Does Ethnic Federalism Exacerbating or Reducing Conflicts? The Ethiopian Federal Experiences

The language based federal arrangement is a new frontier under the Ethiopia political scenario. Unlike
the previous regime which overlooked various ethnic groups of the nation, the current political system
recognized the presence of multiplicity of ethnic identity and taken it as a main political value for the
reengineering of the present Ethiopia. Initially, it seems the solution that responds old nationality
question of the country through recognizing each ethnic group as an equal partner of the federal
arrangement with the power to administer its internal affairs autonomously. Hence, it brought a modest
peace and stability so that the economy of the state arguably, registered a double digit growth for the
last two decades. As time goes, for the past two decades, however, unmanageable problem has being
emerged throughout the country. A continuous claim for recognition of new identity, high potential for
secessionist demand, problem of demarcation of internal territory between ethno-nationalist region, and
the issue of irredentism, and indigenous-settler dichotomy brought pervasive and protracted conflict
between different ethnic groups which become the cause for the casualty of human life and destruction
of resources. This article therefore try to assess whether ethnic based federalism is feasible or not in
Ethiopia, to investigate the root cause of ethnic based and boundary related conflicts that are observing
now in different parties of the state.