Ethiopia and the Local Turn

This paper investigates how the local turn with a focus on traditional authorities has the potential to create a peace that addresses the underlying issues that led to the November 2020 conflict between Ethiopia and Tigray. The local turn is an approach to peacebuilding that emerged in the 1990s following failures in Rwanda, Somalia, and Bosnia, which led to disenchantment with liberal peacebuilding. This led to a movement of local bottom-up peacebuilding where peace is built from the inside and external actors are bystanders in the decision-making processes. This research is meant to fill a gap in the literature around traditional authorities and the potential role that they have played in the peace negotiations in Ethiopia in 2022. The methodology used is a thematic case study in order to analyse the role that the local turn and traditional authorities play in peacebuilding between Ethiopia and Tigray. The use of the 2020-2022 conflict between Tigray and the federal government of Ethiopia allows for a novel application of the local turn to a recent conflict by using a qualitative media study of primary news sources from Ethiopia. The literature findings suggest that there is space for bottom-up peacebuilding, but there must also be a top-down approach to address national level problems. The literature on the local turn supports a bottom-up approach to peacebuilding. The realities are less clear, in the case of Ethiopia, there is no significant evidence in the media study to suggest that traditional authorities played a role in peacebuilding in the Tigray conflict. If traditional authorities are not recognized, or do not hold legitimacy, then they will have no capacity to contribute to peacebuilding. If there are national level causes of conflict that are not addressed, then even if local level causes are resolved, conflict will continue.

Name thesis:degree_name

Master of Arts (M.A.)

Level thesis:degree_level

Masters

Discipline thesis:degree_discipline

Political Science

Grantor

University of Saskatchewan

Year dc:date.issued

2025

Author dc:creator

• Lennox, Skye Stephne

Advisor dc:contributor.advisor

• Mitchell, Matthew I

Committee members dc:contributor.committeemember

• Bell, Coleen
• Deonandan, Kalowatie

• traditional authorities, local turn, peacebuilding, Ethiopia, Tigray

Language dc:language.iso

en

Handle dc:identifier.uri

https://hdl.handle.net/10388/16403

OAI identifier oai:identifier

oai:harvest.usask.ca:10388/16403