Evolving state building conversations and political settlement in Ethiopia

Abstract

This paper examines the evolving state-building conversations in Ethiopia and the role of political settlement thereof in charting a pathway for durable peace and strong state. The paper argues that costly mistakes in state and nation building, the radicalisation of the Ethiopian Student Movement coupled with Marxism–Leninism and ethno-nationalism polarised and fragmented the state-building conversations of the country leading to civil war in the 1970s and 80s. This led to an exclusionary victor settlement in 1991 when the TPLF/EPRDF militarily defeated other political groupings and the Derg. Consequently, the post-settlement in the Ethiopian state has been exclusively forged by the winning coalition sidelining competing narratives about the Ethiopia state including its history and the place of various groups therein. This historically veracious, violent, and exclusionary state and peacebuilding conversation undermined the post-1991 political settlement and the transition towards a durable peace and state. The outbreak of war in Ethiopia in November 2020 (which is not the core focus of this paper) is deeply connected to this violent and exclusionary conversation on the nature and future direction of the Ethiopian state.