Strategic arenas for WTO accession:

Public Policy Trajectories that lure in the rewards of

Globalisation to Ethiopian Businesses

Public Lecture – Respublica Litereria - RL Vol XIII No 407 MMXIX

Costantinos Berhutesfa Costantinos, PhD

Professor of Public Policy & Sustainable Institutional Reforms

https://addisababa.academia.edu/CostyCostantinos

Association of African Public Services Commissions’ General Assembly:

Human Resource Development and the Challenges of State Capacity for Service Delivery in Africa: Improving the

Administrative-Political Interface African Union Hall, Oct 28-29, 2014, Addis Ababa, Panel II

Abstract

While Ethiopia has recorded significant achievements in GDP growth, it faces predictable armour of trials rife in poor nations with too few mechanism and wherewithal, while also wrestling with the perennial problem of sequencing policy reforms, all subject to doctrinal reins. Given the very slim boundaries for manoeuvre imposed by abject poverty, deficits and a complex interlace in its political fabric, getting the priorities right are the central issues to be addressed. Using comparative analyses with other African nations that have acceded to WTO accords, the lecture delves into impact of WTO accession on businesses and the requisite preparatory basis of a reform pedestal on which the nation can be a winner in this game. Findings of the research undergird eloquent testimony of complexity and uncertainty theories and func­tioning economic models that Ethiopia can emulate, not only to accede to WTO revised accession regimes, but also to compete successfully in the global arena; underpinning the fact that this can be complex, when reforms are subject to ideological therapy. Hence, managed restructuring of the public sector, establishing institutional capacity for policy analysis, formulation and coordination, regulatory capacity, advancing fiscal sustainability are gleaned as a panacea for change and transformation. Creating a merit based and metric civil service is a basic requirement for competing in the WTO arena to achieve higher allocative and productive efficiency, augmenting private sector share, improving public sector financial health and PPPs.

Key words: WTO, Ethiopia, state right sizing, PPP, meritocracy, markets, private sector, regulation

See paper here or https://www.academia.edu/38213587/Ethiopia_-_Strategic_trajectories_for_WTO_accession_-_AAPSC_Lecture_RL_Vol_XIII_No_407_MMXIX

Does Africa has the ability to Pay IFI’s & Bilateral Loans? RL Vol XIII No 395 MMXIX

Africa’s Debt Sustainability

Does Africa has the ability to Pay IFI’s & Bilateral Loans?

Public Lecture – Respublica Litereria - RL Vol XIII No 395 MMXIX

Costantinos Berhutesfa Costantinos, PhD

Professor of Public Policy & Sustainable Institutional Reforms

https://addisababa.academia.edu/CostyCostantinos

Abstract

Africa is facing a looming debt crisis from International Financial Institutions (IFI) and bilateral lenders. Almost 40% of sub-Saharan African countries are in danger of slipping into a major debt crisis according to the ODI. The IMF has recently warned that Africa is heading towards a new debt crisis, with the number of countries at high risk doubling over the past five years. The World Bank now classifies 18 countries as at high risk of debt distress, where debt-to-GDP ratios surpass 50 %. Public debt dynamics, once an esoteric subject of interest only to macroeconomists, are suddenly in vogue. Two things matter in government-debt dynamics, the variance between real interest rates and GDP growth and the primary budget balance as a percentage of GDP. Afro-China rapport is often seen as a significant part of the problem. Its critics say that major projects carried out by China in Africa are too expensive, and burden the host countries with enormous debts they can't hope to repay. US official John Bolton went further by placing Cold War-style competition at the centre of US strategy in Africa, suggesting that Africa is being misled by China’s offers of hefty loans for infrastructure projects, luring Africans into debt traps, the Chinese regime is actually aiming to foster dependency relationships as part of its quest to achieve ‘global dominance.’ US insistence that it caters for Africa’s best interests strikes many as ‘paternalistic, patronising and unnecessary.’ Studies for the past four years finds “no evidence at all”.

The Chinese government is adamant that its economic relationships with African countries are mutually beneficial and rejects suggestions that it is using debt to expand global influence. So is China really responsible for Africa's growing debt burden? A new study based on the analysis of 4,300 Chinese-funded projects in 140 countries by AidData, paints a more complicated picture. African countries received the largest proportion, 59%, of projects financed by China between 2000 and 2014. But when it comes to the actual value of projects committed China’s African partners rank fairly low on the list. China’s funds to Africa are more than the combined total of the AfDB, the EU, IFC, the World Bank and the G8 countries. Chinese Foreign Minister Wang Yi played down concern over Africa's debts with Beijing as he arrived in Addis Abeba at the start of a four-nation Africa tour. China has funnelled cash and loans into infrastructure projects across the continent, where many African leaders consider Beijing's terms a better deal that than those offered by bilateral Western nations (AFP, 2019). It is recommended that nations enhance free movement of capital and labour, improve the private sector’s access to credit facilities and reconsider some aspects of the investment laws, managed restructuring of public sector, privatising and commercialising activities and fulfilling requirements for fiscal sustainability.

Key words: debt sustainability, Africa, China, aid, loan, infrastructure,

See paper here or  https://www.academia.edu/38184694/Does_Africa_has_the_ability_to_Pay_IFI_s_and_Bilateral_Loans_RL_Vol_XIII_No_395_MMXIX

A Faustian Pact with Neo-patrimonial Regimes RL Vol XIII No 279 MMXIX

A Faustian Pact with Neo-patrimonial Regimes

The Ordeal African Political Challengers endure in a Constricted Political Space

Respublica Litereria Public Lecture - RL Vol XIII No 279 MMXIX

Costantinos Berhutesfa Costantinos, PhD

Professor of Public Policy & Sustainable Institutional Reforms

https://addisababa.academia.edu/CostyCostantinos

Abstract

This think piece raises the tangential issues of the trajectories on the stewardship of African democratisation marked by uniquely austere organisational-strategic issues of neo-patrimonialism. Under patrimonialism there is no differentiation between the private and the public realm. Neo-patrimonialism is an amalgam of moderately coupled forms of state supremacy resulting from a coevolution of patrimonial and legal-rational bureaucratic state supremacy. Hence, the purpose of this paper is to study the key characteristics of neo-patrimonial regimes and derive methodological pathways for successful political transition into a pluralist society and polity. The research enquiry augurs on the knowledge gaps on African political transitions in nations under neo-patrimonial rule. While many African nations are bent on installing public administration and undertake regular elections the coordinates of the state are controlled to perpetuate the single party rule. Hence, the research questions augur on the following. What is the level of political culture development in Africa to ensure democratic development? What are the indicators that justify electoral quantity, quality and meaning in Africa? What can states; civil societies and the international community do to promote democracy in Africa?

The paper further discusses democratic political culture development in Africa, under whose rubrics are discussed are developmental states, market failures and neo-patrimonial rent seeking, neo-patrimonial states and citizenship in Africa, electoral trajectories in Africa political parties & elections in Africa: elections and their outcomes. The discussion focuses on quo vadis democracy in Africa, state building and nation building. All endeavours to characterise African neo-patrimonialism hinge on a fusion of the patrimonial single parties that dominate African elections (legal-rationalism) and absolute dictatorships that seeks to make sense of the (more real than imaginary) contradictions to be found in the state in Africa. When African states gained their independence from European colonial disruption, the African state had to inherit both the public and private sphere, including national development and colonial businesses. The developmentalist state that ensued has become bewildering to many, as influential strands of radical scholarship continued to question whether the ‘peripheral’ parts of an increasingly inter-connected global economy could ever hope to escape the predations of the established industrial heartlands. The failure of central planning in socialist countries pointed to government failure as more insidious than the market failure that state policies had purportedly been designed to correct. States are heretically formed through wars to extend influence of certain powerful individuals but nation building is the action undertaken by national actors to forge a sense of common nationhood, usually in order to overcome ethnic, sectarian or communal differences, counter alternate sources of identity and loyalty and to mobilise a population behind a parallel state-building project.

Key words: Neo-patrimonialism, electoral quantity, electoral quality and electoral meaning, democratic political culture, developmental states, market failures, rent seeking, state building and nation building

See paper here or http://www.academia.edu/38175569/A_Faustian_Pact_with_Neo-patrimonial_Regimes_RL_Vol_XIII_No_279_MMXIX.pdf

Ratiocinating Ethiopia’s International Relations & National Security Policy & Practice RL Vol XIII No 400 MMXIX

Ratiocinating Ethiopia’s International

Relations & National Security Policy & Practice:

The Gulf & Horn of Africa

United Nations Conference Centre (UNCC) Addis Ababa

Public Lecture - Respublica Litereria RL Vol. XIII No 400 MMXIX

Costantinos Berhutesfa Costantinos,

Professor of Public Policy & Sustainable Institutional Reforms

https://addisababa.academia.edu/CostyCostantinos

Abstract

New martial and security scenarios are evolving in the Greater Horn of Africa with Yemen as the epicentre. One may ask if the GCC incursion onto one of the most contested regions embolden the irredentist agenda of pariah states & terrorists. The philosophical underpinning of Ethiopia’s overseas, overland and national security policies must augur on activities trained at advancing a pluralist society as a prelude to structural transformation. Ethiopia needs to prime this policy in light of the turmoil in the Gulf, the Horn and internal dynamics. While the short-term de-escalation is a sine qua non, a counter narrative is obligatory that swings dialogues towards fostering viable peace that point to societies vs. states, harmony vs. animosity, assimilation vs. intolerance, rights vs. illusory stability, and hope vs. despair. The reworked foreign and national security policy must contain elements that wean the nation from an aid industry that is dying, heralding full or partial liberalisation of the economy, under adequate financial reform and regulatory environment, will spur investments and enable financ­ing the national security vision from within to ensure adequate preparedness. Locally, it will also find an answer to the growing unemployment trials for hundreds of thousands of school leaving youth, enabling a competitive, multi-channel private sector involvement in provision of major infrastructure that will provide more employment. We must adequately study the challenges stemming from Horn nations and develop with response policies, strategies & processes, developed. Threats oozing from the GCC-Yemen War are swelling to a wider trajectory that is engulfing Qatar, Iran & superpowers. Against these inscrutable humanitarian and martial imports, Ethiopia must develop strategy to cocoon itself from the fall outs. The UN Security Council must address the dangers of such an expanded conflict; using all diplomatic means to inform the GCC of the consequences of wider spark of conflict in the Horn, while stepping up the martial preparedness of Ethiopia. Finally, the Sunni-Shia divide genesis of the GCC conflict must be tempered not to creep into the Horn. Major structural reforms will undoubtedly enhance the utility of constitutional provisos. Nonetheless, to every human problem there is a tendency to find quick, nifty and wicked solutions; the answer like the glitches submits itself, seems within grasp only to elude, and appears readily doable only to resist fulfilment.

Key words: diplomacy, international relations, regional security, regional integration, GCC, Horn of Africa

See paper here or https://www.academia.edu/38172891/Ratiocinating_Ethiopia_s_Foreign_and_National_Security_Policy_and_Practice_RL_Vol_XIII_No_400_MMXIX

Is the US a ‘BENIGN’ option to China’s ‘RAPACIOUS’ conduct? RL Vol. XII No 388 MMXVIII

Africa, China and the U.S.

Is the US a ‘BENIGN’ option to China’s ‘RAPACIOUS’ conduct?

Respublica Litereria RL Vol. XII No 388 MMXVIII

Costantinos Berhutesfa Costantinos,

Lem Ethiopia, the Environment & Development Society

https://addisababa.academia.edu/CostyCostantinos

Abstract

The US has unveiled its new Africa strategy, a plan focused on furthering US interests and countering the great power competitors - China & Russia. At the Heritage Foundation in Washington on Dec. 14, 2018, John Bolton said the US will advance fair trade and commercial ties with African nations, help fight terrorism and militant violence and provide aid “efficiently and effectively. The US intends to ensure that US taxpayer dollars aren’t used to bolster corrupt leaders and human rights violators. It will seek to reconfigure or end support for unproductive, unsuccessful & unaccountable peacekeeping operations in Africa. A Washington-based expert on China-Africa relations is disputing the basis of the US new Africa policy, which depicts US practices as a benign alternative to China’s “predatory” behaviour on. By luring African governments into debt traps, China is actually aiming to foster dependency relationships as part of its quest to achieve ‘global dominance’. US officials emphasise the socially positive nature of US spending in Africa, in contrast to what is presented as China’s indifference to corruption, environmental and human rights standards and that some nations have worrisome debt levels to Beijing. However, Dr Brautigam of Johns Hopkins refutes the US’s depiction of China as a stealthy villain intent on sucking Africa’s blood. On the contrary, she argues, China does not typically make loans at high interest rates to African countries that it knows have little chance of making good on their debt. Research findings indicate that China actually varies its lending rates in accordance with its assessments of African countries’ repayment resources.

Africa’s GDP growth has surprised even the international financial Institutions but influential strands of radical scholarship continue to question whether, Africa in the fringes of an increasingly inter-connected global economy, could ever hope to bolt out of the dominance of the industrial heartlands of Asia. Even the mighty US economy has launched a trade war with China in the global imbalance of trade. Yet the fact that Ethiopia had rapidly moved to establish itself as one of Africa’s foremost economy means there is explicit evidence that, not only is rapid economic development possible outside the established Asian Tigers, but that such a processes might ultimately take on an African regional character with Africa’s billion people as a consumer base. Such intoxicating buoyancy about the Ethiopian economy and the emerging ‘Africa lions’ appears to have a solid experiential foundation, but poignantly, this highly heralded stance would need to be sublimed with, like the Asian Tigers, a deluge of exploratory capital from the China and the West. This also shoulders an invigorating rising tide of probabilities that African nations, given the reckless nature of their public administration and investment management, will have the requisite economic governance assets necessary for industrial advancement. Nevertheless, the nature of the highly domineering authoritarian party elite is just coming to the surface as what was once viewed as fervent state is now portrayed by the new Ethiopian administration as egocentric corrupt centre of power.

Key words: Africa, China bashing, John Bolton, US, aid, loans, Asian Tigers, corruption, debt

See lecture here or  https://www.academia.edu/38042045/Is_the_US_a_BENIGN_option_to_Chinas_RAPACIOUS_conduct_RL_Vol._XII_No_388_MMXVIII

Contribution of Industrial Parks to Structural Transformation RL Vol. XII No 387 MMXVII

Contribution of Industrial Parks to Structural Transformation

Interview Trabscript - Respublica Litereria RL Vol. XII No 387 MMXVIII

Costantinos Berhutesfa Costantinos,

Lem Ethiopia, the Environment & Development Society

https://addisababa.academia.edu/CostyCostantinos

Summary

Ethiopia is determined in its steadfastness in building industrial parks that would expedite Domestic and Foreign Direct Investment. These parks are vital elements of the infrastructure supporting the structural transformation in Ethiopia that can attract institutional investors. Like the Chinese experience, these parks will contribute better if capital (both local and foreign currency) is available for investors. Following China and the Tiger economies’ great industrial revolution, nations build industrial parks because they believe that these parks will bring employment and national income that create value. Nonetheless, building the industrial cities and parks alone cannot create any worth. Unless the park is further fortified with important elements that attract domestic and foreign business, such a park is bound to nosedive. African governments have to be careful to have information of what institutional investors require before building too many empty parks. Furthermore, industrial park management must augur on a market-oriented economy focused on business ethics and customer contentment.

Ethiopia’s GDP growth has surprised even the IMF & World Bank, but influential strands of radical scholarship continue to question whether, Africa in the fringes of an increasingly inter-connected global economy, could ever hope to bolt out of the dominance of the conventional industrial nucleuses of Asia. Even the mighty United States economy has launched a trade war with China in the global imbalance of trade. Yet the fact that Ethiopia had rapidly moved to establish itself as one of Africa’s foremost economy means there is explicit evidence that, not only is rapid economic development possible outside the established Asian Tigers. Such intoxicating buoyancy about the Ethiopian economy and the emerging ‘Africa lions’ appears to have a solid experiential foundation, but poignantly, this highly heralded stance would need to be sublimed with, like the Asian Tigers, a deluge of exploratory capital from the China and the West.

Key words: Industrial Parks, Foreign Direct Investment, foreign capital, Public Administration, Management

See interview here or https://www.academia.edu/38032360/Interview_-_Contribution_of_Industrial_Parks_to_Structural_Transformation_RL_Vol._XII_No_387_MMXVIII

The Emergent African Airline – RL Vol XII No 351 MMXVIII

The Emergent African Airline –

 Ethiopian Airlines, ‘Going to Great Lengths to Please’

Lecture at the Africa open skies agreement, African Union preparatory summit

Public Lecture - RL Vol XII No 351 MMXVIII

Costantinos Berhutesfa Costantinos, PhD

Professor of Public Policy & Sustainable Institutional Reforms

https://addisababa.academia.edu/CostyCostantinos

Abstract

Ethiopian Airlines is Ethiopia's flag carrier^] and is wholly owned by the country's government. Ethiopian Airlines was founded on 21 December 1945 with an initial investment of USD one million with shares that were entirely held by the government. It commenced operations on 8 April 1946. It expanded to international flights in 1951. The firm became a share company in 1965. The airline has been a member of the International Air Transport Association since 1959 and of the African Airlines Association since 1968. Ethiopian is a Star Alliance member, having joined in December 2011. Ethiopian Airline’s 70-year history can be divided into two phases: the first 60 years, when there was steady if unspectacular growth, and the next decade, when, following the first posted loss after the conclusion of the war with Eritrea, the company enjoyed a strategic turnaround. As a result of a “strategic analysis”, the airline then developed its Vision 2010, “which repositioned the airline” driven by the objective of transforming turnover from $400-million in 2005 to $1-billion within five years. This was to be achieved by a “revamped network”, with a “morning bank” of about 52 flights to African destinations and an “evening bank” when these, apart from those west of Togo, would return and go out “again to the Middle East, Europe, Asia and the Americas”. The airline’s strategy, says its Tewolde, its CEO, is broken up into a number of different pillars: affordability and sustainability, the maintenance of global standards at the lowest possible costs, the maintenance of global standards at the lowest possible costs,  infrastructure -“our mission drives our fleet, which means we need long and range capacity. Diversity is a necessary evil.” The final pillar is the integration of the airline’s people, process and technology. Ethiopian’s visionary leaders have to keep a compelling vision for their business, see beyond the challenges of today to an empowering picture of tomorrow, impregnating their team and the organisation itself with this vision and fuelled by inspirations, the organisation charts its course to this new future. They aren’t authoritarian nor seek control over their employees. Instead, they provide freedom to employees to determine the best path to actualising this vision. It’s a discipline to hold the end picture in mind and commitment to work towards this vision each day. The hallmark traits of visionary leaders are being inspirational, emotionally, intelligent, open minded, imaginative, resolute, persistent, collaborative, bold, magnetic and optimistic. Ethiopian Airlines has the potential for fulfilling the Single African Air Transport Market

Key words: Africa, SAATM, Ethiopian Airlines, Air Transport, 

Updated Dec 2018 - see lecture here or  https://www.academia.edu/38006808/The_Emergent_African_Airline_-_Ethiopian_Airlines_Going_to_Great_Lengths_to_Please

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Priming Public Policy Analysis, Synthesis, Design, Execution & Policy ‘Clinic’ in Ethiopia - RL Vol XII No 378 MMXVIII

Priming Public Policy Analysis,

Synthesis, Design, Execution & Policy ‘Clinic’ in Ethiopia

Office of the Prime Minister, Legal and Policy Directorate General

Public Lecture - RL Vol XII No 378 MMXVIII

Yetnayet Ayele, PhD, AAU

Costantinos Berhutesfa Costantinos, PhD

Professor of Public Policy & Sustainable Institutional Reforms

https://addisababa.academia.edu/CostyCostantinos

Abstract

        This theme of the research looks into factors that can affect policy execution in Ethiopia with emphasis on the role of civic engagement for policy execution. With increased emphasis to the role of good governance for development, the trend is towards participatory policy-making and the public choice. However, civic engagements in the policy process are not common in many developing countries; much has to be done to strengthen it. The study concluded that policy execution problems are common for both the developed and the developing countries, but the problem is severe in developing countries due to several constraints. There is no single factor that influences execution, and there is no single theory that explains execution problems.

          The context with in which policy is formulated and implemented highly matters. Those developing countries who allowed citizens to participate in the policy process are showing encouraging results. The institutions, the participants, the resources available to the participants, the weight of state power in the society, the capacity of the state to do its will all, the content of the policy, and the configuration of issues vary significantly. He stated that in most of the developing countries, regimes legitimacy is questionable. Power is concentrated in government and societies are powerless. The state capacity to make and implement polices is very low, participant in the policy process are fewer than the developed countries, the policy process in not inclusive and some sectors of the society are hardly participate at all; the channels for participation are less well established and less clearly prescribed; information for policy making is much scarcer; foreign models are much more common. This implies that the policy environment in Ethiopia is not conducive for citizens and stakeholders to participate freely in matters affecting them.

        The Policy Clinic can assist the public sector in evaluating its performance and identifying the factors which contribute to its service delivery outcomes as the Ethiopian Government’s major challenge is to become more effective.. The Policy Clinic is uniquely oriented towards providing its users with the ability to draw causal connections between the choice of policy priorities, the resourcing of those policy objectives, the programmes designed to implement them, the services actually delivered and their ultimate impact on communities.

            Key words: public policy, policy analysis, policy formulation, policy execution, citizen participation, policy clinic

See lecture here or bhttps://www.academia.edu/37995877/Priming_Public_Policy_Analysis_Synthesis_Design_Execution_and_Policy_Clinic_in_Ethiopia_RL_Vol_XII_No_378_MMXVIII

The Human Cost of ‘Imperialist’ Interventions in the 21st Century MENA RL Vol XII No 376 MMXVIII

The Human Cost of ‘Imperialist’ 

Interventions in the 21^st Century Middle

East & North Africa (MENA)

Public Lecture - RL Vol XII No 376 MMXVIII

Costantinos Berhutesfa Costantinos, PhD

Professor of Public Policy & Sustainable Institutional Reforms

https://addisababa.academia.edu/CostyCostantinos

Abstract

The concept of the Responsibility to Protect (R2P) is a brand new international norm that removes the thin veneer of sovereignty from states and a novelty in the conduct of international relations. The ability of states to strip people of their rights to livelihoods security, behind the thin veneer non-interference in each other’s internal affairs is increasingly being challenged. Huntington work “The Clash of Civilisations” proposed that people's cultural and religious identities would be the primary source of conflict in the post-Cold War world. This lecture hones on the West’s colonial and interventionist war in the Middle East and Africa and its support for the Sunni-Shia conflict that is decimating Yemen. If the Libyan war was about saving lives, it was a catastrophic failure (Milne, 2011). NATO claimed it would protect civilians in Libya, but delivered far more killing. About 500 people, civilians and fighters, have been killed by shooting, shelling and NATO bombing. That has followed a two month-long siege and indiscriminate bombardment of a city of 100,000, which has been reduced to a Grozny-like state of destruction by newly triumphant rebel troops with NATO air and Special Forces support. Moreover, these massacre sites are only the latest of many such discoveries. Amnesty International has now produced compendious evidence of mass abduction and detention, beating and routine torture, killings and atrocities by the rebel militias Britain, France and the US have backed for months. A household survey of Iraq has found that approximately 600,000 people have been killed in the violence of the war that began with the U.S. invasion in March 2003 (Burnham, et al., 2006). As the Syrian conflict enters its seventh year, more than 465,000 Syrians have been killed in the fighting, more than a million injured and over 12 million Syrians - half the country's pre-war population - have been displaced from their homes. Operation Decisive Storm, the intervention initially consisted of a bombing campaign on Houthi rebels and later saw a naval blockade and the deployment of ground forces into Yemen starving millions to death. Saudi-UAE coalition 'cut deals' with al-Qaeda in Yemen (Al Jazeera, 2018). The West, the Arab World and the Gulf, Russia and the combatants have to come to a negotiated settlement on the human security of the region.

Key words: Arab, Gulf, Yemen, Libya, Syria, Iraq, Russia, US, EU, Sunni, Shia, Saudi, UAE, Egypt

See paper here or  https://www.academia.edu/37965354/The_Human_Cost_of_Imperialist_Interventions_in_the_21_st_Century_MENA_RL_Vol_XII_No_376_MMXVIII

What the Libyan tragedy has brutally hammered home is that foreign intervention does not only strangle freedom and self-determination – it doesn't protect lives either (The Economist, 2015).

Policing Algorithmic Shared Media! Could Racial Animosity & Social Media Hate Discourses scuttle Pluralism? Quo Vadis Ethiopia! RL Vol XII No 377 MMXVIII

Policing Algorithmic Shared Media!

Could Racial Animosity & Social Media Hate Discourses scuttle Pluralism? Quo Vadis Ethiopia!

Public Lecture - RL Vol XII No 377 MMXVIII

Costantinos Berhutesfa Costantinos, PhD

Professor of Public Policy & Sustainable Institutional Reforms

https://addisababa.academia.edu/CostyCostantinos

Abstract

Juan Ortiz Freuler (2018) asserts that three perspectives exist on ‘whether the internet is having a damaging impact on democracy’, auguring on the fact that ‘over the last few years, the potentially damaging impact of the internet, and particularly social media, on democracy has increasingly come to dominate the news. Catherine O'Donnell (2011) writes, after analysing more than 3 million tweets, gigabytes of content and thousands of blog posts, a new study finds that social media played a central role in shaping political debates in the Arab Spring. Indeed, governments assert that pernicious ‘politicians’ using social media defy reason and derive pleasure from real peoples’ misfortunes; ecstatically oblivious of the negative impact that they have on the poor in Ethiopia. Their media outlets thrive on promoting conflict, protected by their newly acquired rights of citizenship in the West. While they derive contentment from creating chaos, generate needless complexity and strife, these ‘politicians’ will never be worth one’s time and energy—and they take a lot of each. Whether it is ruthlessness or just plain idiocy, such reckless agent provocateurs that augur their discourse on argumentum ad hominem find it tantalising to waste the intellect of cognoscenti as their emotive cesspool.

Hence, the Ethiopian government has passed a cybercrime law that criminalises an array of substantive computer activities including the distribution of defamatory speech, spam, and pornography online among others offenses. The Computer Crime Proclamation law,, was passed, the government says, in an effort to more accurately attune the country’s laws to technological advances and provide the government better mechanisms and procedures to prevent, control, investigate, and prosecute the suspects of computer crimes (Carlson, 2016). Parallel to the recently introduced national motto in all government offices and beyond, Ethiopia, a New Horizon of Hope, which brings a single page (dashboard) of 100 days plan, the Office of Attorney General of Ethiopia is preparing a draft bill aiming to curb hate speech. It is also to bring accountability towards public speeches and every other discourse, which is deemed to ignite hate and racial tensions in the country. The rise of irresponsible social media activism and fake news in recent times is being blamed as the catalyst especially for race related violence in various parts of the country.

Using desk study of literature and personal observation, the research augurs on questions that are important in examining and assessing the ideological openness of transitions to plural politics in Ethiopia. The discussion augurs on the fact that beyond the sphere of social media agency, possibilities and problems of democratic transition openness can be grasped in terms of the related domain of ideology. Regulation of social media suggests itself, seems within reach only to elude, and appears readily practicable only to resist realisation. A more proactive state that inclusive of its citizens can wither away the challenges faced by agent provocateurs that augur their discourse on argumentum ad hominem find it tantalising to waste the intellect of well-meaning cognoscenti, as their emotive cesspool.

Key words: social media, regulation, political transition, political activism, populism, authoritarianism
See paper here or  https://www.academia.edu/37949894/Policing_Algorithmic_Shared_Media_Could_Racial_Animosity_and_Social_Media_Hate_Discourses_scuttle_Pluralism_Quo_Vadis_Ethiopia_-_RL_Vol_XII_No_377_MMXVIII

"Within countries, the supply of ideas of plural politics may be artificially deflated by particular strategies and mechanisms used by incumbent governments to manage entire reform processes. Conceptual possibilities may be left unrealised, or sub-optimally realised, insofar as governing elite are preoccupied with filling out those spaces of uncertainty in transition political thought, discourse and action that social media activists would occupy in the course of their own engagement."

Harnessing Social Capital for Nation Building and Inter-Citizen Group Peaceful Coexistence in Ethiopia: -RL Vol XII No 375 MMXVIII

Harnessing Social Capital for 

Nation Building and Inter-Citizen Group Peaceful Coexistence in Ethiopia:

The Role of CSOs, 5 Dec 2018, CCRDA, Addis Abeba

Moulding a Plural & Enterprising Polity & Citizenry:

A Clarion call for a Resilient Ethiopianism

Public Lecture - RL Vol XII No 375 MMXVIII

Costantinos Berhutesfa Costantinos, PhD

Professor of Public Policy & Sustainable Institutional Reforms

https://addisababa.academia.edu/CostyCostantinos

Abstract

Students of the 1970s demanded land to the tiller and the equality of nations & nationalities, an ideological arsenal that informed the era and that continues to enlighten politics heretofore, undergirded the ubiquity of imperious economic policy, the stress on political organisation and the national question. Half a century later, a human rights crisis stemming from the protest against impunity is emergent, triggered by identity issues, mal governance, corruption and impunity of officials. The state must look into local elders (shimagiles) to contain the mayhem. Coupled with this, lodged in a highly turbulent region, new martial and security scenarios threaten the nation. Hence, while ethnic liberation has been accomplished, Ethiopianness must now take the front stage to defend and advance the nation. While nations & nationalities have realised their freedom, what is simmering on is exigency for pluralistic governance and the statutory veneration they deserve as Ethiopians. The transformation achieved so far also means citizens are becoming more affluent and civically refined, demanding to be heard. A collective psyche that puts so much trust in the trappings of hegemony must be supplanted by a social awareness that gives due respect to the highest moral and professional benchmarks in social life. State collapse that stems from a society, which is not based on strong institutional pillars and robust meritocracy in its public administration, is bound to fail. Thus, the merit system is consequential as a tried and tested route to success in constitutional self-governance. The mystique of power is closely linked to the lack of execution of constitutional rules and political institutions such as the coordinates of the state and pillars of civil society.

In advancing the economy, private sector, capital and liberalisation of the big state owned enterprises that would unleash untapped billions for development, are indispensable allies to employment and livelihood security. In its transformational stance, the state must focus on streamlining discretionary rule of officials, eliminate monopolies and the economic distortions that facilitate them and improve accountability. Finally, a requisite for pluralism is a spirit of tolerance and transparency - discords resolved in a spirit of respect for the views of citizens. Visionary leadership, political will and public support are vital to the state’s legitimacy that twigs from meritorious choices to district-cum-zonal officers that are in direct contact with the populace and reform of policy-making and governing institutions. Society’s watchdogs and responsible and independent media are indispensable assets in curbing corruption and pursuing good governance goals consistently and in varying contexts, but do so without resorting to a self-defeating, overly scripted and stage-managed political gambit. The protests and the apologies herald a new era of openness, albeit at a price!

Key words: Ethiopianism, meritocracy, pluralism, human rights, corruption, mal governance,

See lecture here or https://www.academia.edu/37918416/Harnessing_Social_Capital_for_Nation_Building_and_Inter-Citizen_Group_Peaceful_Coexistence_in_Ethiopia_aA_Clarion_call_for_a_Resilient_Ethiopianism_-_RL_Vol_XII_No_375_MMXVIII

Society becomes civil when it asserts to elect legitimate political authority, by which it protects its hegemonic grip on the state for an enduring democratic society.

Nascent Pains of the Absolute Entitlement to Self-Determination and Outright Secession - RL Vol XII No 371 MMXVIII

Nascent Pains of the Absolute Entitlement to Self-Determination and Outright Secession

Plaintiffs in Civil Society and Ethiopia’s Neophyte Exploration into Social Re-engineering

Public Lecture - RL Vol XII No 371 MMXVIII

Costantinos Berhutesfa Costantinos,

President, Lem Ethiopia – the Environment & Development Society

https://addisababa.academia.edu/CostyCostantinos

Abstract

Article 39 of the Constitution of the Federal Democratic Republic of Ethiopia states the Rights of Nations, Nationalities, and Peoples. It establishes that “every Nation, Nationality and People in Ethiopia has an unconditional right to self-determination, including the right to secession. Nevertheless, current discussions and analyses of transition to democracy in Ethiopia is generally are marked by several limitations. These include: a tendency to narrow democratic thought and practice to the terms and categories of immediate, not very well considered, political and social action, a naive realism, as it were; inattention to problems of articulation or production of democratic systems and process within Ethiopian politics rather than simply as formal or abstract possibilities; ambiguity as to whether civil society is the agent or object of democratic change and concerning the role of the state; a nearly exclusive concern in certain institutional perspectives on self-determination in Ethiopia with generic attributes and characteristics of political organisations and consequent neglect of analysis in terms of specific strategies and performances of organisations in processes of transition; and inadequate treatment of the role of international agencies and of relations between global and indigenous aspects or dimensions of self-determination in Ethiopia.

It is a telling comment on the abstract nature of the whole exercise that the major nationalities of Ethiopia have been cultural categories rather than territorially defined political entities. Yet such was the power of the theory that even the Dergue was forced to make some half-hearted concessions to it by establishing autonomous units in its People's Democratic Republic of Ethiopia. After 1991, the student theory of the 1960s and 1970s has become official doctrine. The absence of any critical re-examination of the principle has meant that Ethiopia is now virtually a laboratory for its testing ‘self-determination and secession’ out, irrespective of the disastrous lessons of the South Sudan, Soviet Union, Yugoslavia, etc.

Whether democracy means individual freedom or collective rights, government policy or citizen action, private value or public norm, the upshot of the relative inattention to problems of articulation of open democratic systems and processes in itself makes democracy at once the most concrete of idea systems. Within current projects of political reform, democracy is either conventionalised or sterilised on terrain of theory and often vacuously formalised on the ground of practice. It enters Ethiopian politics and society in relatively abstract and plain form, yet is expected to land itself to immediate and vital Ethiopian polity's socio-political experience. It suggests itself, seems within reach only to elude, and appears readily practicable only to resist realisation.

Key words: Constitution, Article 39, ethnicity, nation, nationality, people, self-determination, secession, Ethiopia

See paper here or https://www.academia.edu/37889067/Nascent_Pains_of_the_Unconditional_Right_to_Self-Determination_and_Secession_RL_Vol_XII_No_371_MMXVIII