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In 2014-15, the Ethiopian government, together with many academics and observers, was surprised by the outbreak of anti-government protests, as large-scale public contestation of the Ethiopian People’s Revolutionary Democratic Front (EPRDF) had been largely absent in the regime’s history. The dominant narrative about the EPRDF regime was that it was a top-down government, using authoritarian methods to ensure the population abided by its visions and directives, and describing its role in paternalistic ways, such as being the protector and guardian of the people.

Changing this narrative, Citizens, Civil Society, and Activism under the EPRDF Regime in Ethiopia considers how citizens and civil society expressed their interests and exerted their agency in an authoritarian setting. Focusing on the EPRDF regime over a period of three decades up to 2019, the book explores civic activism in Ethiopia, presenting diverse examples of how citizens have (re)shaped the country. Challenging state-centric readings of state-society relations under EPRDF governance, this collection provides a counternarrative that emphasizes the role and agency of citizens and civil society. The contributing authors draw on a heuristic analytical framework that examines different types of interactions between civil society and state actors (co-optation, co-operation, coexistence, and contestation) and captures the ways in which civil society actors make their voices heard.

At a time when authoritarian forms of governance are increasingly prevalent across the world, this critically important collection offers insight into how citizens claim their agency and challenge state power in apparently top-down contexts.

In 2014-15, the Ethiopian government, together with many academics and observers, was surprised by the outbreak of anti-government protests, as large-scale public contestation of the Ethiopian People’s Revolutionary Democratic Front (EPRDF) had been largely absent in the regime’s history. The dominant narrative about the EPRDF regime was that it was a top-down government, using authoritarian methods to ensure the population abided by its visions and directives, and describing its role in paternalistic ways, such as being the protector and guardian of the people.

Changing this narrative, Citizens, Civil Society, and Activism under the EPRDF Regime in Ethiopia considers how citizens and civil society expressed their interests and exerted their agency in an authoritarian setting. Focusing on the EPRDF regime over a period of three decades up to 2019, the book explores civic activism in Ethiopia, presenting diverse examples of how citizens have (re)shaped the country. Challenging state-centric readings of state-society relations under EPRDF governance, this collection provides a counternarrative that emphasizes the role and agency of citizens and civil society. The contributing authors draw on a heuristic analytical framework that examines different types of interactions between civil society and state actors (co-optation, co-operation, coexistence, and contestation) and captures the ways in which civil society actors make their voices heard.

At a time when authoritarian forms of governance are increasingly prevalent across the world, this critically important collection offers insight into how citizens claim their agency and challenge state power in apparently top-down contexts.

How does rapid urban growth affect risks of communal violence in cities? In rapidly growing cities, poor planning and weak institutions combined with an unregulated influx of migrants can create a potent recipe for violent mobilization. In addition, politicized identity groups often compete for resources and interact in close proximity in urban areas. Despite a growing research agenda on the relationship between rapid urban growth and urban violent unrest, findings remain inconclusive. One explanation for the disparate conclusions is that the theoretical pathways connecting urban growth and unrest largely fail to consider both the violence-generating and violence-stemming effects of urban growth. With a focus on conflict-ridden societies, we theorize processes through which urban growth influences different aspects of group relations in the city, and thereby contribute to prevent, suppress or generate communal violence. To illustrate the framework, we draw on insights from Nairobi, Kampala and Addis Ababa. By paying attention to processes, we are able to identify a range of developments associated with city growth which in turn have different implications for communal violence. 

Since 2015, Addis Ababa has seen an unprecedented rise in political protest contesting the distribution of resources between the country’s ethnic groups and questioning the ownership of the capital city. Ethiopia has a history of civil war and armed struggle, but urban protest remains a recent phenomenon. The fact that struggle against marginalisation by the Oromo, one of Ethiopia’s largest ethnic groups, has finally reached the capital has profoundly shaken many Addis Ababans. Compared to other parts of the country, inter-group relations in the city have often been characterized by relatively high levels of tolerance, with a strong sense of a cosmopolitan urban identity. We seek to contribute to understanding this recent rise in urban contestation, through the lens of how long-term city residents make sense of it. We argue that although the question about the ownership of Addis Ababa is central to the Oromo struggle, the recent violent protests do not signify a simple shift of the Oromo struggle from rural areas into the streets of the capital. Our analysis highlights how ethnicity intertwines with urbanity to create a more complex landscape of self- and other-ascribed identities, in turn shaping how the violence is interpreted.