CHAPTER THREE 3. DEMOCRACY AND GOOD POLITICAL GOVERNANCE 3.1 Overview 88. It is clear from the preceding chapters that Ethiopia has made a paradigm shift in governance from a unitary state to a federal state. From an imperial political order with feudal underpinnings, it has transformed into a federal state built on the principles of autonomy and self-determination of constituent nations, nationalities and peoples, allowing for secession, under certain entrenched constitutional provisions. The origins of Ethiopia’s nationalities-based federalism are to be found in the centuries-old struggle of the earlier eras of various nationalities, nations and peoples against imperial domination and militarist control. The Ethiopian People’s Revolutionary Democratic Front (EPRDF) was the lead instrument of this transformation to a federal multi-party democratic system encouraging self-governance and self-reliant development. As this new order is a work in progress, its success depends largely on how the political institutions are consolidated and sustained. 89. A system of governance founded on a nationalities-based conception of governance must be able to design and establish innovative institutions and develop a strong sense of tolerance and cooperation across nationalities and ethnic groups, if it is to succeed. Ethiopia has a number of such institutions notably, the House of the Federation and the Ministry of Federal Affairs. Their role is to engender and facilitate cooperative inter-governmental relations between the federal government and nationality-based regional states, in furtherance of the country’s vision of federalism and its utilisation of its diversity as a valued resource in forging unity. The House of the Federation’s authority for constitutional review and setting standards for resource allocation to ensure the well-being of regional states, and the strengthening of an over-all Ethiopian nationality, makes it potentially at once an important guardian of Ethiopian federalism and a guarantor of the of regional state autonomy. The point worth emphasising in this respect is that this conception of federalism is not an adversarial or unduly legalistic one, pitting the federal government against the states, the states against one another, or nationalities and ethnic groups against each other. It is a conception well-suited to pragmatically managing the political mobilisation dynamics of diverse nationalities and ethnicities in plural societies, particularly those undergoing post-conflict transitions. The reverse is true in unitary societies that grant self-rule to nationalities and ethnic groups (peoples). Sub-national and local levels of governance take the form of shared power as they constitute federal arrangements at the national (federal) level of governance. - 64 -