Agricultural Investment in Ethiopia: Undermining National

Sovereignty or Tool for State Building?

Tom Lavers_____________________________________________________________________

ABSTRACT

The media discourse on recent agricultural investments — frequently referred

to as the ‘global land grab’ — has been quick to label these deals as ‘neo-

colonial’, implying that these kind of investments undermine national

sovereignty. For the most part, the emerging academic literature on the ‘land

grab’ has not critically examined this assumption. This article draws on the

literature on state building and agrarian relations in Africa to construct a

framework that can be used to analyse the impact of agricultural investment on

state–society relations and state sovereignty. The paper then uses this

framework to examine the case of Ethiopia, illustrating how the Ethiopian

state has directed investors to peripheral lowlands and, in doing so, has

enhanced, rather than diminished, state sovereignty. As such, while the erosion

of sovereignty is certainly one possible outcome of agricultural investment, it

is by no means the only one, and is an assumption that should be subjected to

critical analysis.

__________________________________

This article was written during a Research Fellowship at the United Nations Research

Institute for Social Development (UNRISD) and builds on insights from a PhD thesis

at the University of Bath, funded by the Economic and Social Research Council

(ESRC), and research financed by the Land Deal Politics Initiative (LDPI). The

support of all these organisations is gratefully acknowledged. Past drafts benefitted

from comments received from Tobias Hagmann and Lars Buur, three anonymous

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reviewers and participants at the African Studies Association annual conference in

Baltimore in November 2013.

INTRODUCTION

The spike in agricultural investments and land transactions since about 2008 was

quickly labelled a ‘21st century land grab’ (Mackenzie, 2008) highlighting the

parallels with colonialism (GRAIN, 2008). Subsequent statements have branded this

kind of investment as ‘agro-imperialism’ (Rice, 2009) and ‘agro-colonialism’

(Fitzgerald, 2010). In doing so, the discourse in the media implies that these

investments have important and unequivocally negative implications for national

sovereignty.

Much academic research on the ‘global land grab’ uncritically accepts the assumption

that foreign agricultural investment undermines national sovereignty. A common

focus of the literature has been the global processes driving investment trends. From

this perspective, there is a tendency to see host states as acted upon, rather than active

participants. This creates the impression that global processes are undermining

national sovereignty through the ‘foreignisation of space’ (Zoomers, 2010) and ‘“de-

territorialization” as host states surrender land and water for export’ (McMichael,

2013: 48).

Even some insightful analyses of the role of the state slip into broad generalizations

about the negative impacts of investment on sovereignty. Wolford et al. (2013: 202)

argue that ‘state actors struggle to maintain and adapt positions of sovereignty; new

actors and interests increasingly shape decisions over which powers are retained by

the state (penal, judicial, legal) and which are to be forfeited (political, financial)’.

Meanwhile, Sassen (2013: 28–9) is particularly clear in arguing that, ‘large-scale

foreign land acquisitions … [widen] structural holes in the tissue of national sovereign

territory’, with the result that ‘[w]hat was once part of national sovereign territory is

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increasingly repurposed for a foreign firm or government’. One of the main examples

Sassen uses to support her argument is Ethiopia, also the focus of this paper.

Debates on sovereignty frequently focus on two dimensions: internal — associated

with the political authority of the state; and external — the recognition of state

sovereignty over a particular territory by other states (Agnew, 2005). To date the

‘land grab’ literature has focused primarily on the external threat posed by foreign

investors, paying much less attention to the effect of investment on state–society

relations. In part this results from the initial framing of the ‘global land grab’ as a

phenomenon driven by global processes. Although the loss of sovereignty is certainly

one possible outcome of foreign investment, this conclusion is frequently assumed,

rather than being based on empirical analysis. In particular, the suggestion that the

erosion of state sovereignty is inherent to agricultural investment (1) assumes

(explicitly or implicitly) that the states in question enjoyed full sovereignty in the first

place and that, consequently, change is to their detriment; and (2) neglects the

possibility that states might harness investment as a means of broadcasting power

within their borders. Clearly, the first assumption is called into question by the vast

literature that highlights the limited territorial authority of many African states and

their reliance on external recognition, rather than internal legitimacy (Herbst, 2000;

Jackson, 1986). Meanwhile, this article demonstrates that the Ethiopian government’s

promotion of agricultural investment actually forms part of a state-building strategy

that is expanding state control in the lowland periphery, where it has long had a

limited presence. In a sense, therefore, the article echoes Bayart’s (2000)

‘extraversion’ thesis, acknowledging the possibility that states can use foreign

investment to enhance their effective sovereignty.

This article examines the case of Ethiopia, not to suggest that Ethiopia is

representative, but to illustrate one instance that does not fit the dominant

characterization of sovereignty erosion within the ‘land grab’ literature. This

conclusion does, however, complement recent work that has begun to contest this

dominant framing. In particular, Dwyer (2013), writing about Laos, and Woods

(2011) on Burma similarly argue that rather than a threat to state sovereignty, states

are using land allocations as a means of state building in peripheral areas.

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The empirical base for this article is: a set of key informant interviews with federal

and regional government officials in 2009–10; official documents and reports; and a

growing literature on agricultural investment in Ethiopia. This literature includes two

articles by the present author that examine how the government sought to integrate

agricultural investment into its development strategy, taking advantage of increased

demand for land from agricultural investors (Lavers, 2012a) and how this

development strategy translated into a spatially differentiated pattern of agrarian

transformation (Lavers, 2012b). Neither article considered questions of sovereignty or

state–society relations. As such, the present article complements previous work,

expanding the scope of analysis to show how this process of agrarian transformation

enhances the sovereign authority of the federal state.

The next section presents the conceptual framework that guides the analysis. The

following sections set investment trends in the context of historical processes of state-

building and examine three case studies of areas targeted for investment in Ethiopia.

The article then relates these empirical findings to the conceptual framework, drawing

out the implications for sovereignty. The final section concludes.

CONCEPTUALIZING SOVEREIGNTY: BETWEEN GLOBAL PROCESSES

AND STATE–SOCIETY RELATIONS

The literature on the state is dominated by Weber’s theorizing of European states that

focuses on ‘the monopoly of the legitimate use of physical force within a given

territory’ (Gerth and Mills, 2003: 82). By this definition, sovereignty is associated

with the authority of the central state to set and enforce laws and regulations within a

defined territory. However, as Migdal (2001) highlights, Weber intended his

definition as an ideal type, rather than a definition of real states, for which it has

frequently been (mis)used. Moreover, authors from a variety of perspectives have

argued that states’ claims to exclusive territorial authority are historically exceptional

and, in reality, have never been complete (Agnew, 2005; Migdal, 2001; Sassen,

2008). Rather, state sovereignty ‘emerges out of struggles for control’, both internally

— between states and their societies — and externally — between a state and other

transnational actors (Agnew, 2005: 440).

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Nevertheless, the starting assumption for much of the ‘land grab’ literature appears to

be that prior to recent agricultural investment trends, states in ‘host’ countries enjoyed

full sovereign authority. This results both in a tendency to neglect the effects of

investment on state–society relations and the assumption of ‘the binary of the global

versus the national’, common to much of the globalization literature (Sassen, 2008:

63), whereby the increased influence of global processes necessarily undermines state

sovereignty. In contrast, Sassen’s (2008) Territory, Authority and Rights framework

highlights the importance of moving beyond the global–national binary to examine

how globalization transforms sovereignty by producing new ‘assemblages of

territoriality’ that are ‘not exclusively national or global but are assemblages of

elements of each’ (Sassen, 2008: 67). Despite this promising starting point, Sassen’s

(2013) application of this framework to the ‘land grab’ phenomenon neglects the

internal dimension of sovereignty. Consequently, her conclusion that agricultural

investment necessarily erodes sovereignty rests primarily on data demonstrating that

foreign investors are indeed involved in land transactions. As is demonstrated in this

article, this can be misleading.

To analyse the impact of global processes on state sovereignty it is necessary to

situate them within the context of the internal contestation of authority between a state

and society. Migdal’s (2001) State-in-Society approach argues that the state

comprises two parts. First, an image of a ‘dominant, integrated, autonomous entity

that controls, in a given territory, all rule making’ (Migdal, 2001: 16) and which is the

foundation of the nation-state system. Second, however, is the actual practice of the

state. Rather than being ‘coherent, integrated, and goal-oriented’, the state is a

collection of loosely related organizations, each with its own interests and involved in

competition for domination with formal and informal societal organizations (Migdal,

2001: 12). This competition takes places within multiple arenas of the disaggregated

state, from the executive and ministries in the capital city to local administrators in

rural areas (Hagmann and Péclard, 2010).

One means of bringing together these insights from the political sociology and

globalization literatures is to expand Sassen’s (2008) concept of ‘assemblages of

territoriality’ to incorporate not only states and global actors, but also the range of

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state and societal organizations to which Migdal refers. The approach taken in this

article is therefore that state sovereignty derives from the interaction of the political

authority of the state with respect to society and the state’s capacity for autonomous

decision-making with respect to external actors. The key question in this article is

therefore how foreign investors engage with state and societal organizations in

particular settings to produce new assemblages of territoriality, and what implications

these have for state sovereignty.

To operationalize the internal aspect of sovereignty, this article builds on Boone’s

(2003) typology of state strategies of institution building, which has two dimensions.

The first dimension is spatial, regarding the de/concentration of the state apparatus —

whether localities are administered from a network of local offices or from the capital.

The second is the extent of devolution of political authority over policy

implementation and resource management, ranging from a decision-making process

centralized within the capital city to the devolution of authority to local elites. This

typology gives rise to four ideal-type institutional strategies, which have contrasting

implications for state–society relations.

At one extreme is non-incorporation, involving concentrated state institutions and

decentralized power. While the international system may confer on states external

sovereignty over all territory within their borders, states ‘abdicate authority’ over non-

incorporated areas (Boone, 2003: 33). An absence of local state offices provides little

state power and effective authority rests with community leaders. At the other

extreme lies a strategy of usurpation, involving deconcentrated state institutions and

centralized power, enabling the central state to exert close control over territory and

people through local state institutions, even to ‘rewire the circuits of local authority’

(Boone, 2003: 32). In this ideal type, the central state exerts full sovereign territorial

authority. In the middle of the continuum lie strategies of administrative occupation

— concentrated state institutions and centralized power — and powersharing —

deconcentrated institutions and decentralized power — each of which enable some

state control, but also involve important limitations. While administrative occupation

enables the central state to extract surplus in the context of weak social structures,

state institutions at the local level are limited, appearing ‘suspended balloon-like over

the rural localities’ (Boone, 2003: 32). A strategy of powersharing (essentially

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indirect rule), meanwhile, entails shared sovereignty between central authorities and

local elites, and limited central control (Boone, 2003).

Boone posits the existence of commercial agriculture and the potential for taxation as

prerequisites for states to move beyond a strategy of non-incorporation (see also

Herbst, 2000). Furthermore, the existence of rural social hierarchies is necessary to

motivate states to deconcentrate state institutions to village level rather than ruling —

and extracting surplus — through dispersed strategic state outposts (administrative

occupation). Finally, the degree to which rural elites depend on the central state to

extract the rural surplus determines whether elites are dependent on the state and seen

as potential allies (powersharing), or independent and therefore a threat that must be

supressed (usurpation).

STATE BUILDING AND AGRICULTURAL INVESTMENT IN ETHIOPIA

Ethiopia comprises a highland plateau ranging from about 1,500 m to over 2,000 m

above sea level that is bisected by the Rift Valley and which descends down steep

escarpments to lowlands in the west, south and east (Map 1). Although an Ethiopian

polity has a history of more than 2,000 years, the full extent of Ethiopia’s current

territory was only formalized when Emperor Menelik (1889–1913) undertook a

massive expansion through conquest from a northern highland core into the southern

highlands and lowlands in the late nineteenth century, contemporaneous with the

European ‘scramble for Africa’.

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Map 1 – Ethiopia: elevation and Imperial/Derg provinces (pre-1991)1

Source: author based on data available from the US Geological Survey and Natural Earth.

While Ethiopia’s borders were internationally recognized at that time, the central

state’s presence in newly conquered territories varied considerably. For the Imperial

regime, the extraction of wealth and tribute, rather than the control of people and

territory, was the key objective (Johnson, 2002). In the early twentieth century, the

state employed various institutional strategies in the southern highlands, from

devolving power to tribute-paying semi-autonomous kingdoms to directly controlling

territory through neftegna — northern soldiers rewarded with land grants (Clapham,

2002; Donham, 2002). Following the Italian occupation (1936–41) the semi-

autonomous kingdoms were integrated into uniform administrative structures staffed

by officials from the centre (Donham, 2002). By the late Imperial era there was a

fairly uniform strategy of usurpation of local elites.

Several lowland areas with economic potential relatively close to population centres

and trade routes were directly incorporated through foreign investment in commercial

agriculture from the 1950s. In the Awash Valley, British and Dutch cotton and

1 Eritrea formally seceded from Ethiopia in 1993.

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sugarcane investments displaced Oromo and Afar pastoralists (Harbeson, 1978).

Similarly, foreign investors established sesame production in Humera2 in the

northwest (Puddu, 2012). In contrast, the Imperial regime’s economic interests in the

lowland periphery in the west and south amounted to ‘hunting, especially of elephant

and rhinoceros, and raiding the local population for slaves and livestock’ (Turton,

2011: 164–65). For these purposes direct administration was unnecessary, while these

territories were portrayed as ‘a chaotic, disease ridden and unproductive tract of land,

inhabited by anarchic and violence-prone “nomads”’ (Turton, 2011: 164). Map 1

clearly shows how administrative boundaries were drawn so as to divide lowlands

between provinces administered from capital cities in the highlands. In the absence of

strong economic incentives, the prevalence of malaria and the logistical challenges of

building infrastructure, the Imperial state pursued a strategy that tended towards non-

incorporation, using these areas as buffer zones against neighbouring colonial powers.

The military-Marxist Derg regime (1974–91) that overthrew the Imperial dynasty

nationalized all land in 1975 and distributed usufruct rights to highland smallholders,

destroying the economic base of the nobility. Furthermore, through a project of

encadrement, forced villagization and the establishment of state-controlled peasant

associations, the state penetrated rural society more than ever before (Clapham, 2002).

These developments furthered a strategy of usurpation in the highlands, embedding

state institutions at the village level and centralizing state power over people and

territory.

The effect of Derg rule in the lowland periphery was less clear-cut. Unlike the

Imperial regime, the Derg provided for limited involvement of local ethnic groups in

administration, and also attempted to transform customary institutions that it

considered ‘backward’. However, pastoralist associations, mirroring the highland

peasant associations, were much less influential (Clapham, 2002). Resettlement from

highland Tigray and Amhara to the south and west perhaps constituted the main

impact of the Derg in the periphery. This programme claimed to address highland

land shortages, but in reality constituted an attempt to undermine ethno-nationalist

insurgencies fighting the Derg. The Derg resettled large numbers of people to so-

called ‘virgin land’ in the lowlands, frequently ignoring land uses of pastoralists and 2 Located in the north of Gonder in Map 1.

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shifting cultivators (Pankhurst, 1992). The institutional strategies pursued in much of

the lowland periphery, with the exception of these resettlement sites, remained

somewhere between administrative occupation and non-incorporation.

Soon after coming to power, the Derg faced internal opposition from groups that drew

on competing socialist ideologies and mobilized along ethno-nationalist lines to

contest ‘Amhara’ dominance of Ethiopia. The Tigrayan Peoples’ Liberation Front

(TPLF) first succeeded in liberating Tigray, before turning its attention to the rest of

the country. The TPLF created the Ethiopian Peoples’ Revolutionary Democratic

Front (EPRDF), a coalition of ethno-nationalist parties that came to power in 1991.

The new government extended the Derg’s hierarchical system of local control in the

highlands, strengthening local government structures down to household level. The

EPRDF also established a system of ethnic federalism, in stark contrast to the

centralized control under the Derg. This federal system constitutes an attempt to draw

round ethno-linguistic groups, creating regions that provide for ethnic self-

administration (see Map 2). Some small ethnic groups were, however, merged into

multi-ethnic regions, including Southern Nations, Nationalities and Peoples Region

(SNNPR), Gambella and Benishangul-Gumuz. By associating ethnic identity with

control of land and other resources, federalism has frequently resulted in inter-ethnic

competition and conflict over territory and administrative borders, and re-negotiation

of ethnic identities based on the new incentives of the federal system (Adugna, 2011;

Kefale, 2010).

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Map 2 – Elevation and ethnic federal borders (post-2015)

Source: author based on data available from the US Geological Survey and Natural Earth.

Due to the considerable overlap between topography and cultural groupings

(Donham, 2002), and in sharp contrast to the pre-1991 administrative boundaries,

these new ethno-regional boundaries map closely, though imperfectly, onto the

highland-lowland division. The government distinguishes between established regions

— Amhara, Oromiya, SNNPR and Tigray — and emerging regions — Afar,

Benishangul-Gumuz, Gambella and Somali. Established regions comprise mostly

highland areas where regional state capacity is stronger. Emerging regions,

meanwhile, consist primarily of lowlands where local administration is a relatively

new phenomenon and regional states are considered much weaker, requiring federal

support.

In principle, ethnic federalism constitutes a uniform strategy of powersharing —

deconcentrated state institutions and devolution of many powers. Certainly,

federalism has seen rapid infrastructural development and institution building

throughout Ethiopia with previously small provincial towns experiencing booms as

they are designated regional, zonal or wereda (district) capitals. Furthermore,

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indigenous representation in regional administrations has increased everywhere, and

federalism has resulted in the devolution of some powers from the federal

government. Critics have frequently noted, however, that the reality is quite different,

with strong federal influence over regional administrations and considerable

differentiation between regions. The EPRDF has a particularly strong role in

emerging regions given a lack of state capacity. Prior to 2002 federal influence was

exerted through political advisors assigned to emerging regions; however, the

Ministry of Federal Affairs (MoFA) has since taken over this role. Meanwhile, several

established regions have become increasingly assertive in protecting their autonomy,

ranging from Tigray, where power is most devolved to the regional administration, to

SNNPR, where there is less autonomy. Here, while federal influence remains

important, there is a degree of regional autonomy, and powersharing between the

centre and region cannot be entirely discounted. In the emerging regions, on the other

hand, there is a severe lack of capacity and political strength to contest federal control,

and consequently federalism increasingly tends towards usurpation.

Directing Agricultural Investment to the Periphery

The EPRDF inherited a system of state land ownership that, in principle, covered the

whole country. However, in practice there remained a major division between closely-

controlled smallholder areas in the highlands, where farmers held usufruct rights, and

the lowland periphery which was weakly incorporated and where, in many places,

land administration was managed by communities. While the EPRDF retained state

ownership and made smallholder agriculture the cornerstone of its development

strategy, the government has long envisaged a subsidiary role for large-scale

commercial agriculture (MoPED, 1994). From about the mid-2000s the government

actively promoted foreign, domestic and diaspora agricultural investments (Abbink,

2011; Lavers, 2012a; Rahmato, 2014). With growing international demand for land in

the late 2000s, Ethiopia became one of the main hotspots for the so-called ‘land grab’.

According to government officials, its objectives for promoting investment include:

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earning foreign exchange, realising linkages between investments and local

processing, generating employment and producing food for national markets.3

Despite federalism, government concerns about capacity in emerging regions and the

desire to control investment processes has necessitated the centralization of power. In

2009, the federal government created the Agricultural Investment Support Directorate

(AISD).4 Contrary to the Constitution, which allocates land administration

responsibilities to regions, the AISD re-centralized the authority to lease land to

investors (Lavers, 2012a). As part of this reform, the federal government created a

‘land bank’, requiring regions to identify land suitable for investment to be

administered by the AISD. While there has been resistance to this re-centralization

from several established regions,5 the weaker regions have been much less able to do

so.

The government has been very selective in leasing land to investors, giving rise to a

particular pattern of agrarian transformation (Lavers, 2012b). The majority of land

leased is located near major rivers suitable for irrigation in sparsely-populated

lowlands: Gambella (Baro River), Benishangul-Gumuz (Blue Nile) and South Omo

zone (Omo) within SNNPR. Indeed, the most recent data suggest that nearly 80 per

cent of all land leased to date and 97 per cent of the land leased from the federal land

bank is located in these areas (Keeley et al., 2014: 25). Although domestic private

investors are present in these areas, the largest allocations have been to foreign

companies and Ethiopian state-owned sugar projects. In the densely-populated

highlands, leases have been limited to much smaller plots, frequently to domestic

investors on communal grazing land within villages. The government has been careful

to minimize smallholder displacement, only doing so when it believes that investors

offer the potential to significantly raise productivity through new production

techniques, technologies and crop varieties. The main example is the foreign-

dominated floriculture industry around Addis Ababa and the Rift Valley (Lavers,

2012b; Rahmato, 2014).

3 Interviews with respondents in AISD, Addis Ababa, 28 December 2009; and the Development Bank of Ethiopia, Addis Ababa, 17 February 2010.4 Upgraded to the Agricultural Investment Land Administration Agency (AILAA) in 2013.5 Interviews with managers in the Oromiya Investment Commission, Addis Ababa, 3 February 2010; Amhara Investment Promotion Agency, Bahir Dar, 16 March 2010.

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Estimates of the amount of land transferred to investors vary considerably. Probably

the most up-to-date and cautious estimate by Keeley et al. (2014) concludes that

approximately one million hectares were allocated in 2005–12, although others

suggest two to three times that amount (Abbink, 2011; OI, 2011; Rahmato, 2014).

While the lower figure constitutes less than one per cent of Ethiopia’s total surface

area, the geographic concentration of investments mean that in affected areas the

changes involved are highly significant. Analysis of allocations over time shows a

clear peak in 2008–10, when the government signed several large leases with foreign

investors, and a reduction since (Keeley et al., 2014). The failure of several high

profile projects and the slow progress made in others led the government to put in

place a moratorium on new leases in 2011 and revise its strategy. There is now a limit

of 5,000 hectares on new leases with extensions conditional on results (Keeley et al.,

2014).

The important role for domestic public and private investors, and diaspora-owned

projects complicates the picture. However, the significant presence of foreign

investors does raise a legitimate question as to the impact on state sovereignty.

CASE STUDIES OF AGRARIAN TRANSFORMATION AND STATE-

BUILDING

This section examines trends of state building and investment in Gambella,

Benishangul-Gumuz and South Omo. These cases are selected as the three main areas

targeted for investments to date, as highlighted in the previous discussion.

Gambella

Gambella is the main site of foreign agricultural investments in Ethiopia. These

investments, complemented by infrastructure expansion and villagization, have

extended the reach of the state, requiring a change in de facto authority over land from

community management to state-administered leases.

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Gambella almost exclusively consists of lowlands below 750m above sea level. There

are three main ethnic groups: the Anywaa, Nuer and highland Ethiopians; as well as

smaller populations of Opo and Majangir. The Anywaa and Opo are primarily

cultivators, while the Nuer rely on transhumant and agro-pastoralism and the

Majangir are hunters and shifting cultivators (Feyissa, 2006). Despite de jure state

ownership, until the advent of recent investments, land was managed communally.

For several decades following Gambella’s conquest, the Imperial regime ruled

‘through cooption of local structures of authority’, relying on the Anywaa elite to

extract wealth from the ivory trade and pay tribute (Feyissa, 2010: 29). Prior to the

Italian occupation, central ‘administration was limited to sending a few tribute

gathering expeditions that were little different from raids’ (Young, 1999: 328). It was

only when Imperial rule was restored in 1941 that the state established police stations

and finance offices in towns to facilitate tax collection (Markakis, 2011). Still, by

1974, Gambella ‘was weakly integrated with the national center’ (Feyissa, 2006: 211).

As such, state institutional strategies lay on the continuum between powersharing and

non-incorporation.

The Derg did more to build state institutions, promoting education and representation

of local ethnic groups in local administration. Despite this, the Derg’s attempts to

transform what it considered to be the ‘backward’ culture of local people resulted in

growing resentment. In the 1980s more than 60,000 highlanders were resettled in

Anywaa territory, with the result that highland migrants reached approximately 40 per

cent of the population (Feyissa, 2006; Markakis, 2011). The Derg constructed a dam

on the Baro River and several other large infrastructure projects (James, 2002; Young,

1999). With the Ethio-Sudanese border becoming an emerging front in the Cold War,

the Derg also increased its presence in Gambella to provide support to the Sudan

Peoples’ Liberation Army (SPLA), which operated from the area (James, 2002).

Although the Derg certainly increased the state presence, however, this fell well short

of the penetration of rural society achieved in the highlands.

The upgrading of Gambella from a wereda to a regional state under the EPRDF

resulted in a massive inflow of resources, a construction boom in Gambella town and

the expansion of social services (Feyissa, 2006). There was also a distinct break from

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the past, when the vast majority of positions in the state bureaucracy were filled by

highlanders, to growing representation of local ethnic groups (Feyissa, 2006).

Federalism has seen control of the regional government become the object of

frequently violent political contestation along ethnic lines, with the EPRDF

periodically stepping in to enforce compromises on the contending factions (Feyissa,

2006). Despite the increased state presence under the EPRDF, as late as 2009 there

were no asphalt roads in the entire region (Markakis, 2011), providing a clear

indication of the urban focus of institution building and state authority.

Many of Ethiopia’s largest and most high profile investments are in Gambella. Leases

are particularly clustered around the Baro River and the Alwero dam, constructed by

the Derg but unused for irrigation until SaudiStar6 leased 10,000 hectares nearby to

cultivate rice. The most famous investment is that of Ram Karuturi, an Indian investor

who leased 100,000 hectares in 2008. In 2005–12, Keeley et al. (2014) estimate that

about 270,000 hectares or 9 per cent of the total surface area of Gambella had been

leased, usually on contracts of 20–45 years.

In addition to these leases, the government is implementing an ambitious road

building programme to improve infrastructure and the Commune Development

Programme or villagization that aims to resettle three-quarters of the population of

Gambella in the coming years. Ostensibly villagization aims to promote settled

cultivation and to provide social services, although some observers have argued that

the real intention is to clear land so that it can be leased to investors (HRW, 2012;

Rahmato, 2014). Information about implementation is sparse. MoFA claimed in a

letter to Human Rights Watch that 20,243 households, out of a total population of

306,916 people, were resettled in the first year of implementation (2010–11) (HRW,

2012: 101).

Existing research provides specific examples in which leased land to SaudiStar,

amongst others, included existing scattered Anywaa and Nuer dwellings, requiring

their relocation (OI, 2011). Furthermore, studies conclude that at least some of the

landholdings leased by investors were previously important parts of the extensive

6 A subsidiary of the MIDROC business empire owned by Sheik Al-Amoudi, a dual Ethiopian and Saudi Arabian citizen.

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livelihood systems of the local population, including: land for shifting cultivation and

seasonal grazing, cleared forests that previously provided an important livelihood

resource and water sources for animals (OI, 2011; Rahmato, 2011). There are

therefore specific instances in which agricultural investment has required a change in

de facto authority over land from customary tenure to state-administered leases to

foreign investors.

To date only a fraction of the land leased to investors has been developed. Karuturi, in

particular, has faced numerous problems, discovering that a large part of its lease is

situated on a floodplain and facing serious financial difficulties. Despite the modest

progress, the federal government retains ambitious plans, with 42 per cent of the

region identified as suitable for investment (Lavers, 2012a). Indeed, the government’s

plans are now to lease much smaller and more manageable plots to investors and to

try to address some of the main challenges investors have faced by creating clusters of

investment blocks with prepared land and basic infrastructure to offer to investors

(Keeley et al., 2014; Rahmato, 2014).

Benishangul-Gumuz

A similar process has unfolded in Benishangul-Gumuz, where under the EPRDF the

state has expanded its control of this frontier zone, through a range of complementary

processes including agricultural investment, infrastructure development and

villagization. Benishangul-Gumuz descends from the highland plateau at its borders

with Amhara and Oromiya to below 750m in the majority of the region. Benishangul-

Gumuz comprises the Berta, Gumuz, Shinasha, Komo and Mao ethnic groups, who

rely largely on shifting cultivation. Despite de jure state land ownership, land access

is governed by communal tenure (Moreda, 2015). About three-quarters of the region

is covered with bushes and shrubs, 11 per cent forest, 5 per cent is cultivated at any

one time and 3 per cent is used for grazing (Moreda, 2015).

Upon its incorporation into Ethiopia at the end of the nineteenth century, the area was

divided between two sheikhdoms, which paid tribute and taxes (Markakis, 2011;

Young, 1999). When these vassals failed to pay, the Imperial state would send in the

17

military, but there was no attempt to administer the area directly (Donham, 2002). In

effect, the Imperial state employed a loose powersharing strategy until after the Italian

occupation. The Derg resettled some 100,000 highlanders to the area, ignoring

existing land uses, and supported SPLA bases around Asosa (James, 2002). The

resulting instability, the indiscipline and violence of the SPLA and Derg attempts to

transform ‘backward’ culture led to growing local opposition to central government

(Young, 1999). As in Gambella, ethnic federalism has contributed to inter-ethnic

competition and conflict, resulting in EPRDF intervention to merge rival ethnic-based

parties and enforce a settlement.

Although the Derg and EPRDF extended the reach of the state, by the late 1990s the

regional government relied on federal transfers for 83 per cent of its budget (Young,

1999: 338). According to Young, this is because ‘successive weak governments either

did not have the capacity to collect taxes, or did not want to jeopardize their limited

authority by imposing taxes on a population long used to a measure of autonomy’

(Young, 1999: 338). Indeed, the modest progress made in state building in

Benishangul and Gambella is forcefully summed up by Young who, as recently as

1999, described the population of these regions as ‘largely stateless peoples’ (Young,

1999: 322). An illustration of the limited state reach is that there is no bridge

connecting the two halves of Benishangul divided by the Blue Nile. Those wishing to

travel from the regional capital, Asosa, to Metekel zone, in the north, have to travel

1,250 km on unpaved roads through Amhara and Oromiya to cross the Nile,

compared to just 180 km as the crow flies (Young, 1999: 342).

Many investments in Benishangul are situated close to the Blue Nile and its

tributaries. These include foreign investments negotiated with the federal government:

a 50,000 hectare lease to Shapoorji Pallonji, an Indian investor who aims to grow

biofuel feed crops; a 25,000 hectare cotton plantation leased to CLC Industries on the

border of Benishangul-Gumuz and Amhara; 20,000 hectares to the Saudi-owned

Horizon Plantations; as well as 280 investments by domestic investors agreed with the

regional government (Moreda and Spoor, 2015). According to Keeley et al. (2014),

160,000 hectares were leased in 2005–12. Much of this land remains undeveloped,

however. For example, Shapoorji Pallonji, the second largest lease in Ethiopia, was

only farming 2,500 hectares of its 50,000 hectares in 2012 (Keeley et al., 2014).

18

While Keeley et al.’s estimate constitutes a modest 3 per cent of the region, the

government has targeted 14 per cent for future investment (Lavers, 2012a). The

government is also currently implementing ambitious road development plans,

including connection of the two halves of Benishangul separated by the Nile (ERA,

2011).

Recent fieldwork by Moreda (2015) concludes that much of the land leased had been

purposefully left fallow by local communities who consider it part of their territory.

Indeed, the blocks identified in the federal land bank were apparently identified solely

based on satellite images without on the ground assessments. As such, while the land

leased may not have been under current cultivation, some was clearly part of existing

livelihood systems (Moreda and Spoor, 2015). Meanwhile the Gumuz shifting

cultivators have been told to permanently cultivate the same plots, rather than shifting

every few years. One local government official interviewed reported that the ongoing

villagization programme was intended to promote agricultural investments in place of

farming practices that the government considered to ‘underutilize’ the land (Moreda,

2015). As in Gambella, information on implementation of villagization is hard to find.

Moreda (2015) cites government documents that aimed to resettle 19,763 households

in 2011/12. Meanwhile, Keeley et al. (2014: 45) note that 43,000 people had already

been resettled. They do not, however, provide a source for this figure.

In the past, the Gumuz have attempted to retreat and pursue strategies of livelihood

mobility to evade state encroachment (James, 2002). However, the combination of

agricultural investments and villagization increasingly limit these possibilities

(Moreda, 2015). This case, again, provides specific examples in which the state is

expanding its control through changes in the de facto tenure system from customary

authorities to state-administered leases and by relocating people to consolidated

settlements and limiting mobility. Powerless to contest state-backed investments, the

local population has instead resorted to vandalism of investors’ property and

threatening migrant workers on plantations (Moreda, 2015). Meanwhile, the

investments have provoked feelings of resentment among the local population who

feel that local officials — who under federalism are Gumuz — have betrayed them.

This is despite the fact that local government has no power over and frequently little

knowledge of leases agreed by the federal government (Moreda, 2015).

19

South Omo

In South Omo zone agrarian transformation is driven by dam construction, state-

owned sugar developments and private investments. This process of agrarian

transformation serves to extend the reach of the state into an area where it has long

had limited presence and control over the local population. South Omo zone descends

from the edge of the highland plateau in the northeast to under 500m in much of the

zone. South Omo is home to the Bodi, Maale, Dassanetch, Hamer, Gnangatom and

Mursi ethnic groups, amongst others. Livelihoods are based on different forms of

pastoralism, flood-retreat cultivation on the banks of the Omo, and hunting and

gathering in the forests (Almagor, 2002; Turton, 2011).

When the Imperial state first conquered the area it established a few garrison towns,

but little infrastructure, with the result that state outposts were completely cut off

during the rainy season (Almagor, 2002; Markakis, 2011). The land occupied by the

Mursi, meanwhile, ‘was literally bypassed by explorers and military campaigners

alike’ as a result of its location between two seasonally flooding rivers (Turton, 2002:

148). While these military posts were able to collect taxes in areas of settled

cultivation, there was no attempt to directly administer pastoralist areas (Markakis,

2011; Turton, 2011). State institutional strategies therefore varied between

administrative occupation and non-incorporation. Derg administration resulted in the

establishment of some basic infrastructure, such as roads and electricity in the main

town. However, the army presence reduced as civil war progressed in the north

(Markakis, 2011). Perhaps the most significant state intervention was the

establishment of two national parks in the 1960s and 1970s, an attempt to expand

state territorial control that limited land access for local people (Turton, 2011).

Under the EPRDF state presence has increased. Federalism has provided

opportunities, and indeed incentives, for ethnic groups, including some very small

ones, to establish their own ethnic administrative units or even re-define their ethnic

identity in order to enhance claims to self-administration. Consequently, what were

previously relatively autonomous groups have been incorporated into state structures

(Abbink, 2002; Matsuda, 2002). However, state expansion has only progressed so far:

20

for the most part land administration has remained the purview of communities rather

than the state; and the police force is limited to wereda capitals given their lack of

vehicles (Markakis, 2011). Furthermore, the local state has long struggled to collect

taxes given the difficulty of estimating wealth and ‘pinning down the “responsible

people”’ in pastoralist societies (Abbink, 2002: 163). Local government generates

virtually no revenue and is entirely dependent on federal subsidies (Markakis, 2011).

South Omo is the target for agricultural investments linked to the construction of five

dams on the Gibe-Omo River. The first two dams are in operation, Gilgel Gibe III

began trial energy production in late 2015 and there are plans for a further two dams

downstream. The investment in dam construction is justified by plans to export

hydroelectric power to neighbouring countries and to enable large-scale irrigated

plantations downstream by regulating the flow of the river (Turton, 2011; Abbink,

2012). In addition to the dam, the government is constructing several roads to

improve access (ERA, 2011), based on explicit promises to investors (Keeley et al.,

2014).

The state-owned Omo-Kuraz Sugar Development Project will comprise five sugar

factories and 175,000 hectares of plantations divided into three blocks. Work began

on the first block in 2012, requiring construction of a dam on the Omo to provide

irrigation. By mid-2013, approximately 6,500 hectares had been cleared and planted,

reportedly requiring relocation of Bodi pastoralists to resettlement sites (HRW, 2014).

These communities not only lost land that they had previously used for grazing and

crop cultivation, but also access to the river. The first sugar factory is under

construction nearby. Further development of the three blocks of sugar plantations will

affect existing uses of land and water by the Mursi, Gnangatom, Hamer, Kwegu and

Daasanetch. In addition to these state investments, by 2011 a range of Ethiopian,

diaspora and foreign private investors had agreed leases of 1,000–18,500 hectares

downstream, mostly for cotton production.

My respondent at the SNNPR Investment Agency was adamant that all investors were

to be given ‘unused land’ that would not affect the local population.7 However, this

was contradicted by former Prime Minister Meles Zenawi who was quite explicit 7 Interview with a manager in the SNNPR Investment Agency, Awassa, 1 March 2010.

21

about his desire to use agricultural development to ‘transform the entire basis of the

area … I promise you that, even though this area is known as backward in terms of

civilization, it will become an example of rapid development’ (Mursi Online, 2011).

Furthermore, the zonal villagization plan and the Sugar Corporation explicitly link

villagization to state agricultural investments, providing resettled populations with

employment opportunities or ‘making them out-growers for the sugar factory’ (ESC,

2015; SOZPAAB, 2012: 4). The villagization programme initially planned to relocate

some 44, 385 people in 2012/13 (SOZPAAB, 2012: 5). While in the past, agro-

pastoralists in South Omo attempted to avoid the encroaching state through mobility,

the space to do so is increasingly restricted (Turton, 2011).

NEW ASSEMBLAGES OF TERRITORIALITY AND THE IMPLICATIONS

FOR STATE SOVEREIGNTY

The three cases exhibit many similarities. Despite gradual expansion over time, until

quite recently the state had a relatively limited presence in these territories. State

institutional strategies tended towards non-incorporation, though with variants of

powersharing and administrative occupation. In all three cases, this changed from

1991, with the deconcentration of state institutions under federalism, and increasing

representation of local ethnic groups in state bureaucracy. The government’s

promotion of agricultural investment in this context forms part of a state-building

strategy that strengthens the power of the federal state within emerging assemblages

of territoriality, expanding the reach of the federal state beyond regional and

provincial towns and into rural areas.

Each case provides specific examples in which investment requires changes in

authority over land and, consequently, changes in state–society relations (Boone,

2007). Previously, state influence over territory and people was mediated to a

significant degree by customary authorities. However, in all three, the de facto role of

customary authorities is being replaced by direct state control. However, here there is

notable variation between the state-administered leases to foreign and domestic

investors in Benishangul and Gambella, and the dominance of state sugar investments

in South Omo. Clearly, whatever other concerns may exist about sugar plantations on

22

the Omo, the expansion of state investments into areas where the state previously had

little presence enhances, rather than weakens, state authority. However, a central

argument of this article is that a similar process occurs with the expansion of state-

administered leases for foreign investments. In both cases investments require the

expansion of state control over land at the expense of customary authorities.

Furthermore, while proponents of the globalization thesis might still argue that the

federal government is losing its capacity for autonomous decision making as a result

of influence by foreign investors, for the time being at least, the dependence of new

investors on the federal state within these emerging assemblages makes this unlikely.

In terms of sovereignty, there is not as stark a distinction between investments by the

state and foreign investments supported by the state as might initially appear.

First, the approval process for investments ensures that only those investors with

plans that fit with state priorities are permitted. Whether investment is by the

Ethiopian state, foreign or domestic investors, agricultural investments align with the

government’s development strategy (Lavers, 2012a). In this sense, Moreda and Spoor

(2015: 235) are quite right to suggest that foreign investors and the federal state have

a ‘common purpose’. Indeed, it would seem that the reason why the state has taken a

leading role in sugar production is that it has been identified as a major political

economic priority for the government, but there has been limited interest from

investors.

Second, investors depend on the state for security. Automatic weapons are widely

available in much of the west and south of Ethiopia as a result of the longstanding

civil conflict in Sudan, and there have already been several reports of attacks on farms

in Gambella and Benishangul (Keeley et al., 2014; Rahmato, 2014). While a lack of

detailed information makes it impossible to assess the motives for these attacks, there

are serious security concerns for incoming investors. Recent studies report that the

government has responded by stationing military personnel at some investment

projects to provide protection (Keeley et al., 2014; Rahmato, 2014). As has been

noted in Somali region (Hagmann and Korf, 2012), militarization and violence

constitute important aspects of the practice of sovereignty in the western and southern

periphery.

23

The majority of investments in the lowland periphery are foreign-owned, large-scale

and highly capital-intensive operations, employing relatively small numbers of

machine operators and managers. For the most part, these employees are highland

Ethiopian migrants (Keeley et al., 2014; Moreda, 2015). The promotion of

agricultural investment is therefore creating a group of capitalist investors without any

links to or power base in local communities, and who are dependent on the state for

security, continued access to land — which remains state property — and the

importation of essential machinery.

Further evidence for the government’s autonomy regarding investment policy is

provided by the government’s apparent willingness to intervene when government

and investor interests diverge. For example, the federal government required investors

to renegotiate the terms of leases signed with regional administrations when the AISD

recentralized administration in 2009.8 This included a reduction in Karuturi’s lease

from 300,000 hectares agreed with the regional government to 100,000 hectares. In

several cases the federal government also increased low land use fees set by the

regions. Furthermore, the government has set specific deadlines for bringing land

under cultivation and in some cases has reclaimed land when investors failed to

deliver (Keeley et al., 2014). While the government has undergone something of a

learning curve in investment policy and has dampened its previous wildly optimistic

expectations, there is no evidence that it has ever been unwilling to impose its will

when required.

State-promoted agricultural investments are complemented by infrastructure

development and villagization in all three cases. This is most dramatically evident in

the dam construction on the Omo. However, in each case, the federal Ethiopian Roads

Authority is also pursuing an ambitious road and bridge building strategy that

provides transport links for new investments and projects state authority into rural

areas. Furthermore, while there remains some uncertainty regarding the links between

villagization and agricultural investment in terms of land use, the two programmes are

clearly complementary in terms of state building in each case. Both are programmes

conceived and designed at the federal level (in the case of villagization, under MoFA) 8 Interview with a manager in the AISD, Addis Ababa, 28 December 2009.

24

to be implemented in the lowlands. Furthermore, while investment enhances state

control of land, villagization enhances control over people by settling them in planned

villages that are more legible to the state (Scott, 1998). Along with the expansion of

agricultural investment, villagization reduces the space available for populations of

these territories to continue past strategies of evading the state.

While new assemblages of territoriality established through these multiple processes,

including investment, do involve a role for foreign investors, this comes at the

expense not of the federal state but previously autonomous ethnic groups. Indeed,

foreign investors remain highly dependent on the federal state, which, in promoting

investments, has actually enhanced its control of its territory and thereby its effective

sovereignty.

Explaining Institutional Strategies

The institutional strategies employed during the Imperial and Derg eras clearly

resonate with Boone’s (2003) theory of institutional choice. The discussion above

highlights considerable variation in the ways in which the state sought to incorporate

newly conquered territories depending on the potential of commercial agriculture and

whether rural elites constituted a threat or potential ally. In terms of the state-building

strategy pursued under the EPRDF, part of the government’s rationale is certainly

economic — the government aims to mobilize all available resources, including land

and water in areas targeted for investment, for the purposes of its development

strategy (Lavers, 2012a; Rahmato, 2014). Whatever the relative productivity of

pastoralism and shifting cultivation compared to plantation agriculture, the latter is

more amenable to state resource extraction (Behnke and Kerven, 2013). Increased

global demand for agricultural land from about the mid-2000s presented an

opportunity to realize government ambitions. If investments succeed, taxes, fees and

foreign exchange earnings could provide the state with the resources required to

justify investment in state building. As Boone’s theory suggests, therefore, the

potential of increased economic returns to establishing state institutions offers an

explanation for the move away from a strategy that tended towards non-incorporation.

25

However, Boone’s theory only provides a partial explanation for recent changes.

Boone (2003: 34–37) predicts that the existence of a rural social hierarchy is a key

determinant of the decision to deconcentrate state institutions. However, ethnographic

studies repeatedly point to the absence of centralized political authority and social

hierarchy in lowland societies (e.g. Abbink, 2002; Almagor, 2002). Nevertheless,

from 1991 the EPRDF deconcentrated state institutions relatively uniformly

throughout the country, regardless of variation in social structures.9

One important factor missing from Boone’s model is ideology. The ethnic federal

system originates in the TPLF’s ‘wholesale takeover of Stalin’s theory of the national

question as an approach to the problem of Ethiopia’s ethnic diversity’ (Clapham,

2006: 148). There are certainly political interests at play here — notably the EPRDF’s

adroit utilization of federalism to outmanoeuvre its political opponents (Vaughan,

2003). Ideology has nevertheless exerted considerable influence, with the result that

federalist institutions have been created throughout the country, regardless of whether

ethnic groups have demanded self-determination or not.

Ideology has also arguably played a role in the decision to pursue state building

through agrarian transformation. Alongside economic rationales, Meles Zenawi was

clear that he also wanted to transform and ‘modernize’ areas where local cultures may

be a ‘tourist attraction’, but which are an embarrassment to the government due to

their ‘backwardness and poverty’ (Mursi Online, 2011). Within highland culture,

pastoralism and shifting cultivation, and the groups that practice them, have long been

regarded as ‘backward’ in comparison to the more ‘civilized’ practice of sedentary

farming in the highlands (Donham, 2002). This attitude has been reflected in state

policy under the Imperial, Derg and EPRDF regimes that has systematically

disregarded the land use of pastoralists and, to the extent that they have been

considered in national development strategies, has aimed at sedentarization.10 As such,

backward and unsustainable livelihoods are to be replaced by a particular vision of

modernization in the form of dams, hydropower projects and large-scale agriculture.

9 This does not necessarily refute Boone’s theory — she explicitly notes other instances where states have pursued strategies that do not fit her theory, often leading to problems down the road (Boone, 2003: Chap. 5). 10 The continuity of these ideas perhaps explains the common intention, if not necessarily concerted action, of these regimes to transform the periphery.

26

CONCLUSIONS

This article questions the widespread assumption that the ‘global land grab’

undermines state sovereignty. Although this is certainly one possibility, the existence

of such a relationship must be adequately conceptualized and subjected to empirical

enquiry, rather than assumed. The article presents the case of Ethiopia to demonstrate

that investment does not automatically undermine sovereignty, and, in certain

contexts, may actually be used by states to enhance their sovereign authority.

In Ethiopia, the government’s promotion of agricultural investment forms part of a

state-building project that extends the state’s reach into the lowland periphery. Since

1991, ethnic federalism has involved the deconcentration of state institutions to areas

that had been weakly integrated into the state under previous regimes. In principle,

federalism also involves the devolution of power from central authorities to local

elites in regional administrations. While this has happened to a certain degree, the

growing importance of agricultural investment, among other factors, led the federal

government to re-centralize control, undermining regional administrations.

One of the ways in which the lowlands are being integrated into the state is through

change in de facto authority over land. Although formally all land in Ethiopia has

been state property since 1975, in many areas now targeted for investment, local

communities retained de facto control over land. In recent years, the state has

intervened to lease land to investors, exerting state authority over territory. At the

same time, villagization is settling local populations in newly established villages with

use rights. The result is an expansion of state control over both people and territory.

As such, ethnic federalism, the promotion of agricultural investment, infrastructure

development and villagization constitute complementary activities that extend the

power of the state in the lowlands. This process is clearly in tension with the

widespread assumption that the ‘land grab’ undermines state sovereignty.

The pursuit of state building through a process of agrarian transformation is related to

a longstanding bias in Ethiopia against mobile livelihoods such as pastoralism and

27

shifting cultivation. Historically, people practicing these livelihoods were considered

to be ‘uncivilized’ and their livelihoods ‘backwards’. This viewpoint continues to

persist amongst at least a portion of highland Ethiopian society and is reflected in the

sedentary bias of government policy. Government attempts to promote agrarian and

societal transformation are aimed at ending this ‘backwardness’ and promoting

modernization and development.

28

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About the author

Tom Lavers is a Lecturer in Politics and Development at the University of

Manchester’s Global Development Institute (Oxford Road, Manchester M13

9PL, tom.lavers@gmail.com). His research focuses on the politics of social policy,

agrarian change and state-society relations. Recent publications include articles

in the Journal of Agrarian Change and Geoforum.

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