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The Grand Missed Opportunities for Change in the Modern Ethiopian Political History: Lesson to Be Learnt for Contemporary Democratic Transition



Author(s)

Gashaw Ayferam Endaylalu

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DOI:10.17265/2328-2134/2022.01.003

Institute of Foreign Affairs, Addis Ababa, Ethiopia

One of the grand problem in the contemporary political history of Ethiopia is an incessant struggle for democratic transition and subsequent failures. Since the 1913, all the attempted hoped-for political transitions have been failed to bring democratic political order. Now Ethiopia has got another golden opportunity: a reform within EPRDF under the reformist prime minster Dr. Abiy Ahmed. However, the polemical question is whether the current democratic transition will success (bring democratic consolidation) or fail (reversion to authoritarianism). This paper, therefore, examined anatomy of missed opportunities for change in the modern Ethiopian political history with the intent of drawing the lessons to be taken into consideration from the past failures for current political reform the country has undergone. The study employed qualitative research approach in which data are gathered through document review and analyzed using critical discourse and historical narrative analysis techniques. The finding of the study shows that in all attempted hoped-for opportunities for change, the elite has followed a winner-takes-all-approach of politics than “a negotiated transition” based on win-win principled politics. Thus, all hoped-for-reform attempts are hijacked by the then elite aspiring hegemonic leadership, business as usual, and paradoxically it replaced new dictators who are more repressive and brutal than their predecessors. These historical legacies has also impacted the current transition the country undergone Therefore, this study suggests that there is a need to draw lesson from past failure: “decolonizing mind” and deconstructing a hyperbolically constructed invented myths that hindered societal transformation via epistemic community is an imperative to realize the country’s aspiration towards a democratic political order.

democratic transition, democratic consolidation, Ethiopia, Elite hegemony, political transition

Gashaw Ayferam Endaylalu. (2022). The Grand Missed Opportunities for Change in the Modern Ethiopian Political History: Lesson to Be Learnt for Contemporary Democratic Transition. International Relations and Diplomacy, Jan.-Feb. 2022, Vol. 10, No. 1, 33-49.