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Paper short abstract:

This paper reviews the effects of donor-financed infrastructure on state-society relations in one district of rural Ethiopia. It demonstrates that building infrastructure does not straightforwardly strengthen state reach and can undermine it, even in a context of relative state strength.

Paper long abstract:

This paper complements studies of infrastructure megaprojects by reviewing the micro-level effects of infrastructure construction on state-society relations in the context of a development intervention in rural Ethiopia. The Merhabete Integrated Rural Development Project (MIRDP), implemented by the German NGO Menschen für Menschen (MfM) in one district of Amhara region from 1988-2009, built a large range of infrastructure from roads, school blocks, clinics and a hospital to a network of project offices which were handed to the state on project closure. The paper reviews the effects of infrastructure construction on state reach, understood in both material and ideational terms. It argues that MIRDP infrastructure was incorporated into Ethiopian party-state strategies of increasing its reach into society. MIRDP works became part of an apparatus of control which was intended to pursue the party-state’s developmental goals (e.g. expanding primary healthcare and education) but also its political goals (maintaining party hegemony and repressing dissent).

The paper also demonstrates that the processes by which infrastructure affects state reach are far from straightforward. Early on in the intervention, the state struggled with MfM’s decision to implement the project with its own development agents, its own offices and residences, largely bypassing state structures. Later, after the intervention closed, state visibility was weakened by the presence of crumbling infrastructure, built by the project, which the state could not maintain. The paper argues that the effects of donor-built infrastructure on state-society relations are complex, and that it is important to consider material and ideational aspects of this relationship.