Ethiopia’s political crisis cannot be fully explained by a struggle over power, territory, or ethnicity. At its core lies something more enduring and psychologically corrosive: the belief that the country has a permanent center and a permanent periphery. As a sociologist deeply engaged with Ethiopian politics, I have come to believe that this center-periphery trap explains our cycles of conflict more clearly than most conventional political theories.
Sociologist Edward Shils argued that almost every society contains a centre, a symbolic zone of authority, legitimacy, identity, and sacred values, and a periphery whose attachment to that centre becomes weaker and more alienated over distance, exclusion, or unequal incorporation. In Ethiopia, this is not an abstract academic framework. It is a lived historical reality that has shaped the fears, memories, and political behavior of nearly every community.
For more than a century, Ethiopia’s political and cultural center was largely associated with highland elites and institutions. Many southern and lowland communities experienced this center not as a shared national home, but as a site of domination; politically, culturally, and economically. Languages were marginalized, identities suppressed, and resources extracted unevenly. Whether one interprets this history as state-building, empire formation, modernization, or internal colonialism, the emotional consequence was the same: millions of people came to see themselves as peripheral to the Ethiopian state.
The introduction of federalism in 1991 promised to resolve this historical imbalance by empowering previously marginalized groups and decentralizing the state. Yet while it weakened the old center, it did not abolish center-periphery Breaking the Centre-Periphery Trap in Ethiopia: A Sociological Reading
Ethiopia’s political crisis cannot be fully explained by a struggle over power, territory, or ethnicity. At its core lies something more enduring and psychologically corrosive: the belief that the country has a permanent center and a permanent periphery. As a sociologist deeply engaged with Ethiopian politics, I have come to believe that this center-periphery trap explains our cycles of conflict more clearly than most conventional political theories.
Sociologist Edward Shils argued that almost every society contains a centre, a symbolic zone of authority, legitimacy, identity, and sacred values, and a periphery whose attachment to that centre becomes weaker and more alienated over distance, exclusion, or unequal incorporation. In Ethiopia, this is not an abstract academic framework. It is a lived historical reality that has shaped the fears, memories, and political behavior of nearly every community.
For more than a century, Ethiopia’s political and cultural center was largely associated with highland elites and institutions. Many southern and lowland communities experienced this center not as a shared national home, but as a site of domination; politically, culturally, and economically. Languages were marginalized, identities suppressed, and resources extracted unevenly. Whether one interprets this history as state-building, empire formation, modernization, or internal colonialism, the emotional consequence was the same: millions of people came to see themselves as peripheral to the Ethiopian state.
The introduction of federalism in 1991 promised to resolve this historical imbalance by empowering previously marginalized groups and decentralizing the state. Yet while it weakened the old center, it did not abolish center-periphery politics itself. Instead, it reproduced the same logic with new actors and new geographies. Moreover, regional centers emerged, often creating their own internal peripheries. The political struggle remained fundamentally unchanged: who controls the center, and who fears exclusion from it.
This is where Ethiopia’s deepest political wound lies.
Groups that perceive themselves as occupying the center fear that losing power will expose them to revenge, displacement, humiliation, or punishment for historical injustices, whether real, exaggerated, or imagined. Meanwhile, groups that see themselves in the periphery mobilize intensely to capture state power because they believe only control of the center can guarantee dignity, protection, and survival. The result is a vicious cycle: one group captures the center, another rises to displace it, and every victory simply creates a new periphery with fresh grievances.
What makes this dynamic especially dangerous is that it transforms politics into an existential zero-sum game. The centre fears displacement, and the periphery grieves marginalisation. Within this context, election cease to be normal democratic contests and instead become struggles over collective survival. Every federal appointment, security reform, language policy, budget allocation, or constitutional debate becomes interpreted through the lens of security and historical fear. In such an environment, conspiracy thinking flourishes naturally because each side assumes the other will behave exactly as it fears.
Even our cultural expressions reveal how deeply this political imagination persists. Songs and political narratives that fears ‘losing the centre’ and ‘being pushed to the periphery’ expose an underlying feudalistic assumption that some groups are naturally entitled to rule while others are destined to remain marginal. This mentality is not merely rhetorical; it reproduces the emotional architecture of domination and revenge that has haunted Ethiopian politics for generations.
The tragedy is that every group eventually experiences both roles. Yesterday’s center becomes today’s periphery; today’s periphery seeks tomorrow’s center. But because the structure itself remains unchanged, no victory produces lasting stability. The trauma simply rotates.
Breaking this cycle requires more than constitutional reform or elite bargaining. Ethiopia needs a profound sociological transformation: the construction of a genuinely shared national center that every community feels it permanently belongs to.
Not a rotating dominance. Not symbolic inclusion without power. And not forced assimilation disguised as unity. What Ethiopia requires is a civic center built on equal belonging, a political order where every culture, language, religion, and historical memory is treated as part of the national core rather than as an appendage to it.
This is why the ongoing Ethiopia National Dialogue Commission represents such a critical opportunity. The dialogue process should move beyond narrow elite negotiations and explicitly confront Ethiopia’s center-periphery dilemma. Historical grievances must be acknowledged honestly, not weaponized selectively. The process must facilitate difficult conversations about state formation, exclusion, violence, identity, and belonging without reducing them to simplistic binaries of victims and villains.
At the same time, transitional justice mechanisms are essential. Ethiopia cannot build a shared future by suppressing historical pain, but neither can it survive if history becomes an endless instrument of revenge. Transitional justice must therefore be paired with an elite political pact: a clear national agreement that no group will use state power to collectively punish another, and that political competition will no longer operate through ethnic domination.
Equally important is the reconstruction of federal institutions so they are visibly fair, impartial, and trusted by all citizens. Institutions matter because people obey states not only through coercion, but through perceived legitimacy. When citizens believe the judiciary, civil service, security sector, universities, tax systems, and development programs are captured by one group, the center immediately loses legitimacy in the eyes of others.
This is where modern governance tools can play an important role. Transparent, technology-driven systems, including carefully designed AI-assisted administrative systems, could help reduce human bias in resource allocation, recruitment, service delivery, and public administration. Technology alone cannot solve political distrust, but measurable fairness and institutional transparency can gradually build confidence that the state serves citizens equally regardless of ethnicity, religion, language, or region.
Ultimately, Ethiopia’s future depends on whether it can escape the old feudal imagination that divides people into rulers of the center and inhabitants of the periphery. The country will remain trapped in recurring instability until every Ethiopian feels they possess a permanent and respected place within the national center itself.
The sociological diagnosis is clear: Ethiopia’s conflicts are sustained not only by material inequalities, but by competing fears of exclusion from the symbolic and political center of the state. The political task is therefore urgent and historic: to build a center that heals rather than rotates the trauma of marginalization, a center that belongs equally to all Ethiopians. itself. Instead, it reproduced the same logic with new actors and new geographies. Moreover, regional centers emerged, often creating their own internal peripheries. The political struggle remained fundamentally unchanged: who controls the center, and who fears exclusion from it.
This is where Ethiopia’s deepest political wound lies.
Groups that perceive themselves as occupying the center fear that losing power will expose them to revenge, displacement, humiliation, or punishment for historical injustices, whether real, exaggerated, or imagined. Meanwhile, groups that see themselves in the periphery mobilize intensely to capture state power because they believe only control of the center can guarantee dignity, protection, and survival. The result is a vicious cycle: one group captures the center, another rises to displace it, and every victory simply creates a new periphery with fresh grievances.
What makes this dynamic especially dangerous is that it transforms politics into an existential zero-sum game. The centre fears displacement, and the periphery grieves marginalisation. Within this context, election cease to be normal democratic contests and instead become struggles over collective survival. Every federal appointment, security reform, language policy, budget allocation, or constitutional debate becomes interpreted through the lens of security and historical fear. In such an environment, conspiracy thinking flourishes naturally because each side assumes the other will behave exactly as it fears.
Even our cultural expressions reveal how deeply this political imagination persists. Songs and political narratives that fears ‘losing the centre’ and ‘being pushed to the periphery’ expose an underlying feudalistic assumption that some groups are naturally entitled to rule while others are destined to remain marginal. This mentality is not merely rhetorical; it reproduces the emotional architecture of domination and revenge that has haunted Ethiopian politics for generations.
The tragedy is that every group eventually experiences both roles. Yesterday’s center becomes today’s periphery; today’s periphery seeks tomorrow’s center. But because the structure itself remains unchanged, no victory produces lasting stability. The trauma simply rotates.
Breaking this cycle requires more than constitutional reform or elite bargaining. Ethiopia needs a profound sociological transformation: the construction of a genuinely shared national center that every community feels it permanently belongs to.
Not a rotating dominance. Not symbolic inclusion without power. And not forced assimilation disguised as unity. What Ethiopia requires is a civic center built on equal belonging, a political order where every culture, language, religion, and historical memory is treated as part of the national core rather than as an appendage to it.
This is why the ongoing Ethiopia National Dialogue Commission represents such a critical opportunity. The dialogue process should move beyond narrow elite negotiations and explicitly confront Ethiopia’s center-periphery dilemma. Historical grievances must be acknowledged honestly, not weaponized selectively. The process must facilitate difficult conversations about state formation, exclusion, violence, identity, and belonging without reducing them to simplistic binaries of victims and villains.
At the same time, transitional justice mechanisms are essential. Ethiopia cannot build a shared future by suppressing historical pain, but neither can it survive if history becomes an endless instrument of revenge. Transitional justice must therefore be paired with an elite political pact: a clear national agreement that no group will use state power to collectively punish another, and that political competition will no longer operate through ethnic domination.
Equally important is the reconstruction of federal institutions so they are visibly fair, impartial, and trusted by all citizens. Institutions matter because people obey states not only through coercion, but through perceived legitimacy. When citizens believe the judiciary, civil service, security sector, universities, tax systems, and development programs are captured by one group, the center immediately loses legitimacy in the eyes of others.
This is where modern governance tools can play an important role. Transparent, technology-driven systems, including carefully designed AI-assisted administrative systems, could help reduce human bias in resource allocation, recruitment, service delivery, and public administration. Technology alone cannot solve political distrust, but measurable fairness and institutional transparency can gradually build confidence that the state serves citizens equally regardless of ethnicity, religion, language, or region.
Ultimately, Ethiopia’s future depends on whether it can escape the old feudal imagination that divides people into rulers of the center and inhabitants of the periphery. The country will remain trapped in recurring instability until every Ethiopian feels they possess a permanent and respected place within the national center itself.
The sociological diagnosis is clear: Ethiopia’s conflicts are sustained not only by material inequalities, but by competing fears of exclusion from the symbolic and political center of the state. The political task is therefore urgent and historic: to build a center that heals rather than rotates the trauma of marginalization, a center that belongs equally to all Ethiopians.
