Interrogating Land Policy Perspectives: Ethiopia in Focus

Abstract

The article examines major contending land policy perspectives in the context of contemporary Ethiopia. It casts doubts whether the people`s land ownership perspective is actually in place in Ethiopia, calling for in-depth empirical investigation of the issue of whether the fundamental ethos of the people land ownership enshrined in the FDRE Constitution is being significantly denuded by land alienation trends reflected in the practices of loose landholding expropriation, of commercial farmland acquisitions and of significant informal land transfers. The article further suggests an investigation of whether a contingent case for the people`s land ownership paradigm is defensible in the circumstances of Ethiopia with a proviso: a system of government which takes into account views of the rural landholding masses and thus bring the silent peasants and herders to the center stage in politics, i.e., prevalence in the nation of representative and deliberative democracy. The article sees the rule of law and functioning independent and competent judiciary as equally important preconditions.