1 THE STATE, NONGOVERNMENTAL ORGANIZATIONS AND THE MAKING OF THE CHARITIES AND SOCIETIES PROCLAMATION NO. 621 OF 2009 IN ETHIOPIA – HISTORICAL AND INSTITUTIONAL PERSPECTIVES A DISSERTATION PRESENTED BY YITAYEW ALEMAYEHU TAYE TO THE LAW, POLICY, AND SOCIETY PROGRAM IN PARTIAL FULFILLMENT OF THE DEGREE OF DOCTOR OF PHILOSOPHY IN THE FIELD OF LAW, POLICY, AND SOCIETY NORTHEASTERN UNIVERSITY BOSTON, MASSACHUSETTS JUNE 2010 2 THE STATE, NONGOVERNMENTAL ORGANIZATIONS AND THE MAKING OF THE CHARITIES AND SOCIETIES PROCLAMATION NO. 621 OF 2009 IN ETHIOPIA – HISTORICAL AND INSTITUTIONAL PERSPECTIVES BY YITAYEW ALEMAYEHU TAYE ABSTRACT OF DISSERTATION Submitted in partial fulfillment of the requirement for the degree of Doctor of Philosophy at the Law, Policy and Society Program in the Graduate School of Arts and Sciences of Northeastern University, June 2010 3 ABSTRACT This dissertation examines the historical and institutional contexts of the making of the Charities and Societies Proclamation No. 621 of 2009 in Ethiopia – a law designed to regulate nongovernmental organizations (NGOs). My study examines the historical path the Ethiopian state followed in the regulation of modern voluntary organizations in general and of NGOs in particular by tracing the emergence of the cultural frame defining the identity of the Ethiopian state, the internal and external challenges the state faced, and how the state responded to these challenges through selectively appropriating global ideas, practices, and influences to legitimate its rule and its international relations. The study also demonstrates the modern turn that this path takes through an investigation of the process in which the latest Ethiopian law on voluntary organizations and NGOs, the Charities and Societies Proclamation No. 621 of 2009, was adopted. By examining this concrete episode of policy formulation and law making my research shows how different actors utilize different, at times disparate and at other times contradictory, ideas and discourses in advocating for a policy agenda favorable to their interests. Through an examination of the historical and institutional contexts and the political processes that led to the new legislation, this dissertation shows the enduring legacy of history in law and policy making and the role of global ideas, and legislative models as well as of actors in bringing about institutional change. 4 ACKNOWLEDGMENT First and foremost, I want to thank my wife Misrak Sultan, and my children, Kidiye and Babbiye. I hope you will take this as an apology, however lame it may be, for not being what I should have been. I would like to thank my advisor, Professor Kwamina Panford and the members of my dissertation committee, Professors Thomas Koenig and Gordana Rabrenovic, for their advice and comments. Their unflagging support and their faith in me, in the long process of conceiving and writing this dissertation, did actually help me finish it. I wish there were some other way I could write this to show my acknowledgement as more than perfunctory. Over the years and until the very end, I had the support of Professor Joan Fitzgerald, the Director of LPS, without which the dissertation would not have been finished in the time it did. I do thank her and, Kathy Simmons, the LPS Executive Secretary, for bearing with me. I owe an especial debt of gratitude to Professors Suzanne Thomas-Buckle and Len Buckle who helped me start this academic journey. As fate would have it, they, with Christina Braidotti, also gave me the final push to cross the finish line. Everyone’s mother is special: so is mine, Tirunesh Wubshet. I will never be able to say what she means to me, and I will just leave it at that. My late father, Alemayehu Taye, was, perhaps among the most kind-hearted persons that ever walked this earth – and that not just because he was my father. I really hope my children will have some of his kindness and empathy for others. My late sister, Senait, would have been the proudest today, and I miss her. I know she would have stood with me all the way, if she were around. My sister Brook, ever considerate, has been a source of support and quite a 5 few teases. My brother Michael (and I know you will be mad when you see this-“Baby”) – has been kind to me. My sister Tsige, my brother-in-law Johnny, my niece Kalkidan and my nephew, Metmik, helped me through the worst experience of my life, an experience that helped me put the grueling process of academic writing in perspective. It may not be because of them that I survived and have written this dissertation today, but without them, I would have had a different and more difficult experience. That is also true of my cousins, Eyader and Mekuannent Addis, who have stood by me in times good and in times not so good. My niece, Aster Mulugeta (Amsal) not only had to carry out all my quirky demands at very short notice, but has been the little sister I never had. I have quite a few friends, old and new, whose debt I need to acknowledge: Sewnet Asrade, for the long conversations at the expense of his sleep; Sileshi Tadesse, for standing with me to look at the humorous side of life; Shewangizaw Chane, for our youthful adventure in shaping the NGO world in Ethiopia; to the late Awraris Kassaye, for helping me listen to the melodies of living; Mesfin Abebe, for teaching me how to argue, and be steadfast in upholding fairness; Sarah Yoseph, for her idealism and her drive to touch and change lives; Zekarias Keneaa, for his faith in God and the goodness of humankind; Reginald Harge, for sharing the bonds (and conspiratorial whisperings) of the brotherhood; and all the staff I worked with in the thrilling “bounded agency” of APAP. There is no one, however, more deserving of my gratitude than Hailu Mamo Waka, without whose unassuming generosity and steadfast support I would never have been able to actually sit and write this dissertation. I am also grateful to all the people who helped me in researching and writing this paper including all my informants whom I refrain from naming out of concern for some. 6 Some doors would have remained unopened if I did not have the good friendship of Hailekiros Gebre-egziabher in Boston and Hiriyti Beyene in Mekelle. Finally, it would be remiss of me if I did not mention the Ethiopian people who gave me an identity steeped in history, faith and culture that anchored me in times and places that were, to say the least, challenging. Through resilience in times hard, courage in the face of adversity, and hope in the midst of despair, the people of Ethiopia, lay and learned alike, have shown time and again that they can pull themselves from calamities and miseries meted out by man and nature, that they can embrace the new without leaving the old, and that they can always see the light even in the pitch of darkness. I am glad that this dissertation helped me learn a bit more about the rich and variegated history of Ethiopians, and their quest for dignity. In the spirit of the interactions between the global and the local that is the subject of my dissertation, I also thank the people of the United States whose fundamental sense of fairness and benevolence, whose desire to see the freedom and well-being of others, I witnessed, and whose high ideals of a liberal world founded upon freedom from want and freedom from fear, though hard to realize and failed by many, fire up the life and work of many an NGO. 7 TABLE OF CONTENTS ABSTRACT ........................................................................................................................ 2 ACKNOWLEDGMENT..................................................................................................... 4 TABLE OF CONTENTS .................................................................................................... 7 INTRODUCTION .............................................................................................................. 9 CHAPTER 1 METHODOLOGICAL FRAMEWORK .................................................... 22 A. Statement of the Problem and Research Questions ........................................ 22 B. Theoretical Review ......................................................................................... 30 C. Research Methods ........................................................................................... 37 CHAPTER 2 THE EMERGENCE AND GLOBAL EXPANSION OF NONGOVERNMENTAL ORGANIZATIONS ............................................................... 50 A. Characterizing Nongovernmental Organizations in the Ethiopian Context ... 51 B. The Emergence of NGOs and Their Pre-World war II Growth ..................... 62 C. NGOs in the Post-World War II Period .......................................................... 75 CHAPTER 3 THE STATE AND NONGOVERNMENTAL ORGANIZATIONS IN ETHIOPIA – HISTORY AND POLITICS ................................................................. 82 A. The Origins of the Ethiopian State .................................................................. 83 B. The Significance of the Religious Conflicts of the Sixteenth and Seventeenth Centuries and Ethiopia’s Encounter with the West .................... 87 C. The Birth and Challenges of the Modern Ethiopian State and the Rise of Voluntary Organizations ................................................................................. 99 D. The Ethiopian State, Voluntary Organizations, and NGOs in the Post-World War II Period ................................................................... 108 1. The Rise of Development and the