ABSTRACT
This chapter argues that the post-war federal experiments in Ethiopia and Indonesia can be analyzed comparatively. In order to understand federalism and federal failure and their relation with identity accommodation in the Ethiopian context and also it discusses the main features of the Ethiopian state and the Ethiopian identity. In the Ethiopia-ritrea case the temporary federal arrangement facilitated the annexation of Eritrea by Ethiopia. Finally, the dissolution of both federations was underwritten by specific perceptions of nationalism and the appropriate political and territorial organization of national unity. Federalism in Indonesia failed (like in Ethiopia) due to the centralizing policies of state-elites and their perceptions that federal arrangements could severely undermine national unity. The multiple articulations of regional and ethnic demands in both states during, but also after the federal period, can be linked to the current attempts to rectify this shortcoming by the re-federalization of Ethiopia and the decentralization in Indonesia.
