Overview

Everyday practices of state building interrogates the question about how to reinstate movement to our conceptualisation of state formation in Africa at a time in which the continent witnesses profound social and political transformations inscribed in increasingly globalised and localised dynamics. The book revisits key theories of the state adopting a detailed empirical approach that studies how state power operates in the everyday. It locates the mutual constitution of state and society in the wide set of scalar processes that articulate how state power structures social life and, simultaneously, creates the conditions of possibility for new openings and social formations. Drawing on five qualitative fieldworks in Ethiopia between 2006 and 2018, the book identify some important challenges that the ruling Ethiopian Peoples' Revolutionary Democratic Front (EPRDF) has encountered in institutionalising power through the developmental state, an ambitious model of state-mediated economic liberalisation intended to fulfil the broader re-organisation of the Ethiopian state along Ethnic Federalism since 1991. The case studies discuss how policies of resettlement, decentralisation, agriculture commercialisation, entrepreneurship, and industrialisation, inscribed dynamics of inclusion and exclusion in both rural and urban areas. Against these profound transformations beneficiaries casted new meanings to land, place, and work along struggles to secure reproduction. Interrogating the notions of scale and performativity, the book revisits dominant approaches that in African studies read state formation along centre-periphery relations, and ascribe cultural interpretations to the work of state power in the everyday, ultimately contributing to important discussions about authoritarianism and ethnonationalism in contemporary Ethiopia. Oxford Studies in African Politics and International Relations is a series for scholars and students working on African politics and International Relations and related disciplines. Volumes concentrate on contemporary developments in African political science, political economy, and International Relations, such as electoral politics, democratization, decentralization, the political impact of natural resources, the dynamics and consequences of conflict, and the nature of the continent's engagement with the East and West. Comparative and mixed methods work is particularly encouraged. Case studies are welcomed but should demonstrate the broader theoretical and empirical implications of the study and its wider relevance to contemporary debates. The series focuses on sub-Saharan Africa, although proposals that explain how the region engages with North Africa and other parts of the world are of interest. Series Editors: Nic Cheeseman, Professor of Democracy and International Development, University of Birmingham; Ricardo Soares de Oliveira, Professor of the International Politics of Africa, University of Oxford; Peace Medie, Senior Lecturer, School of Sociology, Politics, and International Studies, University of Bristol.

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9780192869654

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Reviews

This monograph offers a comprehensive insight into the contested state building processes and identity formation at the local level in Ethiopia...The book is an important contribution to contemporary debates not only on the nature of the Ethiopian developmental state and the violent conflicts that shape current politics, but also on future attempts at state building and, possibly, transitional justice in the Horn of Africa. * Ulf Engel, Connections. A Journal for Historians and Area Specialists *

Author Information

Davide Chinigò is Research Fellow in African History and Institutions at the University for foreigners of Perugia, and Adjunct Professor at the University of Bologna in the Department of Political and Social Science and the Department of Cultural Heritage. He is also Research Fellow at Stellenbosch University in the Department of Sociology and Social Anthropology. His research focuses on the history and politics of international relations and development in Africa, addressing case studies in Ethiopia, Malawi, and South Africa.

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