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The Ethiopian No-Party State: A Note on the Functions of Political Parties in Developing States

Published online by Cambridge University Press:  02 September 2013

Robert L. Hess  and
Gerhard Loewenberg
Robert L. Hess
Affiliation:
Northwestern University
Gerhard Loewenberg
Affiliation:
Mount Holyoke College
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Extract

The emergence of political parties performing important functions in the political system has characterized the recent history of much of the African continent. The new party systems have taken various forms, including single parties with a narrow ruling elite, as in Liberia, or with mass support, as in Guinea; two-party systems where one mass party is dominant, as is the case in Kenya; and multi-party systems, as in Nigeria and Somalia. In two states, Libya and Sudan, once-flourishing political parties have been banned. Only in Ethiopia (Etritrea excluded) have there never been political parties. The Empire of the Conquering Lion of Judah can well be termed a no-party state. In Ethiopia today no organization exists that would or could describe itself as a political party.

Type
Research Article
Information
American Political Science Review , Volume 58 , Issue 4 , December 1964 , pp. 947 - 950
Copyright
Copyright © American Political Science Association 1964

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References

1 For a treatment of the development of political parties in Africa, see Hodgkin, Thomas, Nationalism in Colonial Africa (New York, 1957)Google Scholar and African Political Parties (Penguin Books, 1961)Google Scholar.

2 Political Parties (London, 2d ed., 1959), p. 426Google Scholar.

3 Carter, Gwendolen M., African One-Party States (Ithaca, 1962), pp. 1–10Google Scholar.

4 The first three of these functions are specifically discussed by Coleman, James S. in Almond, G. A. and Coleman, J. S., The Politics of Developing Areas (Princeton, 1960), pp. 331, 336, 351, 552–556Google Scholar.

5 Ibid., pp. 538–544.

6 Because they are concerned with the development of competitive party systems, Almond and Coleman, op. cit., pay scant attention to Ethiopia. But see pp. 575–576. The most complete treatment of Ethiopian political development is Hess, Robert L., “Ethiopia,” in Carter, Gwendolen M., ed., National Unity and Regionalism in Eight African States (Ithaca, 1965)Google Scholar.

7 A distinction should be made between the power of chiefs over clans, tribes, and larger ethnic groups and that of the village head, who has often been erroneously called chief in the literature of African exploration.

8 For reports on the 1957 elections, see The New York Times, February 19, 1957, p. 10; ibid., November 2, 1957, p. 2; Ethiopia, Facts and Figures (Addis Ababa, 1960), pp, 10–11Google Scholar.