IDEAS home Printed from https://ideas.repec.org/a/bla/devchg/v46y2015i5p1179-1200.html
   My bibliography  Save this article

What is the Alternative? Youth, Entrepreneurship and the Developmental State in Urban Ethiopia

Author

Listed:
  • Marco Nunzio

Abstract

type="main"> This article investigates the implementation of small-scale entrepreneurship programmes in inner-city Addis Ababa. Drawing on eighteen months of ethnographic fieldwork, it discusses the failure of these programmes to open up opportunities for social improvement for young people. It also analyses how young people confronted with this failure suggest ways of conceptualizing ‘alternatives’ to established development concepts of poverty reduction, such as microfinance and small-scale entrepreneurship. In doing this, the author does not pretend either to offer a grand solution or to invent a brand new developmental concept. Rather, the aim is to provide a critical commentary on the reasons why some of the current academic debate on alternatives to neoliberalism have, de facto, amounted to an endorsement Ethiopia's political authoritarianism.

Suggested Citation

  • Marco Nunzio, 2015. "What is the Alternative? Youth, Entrepreneurship and the Developmental State in Urban Ethiopia," Development and Change, International Institute of Social Studies, vol. 46(5), pages 1179-1200, September.
    • Handle: RePEc:bla:devchg:v:46:y:2015:i:5:p:1179-1200
    as

    Download full text from publisher

    File URL: http://hdl.handle.net/10.1111/dech.12187
    Download Restriction: Access to full text is restricted to subscribers.
    ---><---

    As the access to this document is restricted, you may want to search for a different version of it.

    References listed on IDEAS

    as
    1. Lovise Aalen & Kjetil Tronvoll, 2009. "The End of Democracy? Curtailing Political and Civil Rights in Ethiopia," Review of African Political Economy, Taylor & Francis Journals, vol. 36(120), pages 193-207, June.
    2. repec:fth:oxesaf:98-9 is not listed on IDEAS
    Full references (including those not matched with items on IDEAS)

    Citations

    Citations are extracted by the CitEc Project, subscribe to its RSS feed for this item.
    as


    Cited by:

    1. Muñoz, Pablo & Kimmitt, Jonathan, 2018. "Entrepreneurship and the rest: The missing debate," Journal of Business Venturing Insights, Elsevier, vol. 9(C), pages 100-106.
    2. Laura Camfield & Jen Leavy & Senait Endale & Tilahun Tefera, 2020. "People Who Once Had 40 Cattle Are Left Only with Fences: Coping with Persistent Drought in Awash, Ethiopia," The European Journal of Development Research, Palgrave Macmillan;European Association of Development Research and Training Institutes (EADI), vol. 32(4), pages 889-905, September.
    3. repec:ehl:lserod:115567 is not listed on IDEAS
    4. Ashenafi Biru & Pia Arenius & Garry Bruton & David Gilbert, 2025. "Firm Formalization Strategy : The Interaction of Entrepreneurs and Government Officials in the Enforcement of Regulation," Post-Print hal-04493248, HAL.
    5. Kelecha, Mebratu, 2022. "A critique of building a developmental state in the EPRDF's Ethiopia," LSE Research Online Documents on Economics 124870, London School of Economics and Political Science, LSE Library.

    Most related items

    These are the items that most often cite the same works as this one and are cited by the same works as this one.
    1. Akresh, Richard & Lucchetti, Leonardo & Thirumurthy, Harsha, 2012. "Wars and child health: Evidence from the Eritrean–Ethiopian conflict," Journal of Development Economics, Elsevier, vol. 99(2), pages 330-340.
    2. Priscilla Twumasi Baffour & Festus Ebo Turkson, 2015. "Selection into Employment Sectors in Urban Ghana and Tanzania: The Role of Education," Research in World Economy, Research in World Economy, Sciedu Press, vol. 6(4), pages 78-92, December.
    3. Sumeyye Kusakci & Ibrahim Bushera, 2023. "Corporate social responsibility pyramid in Ethiopia: A mixed study on approaches and practices," International Journal of Business Ecosystem & Strategy (2687-2293), Bussecon International Academy, vol. 5(1), pages 37-48, January.
    4. Tom Lavers, 2016. "Social protection in an aspiring 'developmental state': The political drivers of Ethiopia's PSNP," WIDER Working Paper Series wp-2016-130, World Institute for Development Economic Research (UNU-WIDER).
    5. Simon Appleton, 2000. "Education and health at the household level in sub-Saharan Africa," CID Working Papers 33, Center for International Development at Harvard University.
    6. Järnberg, Linn & Enfors Kautsky, Elin & Dagerskog, Linus & Olsson, Per, 2018. "Green niche actors navigating an opaque opportunity context: Prospects for a sustainable transformation of Ethiopian agriculture," Land Use Policy, Elsevier, vol. 71(C), pages 409-421.
    7. Mesfin Welderufael Berhe, 2021. "Empirical analysis of urban youth unemployment in Ethiopia," African Development Review, African Development Bank, vol. 33(1), pages 104-116, March.
    8. Måns Söderbom & Francis Teal & Anthony Wambugu & Godius Kahyarara, 2006. "The Dynamics of Returns to Education in Kenyan and Tanzanian Manufacturing," Oxford Bulletin of Economics and Statistics, Department of Economics, University of Oxford, vol. 68(3), pages 261-288, June.
    9. Francis Teal, 2000. "Private Sector Wages and Poverty in Ghana: 1988-1998," Economics Series Working Papers WPS/2000-06, University of Oxford, Department of Economics.
    10. Naomi Hossain & Marjoke Oosterom, 2021. "The Implications of Closing Civic Space for Hunger and Poverty in the Global South," Global Policy, London School of Economics and Political Science, vol. 12(S5), pages 59-69, July.
    11. Assefa Mehretu, 2012. "Ethnic federalism and its potential to dismember the Ethiopian state," Progress in Development Studies, , vol. 12(2-3), pages 113-133, July.
    12. Workneh, Téwodros W., 2019. "Counter-terrorism in Ethiopia: manufacturing insecurity, monopolizing speech," Internet Policy Review: Journal on Internet Regulation, Alexander von Humboldt Institute for Internet and Society (HIIG), Berlin, vol. 8(1), pages 1-22.
    13. Yeshtila Wondemeneh Bekele & Darley Jose Kjosavik & Nadarajah Shanmugaratnam, 2016. "State-Society Relations in Ethiopia: A Political-Economy Perspective of the Post-1991 Order," Social Sciences, MDPI, vol. 5(3), pages 1-19, September.
    14. Camilla Louise Bjerkli, 2013. "Governance on the Ground: A Study of Solid Waste Management in Addis Ababa, Ethiopia," International Journal of Urban and Regional Research, Wiley Blackwell, vol. 37(4), pages 1273-1287, July.
    15. Francis Teal, 2001. "Education, incomes, poverty and inequality in Ghana in the 1990s," Economics Series Working Papers WPS/2001-21, University of Oxford, Department of Economics.
    16. Tom Lavers, 2016. "Social protection in an aspiring 'developmental state': The political drivers of Ethiopia's PSNP," WIDER Working Paper Series 130, World Institute for Development Economic Research (UNU-WIDER).
    17. McCormick, Barry & Wahba, Jackline, 2000. "Did public wage premiums fuel agglomeration in LDCs?," Discussion Paper Series In Economics And Econometrics 0020, Economics Division, School of Social Sciences, University of Southampton.
    18. Tom Lavers, 2016. "Social protection in an aspiring ‘developmental state’: The political drivers of Ethiopia’s PSNP," Global Development Institute Working Paper Series esid-073-16, GDI, The University of Manchester.

    More about this item

    Statistics

    Access and download statistics

    Corrections

    All material on this site has been provided by the respective publishers and authors. You can help correct errors and omissions. When requesting a correction, please mention this item's handle: RePEc:bla:devchg:v:46:y:2015:i:5:p:1179-1200. See general information about how to correct material in RePEc.

    If you have authored this item and are not yet registered with RePEc, we encourage you to do it here. This allows to link your profile to this item. It also allows you to accept potential citations to this item that we are uncertain about.

    If CitEc recognized a bibliographic reference but did not link an item in RePEc to it, you can help with this form .

    If you know of missing items citing this one, you can help us creating those links by adding the relevant references in the same way as above, for each refering item. If you are a registered author of this item, you may also want to check the "citations" tab in your RePEc Author Service profile, as there may be some citations waiting for confirmation.

    For technical questions regarding this item, or to correct its authors, title, abstract, bibliographic or download information, contact: Wiley Content Delivery (email available below). General contact details of provider: http://www.blackwellpublishing.com/journal.asp?ref=0012-155X .

    Please note that corrections may take a couple of weeks to filter through the various RePEc services.

    IDEAS is a RePEc service. RePEc uses bibliographic data supplied by the respective publishers.