| This dissertation constitutes a case study of societal change in a developing country as seen through the eyes of a participant/observer who both lived through it and was involved, in part, in that process of change. This historical narrative is based on the lived experience of an individual and his work as a bureaucrat caught up in the process of a society changing from a modernizing monarchy to a Marxist-Leninist military dictatorship. Until the overthrow of the monarchy in 1974, the modernization theory Ethiopia followed entailed a development strategy designed to ensure the continued survival of the country's independence. After a military junta took over power in 1974, the non-capitalist development model promised to bring unprecedented economic progress by nationalizing all lands. It traces the unfolding of the Ethiopian nation-state during the fifty years from 1941 to 1991, concluding when events took a surprising turn toward ethnic federalism—a novel political experiment that has called into question the survival of the nation-state.;This goal of the dissertation is to focus on the particular case of modernization in Ethiopia in order to demonstrate the general argument that there are many modernities. The historical material is drawn from the life experience of the author, whose life is narrated to highlight key themes in the literature on Ethiopia, on modernization, and on modernity. The autobiographical lens is of particular methodological importance because so few studies of Ethiopia have been conducted by Ethiopians, and also because, for deeply cultural reason, critical perspectives among Ethiopians have been marginalized—even as modernization has accelerated.;This dissertation is, in effect, an anthropological study of a minuscule elite in a sizable developing country. Between 1941 and 1991 the elite lived in Ethiopia's only large city, Addis Ababa, the capital, whose population grew steadily from about half a million to a metropolis of four million. It is also a study of a bureaucratic elite in a government that was, and still remains, the largest employer of the educated. |
