Can Ethiopia ever be at peace? Four reasons conflict keeps flaring up

Ethiopia has experienced recurrent conflicts for over five decades.

This includes a long-running civil war sparked by the overthrow of Emperor Haile Selassie in 1974, renewed fighting in Tigray, and ongoing conflicts in Amhara and Oromia .

The renewed hostilities in Tigray threaten to undo a peace process that had begun with an agreement signed in Pretoria, South Africa, in 2022.

Why has peace been so difficult to sustain in Ethiopia? My research on constitutional design and conflict points to four interconnected explanations: the foundations of the Ethiopian state remain contested ceasefires are mistaken for political settlements armed force continues to be a route to political power regional rivalries reinforce internal conflicts.

The problem isn’t that Ethiopians of diverse ethnic backgrounds hate one another and can’t live together peacefully.

It’s that successive political arrangements have failed to establish widely accepted rules for managing disagreements.

1.

The foundations of the state remain contested Ethiopia’s 1995 constitution emerged from a political transition that followed the overthrow of the military government in 1991.

This ended nearly two decades of civil war .

The new leadership sought to address long-standing grievances over ethnic marginalisation and demands for greater autonomy.

It restructured the country as a federation largely organised around ethnolinguistic communities.

The constitution vested sovereignty in Ethiopia’s nations, nationalities and peoples.

It guaranteed their right to self-determination, including secession .

Proponents of federalism regard this right as protection against historical domination.