The economics of ethnic federalism in Ethiopia

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33 As a result of his pragmatic policy, his reign characterized by relative stability was domestically. However, foreign aggression was a his energy to of the country. He in a defending the territorial integrity battle in the western part the country. threat, and he devoted much of constant his Upon lost his life eventually death, Menelik of Shoa proclaimed himself king of kings. Menelik II had the best claim of all the three great the title of "founder of the modem internal power and external of the modem south, imperial government been completed. were Ethiopian state, incorporated empire. in terms of whether it peoples or under the surprisingly, into the whether it His "at the height was a was an Levin views the process expansion and the creation to and conquest of the expansion as who were empire. Contemporary focuses This people on the expansion has meaning independent debate of this of to the created heated debate among historically and or semi- the nature of the expansion process of colonization of independent "in-gathering" on or people historians, semi-independent culturally related being generally positive: though they were for most of the peoples subjected, these conquests have been judged beneficial in several respects: they bolstered Ethiopia's position as an independent African power, greatly reduced the intertribal warfare and brigandage that had prevailed in the conquered areas, and paved the way for bringing an end to the slave trade in Ethiopia. Even so, it is not idle to raise the question whether this imperial expansion was basically a subjugation of alien peoples or an ingathering of peoples with deep historical affinities, especially since many of the conquered peoples still appear to chafe under the dominion of the Ethiopian state. The first assumption has long been the popular one. The prevailing view Traumatic of his and established its present boundaries. In the process, dozens of brought not By 1906, emperors to country vastly increased the territory under the control of the ethnic and tribal groups and millions of independent state." the process of territorial prestige," empire-state had west and east of the Ethiopian nineteenth-century people.