ABSTRACT
This chapter focuses on research that has been underway in Ethiopia since 2010,1 examines how confinement is used in the development sector in order to politically control the population, through both policy and its implementation, what we call ‘development action’. In the ‘developmental state’ model proposed by the country’s former strongman, Meles Zenawi, the state oversees an economic development and the ‘democratic’ mobilisation of the masses, which it organises for ideological and political purposes. The party-state’s development policy defines new ways of behaving, disseminates them, and punishes deviant behaviours deemed to present a challenge. Prison is thus used in two ways: to punish and to produce consent. While prison sentences and punishments more generally have always served to a educate rural populations, the meaning of this ‘education’ has evolved. Initially, the purpose was primarily punitive and sentences were relatively long.
