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An experiment in ethnic sovereignty promised stability but has instead deepened division, violence, and fragility.
Ethiopia’s present constitutional order traces its roots to a moment of extraordinary upheaval. The Tigray People’s Liberation Front (TPLF), which emerged as an armed movement seeking outright independence for Tigray, ultimately helped design the federal system that governs Ethiopia today.
To grasp how this secessionist impulse was translated into law, one must first situate it in the shifting currents of the late twentieth century: the collapse of the Cold War, regional turbulence in the Horn of Africa, and the exhaustion of a battered nation.
By the late 1980s, the TPLF had allied with other ethno-nationalist insurgents to form the Ethiopian People’s Revolutionary Democratic Front (EPRDF). Though couched in Marxist-Leninist language, the coalition also embraced post–Cold War ideals of democracy and constitutionalism.
Central to its ideology was the principle of “the right of nations and nationalities to self-determination, up to and including secession.” The movement’s leaders were both shaped by global trends and determined to consolidate their battlefield gains.
The regional picture reinforced their resolve. Sudan’s Islamist turn, Somalia’s collapse into state failure, and wars in Eritrea and South Sudan underscored the fragility of states built on fragile bargains. The United States and its allies, wary of another failed state in the Horn, treated Ethiopia’s stability as a strategic priority.
Domestically, Ethiopians were weary after nearly two decades of dictatorship and conflict. Citizens longed for peace; international actors were euphoric about democratic transitions; neighbors feared instability; and victorious rebels were eager to entrench their power. Such a combustible mix was never conducive to careful deliberation.
Out of this crucible emerged Ethiopia’s grand experiment: ethnic federalism. Enshrined in the 1995 constitution, the model institutionalized ethnicity as the organizing principle of statehood. Three decades on, its consequences have been far from stabilizing.
Ethiopia’s current constitution stands as the only one in the world whose foundational structure is explicitly and exclusively organized along ethnic lines.
Legal Architecture
The Federal Democratic Republic of Ethiopia (FDRE) constitution does not simply endorse federalism. It creates an ethno-territorial federation in which sovereignty rests not with a single Ethiopian people, but with “the Nations, Nationalities and Peoples of Ethiopia.”
Article 39 grants each of these groups “the unconditional right to self-determination, including the right to secession.” The procedures for holding referendums to create new states—or even to exit the federation altogether—are set out explicitly.
This constitutional choice has not remained dormant. In recent years, Ethiopia has seen a proliferation of new states through ethnically framed referendums: Sidama in 2019, the Southwest Ethiopia Peoples’ Region in 2021, and further subdivisions of the Southern Nations, Nationalities and Peoples’ Region after 2023. Each was premised on ethno-territorial self-rule, not administrative pragmatism.
The Ethiopian design thus differs starkly from federations such as Germany or the United States. It is closer to the Soviet or Yugoslav template: constituent units defined as ethnic homelands, endowed with a legal script that normalizes separation. Scholars call this ethnic federalism, and political science offers clear warnings about its risks.
Comparative Lessons
Research across cases shows that ethnic federalism tends to intensify, not alleviate, ethnic cleavages. Dawn Brancati’s influential studies demonstrate that while decentralization can sometimes reduce conflict, it heightens the danger when it strengthens ethnic parties.
Regional elites, empowered by the system, are incentivized to mobilize along ethnic lines, turning identity into the currency of politics.
Henry Hale’s work on the Soviet Union and other cases shows that ethnic federations institutionalize “secession-ready” elites. Regional leaders acquire both the motive and the organizational capacity to threaten or pursue exit whenever the center falters.
Valerie Bunce and Philip Roeder underline how ethnic homelands within federations create “dual power” claims that become explosive during crises.
By contrast, federations that endure—such as Canada, Belgium, or Switzerland—do so by dispersing competencies, fostering interdependence, and avoiding constitutionalizing secession.
Daniel Treisman’s synthesis makes the lesson plain: autonomy can stabilize, but ethnic federalism with an exit clause stores up centrifugal potential. Ethiopia’s system is therefore less an experiment in federalism than a high-risk venture in state fragmentation.
Ethiopian Experience
Three decades of lived experience confirm the warnings. Ethnic federalism has not reduced conflict, protected minorities, or facilitated development. Instead, it has fuelled displacement, hardened divisions, and strained state capacity.
Conflict and displacement. Rather than moderating tensions, Ethiopia’s ethno-territorial design has intensified them. In 2017–2018, clashes along the Oromia–Somali border and in West Guji–Gedeo displaced nearly one million people, an extraordinary number outside full-scale civil war.
In 2020–2021, Benishangul-Gumuz witnessed massacres of civilians targeted by ethnicity. Oromia has endured recurrent cycles of ethnicised violence, documented by both Ethiopian and international human rights organizations.
The northern war of 2020–2022 was catastrophic. According to the Uppsala Conflict Data Program, Ethiopia and Ukraine together accounted for at least 180,000 battle-related deaths in 2022, making the Tigray war among the deadliest conflicts worldwide. Excess-mortality estimates for Tigray alone exceed 100,000.
By mid-2024, the International Organization for Migration reported 4.38 million internally displaced persons nationwide. Far from stabilizing Ethiopia, ethnic federalism has entrenched insecurity.
Minorities unprotected. Far from shielding minorities, the system has exposed them. In border zones and ethnically defined regions, minorities often find themselves vulnerable to eviction or attack. Benishangul-Gumuz has repeatedly seen atrocities against “outsiders.” In practice, sovereignty organized around ethnicity means citizenship rights become contingent on identity and place, an inversion of the protective logic of liberal federalism.
Fragmented capacity. Ethiopia’s federal model has also fragmented the state’s security apparatus. Regional Special Forces, loyal primarily to local elites, grew into parallel militaries. When the federal government attempted to disband them in 2023, unrest erupted in Amhara, underlining how ethnicised militaries have become entrenched and mutually distrustful.
Economic toll. The economic costs are staggering. Ethiopia’s development gains of the early 2000s have been undermined by insecurity. The World Bank has repeatedly warned of macroeconomic stress, inflation, and disrupted investment. Humanitarian needs are vast: over twenty million Ethiopians required assistance in 2024, with conflict a central driver alongside climate shocks. Ethnic federalism has thus not only strained political cohesion but also stunted economic prospects.
Political incentives. Finally, the system rewards ethnic outbidding. Elections and referendums are structured around Article 39’s promise of secession. Leaders compete by demanding new borders, referendums, or maximal autonomy, knowing that the constitution legitimizes such claims. Even moderates must contend with hardliners who push further. Politics becomes less a contest among citizens than a perpetual negotiation among ethnic sovereigns.
Misleading Counterexamples
Despite this record of failure, proponents of the system often defend it by pointing to other multinational states such as Belgium, Canada, India, or Switzerland. Yet these analogies collapse under scrutiny.
Canada and Belgium, though deeply divided, lack constitutional exit rights. Both rely on intergovernmental bargaining, national rights frameworks, and fiscal transfers to preserve unity. Canada’s Supreme Court explicitly narrowed Quebec’s options, rather than enshrining secession.
India reorganized its states along linguistic lines but did so within a strong-center federation. The system lacks a secession clause, and national parties cut across ethnic divides. Nigeria, after the Biafra war, deliberately fragmented its regions into smaller states to dilute ethnic dominance, a move away from ethnic federalism.
Switzerland’s cantons are diverse but not organized as ethnic homelands; citizenship rests in being Swiss, not in belonging to a “people.”
These cases underscore a crucial distinction: successful federations de-ethnicize sovereignty and deny constitutional secession. Ethiopia, by contrast, has done the opposite.
Lose-Lose Equilibrium
The cumulative effect is a lose-lose equilibrium. For national cohesion, constant bargaining under the shadow of secession turns ordinary disputes into existential crises. For regional majorities, ethnic sovereignty delivers prestige but also burdens them with responsibility for “their” people everywhere, fuelling maximalist demands and federal pushback.
For minorities, life within titular homelands often means fewer protections.
For the economy, persistent insecurity deters investment and burdens public finances. For democracy, the structure incentivizes ethnic brinkmanship over programmatic politics.
This is the paradox of Ethiopia’s constitutional design: it entrenches insecurity rather than alleviating it.
Rethinking the Bargain
Ethiopia’s constitution sought to resolve an old dilemma—how to make radically diverse peoples feel secure within a shared state—by granting every “Nation, Nationality and People” constitutional sovereignty, including the unconditional right to secede.
Yet in trying to hold the country together, ethnic federalism has instead become a source of profound instability. The grand bargain—sovereignty in exchange for security—has delivered neither.
What was meant as a guarantee of protection has often deepened vulnerability, especially for minorities, while transforming the state into an arena for ethnic contestation. The very outcomes long predicted by comparative research—hardened cleavages, secession-ready elites, and chronic insecurity—have been tragically borne out in Ethiopia’s lived reality. Rather than anchoring stability, the constitution has normalized brinkmanship and institutionalized mistrust.
If there is a path forward, it lies in a courageous reimagining of the federal order. A different bargain is needed, one that de-ethnicizes sovereignty, protects rights nationally, preserves local autonomy for service delivery, and, above all, creates incentives for cross-ethnic cooperation.
Only such a model offers a plausible route to the stability, dignity and prosperity that Ethiopians have long been promised but rarely enjoyed.
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While this commentary contains the author’s opinions, Ethiopia Insight will correct factual errors.
Published under Creative Commons Attribution-NonCommercial 4.0 International licence. You may not use the material for commercial purposes.
In the Ethiopian experience, ethnic federalism was the logical outcome of multiple and simultaneous ethnic uprising (Oromo, Somali, Tigray, and others). It was seen as a pragmatic political bargain to stabilize the country that had collapsed and descended into a political void. The Amharas blame TPLF/Tigray for ethnic federalism, whereas you do not hear such criticism from Oromos, Somalis, and others.
The secession factor. The author dwells on and on regarding the secession clause. It is said that because Eritrea was determined to secede and no way to stop them, the Somalis and Oromos also demanded that a secession provision be included in the constitution. TPLF had to agree to the provision dictated by the political circumstances. In any case, there has been no political uprising or movement demanding to secede after Eritrea did.
The idea of ethnic identity and political awareness is a common phenomenon in other countries. It is a natural and anthropological impulse. In Canada, French and English speaking people; in Belgium, French and Flemish speaking regions; In Switzerland, French, Italian, and German are the 3 main languages of the country. There is ethnic harmony in these countries because they have attained a high standard of living that makes peaceful coexistence a matter of common interest. Ethiopia, mainly characterized by poverty, lacks the level of economic and material well-being necessary for a shared interest to avoid conflict.
If you are going to assign blame on TPLF for ethnic federalism, then you should also acknowledge TPLF legacy for the country: economic projects of building infrastructure, industrial parks, and GERD.
The presence of several ethnic groups in a country requires an environment of political wisdom, statesmanship, and good will. The war on Tigray by Abiy’s army, Amhara forces, and Eritrean troops was marked by a seething animosity and tribal bloodletting.
YOU are living in the western world enjoying liberalism and capitalism, be a man go away from conspiracy live as an individual
Ethnic federalism was designed by tplf elites simply to avenge their anger against the Amhara and to usurp the resources of the rest, not to preserve Ethiopia’s unity. Fullstop. This is surprising given that these misfits are direct descendents of Atse Yohannes and the glorious past Abyssinia. The present oro tyrants will keep the federation until they exhaust its resources…Ethiopia has been cursed by God.
Great article. I see a glimmer of hope in the recently held dialogue initiated by Ato Lidetu Ayalew. It is a good start. I hope it continues with more participants. There are countless ways by which all ethnicities can be adequately represented in a Federal framework without resorting to ethnic fragmentation . . . which has time and again proved disastrous.
Thank You kinfu Adam.
The primary goal of Ethnic based politics excuted by TpLF and designed by Ethiopian enemies was to create a defacto states by creating stateless state.
God protect Ethiopia.
“Ethiopia” is not an ethnicity.
“Ethiopian” is not a language or a culture.
A feeble weakling such as yourself would never survive in the Qafar region. I dare you to try.
#StupidPente
The familiar argument that ethnic federalism was designed to prevent Ethiopia’s disintegration hides a darker truth. Good intentions do not start unity through enmity or institutionalized collective guilt, especially against the Amhara, nor by building a system of exclusion on falsehoods. If cultural or economic inequalities were truly the concern, they lay elsewhere: not among the Tigrayan, Oromo, or Eritrean segments of Ethiopia, but in the long-neglected peripheral regions that today’s narrative conveniently ignores. In reality, lies and propaganda became state doctrine, legitimizing displacement, violence, land confiscation, and ultimately, war and destruction.
Ethnic federalism replaced one hierarchy with another. It transformed class and regional inequalities into rigid identity boundaries, empowering politicians to weaponize ethnicity instead of fostering trust and cooperation. What was once promised as “self-rule” devolved into party control, deepening resentment and fragmentation: a kind of “Scramble for Ethiopia”.
Today, the very system that claimed to preserve unity now fuels the drive toward secession. When other nations have outlawed ethnic classification, and Ethiopia bleeds from internal wars and poverty, how can anyone still see secession as a remedy? Ethiopia is poor, very poor – barely surviving as a huge country, let alone as a conglomerate of small, fragmented bantu states.
Ethiopia’s future lies not in ethnic politics or old centralism, but in a pragmatic policy against poverty, a civic federalism, one that respects culture without making identity a political weapon.
The article argues that “ethnic federalism” in 🇪🇹 is a failed experiment.
I am aware that Such LANGUAGES contributed to z invisiblization of the #WaronTigray.
Not all 86 ethnics are fighting each other.
PP parti is the source of all the evils and the problems.
A slaughter cannot complain about the sharpness of a knife!
hyporcrisy of some elites, they cheer [normalizing of newur] when PP invites foreign forces as part of military and intelligence to decimate substantive entities like Tigray and install civil wars in the whole country, and they end up complaining about the nations and nationalities.
Are you going to blame the Tigray people or its ethnics within like Tigrigna, Kunama and Irob which are under extermination bcs of the Ethiopian state and its elites betrayal.
No one is blaming the people of Tigray. Yes, many people who say that they contend ethnic federalism were found to be cheerleaders in a genocidal war against Tigray. Their moral bankruptcy, however, isn’t some justification or excuse for ethnic federalism and it’s unintended but expected consequences. It is a novel system no other country has attempted to implement since.
Your first point:”Not all 86 ethnics are fighting each other.”
Is that the scenario that will make you re-consider the system? First off, not all 86 ethnic groups are recognized as nationalities or have regional states. The problem we’re contending with is an institutionalized ethnocracy in all aspects of government. Regional states disputing and fighting over territory isn’t the elites or PP failing the people. On the contrary, the regional states, by claiming sovereign ownership over a territory and demanding the capitulation of others, are engaging in a nation-building project in their own right. A more honest implementation of the system, i.e. a weaker federal government and empowered state governments, can only escalate the disputes. Having secession ready regional states isn’t a failure of the system; it is a feature of the system.
Your second point: “PP parti is the source of all the evils and the problems.”
PP is the sick child of EPRDF. Ethiopia was already in the top ten among countries with the highest number of internally displaced people. EPRDF – TPLF = PP. And if we’re talking in how PP is running the country, they haven’t shown any meaningful departure from the EPRDF. They’re still under the same constitution. They run the country the same: a central government that recognizes self determination and autonomy in name, but centralized the state more than ever before in practice. PP isn’t a cause; it’s a mere the symptom.
The write up discusses the topic of ethnic federalism, focusing on its post-establishment challenges. However, it lacks an exploration of the historical causes and motivations behind its implementation. It omits how ethnic federalism played a crucial role in preventing Ethiopia’s fragmentation, which seemed inevitable due to the ethnic oppression prevalent in the political era before the 1970s. Historical evidence indicates that the actions of Ethiopian rulers prior to the EPRDF era led many ethnic groups to strongly desire secession, resulting in conflicts. This same dynamic contributed to Eritrea’s decision to secede from Ethiopia and establish itself as an independent state. The document presents ethnic federalism without providing contextual explanations, portraying it negatively without acknowledging its benefits. The voices advocating for unity at any cost, combined with the political pressures on ethnic groups such as the Tigray, risk leading to the fragmentation and the formation of new nations, a possibility currently being seriously considered by many in Tigray.