Paper short abstract:

The Ethiopian case of authoritarian developmentalism is an outcome of the interplay between permissive and productive conditions occurred at three consecutive critical junctures since 1941. The paper examines temporal processes & their role in shaping the evolution of developmental institutions

Paper long abstract:

The experiment of Ethiopian ruling elites to build a developmental state has attracted the attention of several development scholars and practitioners. The focus of analysis includes industrial policy, social policy,  state-society relations, and state-business relations. One aspect that has been missing in analysing the Ethiopian case is a macro-historical analysis of the Ethiopian state system and the interplay between institutions, agents and power across time. I argue that Ethiopia's version of authoritarian developmentalism is an outcome of the interplay between permissive and productive conditions of consecutive critical junctures. The three critical junctures are the 1974 Ethiopian Revolution, The 1991 Regime Change and The 2005 National Elections. By analysing these three critical junctures, the paper puts forward the following two inter-related arguments. First, the recent developmental success from 2004 - 2016 is significantly shaped by 'a political set up' that defied formal institutions of federalist decentralisation and democratisation by imposing de-facto re-centralisation and authoritarianism. Productive conditions that occurred after the 2005 elections enabled authoritarian leadership particularly under the late Meles Zenawi. Second, the ongoing political crisis and structural opening become a possibility because the productive conditions that sustained authoritarian developmentalism come to a dead end. As a result, one can argue that there is a critical juncture in the making which might end up reinforcing authoritarianism or a move towards a democratic but certainly less developmental regime.