Political culture is the code of acceptable ideas, values and orientations about a political system that is shared by most members of a given community – political community (polity). It is a set of attitudes and practices that shape political behaviour. The political culture of society matters in building democracy and democratic systems. One can have a parochial political culture, a subject political culture or a participant political culture. Political culture in Ethiopia is identified by scholars as parochial.
The parochial political culture is one in which citizens are only remotely aware of the presence of central government, and live their lives near enough regardless of the decisions taken by the state – distant and unaware of political phenomena. They have neither knowledge nor interest in politics. This type of political culture is, in general, matching with a traditional political structure. In such a reality, the political culture of the society is rudimentary and is highly mixed with its religious culture. Political attachment and loyalty though is multi-layered in this case – it is denser in kinship, religious and ethnic lines than in the national line.
Civic nationalism is very low, as people identify themselves with a narrow circle rather than the wider circle of the nation. Zero sum politics is the rule of the game. What one can see in Ethiopia is an exact spitting image of parochial political culture, where over 80pc of the population are remotely aware of the presence of central government and live their lives irrespective of the nature of political decisions as long as it does not directly impact their daily activities in the short term.
By virtue of their geography and distance from towns, these people have neither the knowledge nor the interest in politics. Those who have knowledge and interest in politics, on the other hand, more often than not mix their political stance with what sociologists referred to as primordial values and norms – like religion, ethnicity, kinship and tradition.
It is an open secret that many political elites and the majority of the youth subscribe a higher loyalty to their ethnic lines than to the nation – to Ethiopia. This divided and zero-sum loyalty to the nation from the elite and ethnic-lined participation in politics results in a deviation to rational, informed and civic minded discussion, which could have been important for building democracy and a democratic system.
The ‘who gets what, when, how and why’ in politics, economics, military and other activities has to be evaluated in terms of ethnicity, while it should have been evaluated in terms of democracy and democratic principles. Ethnic politics is creating a parochial tendency among members of all ethnic groups, threatening harmony and friendship among many groups, weakening stability in the politics of the country, inviting in destabilising foreign powers, and threatening the integrity and unity of the multi-nation.
The government’s mechanical approach of development/economics first, politics second is the beginning of the political mess, facilitating the beginning of the end. The politics of engineering is not a mechanical thing where the part makes up the whole. In fact, in politics the whole is greater than the combination of the parts – unlike in mechanical engineering, where the whole is exactly the sum-total of the parts. Statesmen should take that into account in their ongoing state formation and nation building activities.
Alex De Waal quoted the late Meles Zenawi as arguing that ‘‘what meaning did liberal civil and political rights have in a context of abject poverty or political chaos? Development and a strong state were prerequisites for human rights, and Ethiopia needed to establish these first’’.
This orientation is disastrous, simply because it deprives people of their simply because they are human beings. Human and democratic rights, for the most part, require no prerequisites, save the prerequisite of non-interference from the government.
The only explanation for a government’s failure to observe rights is excessive economic dogmatism over political mastery. Economic dogmatism will not be a resolution for hundreds and thousands asking for liberty and freedom from the excessive intrusion and intervention of local governments.
Nor will it add up to their voices being heard, or entertaining any opinion or thought perceived to hinder the national agenda (economic). Economic dogmatism may not allow the expression of rights for economic development itself, resulting in a disparity in development among regions and class.
Every voice that deviates from the new normal, development, as defined by the government, is rejected as a hindrance to development. This orientation is dangerous in the 21st century to a society as diverse as Ethiopia.
The government is building what it calls a developmental hegemony (ideological hegemony), which is an important feature of a developmental state. Hegemony, by definition, prevents competing ideas and power. This means that, in the effort to build hegemony, the government is suppressing competitive ideas and powers which could have been constructive alternative opinions in building a democratic system.
The strategy of building a developmental ideological hegemony excludes the intellectual as wishy-washy to developmental causes. They are considered as adherent of neo-liberalism and a challenge to developmental state. The late Prime Minister Meles had been frequently heard saying that neo-liberalism was “the only game in town” for intellectuals; hence, excluding the intellectual from the main stream ideology of developmentalism. This strategic exclusion has had stifled intellectual debates, which would have been important for the development of informed popular participation in democracy.
The government is also intolerant of ideas and positions other than its own. Those who may challenge the government are considered anti-development, anti-peace and errand boys of neo-liberalism. The government’s project of building ideological hegemony of developmental democracy is inherently opinion-phobic, resulting in popular discontent and its violent expression.
Politics, as an authoritative allocation of resources, requires a powerful man and/or strong institutions. The ‘who gets what, when, how and why’ of a policy and a decision can only be implemented through an authoritative power and this power should be vested in strong institutions.
Public participation and democratising as important strategies, on the one hand, and building speedy, expedient, institutionally driven and centralised mechanisms of decision making and its implementation, on the other, can only happen under strong institutions. Institutions are important for making speedy decisions based on consistent, transparent, accountable, effective and efficient information processing and agency coordination. These are important pillars of good governance in a democratic system.
These issues are worsened not just by the collective leadership tradition of the EPRDF-led government, but also the neither strong man nor strong institutions situation of the state. That is why we are seeing promises made unimplemented. The government has promised at the top of its voice to do away with rent seeking behaviour in the government and the lack of good governance in the earliest possible time since last year. But these continue to be problems.
A number of things factor in the downward spiral of building a democracy and democratic system in Ethiopia, but economic dogmatism, a parochial political culture, ideological hegemony and a weak institutional set up stand out vividly.
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