A Tributary Model of State Formation: Ethiopia, 1600-2000

Description

This book discusses the political economy of African state formation, using Ethiopia as a case study. This book advances the argument that the Achilles' heel of Ethiopian, and more generally African, state formation is the chronic failure to nurture an independent economic base for hegemonic state elites in order to fully consolidate central authority. Using Fukuyama's work as a jumping off point, the book creates an overarching comparative analytical framework for modern political order anchored in the concept of tributarism, which captures the critical role of the independent peasant and trading economic base in western Asia and northeastern Africa in shaping the nature of the state and the regimes that controlled it. Second, the book develops case studies of the tributary state, focused mainly on three variants of the Ethiopian state since the 1600s: Gondar, Shewa, and Revolutionary. Finally, based on the notion of multiple equilibria generated by the permissible producer-appropriator bargains under tributarism and in-depth historical analyses of the case studies, the book presents many interesting implications for modern state-building and nation-building in Africa that goes beyond what is currently offered by the neo-patrimonial paradigm. Providing a rich theoretical background to contemporary challenges in African development, this book will be of interest to scholars of political science, economics, political economy, development economics, and African studies. Dedication Foreword Preface References Acknowledgments Contents List of Figures List of Tables List of Boxes List of Appendices Part I: The Theoretical Framework Chapter 1: The Making of the Modern Political Order 1.1 Social Order 1.1.1 The North–Wallis–Weingast (NWW) Thesis 1.1.2 The Acemoglu and Robinson (AR) Thesis 1.2 Political Order 1.3 Theories of State Formation 1.4 Transition to Modern Political Order 1.4.1 State Formation 1.4.2 Nation-State Formation 1.5 Political Order and Prosperity References Chapter 2: The Tributary-Civilizational State 2.1 The Feudal European Model of State Formation 2.2 The Tributary Afroasiatic Model of State Formation 2.3 The Islamic Empire State: Ottomans, Safavids, and Mughals 2.4 The Precolonial African State I: Gondar 2.5 The Precolonial African State II: Asante, Kongo, and Dahomey 2.5.1 The Kingdom of Kongo 2.5.2 The Kingdom of Dahomey 2.5.3 The Asante Union 2.6 Tributarism and Underdevelopment References Part II: Three Ethiopian Tributary States Chapter 3: The Gondarine Tributary-Military State 3.1 The Weight of Triple Legacies 3.2 Gondar as a Tributary-Military State 3.2.1 Competition for Officeholding 3.2.2 The Fiscal Base of the Gondarine State 3.2.3 Land Institutions 1: The Rist Sireet 3.2.4 Land Institutions 2: The Gult Sireet-Sir’at 3.2.5 A Game-Theoretic Perspective on Tributary Statism 3.3 Unstable Equilibrium: The Era of the Warring Princes Appendix 3.1: Chronology of Ethiopian Emperors, 1563–1974 (from the 28th Emperor to the 56th Emperor) References Chapter 4: The Shewan Fiscal-Territorial State 4.1 Colonialism’s Rude Encounter with an Indigenous State 4.2 The New Fiscal Base and Governance 4.3 The Jimma State: Landlordism, Slavery, and Free Trade 4.4 The Limits of Tributarism for Nation-State Formation 4.4.1 Land Institutions and Political Culture 4.4.2 Impact on Economic Development References Chapter 5: The Ethiopian Revolutionary State 5.1 Anachronistic Statism and Atavistic Tribalism 5.2 The Legacies of Shewa Inform a Revolution 5.3 The Garrison-Populist Regime 5.4 The Ethnocentric-Capitalist Regime 5.5 The Paradox of State-Building and Nation-Debuilding Under RS References Part III: A Modern African Political Order Chapter 6: Implications for Reforming the Postcolonial State 6.1 The Postcolonial African State 6.2 Institutionalizing Restraints on Powerholders 6.3 Re-imagining the Post-Revolutionary Ethiopian State 6.4 The Virtues of Decentralization 6.5 Concluding Thoughts References Glossary Index