The Trouble with Ethiopia's Ethnic Federalism

The New York Times published on 3 January 2019 a commentary titled "The Trouble with Ethiopia's Ethnic Federalism" by Mahmood Mamdani, Makerere University.

Mamdani argues that the system of ethnic federalism contains internal inconsistencies because ethnic groups do not live only in a discrete "homeland" territory but are also dispersed across the country. Nonnative ethnic minorities live within every ethnic homeland. Ethiopia can achieve real progress if it embraces a different kind of federation--territorial and not ethnic--where rights in a federal unit are dispensed not on the basis of ethnicity but on residence.

Ethiopia: Is Abiy Ahmed a Liberal Democrat or a Liberal Populist?

Foreign Policy published on 5 December 2018 a commentary titled "Abiy Ahmed Is Not a Populist" by Tom Gardner, Ethiopia correspondent for the Economist.

After acknowledging charges by some that Ethiopia's Prime Minister Abiy Ahmed is a populist in the mode of Donald Trump or Turkey's Recep Tayyip Edrogan, the author concludes that he is a liberal democrat--or the closest approximation of one in contemporary Ethiopian politics--and not a populist.