Ethiopia in the Wake of Political Reforms brings together contributions from a multi-disciplinary team of over twenty scholars and practitioners with acknowledged expertise in the areas of political and economic reform, federalism and nation building, as well as foreign and security policy.

This book takes stock of political reform in Ethiopia and the transformation of Ethiopian society since the adoption of multi-party politics and ethnic federalism in 1991. Decentralization, attempted democratization via ethno-national representation, and partial economic liberalization have reconfigured Ethiopian society and state in the past two decades. Yet, as the contributors to this volume demonstrate, ‘democracy’ in Ethiopia has not changed the authority structures and the culture of centralist decision-making of the past. The political system is tightly engineered and controlled from top to bottom by the ruling Ethiopian Peoples’ Revolutionary Democratic Front (EPRDF). Navigating between its 1991 announcements to democratise the country and its aversion to power-sharing, the EPRDF has established a de facto one-party state that enjoys considerable international support. This ruling party has embarked upon a technocratic ‘developmental state’ trajectory ostensibly aimed at ‘depoliticizing’ national policy and delegitimizing alternative courses. The contributors analyze the dynamics of authoritarian state-building, political ethnicity, electoral politics and state-society relations that have marked the Ethiopian polity since the downfall of the socialist Derg regime. Chapters on ethnic federalism, 'revolutionary democracy', opposition parties, the press, the judiciary, state-religion, and state-foreign donor relations provide the most comprehensive and thought-provoking review of contemporary Ethiopian national politics to date. This book is based on a special issue of the Journal of Eastern African Studies.

Republicans on the Throne is a memoir spanning the author Tekalign Gedamu's early life during the waning days of the old feudal order, his six-decade career in the United Nations, the African Development Bank, and the government of Ethiopia. The book describes the author's university education and early career as an international civil servant. It focuses on Ethiopia's modernization and her painful quest for democracy. For a brief spell, the author was privileged to be an eyewitness and a modest participant to that process. Republicans on the Throne offers a glimpse into the problems of a new educational system. The expansion of education left in its wake a demand for more fundamental reforms which Emperor Haile Selassie's government was increasingly unable to meet. The result was a coup d'etat in 1960 that failed and another in 1974 that succeeded and triggered a 'Marxist' revolution that promised a new era of equality, democracy, and revitalized nationalism. The book examines closely the fundamental forces behind the revolution along with its failed attempts to improve the country's fortunes on both the economic and political fronts."

"This edited volume on Implementation of International Human Rights Commitments and Implications on Ongoing Legal Reforms in Ethiopia addresses key themes of contemporary interest focused on identifying the gaps between Ethiopia's human rights commitments and the practical problems associated with the realisation of human rights goals. Political and legal challenges affecting implementation at the domestic levels continue in Ethiopian - the nature and complexity of which have been thoroughly expounded in this volume. This edition uncovers the key challenges involving civil and political rights, socio-economic rights and cultural and institutional dimensions of the implementation of human rights in Ethiopia - while the country is absorbed in legal and political reforms"--

General study, politics, political system, social changes, the economy, Ethiopia, since 1974 revolution - history, geographical aspect, social structure, feudalism, socialism, land reform, political developments, political leadership, political opposition, womens organization, agricultural sector, manufacturing, educational policy, health policy, foreign policy, civil war. Bibliography, diagram, flow charts, maps, statistical tables.