State Absolutism and Moral Agency in the Political Philosophy of Thomas Hobbes and Niccolò Machiavelli: Implications for Eritrea

Abstract In the progression of Western political philosophy from Aristotle to the Enlightenment, even the most statist thinkers such as Hobbes and Machiavelli, who saw organized society as a necessary evil, never accepted the notion of absolutism that sucks man’s free development. Central to Hobbes’ conceptualization of the state is that an artificially created sovereign […]

Personal Rule in Africa: The Case of Eritrea

by Petros B. Ogbazghi Abstract Notwithstanding the on-going struggles for democratic transformation, many African countries still lack rudimentary principles of the rule of law and legitimate political institutions. Contemporary Eritrea exemplifies this type of situation in which personal rule is the embodiment of the political system. The article argues that the perpetuation of personal rule […]

Ethiopia’s Role in South Sudan’s March to Independence, 1955-1991

by Belete Belachew Yihun Abstract The historical processes leading to the emergence of the states of Eritrea (1991) and South Sudan (2011) have yet to be satisfactorily reconstructed. The extended conflict between Ethiopia and Sudan since the late 1950s and the resultant war of attrition and vengeance they have waged against each other is considered among […]

African Studies Quarterly

Tag: Eritrea