Transformation and Continuity in Revolutionary Ethiopia (African Studies)

This pioneering study was first published in 1988. It examines the effects of revolution on one of Africa's largest states. Christopher Clapham traces the continuities between revolutionary Ethiopia and the development of a centralised Ethiopian state since the nineteenth century, emphasising the institutionalisation of the revolutionary regime since 1978. He pays particular attention to the establishment of a Leninist political party and its associated mass organisations, the new apparatus of physical and economic control, and - critically important in Ethiopia - the effects of revolution on agricultural production. He also assesses the impact of revolution on national integration and regional conflict, and the reversal of Ethiopia's international alignment through alliance with the socialist states. A postscript to the paperback edition outlines events in Ethiopia between 1987 and 1990.