Federalism in Ethiopia

Ethiopian federalism is resolutely multinational, ostensibly broadly symmetrical, and – on paper at least – radically devolved. Formally adopted in 1995, the constitution of the Federal Democratic Republic of Ethiopia (FDRE) is at the radical end of decentralized federal systems: it incorporates an unusual right of ‘self-determination up to and including secession’ (Art. 39) to the country’s ‘nations, nationalities and peoples’, and has even occasionally been labelled ‘confederal’ (Brietzke, 1995). It offers ‘all residual powers not otherwise granted to the Federal Government’ or concurrently to both levels (Art. 52(1)) to nine federated states ¹ in terms ‘on paper … more like an international treaty’, ‘rather un-federal and not even very constitution-like’ (Brietzke, 1995: 33). This is a thoroughgoing multinational federal model, with strong echoes (further discussed below) of Stalin’s conceptualization of the ‘National Question’. It is very far from the modified unitary models of ‘hybrid federalism’, which Baogang He suggests represent ‘the form most appropriate to deal with minority issues and the national identity question in Asia’ (He, 2007: xvi). In perhaps another echo of its Leninist precedent, however, Ethiopia’s constitution tells only a part of the story. This chapter contextualizes its discussion of Ethiopian federalism by examining a series of broader factors – political, historical, institutional and economic – which shed light on how it is evolving in practice.