Ethiopia’s Foreign Policy in the New World Order

System: Foreign Policy Direction and its

Determinants

An article Review Conducted in Partial Fulfilment of the Course

“Ethiopian Foreign Policy and the Horn of Africa (PSIR 642)”

Conducted By:

1. Maritu Bihonegn (GSR /15)

2. Messay Tilahun (GSR /15)
3. Muluken Tariku (GSR 5394/15)

Submitted to: Hussien Jemma (Dr.)

Addis Ababa

June 16, 2023

1
 An Article Review on Ethiopia’s Foreign Policy in the New World Order
System: Foreign Policy Direction and its Determinants

Article reviewed:

Teshome Chala (2020). Ethiopia’s Foreign Policy in the New World Order System: Foreign
Policy Direction and its Determinants. International Relations and Diplomacy, October 2020,
Vol. 8, No. 10, 426-437.

Introduction
The article “Ethiopia’s Foreign Policy in the New World Order System: Foreign Policy
Direction and its Determinants” was written by Teshome Chala in 2022. It aims to explore
the domestic and international determinants factors that affected Ethiopian foreign policy in
the post-cold war era, the period described as “New World Order”. Methodologically, the
author has employed qualitative research method through which he used secondary source of
data collection and analysis.

The article has an introduction, main body and conclusion. In the introduction, the author
tries to show how Ethiopia’s longstanding internal political instability has affected the
country’s external relations and how the country responded by redefining its foreign policy
since 1991. In so doing, the author tries to indicate how the new government “started to
redefine its foreign policy with new a global political paradigm which is more of pragmatic
foreign policy approach” (p.1).

The main body of the article is presented in three sections. First, the author tries to highlights
an overview of the post-cold war global political landscape. While discussing the post-cold
war situation in Ethiopia, the author argues that the international dynamics has affected the
political and economic landscape of Ethiopia. Consequently, the Ethiopian People’s
Revolutionary Democratic Front (EPRDF) adjusted its approach and proclaimed
Revolutionary Democracy in place of Marxist socialism as the party’s ideology (p. 2).

Second, the author tries to present an overview of the post-1991 Ethiopian foreign policy
objective which anchored itself on economic diplomacy of Developmental State model using
review of literatures to substantiate the discussion (pp. 3-4). In addition, the author presents
the threat of terrorism in the Horn of Africa as one of the factors behind the strengthening
Ethiopia’s diplomatic relation with the U.S.A and the West (p. 6). The author expands the

2
discussion by presenting Somalia and Eritrea as the major security threats of Ethiopia (p. 5).
According to the author, growing terrorism in the fragile state of Somalia and the unholy
relations of Islamic terrorist groups with various actors in Ethiopia threatened the security of
Ethiopia since the early1990s. Similarly, the author argues how the challenge from Eritrea
affected Ethiopia since the border war of 1998.

After giving an overview of the post-1991 foreign policy orientations and security threats, the
author presents the third set of discussion which entails to indicate the changes in Ethiopia’s
relation with Djibouti, USA, China and Egypt respectively. The bilateral relations with
Djibouti, according to the article, has been characterized as “unequal mutual dependency
marked by frequent tensions and frictions aroused from costs and taxation from port services”
(p.7). The author argues that USA has taken advantage of the fact that Ethiopia has become
landlocked and alienated from the geopolitics of the Red Sea after the separation of Eritrea
(pp.7-8). This, according to the author, was partly because of the fact that U.S.A. being
satisfied with Ethiopia’s loss of access to the Red Sea: “It is not surprising that they were
happy to see Ethiopia’s wings clipped with the independence of Eritrea because it was too
powerful to be responsive to their regional concern ”(ibid).

The author attributes the growing relevance of the post-1991 relations to driving factors such
as China’s growing economic assistance, the coming of China as an alternative partner to the
West, China’s role model for the development of Ethiopia and the diplomatic significance of
Ethiopia as a seat of the African Union and United Nations Economic Commission for Africa
which would help china to influence Africa and Middle East (pp. 8-9). The relation between
Ethiopia and Egypt is also discussed to demonstrate the changes and continuities of the two
countries foreign relation since the early 1990s. The author casts upon the background to the
bilateral relations in line with the hydro politics of the Nile and the initiation of the Ethiopian
Grand Renaissance Dam (EGRD).

Following the discussion of the analysis, the author sums the article up by indicating the
relevance of EPRDF’s “democratic developmental state” model in pursuing economic
development as foreign policy objectives. The author criticizes the government of Ethiopia
for not giving due attention for security threats by commenting as: “security threats are less
emphasized as policy focus, and priority of foreign policy objectives are given to eradicating
poverty and backwardness” (p. 11).

3
Comparative Analysis
Different authors have contributed to the discussion on the changes, continuities and
determinants of Ethiopia’s foreign policy since 1991, a time that marked the end of the cold
war internationally and the change of leadership in Ethiopia. In this section, attempt has been
made to compare and contrast the article being reviewed (Teshome, 2020) with works of
other authors to check the article’s conformity and/or contradiction with other works around
the subject.

Various studies have been conducted on the comparison of Ethiopian foreign policy under the
Derg and EPRDF regimes to show policy changes and continuities. The article by Negera
Gudeta (2019), for examples, makes an important contribution into our understanding of the
changes and continuities of Ethiopian foreign policy in the New World Order. The author
elaborates how various regional and global factors contributed to the shift in Ethiopia’s
foreign policy approach and orientation “from out-ward looking foreign policy to in-ward
looking” (Negera, 2019).

Similarly, a study by other authors indicated how the EPRDF coined its own version of the
“developmental state” and renewed state control of the economy while deepening its
articulation to global markets (Labzaé and Planel. 2021). Bearing this framework in mind, an
another article provides readers with an insightful explanation on the post-cold war change in
the international political system and its implication on bilateral relations of East African
states with the U.S.A, China and the rest of the world (Ahmed, 2016). Furthermore, another
author specifically focuses on Ethiopia’s foreign policy directions in the New World Order
era by indicating the country’s security challenges in the Horn of Africa along with the
prospect of improving its foreign relations with its neighbours and the rest of the world
(Mehari, 2017).

When compared to the works of the aforementioned authors, the article being reviewed
(Teshome, 2020) provides nothing more than a review of previous works. While the author’s
contribution in correlating the challenges of Ethiopian foreign policy in the Horn of Africa
with the recent developments such as terrorism and extremism is worth noting, his discussion
on the impact of the New World Order on the country’s foreign policy direction and
orientation hardly brings new insight.

4
The post-cold war foreign policy directions of Ethiopia highlights supporting the
democratization process and addressing economic constraints as priority areas (Ministry of
Information, 2002). In this regard, the article reviewed has tried to indicate the foreign policy
priorities of Ethiopia in the post-cold war years from different vantage points. In view of this,
the article’s explanation of the post-1991 economic diplomacy of Ethiopia conforms the
works of similar authors (Muzeyin, 2015; Záhořík, 2014).

Critical Examination of the article

Although the author tried to review and critically evaluate previous studies, there are some
observable limitations which affected the quality of analysis and the presentation of its
conclusion. As such, this section tries to indicate the weaknesses and strengths of the articles.
For the purpose of presenting the comments in orderly manner, the critical analysis covers
each sections of the articles which includes the tittle, abstract, introduction, main body and
conclusion.

The tittle “Ethiopia’s Foreign Policy in the New World Order System: Foreign Policy
Direction and its Determinants” reflects the text by indicating the focus of the study to the
readers. The author tried to describe the overall notion of the article in a short and precise
abstract. The author indicated the objective of the study, the methodology he employed and
highlights of the findings in the abstract. Nevertheless, the abstract is not well-organized, for
it lacks coherence. The abstract doesn’t have an ordinal flows that places the introduction,
objective, methodology (data and data sources), theory or research approach or design, main
findings and implications. Despite the limitation of clarity of the abstract, the author has
listed some keywords representing the main content of the article to make the manuscript
easily searchable.

In most of social science journal articles, the introduction section outlines the state of current
research and the context of the research presented. Often it will cover work previously carried
out by the same research team and how the new results relate to that. The introduction of the
article details the background of the study, objective, methodology and structure of the
articles. Nevertheless, it has some limitations as it lacks structural coherence and logical
presentation of key argument. From the start, the author’s claim is not clearly stated, nor is
backed by sufficient review of literatures. Consequently, the author hasn’t clearly indicated
the gaps nor has signalled what new insights he tries to contribute to the body of knowledge.

5
Accordingly, the incoherent presentation and organization of the introduction can be regarded
as one of the reasons for the observable lack of clarity throughout the text of the article.

While his short and precise discussion on the post-1991 political landscape of the country is
nicely presented, it is less relevant to the topic. For example, the author discussed the
prevalence of ethnic conflict globally and the introduction of ethnic federalism in Ethiopia.
Such a discussion has less relevance to support the objective of the article.

The main body of the article, which encompassed discussions based on review of literature,
has also limitations. There are certain assumptions made in the article that may not
necessarily hold true in the current state-of-affairs in the Horn of Africa. For starter, the
author has identified Eritrea as one of the security threats of Ethiopia in the global era (p. 6).
The review of literatures and justifications are inconsistent with improved relations of the two
countries since 2018. Furthermore, the failed to consider the improved internal dynamics of
Somali since the early 1990s. He also disregard the relevance of Somalia and its ports for the
economic diplomacy of Ethiopia, especially in the years after the separation of Eritrea.

As a continuation to the limitations in the review of literation, the other weakness of the
article can be attributed to its failure to sufficiently address the objectives of the study and its
incoherent presentation of the conclusion. Although the international factors related to
changes of foreign policy direction have extensively been discussed in the article, the author
hasn’t elaborated domestic factors as determinants of foreign policy. In failing to do so, the
author hasn’t addressed one of the objectives he stated in the introduction section, which aims
to “identifying domestic and international factors that shape Ethiopia’s foreign relations” (p.
2). This could give readers a deeper understanding of the domestic factors that can be stated
as reasons for revising the foreign policy of Ethiopia following the end of the cold war.
Furthermore, clear definition of concepts such as foreign policy orientation and foreign
policy direction as well as more detailed discussion of the determinants of foreign policy
would facilitate understanding of the research by the readers, who do not have extensive prior
knowledge in the field.

Equally, the conclusion of the article lacks structural organization and logical presentation.
His concluding remarks indicated the relevance of EPRDF’s “democratic developmental
state” model rather than addressing the issues indicated in the objective. Further, the author
concludes the article by criticizing the government of Ethiopia as: “security threats are less
emphasized as policy focus, and priority of foreign policy objectives are given to eradicating
6
poverty and backwardness” (p. 11). All in all, the conclusion of the article is not well
organized and doesn’t provide summary of the findings of the study.

Overall Assessment of the article

Compared to other articles, the article reviewed is hardly up to the standard. As presented in
the previous sections of the review, the article has some weaknesses related to the structure,
logical presentation of ideas, coherence and level of language. In addition to its failure to
meet the standard, the article hardly brings anything new to the knowledge claim. Owing to
this, and some other limitations indicated in the previous sections, the group reviewers would
recommend readers to read the article with considerable reservations.

Overall, as the review indicated this article isn’t straightforward in the beginning and it is not
until the second page that readers realize where the author is heading. More importantly, the
language, structure, and argumentation level of the article is way far from the standards of the
other articles used in comparative analysis. The whole article needs to be revised to create a
coherent and unified piece. In order to have more people be engaged and read the
whole article, the article needs a major revision both in terms of content and structure which
includes the overall outline, content, and argument.

The article could be further improved if the author has reviewed numerous articles and
recently published materials on the general framework of the foreign policy of Ethiopia as
well as the impacts global political system on Ethiopia’s foreign policy orientations in the
years after the end of the cold war. In particular, some discussion of Ethiopia’s domestic
factors as determinants of foreign policy in the years after the end of the derg regime could
help to enhance the value of the article for researchers.

Despite the limitations discussed so far, the article reviewed contributes its part into the
research of foreign policy determinants and challenges, which can be used both for further
research and for practical application. More importantly, the historical discussion of the
article on Ethiopian foreign policy orientation with the specific focal point of economic
diplomacy, developmental state and revolutionary democracy is worth reading.

7
References

Ahmed Mohammad (2016), ‘Determinants of foreign policy formulation in developing

countries: A case of Kenya’, International Academic Journal of Arts and Humanities, 1 (1),
1-53.
Jan Záhořík (2014) ,‘Ethiopia’s Hegemony in the Horn of Africa: Internal Tensions and
External Challenges Before and After Meles Zenawi’, The Journal of the Middle East and
Africa. 5(1), 23-35.

Mehari Taddele Maru (2017), ‘A regional power in the making: Ethiopian diplomacy in the
Horn of Africa.’ South African Institute of International Affairs (SAIIA) Occasional Paper,
no. 261.
Muzeyin Hawas Sebsebe (2015), ‘Ethiopia and the Rising Powers: A Case Study on the Post-
Cold War Era Ethio-Turkish Relation’. Akademik Hassasiyetler Dergisi 2(3), 83-98.

Negera Gudeta Adula (2019), ‘Ethiopian Foreign Policy Under Military and EPRDF
Regimes: Changes and Continuities’, Journal of Political Science and International
Relations, 2 (1): 25-31.

Ministry of Information, (2002), The Federal Democratic Republic of Ethiopia Foreign

Affairs and National Security Policy and Strategy’ Addis Ababa.

Teshome Chala (2020), ‘Ethiopia’s Foreign Policy in the New World Order System: Foreign
Policy Direction and its Determinants’ , International Relations and Diplomacy, October
2020, Vol. 8, No. 10, 426-437 doi: 10.17265/2328-2134/2020.10.002

Labzaé, M., & Planel, S (2021), ‘We Cannot Please Everyone: Contentions over Adjustment
in EPRDF Ethiopia (1991–2018)’, International Review of Social History, 66(S29), 69-91.