<scp>E</scp> thiopia

Due to an early state‐building and a noncolonized past, the political mobilization of ethnicity in Ethiopia differs from the general pattern in colonized and decolonized Africa. The Amhara culture, which includes the Orthodox Christian faith and the Amharic language, has constituted the core identity of the Ethiopian state. The incorporation of non‐Amhara into the state at the end of the nineteenth century created a legacy of forceful assimilation and resistance, contributing to the mobilization of ethnic identities against the center. This mobilization was essential in the coups against the last emperor, Haile Selassie, in 1974, and against the military Marxist regime in 1991, and provided the rationale for the ethnic‐based federal system introduced after 1991.