Description
Book SynopsisThis book offers a comparative ethnography of the contested powers that shape democratization in Ethiopia. Although multi-party elections have become the norm in Africa, relatively little is known about the significance of non-state actors such as traditional authorities in electioneering. Focusing on Ethiopia’s competitive 2005 elections, this book analyzes how customary leaders, political parties and state officials confronted and complemented each other during election time. Case studies reveal the contemporaneousness of traditional authorities in modern politics, but also how multi-party competition reproduces traditional relations of domination among ethnic groups. The book documents the importance of customary authority in selecting party candidates and providing legitimacy to political parties, but also their limitations in a country dominated by a semi-authoritarian party-state.
Table of ContentsCONTENTS List of Maps, Photographs, Tables and Charts ......................................vii Notes on Contributors ...............................................................................ix List of Acronyms .........................................................................................xi Introduction Traditional Authorities and Multi-Party Elections in Ethiopia ...... 1 Kjetil Tronvoll & Tobias Hagmann Chapter 1 Electoral Politics in the Nuer Cultural Context .................31 Dereje Feyissa Chapter 2 Fishing for Votes in the Somali Region: Clan Elders, Bureaucrats and Party Politics in the 2005 Elections .........61 Tobias Hagmann Chapter 3 Family Connections: Inherited Status and Parliamentary Elections in Dawro, Southern Ethiopia .....89 Data Dea Barata Chapter 4 A Revival of Tradition? Th e Power of Clans and Social Strata in the Wolayta Elections ....111 Lovise Aalen Chapter 5 Cynicism and Hope: Urban Youth and Relations of Power During the 2005 Ethiopian Elections ....137 Daniel Mains Chapter 6 Islam and Politics: The EPRDF, the 2005 Elections and Muslim Institutions in Bale ..................165 Terje Østebø Chapter 7 ‘We Say they are Neftenya; They Say we are OLF’: A Post-Election Assessment of Ethnicity, Politics and Age-Sets in Oromiya ........................193 Charles Schaefer Chapter 8 Customary Institutions in Contemporary Politics in Borana Zone, Oromia, Ethiopia ....................221 Marco Bassi Chapter 9 Th e 2005 Elections in Maale: A Reassertion of Traditional Authority or the Extension of a Nascent Public Sphere? ........................................251 Donald L. Donham Epilogue The ‘New’ Ethiopia: Changing Discourses of Democracy ...................269 Kjetil Tronvoll Index .........................................................................................................289
