Chapter Four

State, Government and

Citizenship
1

Ashenafi G.
 UNDERSTANDING STATE
 State has been used to refer to a bewildering range of things: a

collection of institutions, a territorial unit, a philosophical idea, an

instrument of coercion or oppression, and so on.

 has been understood in four quite different ways:-

 Idealist approach to state clearly reflected in the writings of Hegel.

 He identified three moments of social existence:-

 Family, he argued, a particular altruism operates that encourages

people to set aside their own interests for the good of their children
2 or

elderly relatives.
Cont’d …
 Civil society was seen as a sphere of ‘universal egoism’ in
which individuals place their own interests b4 those of others.
 State Hegel conceived it as an ethical community
supported by mutual sympathy – ‘universal altruism’.
 Drawback of idealism:
 it fosters an uncritical reverence for the state and, by defining
the state in ethical terms
 fails to distinguish clearly between institutions that are part of
the state and those that are outside the state. 3
 Functionalist approaches to the state

 focus on the role or purpose of state institutions.

 central function of the state is maintenance of social order

 state is uphold order and deliver social stability.

 Weakness: tend to associate any institution that maintains

order (family, media, trade unions & church) with state

itself. 4
 Organizational View
 defines the state as the apparatus of government

 as set of institutions that are recognizably ‘public’.

 state comprises government institutions: the bureaucracy, military, police,

courts, and the social security system, etc.

 it clearly distinguishes the state and civil society.

International approach
 views state primarily as an actor on the world stage- basic ‘unit’ of
international politics.
5
 It highlights dualistic structure of the state, has two faces, looking outwards
and looking inwards.
Elements of State
 The classic definition of the state in international law is found in the

Montevideo Convention on the Rights and Duties of the State (1933).

 According to Article 1 of the Montevideo Convention, the state has four

features: a defined territory, permanent population, an effective

government and sovereignty.

 Population: state is a human association

 There is no exact number of population of state: the states in terms of
6
demographic strength. China and India, have more billion population
and few thousand people found in Vatican and San Marino.
 Defined Territory
includes
 land, water, and airspace; it has maritime jurisdiction extending
up to a distance of 3 miles, though some states contend up to 20 miles;
ships on high seas, embassies and legations/diplomat’s residence in
foreign lands.
Its
 size cannot be fixed (large states as China and Russia and as small states
of Fiji and Mauritius).
Government
is
 the soul of the state.
Implements will of the community, protects people from


insecurity.
is the machinery that terminates the condition of anarchy.


if there is no government, there is anarchy and the state is at

 7 an

end.
 Sovereignty
 highest power than any form of human beings associations.
 is the principle of absolute & unlimited power.
 Two aspects :-
 Internal Sovereignty:- no other authority that may claim
equality with state (final source of all laws internally).
 External sovereignty state should be free from foreign
control of any kind.
8
 Recognition
 the contemporary political theorists and the UN considered

recognition as the fifth essential attribute of the state.

 for a political unit to be accepted as a state with an

‘international personality’ of its own, it must be recognized as

such by a significant portion of the international community.

 It is to mean that, for a state to be legal actor in the

international stage; other actors (states, int’t intergov’tal and

9
NGOs etc.) must recognize it as a state.
 Rival Theories of State
 offers different account on origins, development & impact on society.

 there are ideological and theoretical disagreements in the discipline.

 E.g., state is autonomous and independent of society, or whether it is

essentially a product of society, a reflection of the broader distribution

of power or resources, does state serve the common/collective good?

 Andrew Heywood (2013) classified the rival theories of state into

four: the pluralist state, the capitalist state, the leviathan state and the
10
patriarchal state.
 The Pluralist State
 has a very clear liberal lineage.
 dominated mainstream political analysis, to discount the state and
state organizations and focus instead on ‘government’.

 ‘the state’ to be dismissed as an abstraction, with institutions such as

the courts, the civil service and the military being seen as independent

actors in their own right, rather than as elements of a broader state

machine.

 it is based on underlying assumptions about state neutrality.

 state can be ignored only because it is seen as an impartial arbiter or

11
referee that can be bent to the will of the government of the day.
Cont’d …
 Originated in social-contract thinkers T. Hobbes & John Locke.
 Their principal concern was to examine the grounds of political
obligation: individual is obliged to obey and respect the state.
 argued that the state had arisen out of a voluntary agreement, or
social contract, made by individuals who recognized that only the
establishment of a sovereign power could safeguard them from the
insecurity, disorder and brutality of the state of nature.
 Without a state:- individuals abuse, exploit and enslave one another
 With a state, order and civilized existence and liberty are guaranteed.
12

As Locke put it, where there is no law there is no freedom

 Cont’d …
 In liberal theory, the state is thus seen as a neutral arbiter amongst

the competing groups and individuals in society

 it is an ‘umpire’ or ‘referee’ that is capable of protecting each

citizen from the encroachments of fellow citizens.

 neutrality of the state:- state acts in the interests of all citizens, and

therefore represents the common good or public interest.

 Hobbes’ said that, stability and order could be secured only

through the establishment of an absolute and unlimited 13state,

with power that could be neither challenged, nor questioned..

 Cont’d …
 Locke contrary, developed a more typically liberal defense of the
limited state.
 purpose of the state is very specific: defense of a set of ‘natural’
or God-given individual rights; namely, life, liberty and property.
 Responsibilities of the state: the maintenance of domestic order
and the protection of property) and
 Responsibilities of individual citizens: usually seen as the realm
of civil society.
 citizens must enjoy some form of protection against the state,14only
through constitutional and representative government
 Cont’d …

As a theory of society, pluralism asserts that, within liberal

democracies, power is widely and evenly dispersed.

As a theory of the state, pluralism holds that the state is neutral.

state is not biased in favor of any particular interest or group

Schwarzmantel (1994) said that the state is ‘the servant of

society and not its master’. 15

 The Capitalist State
 The Marxist notion of a capitalist state offers a clear
alternative to the pluralist.
 Marxists: argued that the state cannot be understood
separately from the economic structure of society.
 Understood state- state is nothing but an instrument of
class oppression: the state emerges out of, and in a sense
reflects, the class system.

16
 Cont’d …
 Marx believed that the state is part of a ‘superstructure’ that is
determined or conditioned by the economic ‘base’.
 Two theories of the state can be identified in Marx’s writings.
 The first is ‘The Communist Manifesto (1848): ‘The executive of the
modern state is but a committee for managing the common affairs of
the whole bourgeoisie’.
 the state is clearly dependent on society and entirely dependent on its
economically dominant class, which in capitalism is the bourgeoisie.
 Lenin described the state as an instrument for the oppression of the
17
exploited class.
 Cont’d …
A second, theory of the state found in Marx’s analysis of the revolutionary

events in France between 1848-51, The 18th Louis Bonaparte (1852).

 Marx: state could enjoy ‘relative autonomy’ from the class system, the

Napoleonic state being capable of imposing its will upon society, acting as

an ‘appalling parasitic body’.

 If the state did articulate the interests of any class, it was not those of the

bourgeoisie, but those of the most populous class in French society, the

smallholding peasantry.

 From this perspective, the autonomy of the state is only relative- appears
18

to mediate between conflicting classes.

 Cont’d …
they emphasize that the state cannot be understood except in a
context of unequal class power, and that the state arises out of, and
reflects, capitalist society, by acting either as

an instrument of oppression wielded by the dominant class, or,

a mechanism through which class antagonisms are amended.

Nevertheless, Marx’s attitude towards the state was not entirely

negative.

argued that state could be used constructively during the transition

from capitalism to communism in the form of the ‘revolutionary
19

dictatorship of the proletariat’.

 Cont’d …
In describing the state as a proletarian ‘dictatorship’,

Marx utilized the first theory of the state, seeing the state as an
instrument through which the economically dominant class (by then, the
proletariat) could repress and subdue other classes.

But, he did not see the state as a necessary or enduring social formation.

predicted that, as class antagonisms faded, the state would ‘wither away’,
meaning that a fully communist society would also be stateless.

Since the state emerged out of the class system, once the class system had
been abolished, the state, quite simply, loses its reason for existence. .
20
 The Leviathan State
 Here image of the state is one associated in modern
politics with the New Right.
 The New Right, is distinguished by a strong antipathy
towards state intervention in economic and social life
 born out of the belief that the state is parasitic growth that
threatens both individual liberty and economic security.
 state, instead of being, as pluralists suggest, an impartial
umpire or arbiter, is an overbearing ‘nanny’, desperate
21
to
interfere in every aspect of human existence.
Cont’d …
 The central feature of this view is that the state pursues
interests that are separate from those of society (setting it
apart from Marxism).
 New Right thinkers: therefore argue that the state
intervention reflected not popular pressure for economic and
social security, or the need to stabilize capitalism by
ameliorating class tensions but, rather, the internal
dynamics of the state.
22
 The Patriarchal State
 Feminists regarded the nature of state power to concentrate on the deeper
structure of male power centered on institutions such as the family and the
economic system.
 Some feminists, indeed, argue that the state exercises a monopoly of legitimate
violence is compromised by the routine use of violence and intimidation in
family and domestic life.
 Liberal feminists
 believe that gender equality brought through incremental reform
 if women are denied legal and political equality, and especially the right to vote,
the state is biased in favor of men.
23
 the state’s basic neutrality is reflected in the belief that any such bias can, and
will, be overcome by a process of reform.
 Cont’d …
 They believe that all groups have potentially equal access to state
power, and used impartially to promote justice and the common good.
 viewed the state in positive terms

 state intervention as a means of redressing gender inequality and

enhancing the role of women.
 This can be seen in campaigns for equal-pay legislation, the provision
of child-care facilities, the extension of welfare benefits, and so on.
 But, a more critical and negative view of the state has been developed
by radical feminists, who argue that state power reflects a deeper
structure of oppression in the form of patriarchy.
 similarities between Marxist and radical feminist views of state power.

 Both groups, deny the state is an autonomous entity bent on the

pursuit of its own interests.
24
 Instead, the state is understood
 Cont’d …
, and its biases are explained, by reference to a ‘deep structure’ of power in
society at large.
 Whereas Marxists place the state in an economic context, radical feminists
place it in a context of gender inequality, and insist that it is essentially an
institution of male power.
 In common with Marxism, two versions of feminist position have been developed.
 Instrumentalist arguments focus on the personnel of the state, and particularly
the state elite, but
 Structuralist arguments emphasize the degree to which state institutions are
embedded in a wider patriarchal system.
 Modern 25
radical feminists paid specific attention to the emergence of the welfare
state, seeing it as the expression of a new kind of patriarchal power.
 The Role of the State
 Except anarchists, who dismiss the state as fundamentally
evil and unnecessary, all political thinkers have regarded the
state as, in some sense, worthwhile.
 there is profound disagreement about the exact role the state
should play,
 different state forms that have developed are the following:

26
 Minimal States
 Aim to ensure that individuals enjoy the widest possible realm of

freedom.

 essentially advances ‘negative’ view of the state.

 the value of the state is that it has the capacity to constrain human

behavior and thus to prevent individuals encroaching on the rights

and liberties of others.

 state is merely a protective body, its core function being to provide

a framework of peace and social order. 27

 In Locke’s famous simile, the state acts as a night watchman.

 Cont’d …
 This nevertheless leaves the ‘minimal’ or ‘night watchman’ state with three

core functions.

 1st the state exists to maintain domestic order.

 2nd it ensures that contracts or voluntary agreements made between private

citizens are enforced,

 3rd it provides protection against external attack.

 The institutional apparatus of a minimal state is thus limited to a police

force, a court system and a military of some kind.

 Economic, social, cultural, moral and other responsibilities belong 28

to the

individual, and are therefore firmly part of civil society

 Cont’d …
minimal state has been taken up in modern political debate by the New Right.

Lockean liberalism based on a defense of individual rights, mainly property rights.

Free-market economists (Friedrich von Haye & Friedman), state intervention is seen as

a ‘dead hand’ that reduces competition, efficiency and productivity.

New Right perspective, state’s economic role should be confined to two functions:

1. maintenance of a stable means of exchange/‘sound money’ (low/zero inflation);

2. promotion of competition through controls on monopoly power, price fixing etc..

29
 Developmental State
 is one that intervenes in economic life with the specific
purpose of promoting industrial growth and economic
development.
 It is not an attempt to replace the market with a ‘socialist’
system of planning and control but, rather, to an attempt to
construct a partnership between the state and major
economic interests, often underpinned by conservative and
nationalist priorities.
30

 Japan founder developmental state

 Social Democratic (Welfare) States
 states intervene with a view to bringing about broader social
restructuring, usually in accordance with principles such as
fairness, equality and social justice.
 The key to understanding the welfare state is that there is a shift
from a
A ‘negative’ view of the state, which sees it as little more than a
necessary evil, to
A positive view of the state, seen state as a means of enlarging
liberty and promoting justice. 31

 So it is the ideal of both modern liberals & democratic socialists.

Collectivized States
 bring the entirety of economic life under state control (orthodox
communist countries such as the USSR and throughout Eastern
Europe).
 sought to abolish private enterprise altogether, and set up centrally
planned economies administered by a network of economic ministries
and planning committees.
 ‘command economies’ were therefore established that were organized
through a system of ‘directive’ planning that was ultimately controlled
by the highest organs of the communist party.
32
 justification for state collectivization stems from a fundamental
socialist preference for common ownership over private property.
 Totalitarian States
Allow most extreme and extensive form of interventionism.

construction of an all-embracing state, the influence of which penetrates

every aspect of human existence.

state brings not only the economy, but also education, culture, religion,
family life and so on under direct state control.

central pillars of totalitarian regimes are a comprehensive process of

surveillance and terroristic policing, and a pervasive system of
ideological manipulation and control.

totalitarian states effectively extinguish civil society and abolish

33

the private sphere of life altogether.

 Religious States
The period since the 1980s has witnessed the rise of the religious state,

driven by the tendency within religious fundamentalism to reject the

public/private divide and to view religion as the basis of politics.

Far from regarding political realm as inherently corrupt, fundamentalist

movements have typically looked to seize control of the state and to use

it as an instrument of moral and spiritual regeneration.

religious states are founded on the basis of religious principles. 34

 Understanding Government
Government:-
 the formal and institutional processes that operate at the national level
to maintain public order and facilitate collective action.
 most essential components & an administrative wing of the state.
refer to political organization comprising individuals and institutions
authorized to formulate public policies and conduct affairs of state.

Any form of government, to be stable and effective, must possess two

essential attributes: authority and legitimacy.

Authority: politically, it implies the ability to compel obedience.

35

simply defined as ‘legitimate power.’

 Cont’d…
power is ability to influence the behavior of others, authority is the
right to do so.

It is the legitimacy, justification and right to exercise that power.

Legitimacy: mean ‘to declare lawful’ broadly means rightfulness.

is the attribute of gov’t that prompts the governed to comply willingly
with its authority.

transforming power in to authority.

36
Purposes and Functions of Government
Self-preservation

Distribution and regulation of resources

Management of conflicts

Fulfillment of social or group aspirations

Protection of rights of citizens

Protection of property

Implementations of moral conditions

Provision of goods and services

37
Understanding Citizenship
 Citizen: refers to the person who is a legal member of a particular State and

one who owes allegiance to that State.

 Citizenship: a means by which we determine whether a person is legal

member of a particular State or otherwise

 refers to the rules regulating the legal/formal r/nships b/n State & individual

with respect to the acquisition and loss of a given country’s nationality.

 Common elements of citizenship includes rights, duties, belonging,

38
identity and participation.
 Cont’d…
i. Citizenship as a Status of Rights: being a citizen makes the person a
creditor of a series of rights
 Marshall 1998, distinguishes three types of rights
 Civil: or the rights necessary for the dev’t of individual liberty;
 Political: the right to participate in the exercise of political power, and
 Social: are those that guarantee the right to public safety, health, the
right to education, etc., that is the right to a decent life.

39
Cont’d…
 Hohfeld (1978), discovered four components of rights known as ‘the
Hohfeldian incidents’: liberty (privilege), claim, power and immunity.
 A. Liberty Right: is a freedom given for the right-holder to do
something and there are no obligations on other parties to do or not to
do anything to aid the bearer to enjoy such rights.
 B. Claim Rights: are the inverse of liberty rights since it entails
responsibility upon another person or body.
 are rights enjoyed by individuals when others discharge their
obligations.
40
 Cont’d…
 Liberty and claim rights are primary rules
 Powers right and Immunity rights: are secondary rules.
 c) Powers Rights: are rights regarding the modification of first-order rights.
 are cooperative controls that are imposed on others.
 The holder of a power, be it a government or a citizen, can change or cancel
other people and his/her own entitlements.
 d) Immunity Rights:
 allow bearers escape from controls and
 they are the opposite of power rights.
 the 41
absence of a power in other party to alter the right-holder’s normative
situation in some way.
 Cont’d…
 ii) Membership and Identity:
 C/p membership implies integration into that community with a specific identity that is
common to all members who belongs to it. The criteria for
 linked to shared territory, common culture, ethnic characteristics, history, etc.
 iii) Participation: Participation occupies a key position in citizenship. two approaches:-
 Minimalist approach: characterized by a kind of basic passive compliance with the rules of a
particular community/State.
 Maximalist approach imply active, broad participation of citizens engagement in the State.
 iv) Inclusion and Exclusion:
 All individuals living in a particular state do not necessary mean that all are citizens.
 But citizens are fundamentally different from aliens like the right to get access to land, vote
42
and to be elected and get Ethiopian passport and duty of defending the constitution and
territory from foreign aggressors are.
 4.7.2. Theorizing Citizenship
 notion of c/p changes with the change in political thoughts, ideologies, policies and gov’t.

 While some States

 relies on markets to allocate citizenship rights with very restricted gov’t/State intervention,

 other States acknowledge government intervention in the market.

 All citizenship rights haven’t got institutional recognition at the same period.

 Citizenship obligations vary too, mandatory of military service (Eritrea and North Korea).

 Though there are different approaches to citizenship: liberal, communitarian, republican

and multicultural citizenship.

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 4.7.2.1. Citizenship in Liberal Thought
Liberal theory of citizenship :

 begins with the individual person (the self).

 the self exists as the true symbol of liberal theory.
 gives a strong emphasis to the individual liberty and rights of the
citizen.
 the self is represented as a calculating holder of preferences and rights in a liberal society.

 individual person is the primary political unit and the initial focus of all fundamental

political inquiry.

 individuals should be free to decide on their own conception of the good life, and
44

 applaud the liberation of individuals from any ascribed or inherited status

Cont’d…
 John Locke (1960), viewed individuals as endowed with reasoning
skills, through which they can discern and act upon the dictates of
divinely given natural law.
 acting irrationally means debase natural faculties and misapprehend
what natural law requires.
 He argued that natural law and the reason to apprehend compel individuals to
consider their own and others interests, to enter into civil and political society, act in
the community and thus to value social cooperation and self-restraint. Thus, the
individual is morally prior to the community: the community matters only because
it contributes to the well-being of the individuals who compose it.
45
 Cont’d…
 liberals think internal factors as the primary reasons that determine
personal identity.
 provide little consideration to the environmental factors

 claims that individual person shapes all other social aggregations,

including state.
J. Stuart Mill,
 Regarded individuality and self-interest as the source of social, not
just personal, progress and well-being.
 Insisted unrestricted freedom of individual thought, inquiry,& worship
 role of the State is to protect and create convenient environment
 the State has an instrumental function.

 According to Mill, individual liberty and State action tend to be

opposed to each other. 46
Cont’d…
 three fundamental principles which a liberal government must
provide and protect:
 (1) equality, treating individuals who are similarly situated in the
same way and afford them the same rights;
 (2) due process, treating individuals over whom it exercises power
fairly; and
 (3) mutual consent: membership in the political community rests on
the consensual relationship between the individual and the state.

47
 Cont’d…

Critics of Liberal Theory of Citizenship

 1st affirmatively valorize the privatization of personality, commitment,
and activity.
 2nd individuals have absolute freedom either to actively engage in
politics or ignore at all.
 3rd they posits a State that maintains substantial normative neutrality
 4th State cannot seek to efface without endangering citizens’ liberties.
 5th the most common problems related with advocating individualism
are free-raiders problem and the tragedy of the commons. 48
 Citizenship in Communitarian Thought
 Advocators who established the foundations of communitarianism.
 Taylor’s Sources of the Self (1989)
 Walzer’s Spheres of Justice (1983),
 Sandel’s Liberalism and the Limits of Justice (1982) and
 MacIntyre’s After Virtue (1981)

 Communitarianism (also known as the nationalist)

 emphasizes on the importance of society in articulating the good.
 argue that the identity of citizens cannot be understood outside the
territory in which they live, their culture and traditions;
 basis of rules, procedures & legal policy is the shared common good.
 political subject, above all, belongs to a community, 49

 view individuals as the product of social practices.

 Cont’d…
 deny that the interests of communities can be reduced to the interests of
their individual members.
 Privileging individual autonomy is seen as destructive of communities.
A healthy community maintains a balance between individual choice and
protection of the communal way of life and
 seeks to limit the extent to which the former can erode the latter.
 the good of the community is much above individual rights
 C/p comes from the community identity, enabling people to participate.
 The State must provide a policy for the common good
 examine the ways shared conceptions of the good are formed, transmitted,
50

justified and enforced.

 Cont’d…
 individual interests, identity, freedom and equality can only be
meaningfully practiced and realized through the
prioritization of the common good.
 The two defining features of communitarian perspective are:
 1st, no individual is entirely self-created; the citizen and his/her
identity is deeply constructed by the society
 2nd, as a consequence of assimilation, a meaningful bond is
said to occur between the individual person and his/her
51
community.
Cont’d…
 Critics of communitarianism:
 is hostile towards individual rights and autonomy – even that it is
authoritarian since it melts the self into the society.
 tend to emphasize the communal construction of social individuals and
social formations, and of values and practices. A problem is that these
constructive processes themselves need to be analyzed in terms of
power.

52
 Citizenship in Republican Thought
 put emphasis on both individual and group rights.
 attempts to incorporate the liberal notion of the self-interested individual within
the communitarian framework of egalitarian and community belonging.
 Like communitarian thought, citizenship should be understood as a common
civic identity, shaped by a common public culture.
 However, republicans don’t pressurize individuals to surrender their particular
identities; instead, it is underpinned by a concern with individual obligation to
participate in communal affairs.
 It encourages people to look for the common ground on which they stand.
 At this juncture, an effective balance between toleration and obligation is
53
required.
 Cont’d…
 like liberal c/p thought, republican school advocate self-government.
 Yet, republican thought do not agree with the case that all forms of
restraints deprive people’s freedom.
 Republican advocates, individuals must overcome their personal
inclinations and set aside their private interests when necessary to do
what is best for the public.
 Republicans, thus, acknowledge the value of public life.
 For republicans, public life draws people out, together, into connection
and solidarity, and occasionally conflict, with other members of the
54
public.
Cont’d…
 there are two essential elements of the republican citizenship:
publicity and self-government.
 Scholars critics on republican citizenship
 1st is that the republican conception of citizenship is no longer
realistic. Republican citizenship is an irredeemably nostalgic ideal in
this age of globalization.
 2nd is that the conception poses a threat to an open, egalitarian, and
pluralistic society.
 3rd point concerns the claim that citizenship involves a false ideal of
55
impartiality.
 Multicultural Citizenship
 the conception of citizenship in a modern State expanded to include
cultural rights and group rights within a democratic framework.
 four principles of multicultural citizenship:
 i) Taking equality of citizenship rights as a starting point.
 ii) Recognizing that Formal equality of rights does not necessarily lead
to equality of respect, resources, opportunities or welfare.
 iii) Establishing mechanisms for group representation and participation.
 iv) Differential treatment for people with different characteristics, needs
and wants.
56
 Critics: differentiated citizenship would create a "politics of grievance."
 Modes of Acquiring and Loosing Citizenship
 C/p right was one of the rights guaranteed to individuals by the UDHR adopted in
1948. Article 15, “everyone has a right to a nationality”
 Two common ways of acquiring C/p are: C/p birth and naturalization/law.
 i) Citizenship from birth/of Origin:
 Either born in the territorial administration of that or his/her families are citizens
 there are two principles of citizenship from birth commonly known as
 Jus Soli (law/right of the soil) and born in the territorial administration of that
country
 could not apply to children born from diplomats and refugees live in a host State
 because of two special principles (international diplomatic immunities):
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extraterritoriality and inviolability principles.
 Jus Sanguinis (law/right of blood). claiming one’s parents citizenship status
Cont’d…
 ii) Citizenship by Naturalization/Law: is the legal process by which
foreigners become citizens of another country.
 The common sub-principles naturalization are.
 Political case (secession, merger and subjugation),
 grant on application,
 marriage,

 legitimatization/adoption, and
 reintegration/restoration.

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The Modes of Acquiring Ethiopian Citizenship
 Before the 1930, there wasn’t officially inscribed legal document that
deals with citizenship.
 But in 1930 Ethiopia adopted a legal document named as “Ethiopian
Nationality Law”. Recently, this nationality law has replaced by
“Ethiopian Nationality Proclamation NO. 378/2003”.
 1) Acquisition by Descent: the 1930 Ethiopian nationality law asserted
that “any person born in Ethiopia or abroad, whose father or mother is
Ethiopian, is an Ethiopian subject.” article 6(1) of 1995 also
 2) Acquisition by Law (Naturalization):
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 Article 6(2) of the 1995 FDRE constitution- aliens can get Ethiopian
citizenship.
 Cont’d…
 According to amended Ethiopian nationality proclamation of 2003 ways of
acquiring Ethiopian c/p are:

1. Grant on Application (registration): certain common requirements to be fulfilled:.

 age, 18 years; live at least 4 years in Ethiopia, has not recorded criminal conviction,
has sufficient and lawful source of, has a good character, able to communicate in
any of the indigenous languages spoken in Ethiopia, has been released from his/her
previous nationality or the possibility of obtaining and takes the oath of allegiance.

2. Cases of Adoption (Legitimating)

3. Case of marriage

4. Citizenship by Special Cases

5. Re-Admission to Ethiopian Nationality (Reintegration/Restoration 60

 Ways of Loosing Citizenship
The primary rational for loss of citizenship is the absence of a genuine link with the state.
 Deprivation: involuntary loss of citizenship which arises while government authorities
or court take a decision to nullify an individual’s citizenship.
 burden of justification for the loss of c/p of an individual lies on the state.
 The citizen may be deprived citizenship for reasons of
 uncovering national secrets, non-compliance with citizenship duties (duty of loyalty),
 loss of genuine link with his/her state, flawed acquisition of citizenship,
 promising loyalty to and/or serving in armed force of another country,
 trying to overthrow the government by force, seriously prejudicial behavior, and
 becoming naturalized in another country.
 But, the 1995 FDRE constitution and 2003 Ethiopian nationality proclamation
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prohibits the possibility of losing Ethiopian nationality through deprivation.
 Cont’d…
 Lapse/expiration is a mode whereby a person loses his/her citizenship because of
his/her permanent residence or long term residence abroad beyond the number of years
permitted by the country in question.
 not applicable to Ethiopia.
 Eg., if an Indian citizen stays outside for 7 continuous years.
 Renunciation is the voluntary way of losing citizenship
 An Ethiopian national has the full right to renounce
 However, the person who has renounced a country’s nationality may not be
actually released from that status until he/she has discharged his/her obligations
towards that particular State or accused of a crime. This situation is called indelible
allegiance
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 Substitution: citizenship may be lost when the original citizenship is substituted by
another state, where it is acquired through naturalization
Statelessness
 It is the condition of having citizenship of any country and with no
government from which to ask protection.
 According to the international law, stateless person is a person who is
not considered as a national by any state under the operation of its law.
 It is almost always results when state failure leads people to flee – be it
due to invasion and conquest by another state, civil war, famine, or an
oppressive regime – from their home country.
 deprivation and when renouncing their citizenship without gaining
nationality in another State.
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 as a result of government action.
.

Thank you
Great!
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