship through naturalization
are the following. Political case (secession, merger and subjugation), grant on application,
marriage, legitimatization/adoption, and reintegration/restoration. Citizenship by political case is a
process by which an individual person acquires citizenship of a certain State following the
conquest or cession
of a territory. In case a particular territory is merged to or subjugated by another country, people
domiciled in that territory would acquire a new citizenship. Besides, in cases of secession option may
be given to individuals to choose either country’s citizenship. Let us now discuss the remaining ways
of acquiring citizenship vis-à-vis to Ethiopia.

The Modes of Acquiring Ethiopian Citizenship

Before the 1930, there wasn’t officially inscribed legal document that deals with citizenship. But
in 1930 Ethiopia adopted a legal document named as “Ethiopian Nationality Law”. Recently, this
nationality law has replaced by another legal document called “Ethiopian Nationality Proclamation NO.
378/2003” which was adopted in 2003 by the House of People’s Representatives. This proclamation
is enacted in accordance to article 6 and 33 of the 1995 FDRE constitution and affirmed that a
person can acquire Ethiopian citizenship either by birth or naturalization. Now, let’s discuss the
modes of acquiring Ethiopian citizenship included in the 2003 nationality proclamation.

1) Acquisition by Descent: the 1930 Ethiopian nationality law asserted that “any person born in
Ethiopia or abroad, whose father or mother is Ethiopian, is an Ethiopian subject.” In its Article
6(1), the 1995 FDRE constitution stated that “any person of either sex shall be an Ethiopian
national where both or either parent is Ethiopian.” In line with this, Article 3 of the 2003
nationality proclamation ascribed two principles under the acquisition of Ethiopian citizenship by
decent. One, “Any person shall be an Ethiopian national by descent where both or either of
his/her parent is Ethiopian;” second, “An infant who is found abandoned in Ethiopia shall, unless
proved to have a foreign nationality, be deemed to have been born to an Ethiopian parent and
shall acquire Ethiopian nationality.” According to the proclamation, any person can’t acquire
Ethiopian citizenship through the principle of Jus Soli (law of soil). It means that children born in
the territorial administration of Ethiopian do not have the right to acquire Ethiopian citizenship.
Birth place of a child is not a requirement to acquire Ethiopian nationality. Wherever a child was
born, he/she has the right to attain Ethiopian citizenship if, and only if, he/she is born from an
Ethiopian father or mother or both Ethiopian parents.

2) Acquisition by Law (Naturalization): Article 6(2) of the 1995 FDRE constitution also avers
that aliens can get Ethiopian citizenship. Under naturalization, there are various ways of
acquiring Ethiopian citizenship in accordance with of the amended Ethiopian nationality
proclamation of
2003 recognized by the provisions of Articles 5 to 12 of the 2003 nationality proclamation.
These are:

a) Grant on Application (registration): happens when an alien requests a host state to be

granted citizenship status of the country in question. However, host countries, including
Ethiopia, do not simply grant citizenship status to those who apply unless they fulfill certain
requirements. The common ones are applicant’s age, length of residence in the host country,
criminal conviction, income and moral character. But the criteria vary from country to country.
For instance, according to Article 5 of the 2003 Ethiopian nationality proclamation, an applicant
shall get Ethiopian nationality if, and only if, he/she (1) reach the age of majority, 18 years; (2)
lived in Ethiopia for a total of at least four years; (3) has sufficient and lawful source of income
(economically self-reliant);
(4) is able to communicate in any of the indigenous languages spoken in Ethiopia; (5) has a good
character; (6) has not recorded criminal conviction; (7) has been released from his/her previous
nationality or the possibility of obtaining such a release upon the acquisition of Ethiopian nationality
or that he/she is a stateless person; and (8) takes the oath of allegiance indicated in Article 12 of
the proclamation: “I , solemnly affirm that I will be a loyal national of the federal democratic republic of
Ethiopia
and be faithful to its constitution”.

b) Cases of Marriage: an alien who is married to an Ethiopian citizen have the possibility of
acquiring Ethiopian citizenship. Yet, there are certain preconditions set in Article 6 of the
proclamation in which the marriage and the alien married to an Ethiopian citizen must fulfill just
to allow the foreigner acquire Ethiopian nationality by law. One, the marriage shall be thru in
accordance with the laws of Ethiopia or the State where the marriage is contracted; second, the
marriage shall lapse at least for two years; third, the alien married to an Ethiopian citizen have to live
in Ethiopian for at least one year preceding the submission of the application; and fourth, the
alien have to reach the age of majority, be a morally good person, and lastly take the oath of
allegiance stated under Article 12 of the proclamation.

c) Cases of Adoption (Legitimating): this process whereby an illegitimate child get citizenship
status of his/her caretaker’s nationality. In this case, Article 7 of the nationality proclamation
asserts that a child adopted by and grown under the caretaker of Ethiopian citizen has the right to
acquire Ethiopian citizenship. But, the child could get Ethiopian citizenship if the adopted child
has not
attained the age of majority; lives in Ethiopia together with his/her adopting parent; and has been
released from his/her previous nationality or the possibility of obtaining such a release upon the
acquisition of Ethiopian nationality or that he/she is a stateless person. However, where one of
his/her adopting parents is a foreigner, in writing, such a parent has to express his/her agreement
that his/her adopted child gain Ethiopian nationality.

d) Citizenship by Special Cases: as it is labeled in Article 8, an alien who has made an

outstanding contribution in the interest of Ethiopia may be conferred with Ethiopian nationality
by law without undergoing the pre-conditions stated in Article 5 (sub-articles 2 and 3) of the
2003 Ethiopian nationality proclamation. That is, he/she is not required to live in Ethiopia for a
total of four years and may lack the ability to communicate in any of the languages spoken in
Ethiopia.

e) Re-Admission to Ethiopian Nationality (Reintegration/Restoration): this is a process by

which a person acquires his/her lost citizenship. The 2003 Ethiopian nationality proclamation
acknowledges this principle in its Article 22. That is, a person who has lost Ethiopian citizenship
status may get back Ethiopian nationality. However, there are requirements in which the person
is expected to fulfill. In this case, the person could be readmitted to Ethiopian nationality if
he/she applies to the Security, Immigration and Refugee Affairs Authority for re-admission. In
addition, he/she has to return and domiciled in Ethiopia and renounces his foreign nationality to
get back Ethiopian nationality.

Examining and Deciding upon an Application to acquire Ethiopian Citizenship

An application to obtain Ethiopian nationality by law shall be accompanied with relevant documents
and shall be submitted to the Security, Immigration and Refugee Affairs Authority (Article 10 of the
proclamation). Then, the application shall be examined by the Nationality Affairs Committee
(Article 11 and 23 of the proclamation), a committee comprises five members, namely; (i) a
representative of the Security, Immigration and Refugee Affairs Authority (chairperson); (ii) a
representative of the Ministry of Foreign Affairs (member); (iii) a representative of the Ministry
of Justice (member); (iv) a representative of the Federal Police Commission (member); and (v) a
representative of the Authority (member and secretary). The Committee has to submit its
recommendation to the Security, Immigration and Refugee Affairs Authority. If the committee’s
recommendation got approval of the Authority, the applicant shall take the oath of allegiance
(see
article 12 of the proclamation) in front of the committee. Lastly, the applicant confers with a
certificate of naturalization and become legally an Ethiopian national.

Class Discussion:
Do you think that a person could acquire more than one country’s citizenship? Discuss with your
classmates the possibility of acquiring dual/multiple citizenship.

Dual Citizenship
Dual citizenship is the condition of being a citizen of two nations. Of course, a person may
acquire more than two States which is called multiple citizenship. Duality/multiplicity arises
because of the clash among the Jus Soli, Jus Sanguini and naturalization. For example, a baby born to
a French family visiting the United States would acquire U.S. citizenship by Jus Soli and French
citizenship by Jus Sanguinis. A child born from a mother and father of two different countries
could acquire dual citizenship through decent. Besides, on the one hand, a State may allow its
naturalized citizens to keep their original citizenship, an on the other, a State may refuse its
citizen to revoke his/her citizenship for various reasons which are cause for dual/multiple
citizenship. People who declared that they no longer were citizens of such a country and became
naturalized in another still would be claimed as citizens by the original nation.

Today just under half of all African countries still prohibit dual citizenship on paper—though in
many cases the rules are not enforced, so that a citizen can acquire another citizenship without
facing adverse consequences in practice. Ethiopia prohibits its citizens to have dual citizenship.
Article 20(1) of the 2003 nationality proclamation assert that “any Ethiopian who voluntarily
acquires another nationality shall be deemed to have voluntarily renounced his Ethiopian
nationality.” However, a person who retains another country’s citizenship or voluntary renounces
his Ethiopian nationality may not be allowed to release his/her Ethiopian citizenship if he/she
hasn’t discharged his/her outstanding national obligations and/or has been acquitted or served the
penalty for the crime he/she accused of or convicted (see Article 19(4) of the 2003 Ethiopian
nationality proclamation). Therefore, under this condition which is called indelible allegiance,
the person would remain dual/multiple citizen, an Ethiopian and the country he/she acquires
citizenship through law (see also Article 20(4) of the 2003 nationality proclamation).
Ways of Loosing Citizenship
Citizenship can be lost when a State provides for lapse or withdrawal of citizenship under certain
conditions, or when a citizen voluntary renounces it. The primary rational for loss of citizenship
is the absence of a genuine link with the state. Many citizenship laws also provide for loss if
there has been fraud in the course of acquiring citizenship. Some States have provisions for
depriving people of citizenship in cases where their behavior is considered to demonstrate disloyalty
towards the state.

One can imagine a number of reasons why a nation might want to terminate citizenship of
individuals. Aleinik off put denationalization grounds into three categories: allegiance,
punishment, and public order. One may lose a country’s citizenship when he/she demonstrates a
lack of allegiance which could be explained through what we called active disloyalty (for example,
treason) or simply no loyalty at all (apathy or unconcern about the fate of the nation). Citizenship
is related with enjoying rights in one nation. However, a country may seek to deny such benefits
to people it believes are unworthy of enjoying them. Denationalization, on this account, may be
justified as punishment. For example, the U.S. Congress has enacted several denationalization
grounds that fall within this category, such as violation of laws against subversion, draft evasion,
and desertion from the armed forces in time of war. Also, the time that a citizen deemed to be a
threat to public order, dangerous to national security or who embroil the state in foreign
controversies, the State may denationalize the person. Generally, the commonly discussed ways
of losing citizenship are deprivation, renunciation, lapse/expiration and substitution.

Deprivation is an involuntary loss of citizenship which arises while government authorities or court
take a decision to nullify an individual’s citizenship. It is on the assumption that the burden of
justification for the loss of citizenship of an individual lies on the state. The citizen may be
deprived of his/her citizenship for reasons of uncovering national secrets, non-compliance with
citizenship duties (duty of loyalty), loss of genuine link with his/her state, flawed acquisition of
citizenship, promising loyalty to and/or serving in armed force of another country, trying to
overthrow the government by force, seriously prejudicial behavior, and becoming naturalized in
another country. But, the 1995 FDRE constitution asserts that “no Ethiopian national shall be
deprived of his or her Ethiopian nationality against his or her will.” Similarly, in its Article 17,
the 2003 Ethiopian nationality proclamation prohibits the possibility of losing Ethiopian nationality
through deprivation.
Lapse/expiration is another way of losing citizenship which is not applicable to Ethiopia. Lapse
is a mode whereby a person loses his/her citizenship because of his/her permanent residence or
long term residence abroad beyond the number of years permitted by the country in question. For
example, if an Indian citizen stays outside his/her country continuously for more than seven
years, he/she automatically loses his/her Indian nationality by the principle of lapse.

Renunciation is the voluntary way of losing citizenship. The UDHR (1948) guarantees the right
of a person to change his/her nationality. Loss of citizenship is voluntary only if it is intended
and initiated by the individual concerned. An Ethiopian national has the full right to renounce
his/her Ethiopian nationality if he/she wishes according to Article 33(3) of the FDRE constitution
and Article 19 of the 2003 Ethiopian nationality proclamations. However, the person who has
renounced a country’s nationality may not be actually released from that status until he/she has
discharged his/her obligations towards that particular State or accused of a crime. This situation
is called indelible allegiance. According to Article 19(4) of the 2003 Nationality Proclamation,
an Ethiopian who has declared to renounce Ethiopian nationality may not be released until: (i)
the citizen has discharged his/her outstanding national obligations or until he/she has served the
penalty for the crime he/she has accused of or convicted.

Substitution: citizenship may be lost when the original citizenship is substituted by another
state, where it is acquired through naturalization. On the other side, this may also take place
when a particular territory is annexed by another state; the inhabitants’ citizenship within the
annexed territory will be replaced by the citizenship of the subjugator. Generally, an Ethiopian
citizen can lose his/her Ethiopian nationality through renunciation and upon acquisition of other
country’s nationality stipulated in article 19 and 20 of the 2003 nationality proclamation,
respectively.

Statelessness
Statelessness is the condition of having citizenship of any country and with no government from
which to ask protection. According to the international law, stateless person is a person who is
not considered as a national by any state under the operation of its law. Statelessness almost
always results when state failure leads people to flee – be it due to invasion and conquest by
another state, civil war, famine, or an oppressive regime – from their home country. Individuals could
also become stateless persons because of deprivation and when renouncing their citizenship
without gaining
nationality in another State. Some people become stateless as a result of government action. To
settle such conditions, the UN has adopted a convention on the protection and reduction of
stateless persons.

Chapter Summary
The chapter tries to present the basic notions of state, government and citizenship. An effort has
been made to clearly show the relationship among the concepts of state, government and
citizenship. State is an institutions created to ease the complex relationships and interactions
among individuals and groups. There are various theories and perspectives on the structure and
purpose/role of the state in collective life. Government is the administrative wind of that
institution which is empowered to take care of the business of the state. Citizenship refers to the
rules regulating the legal/formal relation between the State and the individual with respect to the
acquisition and loss of a given country’s nationality. However, from political and social perspectives
and at a substantive level, citizenship is beyond a legal status and seen as a practice, as active
participation in affairs of the state for the good of the wider community. For this reason,
citizenship is frequently described as a contested concept which has had different meanings
depending on the historical legacies, political organization of the State, ideologies and socio-
cultural context of societies. Citizenship status, however, is not only restricted to individual
persons.

Self-Check Exercise
Essay
1. Describe the state in your own words very briefly.
2. Discuss the difference and similarity between the state and government.
3. Explain the core arguments of the capitalist state theory.
4. Discuss the differences between communitarian and republican citizenship theory.
5. Explain some of the criticisms of liberal citizenship theory.
6. Define the multicultural citizenship thought and discuss some of its features.
7. List and discuss the ways of acquiring citizenship thorough naturalization.
8. Discuss the requirements where a foreigner is expected to fulfill in order to acquire Ethiopian
citizenship through application.
References
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April 2008
Baubock, R., and Paskalev, V. (2015). Cutting Genuine Links: A Normative Analysis of Citizenship
Deprivation. Geo. Immigr. LJ, 30, 47.
Bellamy, R. (2008). Citizenship: A Very Short Introduction. Oxford University Press, Published
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Castles, S. (1999). Globalization, Multicultural Citizenship and Transnational Democracy. The Future
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Castles, S. (1999). Multicultural Citizenship. Consultant to Social Policy Group, Research Paper, No.
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Heywood, A. (2013). Politics (4th Ed.). UK: Palgrave Macmillan.
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Publications, London, Thousand Oaks, New Delhi
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Studies, Bringhton, Sussex, England
Kymlicka, W. (1995) Multicultural Citizenship. Oxford: Oxford University Press.
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Marshall, T. H. (1964). Class, citizenship, and social development: Essays of T. H. Marshall. Westport, CT:
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 Chapter Five: Constitution, Democracy and Human
Rights

Chapter Introduction

This chapter presents the core meanings and notions of human rights, constitution and
democracy. In doing so, the main theoretical arguments, scholastic debates and interpretations
will be provided under these topics sandwiched with practical examples from our country and
beyond.

Chapter Objectives
After the successful completion of this chapter, students will be able to:
 Recognize the definitions of Human Rights, constitution and democracy.
 Be aware of the nature and characteristics of Human Rights.
 Be familiar with the classifications and categories of Human Rights.
 Differentiate constitution from constitutionalism.
 Examine the classifications of constitution.
 Identify the roles of the actors of democratization.
 Learn about evolution and development of Human Rights and Democracy.
 Understand the central values and principles of democracy.

Constitution and Constitutionalism

Class Discussion:
Dear students, how do you define the term constitution?

Conceptualizing Constitution
The word ‘constitution’ is used mainly in many senses-constitution of a body, constitution of
trade union, constitution of political party etc. In a political sense, it signifies the constitution of
the state. Now the term has attained a normative connotation and has become another term for a
‘democratic political order.’ Every state must have constitution of its own and that its
government must be
 organised and conducted according to the rules of the constitution so that the people must have a
rule of law, it constitutes the case of constitutionalism.

Constitution is figuratively defined as the fundamental or basic law of a state which sets out the
structure of the state and also lists the rights of citizens alongside the limits on the power
exercise of a government. It is a blue print placed on top the hierarchy of laws on constitutional
governments. A constitution may be said to be a collection of principles according to which the
powers of the government, the rights of the governed, and the relation between the two are
adjusted.

In other words, constitution refers to body of rules and laws, (written or unwritten) that
determine the organization of government and the distribution of powers and functions to various
organs of government, regulate the relationship among themselves and also between the state
and its individuals through general principles on which these powers are to be exercised. Constitution
is the mothers of all laws; all other ordinary laws are derived from and subjected to this blue
print. Hence, since constitution is supreme law of a land, any other law contradicted with the
provisions of the constitution becomes void or invalid.

Peculiar Features of Constitution

Class
Discussion:
How constitution is similar or different from

With a few exceptions, all constitutions contain some common elements. From Magna Carta of
1215 to today, constitutional documents and traditions take the general form of a contract or an
agreement between the ruled and the rulers. Limitations on the rulers are exacted by the ruled in
exchange for allowing the rulers to preserve some elements of their right to govern and for
preserving the stability of the governing system itself.

In addition, constitution has distinctive features that distinguish it from any other laws. The
following are some of the distinctive features of a constitution.

A. Generality: a constitution provides the general principle of a state and carry on foundation
and sets out general framework of the law and the government. As other laws provide the details
of the subject for which they are created, Constitutional principles are guidelines for others laws.
In other
words, constitutional law announces principles while other laws apply or implement what the
constitution announce their respective spheres of fields. It builds substantial foundation and basis
and general framework of the law and government.

All other laws provide the details of the subject which they treat. Of course, the degree of
generality of laws may depend on other factors like hierarchy of laws. But constitution is always
the most general in the sense, short and brief. The general set up of the government and its
functions in all spheres, including political, economic, legal, etc is by the constitution. The
generality is very important because it give the constitution a feature of elasticity through
interpretation thereby to accommodate various questions.

B. Permanency: unlike laws constitution is made for undefined period of time. That means
constitution serve for a long lap of ages. It is purposely made to be stable and permanent. It is
made to be stable, i.e., not to be worked upon by the temper of the times or to rise or fall with the
occasional events. On the contrary, other laws are tentative, occasional and in the nature of
temporary existence.

C. Supremacy: Constitutions are laws about the political procedures to be followed in making laws.
They are supreme laws, taking precedence over all others, and defining how all the others should
be made. As a mother of law, it is original law by which the system of government is created,
and to which the branches of government must look for all their powers and authority. It is
original because it is directly made by the people as the direct expression of the will of the
people. All other laws are secondary or derivate being commands of representatives of the
sovereign.

D. Codified document: Constitutions are written down; often in a single document that presents
the constitution in a systematic manner. The constitutions are not intended to be perfect is
evidenced by expressly stated processes for revising or amending them. Constitutional change by
means of an orderly procedure is far preferable to overthrowing a government by force whenever
a country’s constitution has fallen out of favour with a majority of its people.

E. Allocation of powers: Constitutions outline the proper relations between institutions and offices
of the state, and between government and citizens. This is probably the most crucial part because
it
 allocates powers and functions to government and specifies the rights and duties of governments
and citizens-who can do what, to whom, and under what circumstances.

Major Purposes and Functions of Constitution

Brainstorming question:
What do you think are the basic purposes and functions of
The existence of aconstitution?
constitution in a country is not an end in itself since the constitution is a
means
for further prominent purposes. Hence, the following are some of the major purposes and
functions of constitution.

1. It serves as a framework for Government: This means that the constitution of state is a
plan for organizing the operation of government which in turn effectively guides the
functions and powers of the executive, legislative and judicial bodies of government. In other
words, it is a brief and a general outline of duties and rights of governments and also that of
citizens.

2. It Limits the Powers of Government: In a constitutionally limited government, officials are

always abided by the constitution. i.e there is no decision or action that will be undertaken
arbitrarily and spontaneously rather every decision, act, or behavior is entertained according
to rules and laws that originate from the constitution. This subjection to the laws and rules
from the part of the government and the governed (the people) is coined as the rule of law.
However, Constitutional government protects the rights and a freedom of citizens doesn’t
mean that the government has no authority to effectively exercise its functions. A
constitutional Government is neither too powerful nor too weak because if a government is
excessively powerful, i.e. if it has unlimited powers, it tends to abuse the rights and freedoms
of citizens. If, on the other hand, a government is too weak it can’t protect citizens.
Therefore, constitutions shall grant Governments enough powers to effectively and
consistently undertake their functions and responsibilities but at the same time must put
limits on their powers to make sure that they are not in a position to endanger the rights and
freedoms of citizens.

3. It protects individual and collective rights of citizens: To protect the individual and
collective rights and freedoms of people, the constitution of a state lay down the relationship
between the state and the individual by making out the respective spheres of government on
the one hand, and the individual and collective rights and freedoms on the other.
4. It serves as the Supreme (Highest) Law of a Country: this implies that Constitution is the
source of and supreme over all laws in a country. i.e. No specific law will be valid if it
contradicts the constitution. All laws in a country are made to fulfil the objectives and goals
clearly specified in a constitution of a given country. Because of this, the constitution of state
is referred to as “the law behind other laws or “the Mother of all laws” of a country.

5. It provides Government legitimacy/stability: as it formalize and regulate relationships

between political bodies and citizens and also provide mechanisms through which any
potential conflicts can be adjudicated and resolved, constitution usually provide the vital
function of introducing a measure of stability, order, and predictability of government. This
in turn gives governments a legitimate/legal right to rule or govern and by doing so it serves
as the weapon for legitimizing regimes.

6. Constitution Blue Prints for establishing Values and Goals: In a constitution there is also
an ideological aspect of constitution making where the people truly aspired for it. In such a
situation, it would be a common belief of the constituent, or at least, their leaders, what the
envisioned state should be geared towards providing the people either as citizens or as
members of any organization. This sort of positive declaration also usually has a way of offering
bearing to the operation of the constitution as well as affording the subjects the parameter for
assessing them. It, therefore, seeks to invest for unifying political values. As such, the
fundamental aims (objectives) and principles are described or accomplished explicitly in
preambles to constitutional documents, which often function as statements of national ideals
and values. For instance, the preamble of the FDRE Constitution stated that:

We, the Nations, Nationalities and Peoples of Ethiopia:

Strongly committed, in full and free exercise of our right to self-determination, to building a political
community founded on the rule of law and capable of ensuring a lasting peace, guaranteeing a
democratic order, and advancing our economic and social development;
Firmly convinced that the fulfillment of this objective requires full respect of individual and people’s
fundamental freedoms and rights, to live together on the basis of equality and without any sexual, religious or
cultural discrimination;
 Further convinced that by continuing to live with our rich and proud cultural legacies in territories we have
long inhabited, have, through continuous interaction on various levels and forms of life, built up common
interest and have also contributed to the emergence of a common outlook;
Fully cognizant that our common destiny can best be served by rectifying historically unjust relationships and
by further promoting our shared interests;
Convinced that to live as one economic community is necessary in order to create sustainable and mutually
supportive conditions for ensuring respect for our rights and freedoms and for the collective promotion of
our interests;
Determined to consolidate, as a lasting legacy, the peace and the prospect of a democratic order which our
struggles and sacrifices have brought about;
Have therefore adopted, on 8 December 1994 this constitution through representatives we have duly elected
for this purpose as an instrument that binds us in a mutual commitment to fulfill the objectives and the
principles set forth above.

Classification of Constitutions

Brainstorming question:
Can you mention different types of constitutions?

Constitutions are classified into different categories using different criteria. For instance, taking the
criteria, form, amendment procedure and degree of implementation/practice, constitutions can be
classified into the following categories.

A. Constitution based on form

Constitutions, in view of the breadth of written provisions, have been described as written and
unwritten constitutions. Or based on form/appearance constitutions can be classified as written
and unwritten.

1. Written Constitution

In simple terms, a written constitution is one whose provisions are written in detail. A written
constitution is one in which most of the provisions are embodied in a single formal written
instrument or instruments. It is a work of a conscious art and the result of deliberate effort to lay
down a body of fundamental principles under which a government is organised and conducted.
Thus, written constitution is a formal document that defines the nature of the constitutional
settlement, the rules that govern the political system and the rights of citizens and governments
in a codified form. It exists in a single document containing the fundamental laws and principles
specifying the rights of citizens, defines the political structure of a state and determines the
distribution of government powers; it serves as a supreme law of the state. For example, India,
Kenya, Ethiopia, USA, Germany, Brazil, Indonesia, Jordan, Venezuela and Nigeria have written
form of constitution. Written constitution has certain merits and demerits.

Merits of Written Constitution

 It is easily accessible to citizens that enable them to monitor the behavior of their government
thus preventing the emergency of dictatorship
 Citizens can easily learn about their rights and duties and the basic laws governing the
patterns of political processes of their nation
 It is full of clarity and definiteness because the provisions are written in detail.
 It has the quality of stability, since people know the nature of constitutional provisions , they
feel a sense of satisfaction

Demerits of written constitution

 It creates a situation of rigidity. Since all important rules are on writing, attempts are made to act
according to rules. It leads to the development of a conservative attitude.
 It becomes difficult to change it easily quickly as per the requirements of time. As such the
possibilities of mass upheaval are increased.
 A written constitution becomes a play thing in the hands of the lawyers and the courts.
Different interpretations come up from time to time that unsettle the judicial thought of the
country.
 Written constitution is not easily adapted to a new situation or changing circumstances. It
needs be continuously amended to be adapted to a new situation

2. Unwritten Constitution

Unwritten constitution is basically means that the fundamental principles and powers of the
government are not written down in any single document. An unwritten constitution is one
whose
written provisions are very brief and most of the rules of the constitution exist in the form of
usages and customs. It consists of customs, conventions, traditions, and some written laws bearing
different dates. The British constitution is the best example of unwritten constitution. The most
of the prescriptions of an unwritten constitution have never been reduced to writing and formally
embodied in a document. It is made up, largely of customs and judicial decisions.

Merits of Unwritten Constitution

 It has the quality of elasticity and adaptability. Since, most of the rules are in an unwritten
form, people may adapt them in response to the new constitution.
 It is so dynamic that it prevents the chances of popular uprisings.
 Unwritten constitution can absorb and also recover from shocks that may destroy a written
constitution. It looks like a natural outgrowth of a national life.

Demerits of Unwritten Constitution

 Since it is not compiled in to a single document, it is not easily accessible to the public to
determine which aspects of the constitution are violated and when it is violated
 It is difficult to create awareness through education on the fundamental constitutional rights and
duties of citizens because it is not easily accessible to citizens
 It leads to situations of instability. The provisions of such a constitution may change the spur
of the moment and so they are always in a state of flux as per the emotions, passions and
fancies of the people.
 It leads to the state of confusion. Controversies often arise over different provisions of the
constitution having their place in the usages and customs of the country.
 Unwritten constitution may be suitable to a monarchical or aristocratic system. It certainly
does not suit a democracy where people are always conscious and suspicious of
constitutional provisions

B. Constitution based on complexity of amending process

On the basis of the distinction in the process of amendment, constitutions may be classified as
rigid and flexible.
1. Rigid Constitution

Here, the process of amendment is difficult. A special procedure is followed to make a change in
any rule of the constitution. A constitutional amendment bill must be passed by the parliament by
special majority. Then it is to be approved either by the provincial units or by the people in a
referendum or both. Thus, rigid constitution is one that does not adapt itself to changing
circumstances immediately and quickly or simply one whose amendment procedures are
relatively complex or difficult. A more difficult procedure of constitutional amendment is the
one which requires a national referendum. A referendum is the process of direct voting by
citizens to support or rejects at constitutional amendment or other major national issues. Those
countries like USA, Australia, Denmark and Switzerland are known to have rigid constitutions.

2. Flexible Constitution

Flexible constitution is the constitution which set up simple amendment procedure and there is as
such no special required procedure for amending a constitution. The simplest and commonest
amendment procedure is the one which requires an absolute majority (two thirds support) in the
parliament. If it is very simple and convenient, the constitution is flexible. Any new law made by the
parliament gives a new rule to the constitution. Flexible constitution is one that adapts easily and
immediately to changing circumstances or simply one whose amendment procedures are
relatively simple. For instance, constitutions, such as those of the United Kingdom and New
Zealand, may be altered by a simple majority vote in the legislature.

C. Constitution based on degree of practice

On the basis of the degree to which constitution of state observed in practice, or on the basis of
the relationship between constitutional rules and laws and principles, on the one hand, and the
practice of the government (the workings) of the constitution, on the other hand, we can have
effective and Nominal Constitution of State.

1. Effective Constitution: Effective constitution denotes to a situation in which

government/citizens practices correspond to the provisions of the constitution. Thus, an
effective constitution of state requires not merely the existence of constitutional rules and
laws
 but also the capacity of those rules and laws to constrain or limit government behavior and
activities, and establish Constitutionalism.

2. Nominal constitution: the constitution accurately describes government’/citizens’ limits yet in

practice either or both fail to behave accordingly. In short when the constitution only remains
to have paper value or when there is absence of constitutionalism. This is a constitution of
state that shows the texts, principles, rules and laws that may accurately describe the
government behavior but fail to limit government behavior and activities in practice.
Therefore, a nominal Constitution is not observed in practice but in form.

D. Based on the kind of state structure

Constitutions either concentrate powers at the centre or distribute it among the different branches
and levels of government. Such a constitution is called unitary and federal constitution respectively.
This classification of constitution is based on the kind of state structure made by the constitution.
In this regard, it can be classified as federal or unitary.

1. Federal Constitution: Federal constitution is one that distributes power among the different
units of a state administration. But the model that is followed by constitutions in distributing
state power differs from each other. Some constitutions purely classify and decentralize
power between the central government and regional/local units and such constitutions are
referred as federal constitutions. In many states, for example, the United States of America,
Canada, Australia and Malaysia, there exists a division of powers between central
government and the individual states or provinces which make up the federation. The powers
divided between the federal government and states or provinces will be clearly set down in the
constituent document.

2. Unitary Constitution: On the other hand, in unitary constitution state power is concentrated
in the hands of the central government. And the central government can establish or abolish
the lower levels of government; determine their composition, and their power and functions.
In this case the local government has no guarantee for their existence. Powers and
responsibilities are delegated to them by the central government. The constitution of the
unitary state presents a very different arrangement from constitution of federal state outlined
above.
Constitutionalism

Class Discussion:
What do you think are the differences between constitution and constitutionalism?

Constitutionalism refers to a doctrine that governments should be faithful to their constitutions

because the rules and laws so provided are all that can protect citizens’ rights from arbitrary
actions and decisions of the government. It is being subject to limitations and that citizens and
governments operate in accordance with the general rules and laws rather than arbitrary. This is
because the rules and laws so provided are all that can protect citizens’ rights from arbitrary
actions and decisions of the government. In other words, constitutionalism is the belief that
constitution is the best arrangement of affairs in a society. Hence, the essential elements for
constitutionalism are constitution and its effective implementation.

Constitutionalism, desires a political order in which the powers of the government are limited. It
is another name for the concept of a limited and civilised government. There exists no
government in the world that may not be called constitutional, though such a government hardly
exists in a country under a totalitarian rule where the constitution is seen with ‘contempt’. Because of
this, it is only in a democratic country that a constitutional government can be said to exist. A form
of government can only be classified as constitutional when the rulers are subject to a body of
rules and principles, which limits the exercise of their power. Thus, constitutionalism does not
merely require the existence of constitution. This is because, constitutionalism checks whether the
act of government is legitimate and whether officials conduct their public duties in accordance with
laws pre-determined in advance.

The Constitutional Experience of Ethiopia:

Pre and Post 1931
Traditional Constitution (Pre- 1931)
Ethiopia has a very little experience with a written constitution in spite of its long history of state
formation. For this reason, the first written form of constitution promulgated in Ethiopia in 1931.
But before that the country has a far back constitutional history of unwritten form. Such lack of
written constitution does not necessarily implicate the total absence of constitutional rules and
principles in the legal history of the country.

Beginning in the 13th Century until the early 20th Century the Ethiopian Orthodox Church was the
chief legitimator of monarchical rule. However, the rights and obligations of the Crown and its
subjects were not spelled out in a written secular constitution. Instead, there was developed by
monks of the Church an elaborate set of codes rooted in an Ethiopian national epic. Despite the
fact of existence of constitutionally significant documents in traditional Ethiopia, no written
constitution in the modern sense formed the basis for the constitutional process. Thus, documents
like the Kebra Nagast, the Fatha Nagast and serate mengest from the 13th Century until the early 20th
Century were the precursors to the formal written Ethiopian national constitutions of the modern
era.

Fetha Negest

The Fetha Negest (The Law of Kings) was a religious and secular legal provision than being a
definite constitution. Law of the Kings, is a collection of laws which in use in Christian Ethiopia
for many centuries. It was originally written in Arabic by the Coptic Egyptian writer Abu-l
Fada’il Ibn al-Assal (commonly known as Ibn al-Assal) when Cyril III was the Patriarch of
Alexandria (1235-1243). It was designed by monks in the Church the same time Kebre Negest
penned. It set out the laws and regulations that were used to govern all activities of the Ethiopia
society in the late middle age. It was used as the sources of constitutional, civil, and criminal
laws. It was compiled from the Old Testament, the New Testament, and the Roman law. It serves
as both religious laws and legal provisions of state. It was fundamental laws upon which the
government and the administration were based and the king vested with absolute power. The
throne was hereditary, the king was thought to be appointed divinely, that is derives his power
directly from God. It contains the idea of divine rights of kings with the assumption that rules
have a God given power.

Kibre Negest

Kibre Negest was another traditional document that has constitutional relevance. Literally, Kibre
Negest means glory of king. The Kebra Nagast (The Glory of Kings) was written to document for the
first time the mythical origins of the royal house. This document was written by six Tigrean
clerics and completed in the early 14th Century. It was the most important traditional document
that even
 defined who should become king in Ethiopia i.e., it determine the succession of the throne in
Ethiopia. It was the principal sources of legitimacy for the kings. This document takes the
Ethiopian history back to the Solomonic dynasty, where the queen of Sheba made romantic tripe
to King Solomon of Israel and gave birth to the first Ethiopia king Menelik I. Based on this the
document determined that any king in Ethiopia must descend from the Solomonic dynasty or
must have such blood relationship with the dynasty.

Ser’ate Mengist

Ser’ate Mengist was another traditional document that had been used as constitution by the
traditional rulers before 1931.The ser’ate Mengist was one of the traditional documents of
the nineteenth century that provided certain administrative protocol and directives in the 19th
century. The Ser’ate Mengist can hardly be considered to be a document of Constitutional Law
in its widest sense. Nonetheless, as it is the first document known to have been used for
allocating power among the Crown, its dignitaries and the Church, by means of “... a protocol of
ceremonies which had to be consulted whenever occasions required it…” and tried to lay out a
pattern of succession to power, though the problem of primogeniture was more theoretical than
practical as incessant rivalries among members of the royal house intermittently switched lines.

The 1931 First Written Constitution

It is often said that the key sources of legitimacy in Ethiopia’s past were force (conquest, military
expansion), religion (i.e. Orthodox Christianity), and tradition (i.e. ‘right’ genealogy). This is also in
line with the official titles of the supposedly “Solomonic” Ethiopian Emperors which, roughly,
are as follows; “Conquering Lion [marking might, or force] of the Tribe of Judah [marking
genealogy and tradition], Elect of God [marking the vital importance of religious anointing to
qualify for the throne], ... [the name], King of Kings, Emperor of Ethiopia.” Hence, these
indicate the importance of genealogy and tradition in Ethiopian past constitutional experience.
With promulgation of first written form of constitution on July16, 1931 by Emperor Haile
Selassie, the era of unwritten form of constitution came to an end. The constitution reinforced the
traditional position of the emperor as ‘Siyume Egziabiher, Niguse Negast Za Ethiopia’ which literally
means: Elect of God, King of Kings of Ethiopia’ but on the other marked the end of the role of the
nobility or at least the gradual reduction
of their role in local leadership, the traditional check against the power of the king of kings, to
insignificance.

It is believed that both internal and external factors forced the development of the 1931
constitution. Externally, the introduction of the 1931 constitution was the result of the growing
interaction between Ethiopia and the external world, particularly the western European countries.
Emperor Haile Silassie developed strong aspiration to view Ethiopia as a modern state to the rest
of the world. Yet, it is important to note that Haile Selassie was crowned with full support of the
prewar modern elite with a mission of Japanizing Ethiopia. The Meiji Constitution of Japan was
conceived as a benevolent gift of the Emperor of Japan to his people. The emperor embodied the
state itself and was the source and repository of all state power. The emperor had to convince the
world that his country was modernizing and taking her place among the civilized states. A few years
before that it became a member of League of Nations, over some nations’ objection that it was
not “civilized enough” to join the club of civilized nations. The constitution unequivocally declared
that the sole basis of legitimate authority was the emperor, and that all titles and appointments
descended from him. For instance, Article 6 of the constitution declares that: In the Ethiopian
Empire supreme power rests in hands of the emperor. He ensures the exercise thereof in
conformity with the established law. Ethiopia was in need of reflecting a different picture of its
own to the rest of the world, that it is no more a back ward state. However, the 1931 constitution
was failed to achieve external goals as intended by the emperor.

Internally, the 1931 constitution was intended to provide a legal framework for the suppression
of the powerful traditional nobilities to the emperor. The emperor has a deep interest of
centralizing the state power in the internal politics of the country. This was effectively done by
absolutist nature of the constitution. It was designed to unify and centralize all state power in the
hands of the monarch. This also marked the beginning of the culmination of the struggle for
centralization, which began with the attempt at unification by emperors during the 19 th century
and reached its consolidation under the absolutist rule of Emperor Haile Selassie to be further
reinforced by the military. The consequence was the alienation of the bulk of the regional actors
leading to the center-periphery polemics.
The Revised Constitution of 1955

Class Discussion:
Can you reason out the bases for the revision of the 1931
constitution?

Ethiopian politics were profoundly affected by World War II and its aftermath. The emperor had
been driven into exile when beginning in 1935 the Italian Fascists occupied the country for just
over five years. During this period both the Ethiopian Orthodox Church and the traditional
aristocracy were severely weakened. In fact, in the process of resisting the Italian occupation,
virtually a whole generation of young Ethiopian intellectuals was wiped out. When the emperor
was restored to the throne by the British in 1941, he used their military and administrative
assistance to bolster his own authority against what was left of the Church leadership and the
traditional aristocracy. At the same time, the world had also been profoundly changed by the
War. Ethiopia found itself needing to establish itself as a legitimate player in the world
community of states. Moreover, it was surrounded by African colonies which were rapidly
gaining their independence and left by the departing colonialists with varying forms of
democratic institutions. This trend led to pressures for reform on the Imperial Crown from
younger Ethiopians.

In this situation, after quarter of a century, the 1931 constitution was revised and replaced by the
revised constitution of 1955. There were constellations of social and political events that urged
the revision of the 1931 constitution. The revision of the 1931 constitution was urged by both
internal and external factors. The Revised Constitution continued to reinforce the process of
centralization. The sketchy provisions regarding the powers and prerogatives of the Emperor
were extensively elaborated in the new Constitution. The Constitution spent one chapter settling
the issue of succession on the rule of male primogeniture. Detailed provisions vested in the
Emperor wide powers over the military, foreign affairs, local administration and so forth.
Interestingly enough it also contained an elaborate regime of civil and political rights for the
subjects. In theory, the Constitution was the supreme law of the land governing even the
Emperor. It contemplated even an independent ministerial government responsible to the monarch
and parliament, an elected chamber and independent judiciary but these liberal provisions were
overshadowed by executive prerogatives reserved to the Emperor who exercised them expansively.
Despite the apparent inclusion of the notion of separation of powers, little change was introduced
regarding the position of the Emperor.
He was both the head of state and of the government and he continued to oversee the judiciary
through his Chilot (Crown Court).

Fourteen years after the end of a five year colonial suppression by the Italians in 1941, a revised
constitution was embraced in the Ethiopian legal system in 1955. It was revised because of
internal and external factors mainly to cope up with the social and political dynamics of the then
period, global politics, and Ethio-Eritrean federation. This revised version of the 1931
constitution comes with a slight modification in the structure of the system of governance,
limiting the power of the emperor to a certain extent and a relatively better recognition of rights
and freedoms. However, like its predecessor, the constitution declares the inviolability of the
Emperor’s dignity and the power of appointing and dismissing members of the parliament and
other offices were in the hand of the Emperor.

The federation of Eritrea with Ethiopia led to the addition of two new documents in to the
Ethiopia legal system. These were the federal act and the Eritrean constitution. The federal act
was a document that specified the terms of agreements for the federation between Eritrea and
Ethiopia. The Eritrean were established their own constitution with the support of UN. This
constitution incorporated the human rights provisions of the universal declaration of human
rights and other progressive concepts. It also implied a more liberal government that
incorporated the values and ideas of a democratic society as the result of colonial heritage and
the influences of United Nations. Both documents were far modern and better than the existing
traditional 1931 constitution of the imperial government. Thus, the emperor was forced to revise
the 1931 Constitution.

The 1987 Constitution of People’s Democratic

Republic Ethiopia (PDRE)
Immediately after came to power, the Dergue setup the Provisional Military Administrative Council
(PMAC) type of temporary government. The Provisional Military Administration was also in the
process of reconstituting itself. To legitimize itself within and broad it had, at least, to take off
the uniform and appear in a civil dress. The PMAC presented itself for elections through a new
party-the Workers’ Party of Ethiopia. The party became the vanguard communist party. The
establishment of the Dergue inevitably brought profound changes in the country. After coming to
power the Dergue issued a series of decrees and proclamations that was used as legal rules until
the
 adoption of 1987 constitution. It took sweeping measures through series of decrees and
proclamations that includes nationalization of rural and urban land, extra urban houses, private
schools and factories by passing series. In the Article 3, state would control key production,
distribution and service enterprises, which legalized the massive nationalization of private businesses
after the government came to power in 1974. However, these, decrees and proclamations cannot
be given a constitutional status because it does not touch basic constitutional issues. This may
lead us to the conclusion that the time from 1974-1987 was a period of constitutional vacuum in
Ethiopia.

Though it was late, during the Dergue regime a new constitution was adopted in 1987. The
regime facilitated the adoption of a new constitution, through a constitutional commission, which
was different in its nature form the constitutions of its predecessors. The People’s Democratic
Republic Ethiopia constitution (1987) was different from the 1931 and the 1955 imperial
constitutions in that constitution:

 State and religion were separated (issue of secularism was included in the constitution) for
the first time;
 State the political power and sovereignty were declared to be the preserve of the working people
of Ethiopia.
 contains provisions on democratic and human rights;
 recognized the different cultural identities and the equality of Nation and Nationalities;
 Introduced a party system by giving recognition to the workers party of Ethiopia. Thus,
leading to a transition from a none party system to a single party system;
 aimed at the principles of Marxist and Leninist ideology;
 Aimed at giving power to the peoples so that they exercise through referendum, local and
national assembly.

Practically, however, the 1987 constitution was not different from the 1931 and 1955 constitutions.

The 1995 (FDRE) Constitution

Class Discussion:
How can you differentiate the 1995 constitution from the 1987
constitution?
 The FDRE constitution has a wider coverage of both human and democratic rights. Of the total
106 articles of the constitution just about one third (approximately 33 articles) is devoted to the
discussion of rights. While the democratic rights enshrined in the constitution tend to be
essentially group-oriented and political in nature the human rights on the other hand are
individualistic and natural.

The 1995 Constitution has some salient features. Getahun (2007: 79) mentioned the
“introduction of a federal form of governance and the assignment of the competence of
determining constitutionality to the second chamber of the parliament” among the other things.
Besides, the FDRE (1995) Constitution takes a breakthrough departure in the constitutional
history of the country by embodying many of the core egalitarian principles including the
principle of self-determination of collectivities, rule of law, democracy, development,
fundamental rights and freedoms, equality and non-discrimination, sustainable peace and
affirmative action in its preamble part. In the second chapter, the Constitution gives recognition
to five fundamental principles; to be precise the principles of popular sovereignty (art. 8),
constitutionalism and constitutional supremacy (art. 9), sanctity of human rights (art. 10), secularism
(art. 11) and accountability and transparency of government (Art.12). The Constitution embodied
fundamental principles, which give a background to many of the rules that emerge in subsequent
Chapters there by setting the framework for a better understanding and interpretation of the rules.

Democracy and Democratization

Defining Democracy
Question for discussion:
How do you define democracy?

Democracy literally means the government of the people or government of the majority.
Etymologically, the word democracy is derived from two Greek words: demos and kratos, which
means common people and rule (legitimate power to rule) respectively. In this case the word
democracy refers to the idea of rule by the people or government by the people. Hence, in its
original sense democracy means “rule by the people”. Gradually, however, the meaning of this term
is evolving and changing substantively. Hence, democracy may mean different things for different
people and in different times. You may have already heard about the most common definition of
democracy: “the government of the people, by the people and for the people”, given by former US President
Abraham Lincoln. To put it another way, we can say that a government comes from the people;
it is exercised by the people, and for the purpose of the people’s own interests.

The lexicon or dictionary definition of the term entails that democracy is a state of government in
which people hold the ruling power either directly or indirectly through their elected representatives.
Accordingly, democracy embraces the principles of equality, individual freedom and opportunity for
the common people, as those who actually wield political power. Moreover, the definition
entails, among others, in democratic system, state power involves compromise and bargaining in
decision-making process in a democratic system. One of the mostly quoted definitions of
(modern day) democracy is the one given by Joseph Schumpeter (1943: 269), which defines
democracy as an “institutional arrangement for arriving at political decisions in which
individuals acquire the power to decide by means of a competitive struggle for the people’s
vote”. In democracies, rulers are held accountable for their actions in the public realm and
citizens act indirectly through the competition and cooperation of their elected representatives.

Abraham Lincoln defined democracy as the virtues of what he called ‘government of the people,
by the people, and for the people’. In so doing, he defined between two contrasting notions of
democracy. The first, ‘government by the people’, is based upon the idea that the public
participates in government and indeed governs itself: popular self-government. The second,
‘government for the people’, is linked to the notion of the public interest and the idea that
government benefits the people, whether or not they themselves rule. The classical conception of
democracy, which endured well into the nineteenth century, was firmly rooted in the ideal of
popular participation and drew heavily upon the example of Athenian democracy. The
cornerstone of Athenian democracy was the direct and continuous participation of all citizens in
the life of their polis or city-state.

Democracy can also be conceived as the institutionalization of freedom. That means democracy is
a set of ideas and principles as well as procedures and practices about human and democratic
rights, and freedoms. In this case, it refers to the process of organizing agencies that can watch
the respect of rights and freedoms, the signing and ratification of international treaties and
conventions and introduction of these rights and freedoms in the fundamental law of a
state. As such,
institutionalization of freedom is possible by the application of constitutional government,
human rights and equality before law and the like. In this regard, freedom means responsibility to
do in line with national interest and then answerable for one’s actions and inactions.

If one maintains the definition of democracy to be a government system in which supreme power
is vested in and exercised by people, two broad ways of exercising it can be singled out namely
direct and indirect democracy. Direct democracy implies a form of government in which the
right to make political decisions is exercised directly by the whole body of citizens acting under
procedures of majority rule. It is also known as pure/classical democracy. Every decision
concerning the government is decided based on popular vote. This kind of democracy was
mainly practiced in Ancient Greece city states. As the city states were relatively had small population
it was manageable to conduct direct democracy. In modern society/state, because of the
population size of countries direct democracy has lost its validity and substituted by indirect/
representative democracy. However even in modern times there are some cases that governments
applied direct democracy. These include referendum, recall, initiative and plebiscite. Indirect
democracy on the other hand refers to a form of government in which citizens exercise their
rights and freedoms and discharge their obligations not in person but through representatives
chosen by themselves. Citizens will submit their sovereignty for their representatives. The
representatives will act on the behalf of the citizens they are representing.

Like all regimes, democracies depend upon the presence of rulers, persons who occupy
specialized authority roles and can give legitimate commands to others. What distinguishes
democratic rulers from nondemocratic ones like monarchy, aristocracy and dictatorship are the
means by which governments/rulers come to power and the practices that hold governments
accountable for their actions. However, for democracy to flourish, specific procedural norms must be
charted (procedural democracy) and fundamental rights and freedoms of citizens must be
respected (substantive democracy). The overall concept of modern democracy constitutes three
key portions: democracy, constitutionalism, and respect for human rights. Each needs to happen
in a given polity or political system for it to be a genuine democracy. Thus, any state or system
of government that miscarries to levy such limits upon itself, that fails to follow the rule of law
with regard to its own procedures, should not be considered democratic. Robert Dahl (1982:11)
provides the most generally accepted
 listing of procedural minimal conditions must be fulfilled for modern political democracy to be
existent. The major ones are:

o Control over government decisions about policy is constitutionally vested in elected officials.
o Elected officials are chosen in frequent and fairly conducted elections in which coercion is
comparatively uncommon.
o Practically all adults have the right to vote in the election of officials.
o Practically all adults have the right to run for elective offices.
o Citizens have a right to express themselves without the danger of severe punishment on political
matters broadly defined.
o Citizens have a right to seek out alternative sources of information. Moreover, alternative
sources of information exist and are protected by law.
o Citizens also have the right to form relatively independent associations or organizations,
including independent political parties and interest groups.
Exercise: Think about the following questions;
 How does limited government help to fulfill the purposes of democracy?

 What responsibilities does democracy place upon citizens?

Values and Principles of Democracy

Democracy is a popular political notion in today’s world, fair and free elections are the
prerequisite of democracy and rule of the law, protection and freedom of human rights and
supremacy of the constitution are important elements in true democratic system. There are some
key elements that distinguish states organized under democratic principles from dictatorship. The
respect of fundamental freedom and fundamental rights, elections, citizen’s participation, equality,
rule of law, separation of powers, democratic pluralism, and multi-party political system are
among these key elements or sometimes called fundamental principles of democracy.

Exercise
What else could be mentioned as a fundamental principle of democracy?
Hence, democracy is more than just a set of specific government institutions; it rests upon a well
understood group of values, attitudes, and practices - all of which may take different forms and
expressions among cultures and societies around the world. Democracies rest upon fundamental
principles, not uniform practices.

There are three core values that are central in the discussion of the concept of democracy. These
are values of liberty/freedom, justice and equality. Let us now briefly look at what each of
them means.

o Liberty: This value includes personal freedom (to mean that Individuals should be free
from arbitrary arrest and detention and also their homes/property should be secured from
unreasonable searches and seizures), political freedom ( to imply that people of a nation
have the right to participate freely in the political process such as elections without being
subject to arbitrary arrest, harassment and electoral corruption such as buying votes,
intimidation and obstruction of voter) and economic freedom ( to mean that citizens should
have the right to acquire, use, transfer and dispose of private property without unreasonable
governmental interference and more over to enjoy right to seek employment wherever one
pleases, to change employment at will and to engage in any lawful labor unions or business
corporations).

o Justice: This value of democracy can be understood in three general senses of fairness.
These are distributive Justice (the sense of distributing benefits and burdens in society via
agreed up on standards of fairness), corrective Justice (the sense that a proportional
response should be in place to correct wrongs and injuries) and procedural justice (the idea
that procedures used for gathering information and making decisions should be guided by such
principles as impartiality and openness of proceedings).

o Equality: Three notions of equality are of particular significance here for our discussion.
These are political equality (implying that all people who attain the status of adult hood have
equal political rights or in short one man-one vote- one value), social equality (implying that
there should be no social hierarchy at individual and collective level or no discrimination what so
ever) and economic equality (implying that all peoples of a country deserve equal and fair
assessment to the national resources services).
Although we can be exhaustive in our list, the followings constitute some of the fundamental
principles of democracy. These are;

A. Popular Sovereignty

This type of sovereignty is associated with power and legitimacy. In this way, the citizen as a
whole is the sovereign of the state and holds the ultimate authority over public officials and their
policies. Consent is given by the people through their regularly elected representatives and
through approval of all constitutional changes. Popular sovereignty also means that the people
have the right to withdraw their consent when the government fails to fulfill its obligations under
the constitution. On the other side, popular sovereignty in democracy assumes the principle of
majority rule, which means that within constitutional limits, majorities should have the right to
make political decisions. Such decisions are made within the framework of regular elections and
include the choice of who should be elected to public office and what laws should be passed by
legislative bodies.

The notion that sovereignty came from the people (popular sovereignty) became one of the main
foundations of modern democracy and constitutional principle. John Locke’s notion of popular
sovereignty contrasted with a later model developed from the philosophy of the French
intellectual Jean-Jacques Rousseau in the 18th century. Rousseau asserted that sovereignty was
based in the general will of a population (or the common good) and that there was no distinction
between the source of sovereignty and its exercise. The general will was consequently the basis
for national sovereignty and the means through which state authority was manifested. It was
expressed through the structure of government (which Rousseau argued should be a form of
direct democracy but was implemented as a representative system). The general will could and
would supersede the individual rights of citizens.

To this end, sovereignty implies the power to have a final say on an issue. The preamble of the
Ethiopian Constitution for instance says, “We the Nation, Nationality and Peoples... adopted…. this
Constitution”, expressly providing the doctrine of popular sovereignty, or rule by the people. Article
8 of the Constitution is more explicit in providing that ultimate political authority resides not in
the government or in any single government official, but rather, in the Nations, Nationality and
Peoples of Ethiopia. In democracy, the peoples own the government. The delegation of powers in
no way damages or diminishes the peoples’ right as the supreme sovereign. The government's
legitimacy
remains dependent on the people, who retain the inalienable right peacefully to alter their
government or amend their constitution. Besides, there are situations where the people’s sovereignty
in a democracy is expressed through their direct participation.

B. Constitutional Supremacy

This is a principle that puts the constitution at the highest level in the hierarchy of laws.
Constitutions are laws about the political procedures to be followed in making laws. They are
supreme laws, taking precedence over all others, and defining how all the others should be made.
Some analysts call them ‘meta-rules’ (rules about how to make rules), but the German
constitution calls them ‘the Basic Law’. As a mother of law, it is original law by which the system of
government is created, and to which the branches of government must look for all their powers
and authority. It is original because it is directly made by the people as the direct expression of the
will of the people. All other laws are secondary or derivate being commands of representatives of
the sovereign. Because, after all, the direct will of the people outrights the will of any other single
individual. Thus, according to this principle, the constitution is above all laws and organs of a
state. This principle dictates all laws and governmental or non-governmental acts to be under the
constitution. It also implies that if an act is found to be against the constitution, it would out of
effect or void. In the Ethiopian case, Article 9 of the FDRE constitution states that the highest
power and authority is vested in the nations, nationalities and peoples of Ethiopia to indicate that
they are the sovereign in the land.

C. Rule of Law

In contemporary time, almost in all countries, the concept of the rule of law has been reflected
either in their constitutions or statutes. There are two aspects of the rule of law that are
important. First, the law should govern the people and the people should obey the law. And
second, the law must be capable of being obeyed (‘good’ laws). This made the rule of law
different from ‘rule of men’ where the people were ruled by ‘bad’ laws. In order to maintain the
rule of law, an institution, independent from the legislative or executive or other forces, impartial
and free from interference or influence is required. In this case, the rule of law is the principle under
which a government exercises its authority in accordance with clear, objective, and publicly disclosed
laws. Laws must be adopted
and enforced through established procedure and incompliance with international recognized
standards.

The rule of law is a key component of a social order grounded in consistency, predictability, and
transparency. It is the foundation of a democratic society-the means by which people protect
their liberty. The principle is intended to be a safeguard against arbitrary rule. Thus, the concept of
rule of law is embodying the predominance of law over unrestricted authority; equality before the
law; and the law asserting individual rights. This also implies that due process of law and lack of
arbitrary treatment recognized and this has been added to the maintenance of order as necessary
for law to prevail. It requires government abided by written rules and statutes rather than the
arbitrary or absolutist “rule of man”.

D. Secularism

Secularism referred to as an approach that asserts to dismiss or ignores God, the divine, the
supernatural, and other religious viewpoints when discussing or participating in politics. Emphasis is
placed on human excellence, potential, fulfillment, “actualization,” and so on, instead of the
Godly, providential, or spiritual dimensions of life. Contemporary expressions of secularism
occur in the mainstream liberal media, business, public education, and social organizations. In
church and state matters, secularists demand a strict separation of religion and politics, keeping
prayer and religious instruction out of government, public schools, and other common
institutions.

Secularism is mostly understood to mean separation of state and religion. This principle demands
strict separation of religious and political affairs hence state and church operations basing on the
philosophy that individuals and groups in a free society should have freedom of conscience (the
right to decide for themselves what to believe in which case it can be threatened if government
becomes religious and supports some religions but not others). It asserts the freedom of religion,
and freedom from the government imposition of religion upon the people, and absence of state
privileges or subsidies to religions. Government should do only what is necessary to keep the
peace and prevent one religious group from violating the rights of others. To achieve this goal
government should not interfere with religion in any way.

E. Separation of Powers
The doctrine of separation of powers refers to the idea that political power should be divided
among several bodies or officers of the state as a precaution against too much concentration of
power. Most of the literature on federalism has emphasized the relationship between national and
sub-national governments but overlooked the organization of sub-national powers. Likewise, the
debate on the separation of powers in presidential and parliamentary systems has neglected the
role of federalism in strengthening the separation of powers. A federal polity is a constitutional
arrangement that creates executive, legislative, and judicial branches of government in its
constituent units. This definition is applied to all countries that are classified as federations, or
unions.

In order to promote accountability of government, hinder corruption and protect the fundamental
freedoms of citizens from the will of the government of the day, it is essential to keep separate
the parliament’s power to make laws, from the executive’s power to administer laws, and from
the judiciary’s power to hear and determine disputes according to the law. This separation is designed
to protect the people from a concentration of power, and the ability of individuals or groups to
manipulate government for personal gain and to ignore the will of the people. Separation of
powers is, therefore, an essential feature of constitutional government. Further, constitutionalism
ensures that the principal powers of government legislative, executive, and judicial-were not
monopolized by any single branch.

F. Free, Fair and Periodic Election

In order to establish democratic government, first the election should be free means all interested
parties to the election should get the chance to participate in the election. Secondly, fair means
after giving the chance of participation all of them should be treated equally without
discrimination. Finally, the election should be conducted periodically with fixed duration.

G. Majority Rule Minority Right

After conducting democratic election, those who gets the majority vote will establish a government.
The policies, programs and decisions of the majority will govern the country while the right of
the minority respected

H. Protection and Promotion of Human Rights

 Human rights are those naturally given values that reflect respect for human life and dignity
hence their protection and promotion test the legitimacy and constitionality of a democratic
government.

I. Multiparty System

Democracy also requires having several political parties working together in one political
system. These political parties should get equal constitutional guarantee, support and treatment to
compete for elections and present their offer freely to the voters. That enables to establish market
of ideas to the citizens and encourage parties to come with better alternatives to be elected
among the competitors.

Democratization
Question for Exercise:
What do you understand by the concept of democratization?

Democracy is a variable not a fixed phenomenon; it changes and develops over time, so that
what was regarded as good democratic practice a hundred years ago may not be now. Democracy
does not automatically arise out of “primal mud” but needs to be planted and nourished by years
of practice and experience through various levels of democratization process. Democratization is
the process of transitions from nondemocratic to democratic regimes that occur within a
specified period of time and that significantly outnumber transitions in the opposite direction
during that period. It is not a simple process and will taken an extend period of time to complete,
if it wishes to be prosperous. There are three main elements in democratization such as the
removal of the authoritarian regime, installation of a democratic regime, and the consolidation,
or long-term sustainability of the democratic regime.

By democratization simply we refer to the institutionalization and routinization of democratic ideals

and principles and their effective functioning. Moreover, democratization is a conclusive and
extended process, which involves the emergence or presence of the formal elements of a democratic
political system such as the recognition of basic civil and political rights, multiparty system, electoral
system and etc. Democratization in this sense, involves the full-scale transition from
authoritarian regime and its replacement by democratically elected regime. It involves the
rupturing all the links
 and connections of authoritarian leaders, party or army to the state apparatus. In this sense,
democratization represents a true rapture and a political transformation.

Actors of Democratization
Political Parties
The centrality of political parties for modern democracy is generally accepted both by contemporary
scholars and by policy-makers charged with fostering the development of newly emerging
democracies or with improving the quality of democracy in established democratic politics.
Despite their relatively recent appearance on the political stage, parties have put such a strong
mark on contemporary politics and democracy that twentieth century democracy could be best
described as party democracy.

It has been argued that parties are ―endemic to democracy, an unavoidable part of democracy.
In a democratic system, political parties provide the proper mode of functioning for the
government so that the majority party or a combination of parties controls the government, while
other parties serve as the opposition and attempt to check the abuses of power by the ruling
party. Citizens extend their desires, needs, and problems to the government through the political
parties. In fact, political parties represent an essential and important tool that acts as a bridge
between a society and its government. The existence of a strong and viable opposition keeps the
ruling party alert. It is also the duty of political parties to promote policies that will educate the
people about how a democratic system functions and offer different policy packages to the
electorates.

Media
Mass Media and Democracy are always related to each other. Media is a mirror of the society
and how democratic a society is, can be represented through media. Opinion leaders influence the
public opinion regarding political leaders and political system of any country. Hence, media has
an influential role in strengthening democracy. Hence, media and democracy have strong
association. Countries which are strong democracies always have strong and free media. Studies
show that a free and democratic society is not possible without an independent, free and
responsible media and active civil society.
 Saeed (2009) argues that the maturing of mass democracy in most societies has gone hand-in-
hand with development of mass communication as an important player in the organization of
public life and opinion formation on issues significant to the masses. To better understand how
free press enhance democracy, we need to look at various and distinct role of media, namely,
media as source of information, media as a watchdog, media as a civic forum and media as an
agenda setter. Norris (2006) measures how press freedom affects democracy, good governance
and human development and concludes that there is a strong relation between the critical role of
the free press, as one of the major components of democracy and good governance. Media in all
countries serves as a watchdog, as a source of information, a civic forum and an agenda setter.

Theoretically, the role of free media in processes of democratization is straightforward. The free
media serve as watchdogs, monitoring those in power and provide citizens with the information they
need to be free and self-governing and to hold governments accountable for their actions.
Therefore, freedom of the media is often included in the measures developed to assess and
compare the quality of democracy across countries.

Civic Societies
Civil society is the set of civil rights, including primarily everyone’s right to participate in public life.
Civil society forms the backbone of democracy. Larry Diamond (1999: 220-221) defines civil society
as “the realm of organized social life that is open, voluntary, bound by a legal order or set of
shared rules”. Diamond stated that civil society encompasses “private citizens acting collectively
to make demands to the state or to express in the public sphere their interests, preferences and
ideas or to check the authority of the state and make it accountable” (ibid: 221). Following
Diamond’s definition, civil society may contain a wide range of establishments concerned with
public matters. Civil society may comprise civic, issue-oriented, religious, and educational
interest groups and associations.

In large multicultural developing countries like Ethiopia, there are numerous gaps left by the
government in the development and democratization process. Civil societies have a potential of
playing numerous momentous roles for democratic development and consolidation. To mention
some: limiting the power of the state more generally, including challenging the abuses of
authority; monitoring human rights and strengthening the rule of law; monitoring elections and
enhancing the
 overall quality and credibility of the democratic process; educating citizens about their rights and
responsibilities; building a culture of tolerance and civic involvement; incorporating marginal groups
into the political process and enhancing the latter's responsiveness to societal interest and need;
providing alternative means, outside the state, for communities to raise their level of material
development; opening and pluralizing the flows of information; and building a constituency for
economic as well as political reforms.

Questions for Discussion:

 How would you describe the civil society in Ethiopia?
 Do public associations presently support the work of the government at national
and local levels? How?
 What role do public associations play in providing public information?
 Do any public policies make it difficult for public associations to communicate
information?

Human Rights: Concepts and Theories

What Are Human Rights?
Question for Exercise:
How do you define human rights? What comes to your mind when you read/heard the term
human rights?

Human rights are basic to humanity. They apply to all people everywhere. An understanding of
human rights is an important part of our individual status as human beings and of our collective
status as members of the global community of humankind.

The notion of human rights infers that fundamental entitlements belong to every member of the
human race. These are privileges someone can claim just because he/she is a human being
without any discrimination based on condition. The basic idea of human rights lies in people’s
recognition of the need to protect and affirm every other person’s individual dignity. It is also
common to call them ‘natural’ rights, since they are natural entitlements to everyone. Hence,
one of the points most
scholars in the field agreed on is the fact that human rights derived from fundamental human dignity
and worth.

Class Discussion:
Whose responsibility do you think is making sure everyone’s rights are fully respected?

The Universal Declaration of Human Rights (UDHR, Article 2), stipulates that human rights belong
to every human being “without distinction of any kind, such as race, color, sex, language,
religion, political or other opinion, national or social origin, property, birth or other status” (Art.
2). Thus, the only criteria someone must fulfil to enjoy these rights is being a human. However,
there is no universally agreed definition of the term human rights. Peoples understanding towards the
notion of human rights is changing from time to time. One prominent way of defining human
rights is to present them as a special kind of claim on others. For example, the right to education
denotes that everyone is entitled with the privilege to good education and the state have an
obligation to provide and fulfil the needed resources, structures, infrastructures and services.

Human rights provide the minimum standards indispensable for people to live worth-living life.
Human rights allow people to live the life they deserved to live, they aspire to live, and to live a
life with dignity and equality. Human rights give people a full control of their life and the
freedom to choose how they live, how they express themselves, and what kind of government
they want to support, among many other things. Human rights also guarantee people the means
necessary to satisfy their basic needs, such as food, housing, and education, so they can take full
advantage of all opportunities. Finally, by guaranteeing life, liberty, and security, human rights
protect people against abuse by individuals and groups who are more powerful. The United
Nations stated that human rights ensure that a human being will be able to fully develop and use
human qualities such as intelligence, talent, and conscience and satisfy his or her spiritual and other
needs.

Human rights are not just theoretical; they are recognized standards to which governments are to
be held accountable. There are basic tenets underlying human rights as they apply to all people.
Human rights are entitlements naturally endowed to all persons equally, universally and for a life
time. These are entitlements everyone can claim just because they are human beings. The only
precondition someone needs to fulfill in order to claim human rights is being a human. Hence,
they are necessarily imperative in forming and preserving a fair and civilized society. Human
rights are
established upon some main principles including universality, inalienability, indivisibility and
interdependence.

Question for Exercise:

Are you familiar with these principles of human rights? Try to explain what each principle is
intended for.

When we say human rights are universal, it is to show their worldwide applicability. This means
all rights are expected to be applied equally everywhere, every-time and to everyone in this world.
They transcend time, geographical and cultural disparities. However, this is not to mean that no
room is available to contextual realities and value differences among various communities around the
globe. Article one of the Universal Declaration of Human Rights (UDHR here after) stipulated
that “All human beings are born free and equal in dignity and rights.” It also stated that human
rights belong to every human being “without distinction of any kind, such as race, color, sex,
language, religion, political or other opinion, national or social origin, property, birth or other
status” (Art. 2).

Human rights are inalienable. That means you cannot lose these rights any more than you can
stop to be a human being. These entitlements are essential to live a human or worth-living life.
Human rights are not luxury or privileges we only enjoy after some preconditions are met, rather
part of our basic necessities. We may not die, but we cannot live the life we supposed to live a
human creature without our rights and freedoms. Human rights are indivisible. This implies that
human rights are inherent to the dignity of every human person. It is not possible for one to live a
worth living life without the full respect of these rights; this concerns all the civil, cultural,
economic, political or social rights endowed for all human beings.

Human rights are interdependent and interrelated. This is to mean that all rights have equal
weight/importance and it is not possible for one to fully enjoy any of his/her right without the
others. For instance, one cannot enjoy his/her right to life without his/her rights of health,
education, freedom from torture and inhuman treatment, right to an adequate standard of living
and the like. The violation of all these rights threatens one’s life and existence in general. That is true
for all our human rights, not possible to enjoy the one ignoring the other. That means we cannot
prioritize one right from others, because no right can stand on itself. The fulfillment of one right
often depends, wholly or in part, upon the fulfillment of others. The respect of one right (e.g.
right
 to life) is subjected to the respect of our other rights (e.g. right to an adequate standard of living),
and the vice versa. Thus, human rights are entitlements which apply to all equally, and all have
the right to take part in all the decisions that affect their lives.

The other important principle of human rights is the principle of equality and non-
discrimination. This principles pronounces that all individuals are equal as human beings and by
virtue of the inherent dignity of each human person. Accordingly, no one should face discrimination
on the basis of race, color, ethnicity, gender, age, language, sexual orientation, religion, political
or other opinion, national, social or geographical origin, disability, property, birth or other status
as recognized by many of the international and regional, national human rights frameworks.

Human Rights and Responsibilities

Human rights involve responsibility and duties toward other people and the community. Individuals
often have a responsibility to ensure that they exercise their rights with due regard for the rights
of others. For example, exercising freedom of speech should not infringe someone else’s right to
privacy. Human rights are part of a context of people living together in societies. As part of this,
there must be a legal, social and international order for human rights to be realized effectively.

Promoting for the respect of human rights is one of the core missions of the UN and its agencies.
Besides, state parties to the UN are mandated with the promotion, protection and fulfillment of
human rights. Human rights protection and fulfillment is considered as one of the functions of
governments, one of the very reasons why people need a government or political system in
general. This is clearly states in various human rights instruments and resolutions issued by the UN
including the UN Charter, Universal Declaration of Human Rights (UDHR), International
Covenant on Civil and Political Rights (ICCPR), International Covenant on Economic, Social
and Cultural Rights (ICESC), Convention on the Rights of Children (CRC), Convention on all
forms Discrimination against Women (CEDAW) and the Paris Principles. For instance, principle
63 (1 and 2) of the Paris Principles (1993) stipulated that:

A national institution shall be vested with competence to promote and protect human rights. A national
institution shall be given as broad a mandate as possible, which shall be clearly set forth in a constitutional or
legislative text, specifying its composition and its sphere of competence.
 Mandates of state institutions in relation to human rights are also clearly stipulated in the FDRE
Constitution. The Constitution shows its dedication to human rights and freedoms by reserving
one of its eleven chapters, if not the biggest one, to human rights and fundamental freedoms. The
third chapter of the Constitution guarantees a list of civil, political, economic, social and cultural
rights (arts. 13 to 44) in consistence with the core international human rights instruments; mainly
the UDHR. The Constitution clearly declares the superior legal status given to international
human rights instruments over domestic laws in interpreting the constitutional provisions speak
human rights. Article 13 of the FDRE Constitution reads “the fundamental rights and freedoms
specified in this Chapter shall be interpreted in a manner conforming to the principles of the
Universal Declaration of Human Rights, International Covenants on Human Rights and
international instruments adopted by Ethiopia”.

Landmarks in Development of Human Rights

The modern human rights notions are the result of extended tussles to end many forms of
oppressions; including slavery, genocide, discrimination, and government tyranny, in history of
world societies. In their contemporary manifestation, human rights are a set of individual and
collective rights that have been formally promoted and protected through international and
domestic law since the adoption of UDHR in 1948. The following diagram shows the timeline of
major international human rights treaties or instruments with the dates of their adoption.
 Source: UN, 2017

Rights Holders and Duty Bearers

Rights become rights when the job of identifying the two main actors is done. This works for
every rights we may possess as an individual or group. These are right holders and duty
bearers. Right holders are those who are entitled to enjoy, possess or claim a given right. Human
rights provisions usually started by mentioning the right holder using terms like “every human
being, all children, women, people with disability…” from that we can simple know for whom is a
given right intended. Duty bearers are those who carry the obligation of promoting, protecting,
and fulfilling these right
to the right holders. There must be always someone you will claim the protection, provision and
fulfillment of your rights from and become accountable for any failures to do so.

Questions for Exercise:

Identify the rights holders and duty bearers of the following rights in the FDRE Constitution;
 The right to life (Article 15)

 The right to Privacy (Article 26)

 Freedom of Religion, Belief and Opinion (Article 27)

 Rights of Nations, Nationalities, and Peoples (Article 39)

 The right to development (Article 43)

The primary (not the only) duty bearer for almost all of our rights is the state. Besides,
individuals and other non-state actors may be named as duty bearers depending on the nature of
the right. Thus, it has been typically understood that individuals and certain groups are bearers of
human rights, while the state is the prime organ that can protect, provide and fulfil human rights.
Moreover, uninterrupted and cyclic relationship is expected among rights holders and duty
bearers. The rights holders should always claim their rights from the duty bearers and the duty
bearers should discharge their responsibility of promoting, protecting, and fulfilling the rights out
of sense of obligation or duty. The following diagram shows the relationship among rights
holders and duty bears from human rights perspective.
 MORAL AND CITIZENSHIP EDUCATION (MCED 1011)
Participation

Accountability

Figure 1 Duty-bearer-rights-holders Relationship Cycle

Source: UN OHCHR, 2017

Categories of Human Rights

Questions for Exercise:
Identify some categories of human rights comes to your mind?

Human rights cover virtually every area of human activity. They include civil and political
rights, such as freedom of speech and freedom from torture. They also include economic and
social rights, such as the rights to health and education. Some rights apply to individuals, such as the
right to a fair trial: these are called individual rights. Others apply to groups of people, such as the
right to a healthy environment or to native title: these are called collective rights. There are various
ways used by different scholars to categories human rights. These writers use various reference
point in classifying rights in to different clusters. The common way of categorization is the one
developed by Karl Vasak (1982) who have classified Human Rights into three: First, Second and
Third generation rights. However, Vasak’s representation of generations is criticized by many authors
for its failure to capture the nature of human rights mainly in “one respect: classes of human
rights, unlike

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generations in life, don’t replace each other sequentially over time” (Alston, 2000: 641). Carl
Wellman states the problem in Vasak generational categorization stunningly: “generations
succeed one another, not only in that the members of one generation are born before those of the
next generation, but also in that parents tend to die before their children” (Wellman, 2000: 641).

Civil and Political Rights

Civil and political rights are the first generation rights which uphold the sanctity of the individual
before the law and guarantee his or her ability to participate freely in civil, economic, and
political society. Civil rights include such rights as the right to life, liberty and personal security,
equality before the law, protection from arbitrary arrest and the right to religious freedom and
worship. When protected, civil rights guarantee one's 'personhood' and freedom from state-
sanctioned interference or violence. Political rights include such rights as the right to speech and
expression, assembly and association, vote and political participation. Political rights thus
guarantee individual rights to involvement in public affairs and the affairs of state.

Civil and political rights are seen as an immediately realizable rights. This is to mean that all
states, regardless of their economic, social, cultural and political developments or realities, are
expected to ensure the realization of these rights immediately. No precondition could be
acceptable for any violations of civil and political rights. They have also been called as
‘negative’ rights to indicate the fact that they simply entail the absence of their violation in order
to be upheld. The state, as a primary duty bearer, is expected here to let citizens enjoy their rights
and freedoms and not intrude in their private life. Besides staying aside of the life of the rights
holders, the state is also responsible to protect them from any potential interventions from other
non-state actors; such as individuals, groups and organizations. Hence, protection is the main
obligation of the duty bearers for civil and political rights.

Question for Exercise:

List four civil and political rights recognized in the FDRE Constitution and the corresponding
articles.

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Social and Economic Rights
In contrast to the above set of rights, the second generation (social, economic, and cultural) rights
are considered by many writers as an aspirational and programmatic set of rights that national
governments ought to strive to achieve through progressive implementation. Social and
economic rights include such rights as the right to education, health and wellbeing, work and fair
remuneration, form trade unions and free associations, leisure time, and the right to social
security. When protected, these rights help promote individual flourishing, social and economic
development, and self-esteem. Cultural rights include such rights as the right to the benefits of
culture, indigenous land, rituals, and shared cultural practices, and speak one's own language and
‘mother tongue’ education. Cultural rights are meant to maintain and promote sub-national
cultural affiliations and collective identities, and protect minority communities against the
incursions of national assimilationist and nation-building projects.

Unlike the civil and political rights, rights in this category are called ‘positive’ rights to indicate
that whose realization is highly subjected to the economic capability of states. One of the strong
counter-arguments to this false dichotomy is to assert that all rights are positive since the full
protection of all categories of human rights ultimately relies on the relative fiscal capacity of
states. For instance, the protection of property rights requires a well-funded judiciary, police
force, and fire service, as well as a well-developed infrastructure that can relay information,
goods, and services in the event that property is under threat in some way. The same is true for
the rights to vote. Besides to avoiding segregation and discrimination at the polls, running a free
and fair election requires a tremendous amount of financial support, technology, and
infrastructure. However, by claiming that all rights are positive, it is not to undermine the
negative characteristics or dimensions of human rights. Comprehensive understanding of human
rights requires the recognition of both positive and negative dimensions. Thus, for every rights,
we need to ask what the positive (those actions that states can take to provide resources and
policies for improving the protection of human rights) and negative (those actions that states do
(or not do) that deliberately violate (or protect) human rights) dimensions are, instead of trying to
classify whether a given category of rights are positive or negative.

Second generation rights are considered as “less fundamental” or unrealistic rights because of the
issues of justicialibility. Justiciability is not obviously the quality of economic, social and cultural

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rights. For this category of rights there is a room for the state to justify duty failure referring to
lack of capacity, resources or finance. For instance, suppose you are living in Ethiopia and you
are still unemployed for some years after finishing college. You may argue that “I have the right to
work and fair remuneration, and should be taken as a violation of my human right at the time the
state fails fulfill or provide it to me”. This will be considered as human rights violation only if
the state is economically capable (in the condition to fulfil that right for every citizen with the
resources at hand). If the state able to justify that the needed resources and finance to fulfil or
provide that particular rights are not adequately available – then that will be the end of the story.
That means, the state’s duty failure and the violation of your right can be justified. This makes
many authors in the field to question the justiciability of most of the economic, social and
cultural rights.

Question for Exercise:

List three economic, social and cultural (one from each category) rights recognized in the FDRE
Constitution and the corresponding articles.

Peace, Development and Environmental Rights

Third generation (solidarity) rights are aimed to guarantee that all individuals and groups have
the right to share in the benefits of the earth's natural resources, as well as those goods and
products that are made through processes of economic growth, expansion, and innovation. Many
of these rights are transnational in nature. They requires redistribution of wealth, resources from
developed to developing nations. Solidarity rights also require global cooperation and shared
responsibility to world peace, development and the environment. Third Generation (solidarity)
rights include rights to public goods such as the right to development, the environment and
peace. The third generation rights are still considered as an emerging rights, where the rights
holders and duty bearers of the rights included under this category are yet to be identified clearly.
Think, for instance, about the right to peace or right to clean and protected environment. Whose
right are these? And whose responsibility? At this stage it is difficult to determine answer these key
questions, unfortunately.

Question for Exercise:

List two solidarity rights recognized in the FDRE Constitution and the corresponding articles.

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The following table provides the summary of the classification of rights.

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Generation First generation Second generation Third generation
rights rights rights
Category of rights Civil and political Socio-economic rights Solidarity rights
rights
State obligation Promoting and Providing and ?
protecting fulfilling
What is expected from Non-interference Positive interference Positive involvement
the State
Realization Immediate Progressive Progressive
Right holders Individuals (mostly) Groups (mostly) ?

Derogations and Limitations on Human Rights

There are two conditions under which human rights can be restricted: limitation and derogation.
Limitations are lawful infringements of rights. Limitations are deviations from the standard manner
of dealing with rights imposed primarily to facilitate optimal use or exercise of rights in a context
of scarce public resources, space and time. Limitations can take the form of restrictions and/or
derogation. Restrictions are acceptable or justifiable limits of human rights during the normal
times. Restrictions circumscribed the manner, or place, and the extent to which rights can be
enjoyed or exercised in a particular set of circumstances, often in normal times. Derogation
means a temporary non-application and suspension of rights by the state in abnormal or
emergency (natural/artificial) situations.

Enjoyment of human rights is subject to limitations and this limitations are normally found in
constitutional human rights and international human rights treaties. But that limitation should not be
arbitrary, it should be based on legality, necessity, rationality and proportionality supposed to be
determined by the human rights law. Limitations may be made on the enjoyment of human rights
for the sake of: safeguarding of national security or public peace; the prevention of crimes; the
protection of health, public morality; the protection of the rights and freedom of others; and
safeguarding democratic institutions

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In Ethiopia, for example, both federal and regional governments have constitutional powers to
limit exercising human rights since they have the power to declare state of emergency is their
respective domains. Regional states can declare in two conditions: natural disaster and epidemics.
Besides, the FDRE Constitution (art. 93) clearly specifies four conditions for such declaration by
the Federal Government. The Council of Ministers can declare a State of Emergency in the
following situations:
1) External Invasion, 2) Breakdown of law and order when it: (i) endangers the constitutional order,
(ii) cannot be controlled by regular law enforcement, 3) Natural disaster, and 4) Epidemic.

Non-derogability of Human Rights

The concept of non-derogability has been one of the important aspects of the international human
rights laws and treaties. Some of the important treaties concerning human rights, including the
ICCPR have special provisions explaining whether its member states can derogate from certain
rights during some exceptional situations. States believe that some provisions of derogability are
necessary to allow them exercise their sovereign power during exceptional circumstances for the
greater good of their people. However, this kind of derogation is not unconditional and it has its
own limits.

There are also certain unique and inherent human rights, which can never be suspended under
any circumstances. For instance, the ICCPR, which also allows states to suspend some of the
rights under specific conditions, clearly mentions that some of the articles are non-derogable.
They are: right against arbitrary deprivation of life (art. 6); freedom from torture or cruel,
inhuman and degrading treatment or punishment; and freedom from medical or scientific
experimentation without consent (art. 7); freedom from slavery and servitude (art. 8); freedom
from imprisonment for inability to fulfill a contractual obligation (art. 11); prohibition against the
retrospective operation of criminal laws (art. 15); right to recognition before the law (art. 16); and
freedom of thought, conscience and religion (art. 18).

The FDRE Constitution (art. 93(3[c])) states that rights under Articles 1, 18, 25, and sub-Articles
1 and 2 of Article 39 of the Constitution are non-derogable rights. However, it is good to mention
here that this is not to mean that all other rights are suspend-able anytime at the will of the state.
In this regard, Article 4 of ICCPR clearly established the specific conditions could be used as a
ground for derogation. Conditions like the existence of real emergency, threat to life of a nation,

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proclamation of emergency, and guarantee of non-discrimination are justifiable grounds to
suspend some of or all the derogable rights.

Implementation and Enforcement of Human Rights

International Mechanisms and the International Bill
of Human Rights
The very reason behind the establishment of the international law is ensuring global peace and
security, and help men to lead a worth-living life; a life with liberty, equality, and freedom from
violence. Hence, the main objectives of the international law and its institutions is in one way or
another related with the protection of human rights. The issues of human rights come into picture
in the international law starting from the adoption of the Charter of the United Nations on
October 24, 1945. The charter make protection of human rights one of the three main objectives
of the UN, in addition to preserving global peace and stimulating comprehensive development.
The United Nations has six prime organs, namely; the General Assembly, Security Council,
Economic & Social Council (ECOSOC), International Criminal Court (ICC), Office of the
Secretariat and the Trusteeship Council (Suspended operations-1994 with the independence of
Palau).

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FIGURE 2 UN ORGANS

The General Assembly, Security Council and ICC are functioning as the legislative (law
making), executive (law enforcing) and judiciary (law interpreting) organs of the UN respectively.
The Office of High Commissioner for Human Rights (OHCHR) is established under the
ECOSOC, and is an organ particularly dedicated to the promotion, observance and monitoring of
human rights worldwide. The international bill of human rights is made up of various treaty and
charter based human rights instruments; treaties, covenants, charters and declarations.

The UN Charter clearly stated that the organization is dedicated to help men live a life free from fear
of war, the promotion of human rights and the worth of human person and dignity of mankind. It
also seeks to establish justice, and promotes corporation between the States to discharge their
duties to create a just economic, social and cultural order wherein mankind can realize the
fundamental human rights in accordance with the principles of international law.

The Universal Declaration of Human Rights (UDHR) is a human rights instruments considered
as the groundwork of most of the post-1945 codification of human rights. It is the basis for
human

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rights protection and promotion around the world and has been endorsed by all countries. Many
countries have included its provisions in their basic laws or constitutions (Used 2). Most of the
modern national, regional and international human rights regimes are established based on this
declaration. Many of the UN human rights instruments are drafted under the shadow of the
UDHR. Actually, almost all international human rights instruments comprises at least a preambular
reference to the Universal Declaration, as do many declarations adopted unanimously or by
consensus by the UN General Assembly. It has served as a model for most of the laws,
constitutional provisions and rules aimed at protecting citizen’s rights and freedoms.

The UDHR is not a binding instrument, but claimed to have great moral weight and popularity. It
is a declaration adopted by the General Assembly of the United Nations in 1948. Thus, no
obligation can be drawn from that instrument, since it is not a treaty based document. However,
its wider global acceptance is enabling it to be seen as a customary law. The UN claims that the
Declaration is the most translated document in the world to show its inclusive nature and spread
(UN, 2015: iii). Hence, beyond doubt the UDHR is most widely accepted declaration of its kind
(Walter, 2014: 121). The preamble of the UDHR states that “the General Assembly proclaims this
Universal Declaration of Human Rights as a common standard of achievement for all peoples
and all nations, to the end that every individual and every organ of society, keeping this
Declaration constantly in mind, shall strive by teaching and education to promote respect for
these rights and freedoms […]” (UN, 1948: 1).

The first two provisions of the UDHR deals with its two core principles; equality and non-
discrimination.1 The following 21 articles (Articles 3 to 21) postulate civil and political rights. In
these articles, rights set forth include the right to life, liberty, a fair trial, free speech, privacy, of
personal security, and of movement, as well as freedom from slavery, torture, and arbitrary
arrest. The subsequent five articles (Articles 22 through 27) articulates economic, social and cultural
rights recognized in the Declaration. These rights include entitlements such as the right to social
security, right to work, reasonable payment and leisure, the right to an adequate standard of health,
well-being

1 Article 1 stipulates that "All human beings are born equal in dignity and rights. They are endowed with reason and
conscience and should act towards one another in a spirit of brotherhood". Article 2 reads "Everyone is entitled to all
the rights and freedoms set forth in this Declaration, without distinction of any kind such as race, color, sex,

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language, religion, political

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and education, the right to partake in cultural life. To end with, Articles 28 through 30 provides
the general frameworks needed for the enjoyment of the above mentioned rights.

Besides to the UN Charter and the UDHR, the UN presently has more than ten core human rights
treaty based human rights instruments. These includes, but not limited to, the Convention on the
Prevention and Punishment of the Crime of Genocide (1948), the Convention Relating to the
Status of Refugees (1951), the International Covenant on Civil and Political Rights (ICCPR), the
Slavery Convention (1926, but amended by Protocol in 1953), the International Covenant on
Civil and Political Rights (1966), the International Covenant on Economic, Social and Cultural Rights
(1966), the Convention against Torture and Other Cruel, Inhuman or Degrading Treatment or
Punishment (CAT), the International Convention on the Elimination of All Forms of Racial
Discrimination (ICERD), the Convention on the Elimination of All Forms of Discrimination
against Women (CEDAW), the Convention on the Rights of the Child (CRC), and the
International Convention on the Protection of the Rights of All Migrant Workers and Members
of their Families.

Each of the above human rights treaty instruments has an autonomous monitoring body,
composed of independent experts who examine the reports that signatory nations submit under
the treaty. These committees are also in charge of issuing "concluding observations/comments",
where they summarize their concerns about certain states and also give recommendations for the
future. Ethiopia is a signatory member to all of the aforementioned core international human
rights instruments. Besides, Ethiopia has also endorsed other area-specific treaties such as those
enacted under the auspices of International Labor Organization (ILO). All of the provisions in all
of the treaty-based human rights instruments are expected to fully apply here in Ethiopia. Thus,
beyond its constitutional mandate, the state of Ethiopia has a treaty obligation emanated from
those international instruments to realize human rights at domestic level. As a final point, it is
good to mention here that Ethiopia is one of the countries of the world that have ratified many of
the most important international human rights instruments.

Regional Mechanisms
In addition to the international human rights regime functioned under the UN umbrella, there are
regional human rights systems which cover three parts of the world; Africa, the Americas and
Europe. These two (international and regional) systems are aimed to make sure state actors are

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fulfilling their obligation in promoting, protecting, providing and fulfilling their citizen’s rights.
Hence, if an individual or groups feel that his/her/their rights are not protected on the domestic
level, “the international system comes into play, and protection can be provided by the global or
the regional system”. Actually, this works only for the countries found in regions of the world
where such systems are in place. As mentioned before, regional human rights systems are
currently established only in Europe, Africa and American regions. The alternative for citizens
live in the other regions is to take their complaints to the UN human rights system, which is
barely functional. However, beyond their existence, the functionality of these systems is highly
questionable.

Question for Discussion:

Do you think there is a hierarchy among the international, regional and national human rights
regimes?

These human rights systems are established independent, but as part of regional integration
arrangements. This is the case in all the three regions have human rights institutions. In African, this
system is established under the African Union (AU) structure; in the Americas it is part of the
Organization of American States (OAS); and in Europe it is embedded in the European Union’s
(EU) organizational structure. The other regional integration agreements we found in various places
in the world does not have such human rights mandate. This includes, for instance, North
American Free Trade Area (NAFTA), ASEAN, and OPEC. Such arrangements are established
for economic or political purposes other than human rights.

Many authors in the field agreed on the importance of regional systems referring into the
opportunity they offer for regional values to be taken into consideration when human rights
norms are defined and framed. However, it should be also recognized that if this goes too far, of
compromising the idea of the universality of human rights. Regional human rights systems are
also recognized for providing a better systems of enforcement than the global system. It allows
regions to apply the relevant enforcement mechanism that fits to their context. For example, the
EU founds judicial approaches more appropriate and the AU inclined to non-judicial mechanism.
The global human rights system lacks such flexibility.

The African human rights system is operative under the organizational structure of the AU since

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in July 2002. Currently,
Charter

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on Human and Peoples' Rights (1981/86). Besides, a protocol to the African Charter on Human
and Peoples' Rights on the Establishment of the African Court on Human and Peoples' Rights
(1998/2004) is adopted in 2004 and ratified by 21 member states. This Protocol entered into force
in January 2004 and the process is underway to establish the Court. The AU Summit has started
this endeavor by taking a decision to merge the African Human Rights Court with the African
Court of Justice in July 2004. Ethiopia is a signatory party to the Banjul Charter since 1991 and to the
African Charter on the Rights and Welfare of the Child in 2001.

The Ethiopian Human Rights System

The foundation of the observance of the human rights in Ethiopia is the FDRE Constitution,
which was ratified in 1994. The Constitution is the supreme law of the land and the source and
basis of legality of all other laws. The FDRE Constitution classifies human rights as one of its
five fundamental principles and declares that human rights and freedoms, emanating from the
nature of mankind, are inviolable and inalienable and that the human rights of citizens and
peoples are respected. The Constitution further empowers all Federal and State legislative, executive
and judicial organs at all levels with the responsibility and duty to respect and enforce the
Constitutional provisions of human rights.

The FDRE Constitution has established a national human rights regimes by recognizing most of
the human rights entitlements acknowledged by the core international and regional human rights
instruments. These rights cover civil and political rights (arts. 14 to 38), socio-economic rights (arts.
41 to 42) and group rights (arts. 39, 43 and 44). About one-third of the Constitution is devoted to
enshrining fundamental rights and freedoms. Accordingly, most civil and political rights and
economic, social and cultural rights as well as environmental rights and the right to development are
stipulated in detail. Further Article 9/4/ and Article 13 of the Constitution state that international
agreements ratified by Ethiopia are an integral part of the law of the land and the fundamental
rights and freedoms specified in the Constitution are to be interpreted in a manner conforming to
the principles of the UDHR, International Covenants on Human Rights and international
instruments adopted by Ethiopia.

Moreover, the Constitution gives outstanding emphasis to the rights of women, children, persons
with disability, and of nation, nationalities, and peoples. Besides including a vast of human rights

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provisions, the Constitution has required the establishment of human rights and democratic
institutions; including the national human rights commission, general attorney office and office
of ombudsmen, with an independent judiciary or courts equipped with the needed resources.

To end with, there have been established institutions with the specific and prominent mandate of
respect and promotions of human rights and the main organizations in this respect are: the
Ethiopian Human Rights Commission (EHRC) and the Ethiopian Institution of the Ombudsman
(EIO). Additionally, the Federal and Regional Ethics and Anti-Corruption Commissions and the
Chief Auditor’s Office are agencies that consolidate transparency and accountability. The
National Election Board was established on the basis of the Constitution’s dictum that state
power can be assumed only through representatives elected by universal and equal suffrage held
by secret ballot, guaranteeing the free expression of the will of the electors. The above structured
nexus is designed to ensure respect, protection and promotion of human rights.

Chapter Summary
Human rights, constitution/alism and democracy are some of the core concerns of this course.
The chapter deals with these three important notions one by one. The chapter discussions goes
from definitions/meanings to theoretical arguments around these concepts. The core ideas or
arguments of the major authors in the areas are discussed briefly. Human rights are explained in
the first section as entitlements with both legal and social recognition. Human rights mainly
engaged two main actors: rights owners and duty bearers. It is the cyclic interaction between the
rights holders and duty bearers the respect and realization of human rights come to practice. The
Universal Declaration of Human Rights associates human rights with "the highest aspiration" of
the common people, and proclaims itself to be a "common standard" for all. Human rights are
also recognized and stipulated in our FDRE Constitution in similar manner. Thus, the realization
of all human rights is not a matter of choice for states and non-state actors working in the area, it
is rather an obligation must be fulfil if citizens have to live a worth living life. Constitution/alism
and democracy are also imperative in any political system. Both can be seen as a basis for the
promotion, protection and fulfilment of human rights. Constitutional regimes exercises limited
power and respects citizen’s rights. The respect, fulfillment and provision of rights is also one of
the fundamental principles of democracy. Thus, these three concepts are not mutually exclusive.

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Self-Check Questions
Give Short Answer for the following questions
6. What do you think of the reason for Europe to be the pioneer in the protection and
promotion of human rights?
7. Discuss the status and condition of the respect and promotion of human rights in African
context in-group. Due think that Africa has a good record in this regard? If not what do you
think of the possible reasons?
8. As a document setting common standard for human rights, how do you evaluate the
contents of UDHR? Do you think the document is exhaustive?
9. What roles can private institutions play in the global move for the respect of human rights?
And what possible challenges do you think the face?
10. Now days there is this argument that 'unless and otherwise the issue of the problem of
globalization of poverty is solved humanitarian crises will be the defining feature of the
world and hence all issue of human right revolves around global redistribution of resources
to eliminate the gap between the few rich and the many poor.' Discuss in-group.
11. Discuss the right to life in view of FDRE constitution? What arguments can you forward
for the legalization or for the illegalization of death
penalty?

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