scholarly journals Ethnic conflict in Ethiopia: Federalism as a cause and solution

2021 ◽  
Vol 6 (30) ◽  
pp. e210832
Author(s):  
Takele Bekele Bayu
Keyword(s):  
Ethnic Conflict ◽  
Comparative Approach ◽  
Constitutional Rights ◽  
Ethnic Conflicts ◽  
Ethnic Inequality ◽  
National Unity ◽  
Ethnic Federalism ◽  
Group Relationships ◽  
The Right ◽  
Ethnocultural Diversity

Adopted in 1991, ethnic federalism indeed paved the way for the recognition, accommodation, and institutionalization of ethnocultural diversity for the first time in the country’s history since its modern existence. What is equally important is, the practice of ethnic federalism complicated state-society and inter-group relationships creating a favorable environment for ethnic confrontation and conflict to take place in the country threatening national unity, eroded century-old values of coexistence, a hard ethnic boundary where administrative boundaries are served as political and ethnic differentiators like the Oromo and Somali conflict over contested boundaries. Territorial recognition, and institutionalization of ethnicity gave room for the emergence of ‘ethnic like and ethnic others’ thinking,  made minorities in different regions victims of politics and failed to provide sound accommodation mechanisms from them, severely restricted people’s constitutional rights including the right to mobility and right to work, created room for the re-emergence of secessionist tendency. Hence, ethnic federalism while solving old problems of ethnic inequality and injustice; has created new problems of ethnic tensions and conflict across Ethiopia. It is the purpose of this study to investigate how and why federalism is being considered as the source of ethnic conflicts in the Ethiopian context. The study adopted a qualitative comparative approach while FGDs and key informant interviews were used to gather data. The finding of the study shows that though multinational federation plays an irreplaceable role to accommodate and institutionalize ethnocultural diversity, the notion and implementation of federalism instigate ethnic conflict in the Ethiopian context.

Is Federalism the Source of Ethnic Identity-Based Conflict in Ethiopia?

2022 ◽  
Vol 14 (1) ◽  
pp. 104-125
Author(s):  
Takele Bekele Bayu
Keyword(s):  
Ethnic Conflicts ◽  
Ethnic Inequality ◽  
Qualitative Research Design ◽  
Ethnic Tensions ◽  
Ethnic Federalism ◽  
Political Communities ◽  
Inclusive Society ◽  
Design And Methods ◽  
The Military ◽  
The Way

Though statehood nature traced back to ancient times, modern Ethiopia came into being in the second half of the nineteenth century under the military expansion of King Menelik II. Since then subsequent political systems in the country have failed to recognise and accommodate the country’s ethnolinguistic diversity. However, in 1991 the new government constitutionally recognised and institutionally accommodated the country’s diversity. While solving old problems of ethnic inequality and injustice, ethnic federalism has created new problems of ethnic tensions and conflict across Ethiopia. The article aims at investigating how and why ethnic federalism ended up being a source of ethnic conflicts in Ethiopia and suggests the way out. The article employed a qualitative research design and methods of data analysis and interpretation. The finding of the study shows the notion and implementation of federalism has to be blamed, which left unclear administration boundary, overlooked cross-cutting variables, Majority versus minority and Titular versus Settler problem, politicised ethnicity by transformed cultural communities into political communities, produced mega ethnic syndrome within the Ethiopian society, for the country’s ethnic troubles and conflicts. Reforming the federal system and its constitutions is the way forwarded to reduce ethnic tensions and create an inclusive society in Ethiopia.

Separation or Unity? A Model for Solving Ethnic Conflicts

1997 ◽  
Vol 16 (2) ◽  
pp. 237-248 ◽  
Author(s):  
Jan Tullberg ◽  
Birgitta S. Tullberg
Keyword(s):  
Ethnic Conflict ◽  
Ethnic Conflicts ◽  
Rational Model ◽  
National Unity ◽  
Proposed Model ◽  
High Degree

This article outlines a consistent and rational model for solving ethnic conflicts. We argue that ethnic separation should be regarded as an alternative to national unity, and not simply dismissed as impossible. A decision on separation or unity should be made democratically by the group whose separation has been proposed. If separation is approved, migration over the border between the newly formed states should be part of such a solution. The article has three main parts: (1) a model for solving separationist demands; (2) an analysis of the evolutionary background to ethnic conflicts; and (3) a discussion of principal objections to the proposed model. The present international impotence in situations of ethnic conflict is to a high degree caused by seeing most solutions as impossible—either realistically or morally. This article stresses the virtue of having one model instead of the “flexibility” that currently prevails under the disguise of generally acclaimed, but contradictory ideals.

Ethnic Conflict and Violence in Myanmar: The Exodus of Stateless Rohingya People

2018 ◽  
Vol 25 (4) ◽  
pp. 647-663 ◽  
Author(s):  
Mahanam Bhattacharjee Mithun
Keyword(s):  
Everyday Life ◽  
Ethnic Conflict ◽  
Minority Groups ◽  
Constitutional Rights ◽  
Ethnic Conflicts ◽  
The Government

Since independence, different minority groups in Myanmar have experienced ethnic conflicts and violence. Among them, the Rohingya community face the worst challenges. Due to government-imposed restrictions and the denial of the government to grant them citizenship and constitutional rights, the Rohingya face many problems in their everyday life. This article aims at revealing the main reasons behind the ethnic conflicts in Rakhine state of Myanmar and the reasons that force the Rohingya people to flee the country to such a huge extent.

The Case for Muslim Constitutional Interpretive Activity

1990 ◽  
Vol 7 (1) ◽  
pp. 69-75
Author(s):  
Kathleen Moore
Keyword(s):  
African American ◽  
Substantial Contribution ◽  
Constitutional Rights ◽  
Religious Groups ◽  
Racial Hatred ◽  
Special Diet ◽  
Court Record ◽  
Religious Associations ◽  
Islamic Faith ◽  
The Right

Muslim Involvement: The Court Record 1.Prisoners' RightsCan we rely upon the courts to protect Islam and Muslims from discriminatory treatment? Have the courts considered Islam to be a 'religion' worthy of constitutional protection? The issue of First Amendment protection of Muslim beliefs and practices has arisen most often in cases brought by African-American Muslims who are incarcerated. In fact, the area of law to which Muslims have made their most substantial contribution to date is the area of prisoners' rights litigation. African-American Muslim inmates have been responsible for establishing prisoners' constitutional rights to worship. Cases brought by Muslims have established that prisoners have the right to assemble for religious services; to consult a cleric of their faith; to possess religious publications and to subscribe to religious literature; to wear unobstrusive religious symbols such as medallions; to have prepared a special diet required by their religion; and to correspond with their spiritual leaders. The court record demonstrates that Muslim inmates' religious liberty claims, challenging prison regulations that impinge on the free exercise of the Islamic faith, have been accepted only under certain circumstances. In brief, the responsiveness of the courts to Muslim inmates' claims has turned on a number of factors including: (1) the issue of equality of treatment of all religious groups in prison; (2) the courts' reticence to reverse the decisions of prison officials; (3) the degree to which the inmates' challenges would undermine the fundamental interests of the state (e.g. in prison security and administrative efficiency); and (4) the showing that Islam is parallel in significant ways to the conventional Protestant, Catholic, and Jewish faiths.Constitutional protection of Islamic practices in prison and elsewhere, however, has not been automatic. Many Muslim organizations, the Nation of Islam in particular, have been treated as cults, or suspect and dangerous groups, due in part to the perception that Muslims teach racial hatred, and have not been regarded in the same respect as 'mainline' religious groups. It has been argued before the courts that Muslim doctrine contains political aspirations and economic goals as well as racial prejudice and should be suppressed in the interest of society. The gist of this argument is that certain Muslim groups are primarily political and not religious associations and thus ...

The Dynamic Free Speech Clause

2018 ◽  
Author(s):  
Timothy Zick
Keyword(s):  
Free Speech ◽  
Constitutional Rights ◽  
Relational Dynamics ◽  
Free Exercise ◽  
Second Amendment ◽  
The Press ◽  
The Common ◽  
Rights Discourse ◽  
The Right ◽  
Speech Clause

This book examines the relational dynamics between the U.S. Constitution’s Free Speech Clause and other constitutional rights. The free speech guarantee has intersected with a variety of other constitutional rights. Those intersections have significantly influenced the recognition, scope, and meaning of rights ranging from freedom of the press to the Second Amendment right to bear arms. They have also influenced interpretation of the Free Speech Clause itself. Free speech principles and doctrines have facilitated the recognition and effective exercise of constitutional rights, including equal protection, the right to abortion, and the free exercise of religion. They have also provided mediating principles for constructive debates about constitutional rights. At the same time, in its interactions with other constitutional rights, the Free Speech Clause has also been a complicating force. It has dominated rights discourse and subordinated or supplanted free press, assembly, petition, and free exercise rights. Currently, courts and commentators are fashioning the Second Amendment right to keep and bear arms in the image of the Free Speech Clause. Borrowing the Free Speech Clause for this purpose may turn out to be detrimental for both rights. The book examines the common and distinctive dynamics that have brought free speech and other constitutional rights together. It assesses the products and consequences of these intersections, and draws important lessons from them about constitutional rights and constitutional liberty. Ultimately, the book defends a pluralistic conception of constitutional rights that seeks to leverage the power of the Free Speech Clause but also to tame its propensity to subordinate, supplant, and eclipse other constitutional rights.

Anti-System Politics

2020 ◽  
Author(s):  
Jonathan Hopkin
Keyword(s):  
Comparative Approach ◽  
The European Union ◽  
Political Systems ◽  
The United Kingdom ◽  
The Us ◽  
Long Term Result ◽  
The Rich ◽  
Dramatic Shift ◽  
To Come ◽  
The Right

Recent elections in the advanced Western democracies have undermined the basic foundations of political systems that had previously beaten back all challenges—from both the Left and the Right. The election of Donald Trump to the US presidency, only months after the United Kingdom voted to leave the European Union, signaled a dramatic shift in the politics of the rich democracies. This book traces the evolution of this shift and argues that it is a long-term result of abandoning the postwar model of egalitarian capitalism in the 1970s. That shift entailed weakening the democratic process in favor of an opaque, technocratic form of governance that allows voters little opportunity to influence policy. With the financial crisis of the late 2000s, these arrangements became unsustainable, as incumbent politicians were unable to provide solutions to economic hardship. Electorates demanded change, and it had to come from outside the system. Using a comparative approach, the text explains why different kinds of anti-system politics emerge in different countries and how political and economic factors impact the degree of electoral instability that emerges. Finally, it discusses the implications of these changes, arguing that the only way for mainstream political forces to survive is for them to embrace a more activist role for government in protecting societies from economic turbulence.

From Property Rights to Liberty Rights: We the Corporations, A Review Essay

2021 ◽  
Vol 95 (2) ◽  
pp. 335-340
Author(s):  
Laura Phillips Sawyer
Keyword(s):  
Civil Rights ◽  
Civil Liberties ◽  
Political Process ◽  
Constitutional Rights ◽  
Bill Of Rights ◽  
State Action ◽  
Unequal Treatment ◽  
The People ◽  
The Right ◽  
We The People

A long-standing, and deeply controversial, question in constitutional law is whether or not the Constitution's protections for “persons” and “people” extend to corporations. Law professor Adam Winkler's We the Corporations chronicles the most important legal battles launched by corporations to “win their constitutional rights,” by which he means both civil rights against discriminatory state action and civil liberties enshrined in the Bill of Rights and the Constitution (p. xvii). Today, we think of the former as the right to be free from unequal treatment, often protected by statutory laws, and the latter as liberties that affect the ability to live one's life fully, such as the freedom of religion, speech, or association. The vim in Winkler's argument is that the court blurred this distinction when it applied liberty rights to nonprofit corporations and then, through a series of twentieth-century rulings, corporations were able to advance greater claims to liberty rights. Ultimately, those liberty rights have been employed to strike down significant bipartisan regulations, such as campaign finance laws, which were intended to advance democratic participation in the political process. At its core, this book asks, to what extent do “we the people” rule corporations and to what extent do they rule us?

Legal views of E. Olesnytsky

2020 ◽  
pp. 39-48
Author(s):  
Liubomyr Ilyn
Keyword(s):  
Legal Protection ◽  
Legal Culture ◽  
Political Activity ◽  
Practical Significance ◽  
Comparative Approach ◽  
Public Interests ◽  
Cooperative Movement ◽  
Special Scientific ◽  
General Scientific ◽  
The Right

Purpose. The purpose of the study is to analyze the legal and state views of E. Olesnytsky, in particular his assessment of imperial law, as well as practical activities as a lawyer and one of the initiators of the cooperative movement in Galicia in the early twentieth century. Methods. The methodological basis of the study was a set of general scientific, special scientific and philosophical methods, as well as the principles of historicism. The key was the biographical method and the comparative approach, which allowed to reveal the peculiarities of the formation of legal views of E. Olesnytsky. Findings. It is established that through the prism of the analysis of political and legal views of E. Olesnytsky it is possible not only to trace the level of legal culture, social and political activity of the population of Galicia, but also to determine the practical content of imperial legislation. The influence of I. Franko and socialist ideas in general on the legal views of E. Olesnytsky, who was one of the founders of the «Сhasopys Рravnycha», actively analyzed the imperial regional legislation for expediency, rationality and compliance with public interests. This work was key in raising the level of legal culture of the population, and after 1891 it was supplemented by the legal activity of E. Olesnytsky. Among the regional legislation, the lawyer's special attention was drawn to the right of propination, which gave large landowners a monopoly on the production and sale of alcohol. After 1901, E. Olesnytsky focused on the development and popularization of the cooperative movement in Galicia, including the legal protection of producers and sellers of agricultural products. Originality. The directions of E. Olesnytsky's professional and professional interests in the field of economic and financial law of Austria-Hungary, advocacy and organization of the cooperative movement are determined. Practical significance. The results of the study can be used in further historical and legal research, preparation of special courses.

scholarly journals The role of the constitutional complaint in the legislative process: Comparative legal aspect

2021 ◽  
Vol 39 (69) ◽  
pp. 833-850
Author(s):  
Nataliia I. Brovko ◽  
Liudmyla P. Medvid ◽  
Ihor Y. Mahnovskyi ◽  
Vusal A. Ahmadov ◽  
Maksym I. Leonenko
Keyword(s):  
Quality Assurance ◽  
State Government ◽  
Legal Aspect ◽  
Legislative Process ◽  
Constitutional Rights ◽  
State Legislation ◽  
The Subject ◽  
The Right ◽  
Heads Of State

The article deals with the role of constitutional complaint in the system of quality assurance of the state legislation, for protection of the rights and freedoms. Constitutional complaints, as well as their optimal models, require detailed research. Comparative analysis and survey are the main methods. The subject of a constitutional complaint in the model proposed by the authors may be laws or their individual provisions, regulations of heads of state, government, other statutes and regulations, individual administrative acts, judgements in specific cases. Citizens, foreigners, stateless persons, and legal entities are subjects who have the right to file a constitutional complaint. The authors attribute the following conditions of admissibility of a constitutional complaint: the presence and proof of violation of his/its constitutional rights and freedoms, the use of all other remedies to protect violated rights and freedoms, compliance with deadlines for filing a constitutional complaint in some countries, and payment of state duty. The model proposed by the authors is, however, universal, and further needs to be detailed for countries of interest.

scholarly journals British Right-Wing Anti-semitism, 1918-1930.

2021 ◽  
Author(s):  
◽  
Oliver Brown
Keyword(s):  
First World War ◽  
Primary Sources ◽  
Comparative Approach ◽  
Right Wing ◽  
World War ◽  
Anti Semitism ◽  
Wide Range ◽  
The First World War ◽  
The Right ◽  
First World

This thesis investigates the prevalence of anti-Semitism in the British right-wing between the years of 1918 and 1930. It aims to redress the imbalance of studies on interwar British right-wing anti-Semitism that are skewed towards the 1930s, Oswald Mosley and the British Union of Fascists. This thesis is the first to focus exclusively on the immediate aftermath of the First World War and the rest of the 1920s, to demonstrate how interwar British right-wing anti-Semitism was not an isolated product of the 1930s. This work shows that anti-Semitism was endemic throughout much of the right-wing in early interwar Britain but became pushed further away from the mainstream as the decade progressed. This thesis adopts a comparative approach of comparing the actions and ideology of different sections of the British right-wing. The three sections that it is investigating are the “mainstream”, the “anti-alien/anti-Bolshevik” right and the “Jewish-obsessive” fringe. This comparative approach illustrates the types of anti-Semitism that were widespread throughout the British right-wing. Furthermore, it demonstrates which variants of anti-Semitism remained on the fringes. This thesis will steer away from only focusing on the virulently anti-Semitic, fringe organisations. The overemphasis on peripheral figures and openly fascistic groups when historians have glanced back at the 1920s helped lead to an exaggerated view that Britain was a tolerant haven in historiographical pieces, at least up until the 1980s. This thesis is using a wide range of primary sources, that are representative of the different sections of the British right-wing.

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