Paper short abstract:

The paper critically analyses the spatial strategy of the Ethiopian state, which aspires to be a developmental state, in the on-going urban redevelopment in its capital city. It uses the Spatialized Strategic-Relational Theory to understand the intervention of the state on urban space critically.

Paper long abstract:

The Ethiopian state is experimenting East Asian model of state-led authoritarian development (Kelsall, 2014). This article will interrogate the process of state-led inner-city redevelopment by the authoritarian state, which aspires to build a "Developmental" States of Ethiopia, using Spatialised "Strategic-Relational Theory" of Jessop. More than 400 hectares Addis Ababa's inner-city slums are being erased since 2009 and is being replaced with middle to high-income developments. The redevelopment intervention is displacing inner-city residents to the periphery resulting in impoverishment and social disarticulation. The State is using the state-led inner-city redevelopment as one of its spatial strategies to facilitate wealth accumulation and as a hegemonic project to legitimise its authoritarian rule. As a hegemonic project, the state uses redevelopment of inner-city slums to reinforce its narrative as a "developmental"/"transformational" state and to make irregular inner-city slums more governable. The state also uses the state-led inner-city redevelopment in facilitating wealth accumulation in two ways. First, accumulation process materialises through "path-dependent and context-contingent" neoliberal urbanisation guided by the discourse of "Diplomatic Capital" and "Competitive City" to attract a particular group of people, such as diplomatic community, tourists and upscale developers. Second, the state uses inner-city redevelopment as an accumulation strategy through dispossessing its citizens using the public ownership of land and housing as an advantage to create artificial rent gap between current and potential land value. Therefore, this article concludes the Ethiopian authoritarian as well as aspiring "developmental" state, uses state-led redevelopment not only to facilitate accumulation but also to consolidate its power.