Forcing Union: The Federal Takeover of Eritrea in Historical Perspective

Ethiopia has turned to the federal model twice. These stages are not similar to each other in appearance, but they are closely interconnected. It was the “imperial federalism” of the 1950s and 1960s, through which the Abyssinian monarchical elites swallowed Eritrea, that led to the emergence in the mid-1990s of an extremely distinctive and highly unstable model of ethnic federalism. The response to the post-war quasi-federal union of Ethiopia and Eritrea, which completely ignored the demand for national self-determination, was its mirror opposite: an original federation in which the self-determination of peoples does not face any serious constitutional restrictions at all. The imperial legacy still predetermines the dynamics of Ethiopian federalism, and its final overcoming is a condition for its successful reform. In its current state, Ethiopian federalism plays a paradoxically ambiguous role: on the one hand, it ensures the internal integrity of the state within its current borders, and on the other hand, it remains a major factor in its fragility and potential destabilization.