Paper short abstract:

How do city builders negotiate changes in the everyday politics of urban construction? This paper explores the question through an in-depth case study of contractors and investors in the construction sector in Addis Ababa, Ethiopia, between 2018 and 2023. The paper draws on six months of fieldwork.

Paper long abstract:

How do city builders negotiate changes in the everyday politics of urban construction? This paper explores the question through an in-depth case study of contractors and investors in the construction sector in Addis Ababa, Ethiopia, between 2018 and 2023.

After years of anti-government protests, Ethiopia’s ruling coalition was forced in 2018 to adopt wide-ranging political reforms. This has included major changes among political elites, as well as a renegotiation of the elite pact, de facto determining the rules of the game for politics, the economy and social interactions more broadly. While initially there existed high hopes for a transition towards more democratic rule, the ruling government in Ethiopia has struggled due to lack of cohesion among political and economic elites, erosion of central power, decentralisation of rent extraction and rent distribution and lack of clear ideological underpinnings. The exacerbation of ethnic and other forms of communal conflicts, the outbreak of a civil war between the federal government and the regional government in Tigray, decreasing state capacity to implement proposed reforms and an increase in corruption have further tempered expectations. This paper explores how the fragile and fragmented nature of the elite pact affects state – business relations, conditions the work of contractors and investors in the Ethiopian construction sector, determines access to and prices of materials and directly shapes the formal and informal rules and institutions governing the sector. The paper draws on six months of fieldwork, including formal interviews, observations and focus group discussions.