Fuelling the developmental state: Governing through differential mobilities in Ethiopia

This article examines the relationship between everyday practices of fuel distribution and the infrastructural politics of Ethiopian state developmentalism. Infrastructure-led urbanization in Ethiopia’s southern Sidama Region reveals a contradictory regime of mobility: seamless movement for government and industry, contrasted by growing struggles for mobility among much of the everyday population. The empirical analysis demonstrates how the securitization of Ethiopian state developmentalism perpetuates inequality, particularly by restricting the mobility of small-scale entrepreneurs and private individuals and how the unequal distribution of fuel exacerbates this divide. The article highlights how Sidama’s quest for autonomy, while successful in 2020, continues to face challenges from centralized, top-down infrastructure projects. These projects prioritize national economic goals over local needs, reinforcing historical patterns of marginalization. By emphasizing the role of everyday practices and informal infrastructures, the article shows how these interact with state policies to both challenge and reinforce state power. This paradox underscores the complex effects of infrastructure development in Ethiopia, where resistance to state-led developmentalism emerges from grassroots efforts, such as informal petrol markets, yet remains constrained by formal and informal systems of governance. The study offers broader insights into the intersections of mobility, infrastructure and state developmentalism in contexts of uneven development.