The Making of the State in Africa: The Experiment of "Ethnic-Federal" Decentralisation in Ethiopia

Phd Project from 1-11-2000 to 31-10-2003 The "ethnic federal" form of decentralisation in the Ethiopia attempts to reconstruct the state based on a strategy of devolving public sector powers and tasks to regions dominated by the country's major ethnic groups. This "ethnic- federal" experiment of devolving public sector powers to ethnic groups goes differently to the centralised nation-building modernisation project of African post-colonial political development. To date, there has not been any systematic field-based study since it was launched in Ethiopia officially in 1991. Thus, this research will attempt to produce both conceptual and empirical knowledge concerning this experiment and would provide clues on whether the experiment has borne beneficial results in creating stability and enhancing the rights of the various ethnic regions and the people living in them.