National federalism, internal geopolitics, and non-state armed groups in Ethiopia

Ethiopia's national federalism (also termed ethnic or ethno-linguistic federalism) was adopted in 1995 to end the armed rebellion produced by imperial and Derg centralism. Yet, armed mobilization escalated after 2018. Based on 27 in-depth key informant interviews and documentation analysis in Tigray, Amhara, Oromia, and Benishangul-Gumuz, this paper identifies why. First, the paper introduce the idea of hollowed autonomy, the loss of autonomous authority through political and security arrangements, even as formal autonomy and symbolic autonomy continue to exist. The paper argues that it is the loss of hollowed autonomy, and not federalism per se or centralized government structures, which drives post-2018 mobilization, since the 2019 political merger has eliminated the political avenue that had compensated for EPRDF centralization. Geopolitical competition accounts for the locus: mobilization occurred in contested zones (Addis Ababa, Metekel, and Wolkayt-Humera) where federal intervention was the trigger.