Constitutional Design in Divided Societies: the Ethiopian approachConstitutional Design in Divided Societies the Ethiopian approach

Abstract

One of the biggest challenges divided societies, in which identity conflicts spill over into political or become political, face is how to manage conflict that arise from or are based on ethnic, linguistic, religious differences. Among a variety of responses, constitutional design is one. Two of the most prominent writers on the issue, ArentdtLijphart and Donald Horwitz, though they agree on the impropriety of Western Majoritarian democracy for countries with divided societies; they disagree on the alternative constitutional design for these countries. They have presented a competing constitutional design. Lijphart advocates consociationalism, Horowitz centriptalism. The Federal Democratic Republic of Ethiopia (FDRE) Constitution, designed with the spirit of addressing these challenges, does not comport with these alternative constitutional designs offered. Centriptalism is out of the equation of the makers of the constitution. Though the Constitution exhibits certain elements of the features of consociationalism, it has overlooked the central features of consociationalism such as the proportional representation electoral system and executive power sharing, among others. If the prospect for peace and democracy in divided societies is as suggested by these models, Ethiopia does not have a proper constitutional design that addresses the challenges of divided societies.