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Periodical article | Leiden University catalogue | WorldCat |
Title: | Ethiopia: a political view from below |
Author: | Pausewang, Siegfried |
Year: | 2009 |
Periodical: | South African Journal of International Affairs |
Volume: | 16 |
Issue: | 1 |
Pages: | 69-85 |
Language: | English |
Geographic term: | Ethiopia |
Subjects: | political conditions State-society relationship rural poverty land tenure elections 2005 |
External link: | https://www.tandfonline.com/doi/abs/10.1080/10220460902986164 |
Abstract: | Discussions of Ethiopia and its present situation generally focus on the political debate in Addis Ababa, as experienced by visitors and residents. However, a majority of Ethiopians experience daily the deep gulf between political claims and lived reality. An analysis from the point of view of the actors must perforce include those groups and positions that have been excluded from the public discourse. In Ethiopia, this exclusion concerns primarily the peasants, who constitute about 80 percent of the population. Other groups would include the poorest sections of the urban population and the ethnic peoples of the South, as well as Muslims, women and outcast craftsmen. The author begins with an overview of the structures of power in Ethiopia and the roots of continued conflict before describing the rural poverty and the trauma of the Southern peoples which led to the formation of the Oromo Liberation Front (OLF). He then discusses the 2005 Ethiopian national elections, which altered the country's political landscape. The analysis lays bare the political dynamics that continue to hold the peasant population in the grip of poverty. The author concludes with a call for reform of local administration and enforcement of existing constitutional provisions for democratic governance, with a focus on land rights. This would require new alliances both domestically and abroad. Bibliogr., notes, ref., sum. [Journal abstract, edited] |