Driving Factors to Protest and Implications on Social Capital: The Case of Gondar City 2016-18
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Date
2021-06
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Addis Ababa University
Abstract
This paper scrutinizes the driving factors of the 2016-18 Gondar city protest and its
implication on social capital. Conflicts are ubiquitous in every society. Violent protests are one
form of conflicts. Recently, Ethiopia has been wracked by multitudes of protests in Amhara
national regional state and Oromia national regional state. Following an attempt to arrest
leaders of Welqayt Amhara Identity Committee, a protest was broke out in Gondar city on
July, 2016. This incident is only accredited as a triggering cause for the eruption of the
protest. Thus, the main objective of this thesis is to explore the major driving causes of the
protest and its implications on the social capital. To this end, the researcher employed a
qualitative research methodology. Accordingly, interviews and Focus group discussions
bestow the primary data. Document analysis and image analysis endeavor to supplement the
primary data. Purposeful sampling was used in order to select two sub-cities and 15
informants from bureaus and associations. Besides, Snowball sampling was used to select 7
elders and 7 protest mobilizers, facilitators and participants. In general, 29 individuals were
participated in the study. The collected data was analyzed thematically. Thereupon, the finding
of the study unfolds that the juxtaposition of political factors, economic factors and local good
governance factors ensued a grievance on the people and incited the protest. The protest was
violent and some strikes signaled an attempt to instrumentalize ethnic identity. In this regard,
the study uncovers, the protest brought different implications on the in-group social capital
within Amharas and inter-group social capital between Amharas and Tigrians. The protest
strengthened the bonding social capital which extends up to consolidation of Amhara
nationalism and abated the bridging social capital between Amharas and Tigriyans. The study
also discovers ways that the bridging social capital can be rejuvenated with an integrated
effort and work by the people, government and political elites. In order to halt the likelihood of
revitalization of this kind of violent protest in the near future, the Amhara political elite, the
Tigriyan political elite and the federal government should work together and discuss on table
to settle disputes peacefully.
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Keywords
Protest, Grievance, Violence, Instrumentalization, Bonding Social Capital, Bridging Social Capital, Rejuvenation