Politics is shaped by a delicate tension between structure and agency. While leaders may assert their capacity to overcome historical and institutional constraints, broader social, economic and political parameters often delineate the possibilities for action. In Ethiopia, this enduring dialectic between structure and agency has assumed an especially acute form at this present historical juncture. Since 1991, the Ethiopian People’s Revolutionary Democratic Front (EPRDF) largely pursued structural reforms aimed at addressing entrenched historical legacies. Rooted in its anti-imperial and Marxist-Leninist tradition, the party sought to respond to the national question and transform Ethiopia’s largely agrarian economy. Since 2018, however, the Prosperity Party has foregrounded the power of individual and collective agency, people’s faith, resilience and capacity to navigate the country’s challenges. The party has laid less emphasis on addressing the past than on transcending it altogether.

Drawing on three recently published books on Ethiopian politics and history, I examine how structural forces and agency have interacted to shape the country’s political trajectory. The three books under review, however, differ significantly in how they balance the roles of structure and agency. I argue that, as long as successive Ethiopian governments wilfully disregard structural realities, both domestic histories and Ethiopia’s place in the global economy, efforts towards political and economic transformation will remain elusive.

Tom Lavers’ Ethiopia’s Developmental State: Political Order and Distributive Crisis offers a compelling structural analysis of Ethiopia’s state-led development under the EPRDF and the party’s eventual demise. The EPRDF’s ‘developmental state’ project sought to transform the agrarian economy through an increasingly ambitious and capital-intensive industrialisation strategy. Despite major gains, Lavers argues, the EPRDF faced mounting distributive crises in land and employment. These crises were partially explained by economic conditions that the party inherited and by the fragmented nature of global production, which made it particularly difficult for ‘late-late developers’ like Ethiopia to integrate into global value chains. These distributive pressures resulted in mass protests and elite fragmentation, which were ‘refracted through the prism of ethnic federalism’ (p. 261). The book is grounded in more than a decade of empirical research, including over 500 interviews across sectors from 2004 to 2020.

Moving beyond conventional turning points such as the 2001 party split, the 2005 elections, Meles Zenawi’s death in 2012 or the 2014 Oromo protests, Lavers highlights often-overlooked junctures in the EPRDF era. For example, the commercialisation of smallholder agriculture in the early 2000s had far-reaching consequences. While the older generation of farmers who had benefitted from the Derg’s land redistribution now enjoyed secure individual tenure, the younger generation saw their ‘prospects of an independent agricultural livelihood’ vanish, driving many out of agriculture entirely (p. 137). Rapid population growth, large-scale agricultural investments, and restrictions on redistribution, inheritance and land certification further exacerbated the situation (p. 149). What little land remained was typically allocated to sons, reinforcing generational and gendered inequalities. Women were disproportionately drawn into low-wage employment in industrial parks and factories. Urban migration, in this sense, was less a signal of growth than an expression of inequality. By reframing Ethiopia’s demographic and urban transitions in this way, Lavers challenges celebratory narratives of Africa’s ‘demographic dividend’ without resorting to a Malthusian logic, instead emphasising the structural limits of labour absorption and industrial expansion.

Having identified some of the structural conditions, Lavers then analyses how the EPRDF tried to address this ‘distributive crisis’ (p. 183) through its focus on rapid industrialisation and urbanisation. The book impresses with its breadth and depth, at times linking firm-level data across sectors to macroeconomic trends (p. 176). While the developmental state achieved notable successes in infrastructure and construction, and some gains in leather and horticulture, its broader industrial strategy, aimed at creating ‘a domestic manufacturing class that could compete internationally’ and absorb the landless and unemployed youth, ultimately ‘failed’ (p. 166). Structural constraints loomed large: the EPRDF inherited an almost non-existent private sector, and Ethiopian firms faced serious barriers to entering global value chains, from technological limitations to narrow margins. And as Lavers notes, attempts to reallocate urban land led to cycles of evictions and expropriations, further fuelling frustration.

Other critical junctures compounded the crisis. Repeated food shortages and inflation in the 2000s spurred the creation of the Productive Safety Net Programme (PSNP) in 2005. Yet PSNP was designed as a temporary measure, as the government was merely ‘buying time’ (p. 214). It excluded large populations and oriented its programmes toward ‘graduation’, leaving many vulnerable groups unsupported. Landless rural youth and the unemployed in cities were broadly left out (p. 235). In the end, this unresolved distributive crisis precipitated the EPRDF’s disintegration. The party could no longer manage the contradictions it had inherited and deepened. Ethiopia’s developmental state illustrates how the promise of structural transformation and the expectations that the successes generated outpaced the party’s capacity to deliver. Lavers leaves the reader wondering: Was industrialisation feasible under the constraints of late-late development, or were the failures of structural transformation inevitable? Could alternative paths, such as expanded service-sector employment, have alleviated these pressures? Most importantly, to what extent did the EPRDF’s policymakers have the agency to make different choices, and how much were their shortcomings a result of structural constraints?

Lavers’ longitudinal, multi-sectoral study avoids the ‘overly voluntaristic approach that may overstate the benign influence’ of Meles Zenawi (p. 37). While Meles and his advisors were central in maintaining the ideological and political cohesion of the party-state, Lavers argues that the successes and failures of these individuals were a function of the ‘structural factors that shape[d] their incentives to pursue state-led development’ (p. 38). Ultimately, Ethiopia’s ‘history of state formation and the revolution’ laid the very foundations that enabled the party to pursue a state-led model in the first place (p. 81). In sum, Ethiopia’s Developmental State is a meticulous and insightful study that illuminates the structural underpinnings of Ethiopia’s political and distributive challenges. Its emphasis on land, labour, industrialisation and social protection provides a vital framework for understanding the limits and possibilities of state-led development in contexts of late industrialisation, elite fragmentation and enduring material inequality.

While the EPRDF framed its developmental project within structural constraints that ultimately limited its success, Prime Minister Abiy Ahmed’s decisions and political activities reflect an attempt to transcend such constraints, often marked by a dismissive stance toward historical and structural forces altogether. Tom Gardner’s The Abiy Project: God, Power, and War in the New Ethiopia offers a vivid chronicle of Abiy’s rise and consolidation of power, serving as an archive of one of the most volatile periods in Ethiopia’s recent history. Rich in anecdotes that might otherwise have been lost amidst the pace of events, the book impresses with its unparalleled insights. Written in a distinctly journalistic style, it captures the drama of political transformation while foregrounding the personification of the Ethiopian state.

In the first part of the book, Gardner uses biography as a device to situate Ethiopia’s political history. Drawing on accounts of Abiy’s childhood, including significant events such as the death of his older brother, and fragmented recollections of his years as a military and intelligence officer, we are given insights into some of the early influences that would later go on to shape Abiy’s rise to the apex of the EPRDF. His early consolidation period and the wave of ‘Abiymania’ that ensued included the Nobel Prize-winning deal with Eritrea. But this spirit of reform was accompanied by crises. The arrest of the Somali Region’s Abdi Iley, the wave of high-profile assassinations and mysterious deaths, including those of Ambachew Mekonnen, General Seare Mekonnen, Asaminew Tsige and Engineer Simengew Bekele, the detention of opposition figures in Oromia and the onset of COVID-19 with postponed elections all helped set the stage for the Tigray War. Particularly striking are Gardner’s chapters on the Gedeo-Guji conflict and the assassination of Hachalu Hundessa. These events might otherwise have been footnotes in the grand sweep of history but are presented here as critical turning points, where contested memories and long-standing tensions around federalism and political marginalisation are catapulted into the present. Each chapter weaves together interview material, colourful anecdotes and historical context, producing a narrative that captures the tumultuous character of this period.

Gardner’s account of Abiy Ahmed stands out for its emphasis on agency. Abiy is repeatedly depicted as a leader whose ‘Silicon Valley thinking’, ‘positive mindset practices’ and embrace of ‘ergonomics’ shaped his political style (p. 65). Ethiopia’s economic crisis was often depicted ‘in terms of individual moral failings’ (p. 329). In his attempts to mediate between the warring factions in South Sudan, Gardner foregrounds Abiy’s conviction that ‘personal chemistry, individual forgiveness and a certain collective amnesia’ would take precedence (p. 141). This conviction is reinforced by his ‘faith in the power of his own charisma to heal rifts’ (p. 142). Gardner illustrates how this belief is rooted in Abiy’s Pentecostal faith, where the Prosperity Gospels’ ‘name-it-and-claim-it theology’ can ‘change the world for the better through sheer force of will’ (p. 207). The Abiy Project illustrates how Abiy sees himself as ‘singularly responsible for the trajectory of Ethiopia’s transformation’ (p. 205). From economic prosperity and urban redevelopment to wheat cultivation or bitcoin mining, Abiy is a leader animated by the belief that ‘nothing was below reach of human agency’ (p. 207). Unlike Lavers’s structural reading of the EPRDF’s constraints, Gardner’s account of the Prosperity Party offers an almost inverse vision of transformation, in which faith and agency eclipse material and institutional realities.

Gardner makes use of his unparalleled access to a prominent cast of interlocutors, ranging from Hailemariam Desalegn, Seyoum Mesfin, Jawar Mohammed, John Bolton, Salva Kiir and hundreds of government officials, special envoys, diplomats and humanitarians to everyday stories of people’s lives in different parts of the country. While most of his interlocutors remain anonymous for obvious reasons, at times, the reader is left wondering how we know certain things. For example, apparently, Afghan gold miners were operating in Wollega (p. 188). This may simply reflect a desire to avoid overloading the footnotes but raises important epistemological questions about knowledge production in the study of Ethiopian politics, especially at a time when political decision-making no longer has institutional parameters to fall back on. More generally, Abiy is often allegedly said to have done something or been somewhere, ‘though [often] nobody outside Abiy’s close circle seemed to know for sure’ (p. 328). Gardner acknowledges early on that studying Ethiopian politics is an exercise in dealing with missing information, especially when the President of the Oromia region candidly admits that ‘politics is all about doing tricks, nothing else […] it’s about how much intrigue you can play’ (p. 91).

In this sense, the speculative tone mirrors political realities, and even the interlocutors and senior officials are often speculating. How can we truly know what is going on? How can we overcome dissembling and deception? Especially, when considering that these interlocutors are fully aware that speaking to journalists or researchers is an opportunity to push their ideas into the public realm. Gardner does well to triangulate statements, drawing on data by humanitarian agencies, local news outlets and leaked memos, while often letting the readers decide what they want to believe.

This is particularly evident in his detailed description of the war. As Gardner puts it, ‘farmers would fight tanks, guerillas would jostle with drones, and village militias would share battlefields with two of Africa’s largest and most experienced armies’ (p. 265). The war was fought on multiple fronts and historical faultlines, bringing the weight of history onto the battlefield. But for Abiy, suffering here too was seen as part of the struggle towards reform. If this was God’s vision for Ethiopia, then these ‘trials and tribulations are just part of God’s plan’ (p. 313). This pattern was also evident in the signing of the Pretoria agreement, rather vague and more about gestures than about resolving the underlying political and structural tensions.

Taken together, Lavers and Gardner illustrate the interplay between structural constraints and individual agency in Ethiopia’s recent history. Lavers emphasises how inherited institutions, demographic pressures and economic structures shaped the EPRDF’s successes and limitations, while Gardner underscores the outsized role of Abiy’s visions and convictions in shaping political outcomes.

Haggai Erlich’s Greater Tigray and the Mysterious Magnetism of Ethiopia offers a complementary perspective by extending the temporal scope, situating present-day conflicts and tensions within the long durée of history. In the first part of the book, Erlich traces the politics of what he calls ‘Greater Tigray’ from the Aksum Empire through the Zagwe Dynasty and Ahmed Gragn to the Portuguese-Ottoman conflicts, arguing that Tigrinya-speaking peoples on both sides of the River Mareb have historically mediated the wider region’s relationship to the outside world (p. 16). This perspective is one of the book’s major strengths, revealing the structural continuities that still shape political tensions today. At the same time, the narrative’s linearity leaves little room for contingency and sometimes downplays the unpredictability and complexity of historical change. Despite a focus on Tigrinya-speaking peoples on both sides of the Mareb river, the book is anchored in the great tradition of Ethiopian historiography.

One of the book’s strengths is its portrayal of Tigray’s fragmented politics, particularly after the demise of Emperor Fasiladas in Gondar and the onset of the Zemene Mesafint (‘Era of the Princes/Judges’). During this period, when regional nobles across Ethiopia competed for power, ‘Tigray itself was far from stable’ (p. 25). Rivalries among leaders from Agame, Tembien and Endarta repeatedly erupted into conflict, and these ‘constant violent rivalries and betrayals left Tigray weakened’ (p. 27). Erlich interprets the rise and coronation of Emperor Yohannes in 1872 in Aksum as ‘a loud and clear declaration that Tigray was restored as the cradle of the Ethiopian Empire’ (p. 34). This cyclical pattern of Tigrayan unity and disunity forms one of the book’s key themes, reflecting the broader tension between decentralisation and centralisation, and, at its extreme, between violent fragmentation and imperial ambition.

While Emperor Yohannes ‘tolerated’ some Tigrayan nobles and accommodated the agitating rulers of Shewa and Gojjam, he did not extend the same courtesy to those in Mareb Melash, north of the Mareb River, in what is today Eritrea. As Erlich notes, ‘future Eritrea was the gate through which foreigners threatened to invade’, whether Egyptians, Italians or Sudanese (p. 41). Yohannes’ policies in Mareb Melash thus served as both a reminder of past vulnerabilities and a prelude to future conflicts. For example, it was only after Emperor Sarsa-Dengel of Shewa made peace with the governor of the northern coastal province that the latter cut ties with the Ottomans, who had been aiming to control the Red Sea since 1555 (pp. 16–17). Similarly, in 1889, Emperor Menelik recognised the strategic importance of the Port of Massawa for importing arms and, through a lesser-known clause in the Treaty of Wuchale, ‘sealed off the north and the Tigrayans from importing arms by binding the Italians to sell only to him’ (p. 58). These episodes reveal the long and contested struggle over the Horn’s maritime and land corridors, a dynamic that still resonates today, as the UAE, Saudi Arabia and Turkey compete for influence along the coastline. The region encompassing present-day Eritrea and Tigray thus emerges as both a logistical centre in internal conflicts and a vital buffer zone against successive foreign incursions.

The death of Emperor Yohannes at the hands of the Mahdists in modern-day Sudan ‘resulted in the disintegration of Tigray as the political-military centre of Ethiopia’ (p.55). Before Menelik consolidated control, tensions persisted among the royal families of Tambien, Endarta, and Agame (pp. 59–60). By 1890, the Italians had colonised Eritrea and advanced to Adwa, while Menelik had taken Yohannes’ castle in Mekele (p. 60). Confronted with these pressures, Tigray’s leadership was divided: some advocated surrender to the emperor, while others insisted on ‘fighting for Tigrayan autonomy and with Italian help if possible’ (p. 60). This division, with loyalties split between Addis Ababa and Asmara, frighteningly echoes the political fractures that persist in the region today.

Erlich’s account of Italian and British policies towards Tigray offers a particularly revealing glimpse into the region’s shifting configurations of sovereignty and belonging over the past century. This section stands as one of the book’s strongest and most engaging contributions, illuminating the geopolitical stakes and competing visions that have long shaped Tigray’s relationship with both its neighbours and foreign powers. Erlich distinguishes between competing Italian approaches preceding the Battle of Adwa: Politica Scioana, aimed at appeasing Menelik and supporting his consolidation of power in the south, and Politica Tigrigna, pursued by Italian governors in Eritrea, which argued that supporting the autonomy of a ‘now weakened Tigray’ would ‘better serve the interest of securing Eritrea’, since ‘impoverished and proud Tigrayans would be dependent on the Eritrean economy and serve as a buffer entity between Asmara and Addis Ababa’ (p. 61). Although the Ethiopian victory at Adwa in 1896 became a symbol of unity, Tigray bore the brunt of the battle’s devastation. ‘Ethiopia’s major battles for survival […] were conducted on their soil’ (p. 8). This logic also prefigured Haile Selassie’s defensive posture south of Tigray in 1935, which effectively turned the province into a buffer zone during Italy’s second invasion (p. 104).

During the occupation, Tigray was briefly administered as part of Eritrea (p. 97). Under British oversight in 1941, Ras Seyoum Mengesha, the governor of Tigray, received financial and logistical support from British-controlled Asmara without submitting to Haile Selassie (p. 107). As with Italy forty years earlier, British policy was divided: Haile Selassie’s advisors in Addis Ababa saw him as a unifying force, while the British military, answerable to the War Office, sought to ‘annex Tigray to the British-administered Eritrea’ (p. 102). Only after the Emperor’s appeal to Churchill for ‘the transfer of Tigray to Ethiopian administration’ was the province reintegrated (p. 107), underscoring Tigray’s long history of external intervention and oscillation between autonomy and incorporation into a decentralised polity.

The final section traces the contentious history from the 1940s to the present, though unevenly, skipping much of the 1970s–2000s before returning to an oddly placed chapter on the Grand Ethiopian Renaissance Dam. It recounts the uneasy federation between Ethiopia and Eritrea, and the ‘three revolutions’: Haile Selassie’s overthrow in 1974, and the simultaneous rise of the Tigray People’s Liberation Front (TPLF) and Eritrean People’s Liberation Front (EPLF). The most insightful part of this section is Erlich’s discussion of the Arabisation of the early Eritrean struggle, in which Haile Selassie was depicted as a ‘Zionist enemy’ (p. 132), leading to training camps in Afar with Palestinian instructors financed by Libya’s Gaddafi. Erlich also notes a shift in supply lines from Sudan to the Red Sea, as support began to flow through Aden (p. 133). Again, reminding us that the more things change, the more they stay the same.

The book engages little with questions of sources or historical method, perhaps reflecting its orientation towards a general audience rather than a scholarly one. While the storytelling is vivid and engaging, both clearer citations and a more explicit acknowledgement of the vulnerabilities of interpretation would strengthen the book’s overall argument. Some statements, such as the claim that during the northward Oromo migration, ‘some fifty clans mixed with other local peoples in 1540’ (p. 19), or that Emperor Tewodros’s army ‘grew to some 60,000 men’ around 1860, remain unsourced (p. 29). Alongside these are more interpretive moments, such as the description of British artillery practice that supposedly ‘left an overwhelming impression on Kasa’ (p. 31). Without references, it is unclear how such impressions are known. Other statements, such as that Emperor Yohannes ‘enjoyed military superiority over all internal rivals’ (p. 37) and that Emperor Menelik minimised disease outbreaks in the south (p. 58), are plausible given the authority these rulers wielded, though such claims would also be strengthened by proper sourcing.

In the conclusion, Erlich reflects on the uses and abuses of history, showing how narratives are continually repurposed to serve political ends. Throughout the book, ‘Greater Tigray’ emerges less as a political project than as a geographic and cultural borderland, where ethno-linguistic and cultural identities blur even as colonial demarcations, and respective projects of centralisation and self-determination have repeatedly produced combustible and often violent politics.

In bringing these works into conversation, this review has traced Ethiopia’s shifting balance between the weight of structural constraints and the force of human agency. Across the longue durée, from the imperial legacies detailed by Erlich to the EPRDF’s developmental ambitions examined by Lavers and the Prosperity Party’s voluntarism captured by Gardner, Ethiopia’s political history reveals an enduring struggle to reconcile the past with visions of transformation. The books collectively, highlight that neither institutions nor individuals alone can account for Ethiopia’s complex trajectory. Attempts to disembed politics from its material and historical foundations risk reproducing the very crises they seek to overcome. Ethiopia’s future, then, depends less on choosing between structure and agency than on cultivating a political imagination capable of acknowledging their mutual entanglement, a politics grounded in history yet open to change.