GDI Lecture: Ethiopia’s ‘Developmental State’: Political Order and Distributive Crisis
| Dates: | 27 February 2024 |
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| Times: | 16:30 - 18:00 |
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| What is it: | Lecture |
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| Organiser: | Global Development Institute |
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| Who is it for: | University staff, External researchers, Adults, Alumni, Current University students, General public |
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| Speaker: | Tom Lavers |
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In this lecture, Tom Lavers (UoM) will discuss his recent book, which is concerned with the politics of state-led development and, specifically, how regimes maintain power during the extended periods required to bring about economic transformation. The book focuses on Ethiopia, the leading example of state-led development in Africa in recent decades. Drawing on extensive fieldwork over a decade, the book examines how the Ethiopian Peoples’ Revolutionary Democratic Front (EPRDF, 1991–2019) sought to maintain political order through the structural transformation of the economy, and why the party collapsed amid mass protests and factional divisions, leading to the outbreak of civil war in 2020. Through detailed multi-sector and multi-scalar analysis, the book argues that the EPRDF sought to secure mass acquiescence through distribution of land and employment. However, rapid population growth and the limits of industrial policy in the contemporary global economy led to a distributive crisis that was a central factor in the regime’s collapse. As a key case of state-led development in Africa, the Ethiopian experience raises important questions about the prospects for structural transformation elsewhere on the continent.
Speaker
Tom Lavers
Role: Senior Lecturer in Politics and Development
Organisation: Global Development Institute
Travel and Contact Information
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G33
Humanities Bridgeford Street
Manchester
