The first book to be published on the Ethiopian constitution which was established in 1994, it deals with the intricacies of federalism and the unfolding of democracy in a country that since pre-Christian times was run as a feudal state.

Ethiopia has had four constitutions throughout its history: the 1931 version, the 1955 version, the 1987 version, and the 1995 version; which is currently in effect. Until the adoption of the first of these constitutions, the concepts of Ethiopian government had been codified in the Kebra Nagast (which presented the concept that the legitimacy of the Emperor of Ethiopia was based on its asserted descent from king Solomon of ancient Israel), and the Fetha Nagast (a legal code used in Ethiopia at least as early as 1450 to define the rights and responsibilities of the monarch and subjects, as defined by the Ethiopian Orthodox Tewahedo Church).