Continuity and Rupture in Ethiopia under the Ethiopian People’s Revolutionary Democratic Front

While Abiy Ahmed’s surge to power since April 2018 generated tremendous expectation, the political crisis that culminated in a dramatic conflict in Tigray more recently urges a critical engagement with the transformations Ethiopia has experienced since the 1990s. Through the analytical lens of continuity and rupture contributions to this issue of afriche e orienti reflect on the challenges of state- and nation-building in Ethiopia, reviewing some of the most defining social, political, and economic topics that have characterised the Ethiopian People’s Revolutionary Democratic Front (EPRDF) period. The interplay between ethnic federalism, the developmental state, and authoritarianism is the terrain within which this issue interrogates questions around the nature of Ethiopian history, its structural and material drivers and representations at a time of heightened social and political transformation. This issue is edited by Davide Chinigò, Adjunct Professor in the Department of Political and Social Science and the Department of Cultural Heritage at the University of Bologna, and Research Fellow in the Department of Sociology and Social Anthropology at Stellenbosch University.