Federalism In Ethiopia

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Fiscal federalism in Ethiopian, review; Introduction According to Elazar (1987b) and Ostrom (1989), the term “Federalism” originated from the Latin term “Foedus”, meaning “Covenant”. For Börzel (n.d) federalism “refers to a spatial or territorial division of power between two or more levels of government in a given political system”. Riker (1964: 11), quoted by Fillippov et al (2004: 5), defines federalism as a state in which “two levels of government rule the same land and people; each level has at least one area of action in which it is autonomous; there is some [Constitutional] guarantee.....of the autonomy of each government in its own sphere.” For William H. Riker (cited in Lijphart 1999: 186) therefore, federalism is “a political organization …show more content…

Despite the success of federalism in these countries, there are many cases where federalism miserably failed. These include countries in East Europe, and other Third World countries (Watts 1998: 132). As noted by Agbu (2004: 31) the earliest advocates of federalism like Wheare (1964) and Duchacek (1977) equated federalism with democracy. Federal systems are composed of a federal (national) government, and constituent unit governments that are known by a variety of names in various …show more content…

This is so because proponents of decentralization argue that as opposed to “self-regarding” governments “citizen-regarding” governments consider decentralization as a practical way to: a) bring services to hitherto neglected peripheral areas; b) obtain a more equitable distribution of public services; and c)increase popular participation in policy choices (Brosio, 2000 p.). Accordingly, among a number of countries of the world , over the last two decades, Ethiopia, is one of the nations who chose the approach to reach the people via its governance

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