Goitom Gebreluel

Ethiopia transformed from a state on the verge of collapse at the end of the Cold War into one of the world's fastest-developing economies and a regional power in the Horn of Africa in less than two decades. Since 2018 its economic, military and diplomatic status have, however, become significantly compromised yet again. What explains these significant fluctuations in regional power status? Drawing on policy documents and in-depth interviews with diplomatic, military and political officials from the Horn of Africa this article conducts a comparative analysis of the nature and variation of Ethiopia's regional power status under the Ethiopian People's Revolutionary Democratic Front (EPRDF) in 2000–2018 and the Prosperity Party (PP) in 2018–2022. The findings illustrate that the fluctuations in regional power were primarily caused by different grand strategies, which in turn reflected the priorities of the EPRDF's developmental state and the PP's restorative nationa...

Ethiopia transformed from a state on the verge of collapse at the end of the Cold War into one of the world's fastest-developing economies and a regional power in the Horn of Africa in less than two decades. Since 2018 its economic, military and diplomatic status have, however, become significantly compromised yet again. What explains these significant fluctuations in regional power status? Drawing on policy documents and in-depth interviews with diplomatic, military and political officials from the Horn of Africa this article conducts a comparative analysis of the nature and variation of Ethiopia's regional power status under the Ethiopian People's Revolutionary Democratic Front (EPRDF) in 2000–2018 and the Prosperity Party (PP) in 2018–2022. The findings illustrate that the fluctuations in regional power were primarily caused by different grand strategies, which in turn reflected the priorities of the EPRDF's developmental state and the PP's restorative nationalist ideologies. These grand strategic concepts shaped Ethiopian government policies on key issues like defence doctrine, status-seeking, economic development, and rivalry and alliance management. These policies had a direct and significant impact on Ethiopia's state capacity, its ability to project military power and its diplomatic influence.

Authors: Ermias Woldesenbet, Goitom Gebreluel and Biniam Bedasso Ethiopia’s recent experiment with a developmental state model delivered double-digit economic growth and significant expansion of public services for nearly two decades. However, a wave of violent protests that began in 2014 culminated in a leadership change and the termination of the developmental experiment in 2018 as well as a regionalised civil war in 2020. In this working paper, we explore why Ethiopia yet again succumbed to political violence and instability by investigating the relationships between ethnic behaviour, economic development and political violence in the period 1997–2020. First, we explore trends in economic growth, horizontal and vertical economic inequality, as well as social mobility under Ethiopia's developmental state. Secondly, we account for temporal and geographic patterns and correlates of political violence in 1997–2019 by using ACLED data. Finally, we account for the microfoundations of political discontent using survey data on political preferences from 2020. Our survey data explores perceptions of individual and group-level relative deprivation, aspiration gaps, future expectations and social mobility. Our data and analysis indicate that Ethiopia maintained relatively low levels of horizontal inequality but that vertical inequality was poorly managed, which manifested itself through – among other things – low intergenerational mobility. We also find that political violence was driven by grievances (measured through economic vulnerability and repression), opportunity structures for mobilisation (measured through urbanisation and youth demographics) and the ethno-national composition of administrative districts. Contrary to the macro-level economic data, our micro-level survey data indicates that inter-group economic grievances trump perceptions of vertical or individual relative deprivation. Finally, we also test the extent to which political discontent is a function of increased aspirations that are stimulated by improved material well-being and thereby high aspiration gaps – or what is known as the ‘Tocqueville paradox’. We find no support for this counter-intuitive relationship in Ethiopia, as various indicators of frustration were negatively correlated with income.

Authors: Ermias Woldesenbet, Goitom Gebreluel and Biniam Bedasso

Ethiopia’s recent experiment with a developmental state model delivered double-digit economic growth and significant expansion of public services for nearly two decades. However, a wave of violent protests that began in 2014 culminated in a leadership change and the termination of the developmental experiment in 2018 as well as a regionalised civil war in 2020. In this working paper, we explore why Ethiopia yet again succumbed to political violence and instability by investigating the relationships between ethnic behaviour, economic development and political violence in the period 1997–2020. First, we explore trends in economic growth, horizontal and vertical economic inequality, as well as social mobility under Ethiopia's developmental state. Secondly, we account for temporal and geographic patterns and correlates of political violence in 1997–2019 by using ACLED data. Finally, we account for the microfoundations of political discontent using survey data on political preferences from 2020. Our survey data explores perceptions of individual and group-level relative deprivation, aspiration gaps, future expectations and social mobility.

Our data and analysis indicate that Ethiopia maintained relatively low levels of horizontal inequality but that vertical inequality was poorly managed, which manifested itself through – among other things – low intergenerational mobility. We also find that political violence was driven by grievances (measured through economic vulnerability and repression), opportunity structures for mobilisation (measured through urbanisation and youth demographics) and the ethno-national composition of administrative districts. Contrary to the macro-level economic data, our micro-level survey data indicates that inter-group economic grievances trump perceptions of vertical or individual relative deprivation. Finally, we also test the extent to which political discontent is a function of increased aspirations that are stimulated by improved material well-being and thereby high aspiration gaps – or what is known as the ‘Tocqueville paradox’. We find no support for this counter-intuitive relationship in Ethiopia, as various indicators of frustration were negatively correlated with income.

Regional rivalries have been a major source of insecurity in the Horn of Africa, and have contributed to inter-state wars, civil wars and state partitions. This thesis examines Ethiopia's rivalry management strategies under the EPRDF government. It does so by focusing on the initiation, escalation and de-escalation of Ethiopia's rivalries with Sudan, Eritrea and Somalia in the period 1991-2018. I argue that Ethiopia's approach to rivalry management has been shaped by its foreign policy orientations. Three distinct orientations are identified, which lead to different strategies and outcomes. The first and oldest foreign policy orientation is Ethiopia Irredenta, which is rooted in Ethiopia's pre-modern Imperial past. It has two core foreign policy objectives: territorial irredentism and status seeking, and has an approach to rivalry management that centres on military force and the pursuit of a victor's peace. The second orientation is the Revolutionary orientation, which guided the EPRDF's foreign relations in 1991-1998. It was based on the premise that the belligerence of past Ethiopian governments had been the main cause behind regional conflicts, and concluded that with the 1991 revolution in Ethiopia peaceful regional relations would follow suit. This orientation did not anticipate conflict and therefore led to policies such as a significant demobilization of Ethiopia's armed forces. It also did not problematize cooperation and hence did not formulate a strategy for cooperation. The Developmental State orientation guided Ethiopia's foreign policy in 2002-2018, and was premised on the idea that Ethiopia was an economically and politically fragile state that needed to prioritize speedy economic development. From this premise an approach to rivalry management that centres on strategic restraint and the active pursuit of economic development was derived. This meant that Ethiopia had to avoid conventional military confrontation due to its high economic costs, and instead rely on diplomatic strategies such as co-opt [...]