Cultural Policies and Music Production Across Ethiopian Regimes: A Historical Study

Antologiartikkel, publisert i Ethnomusicology and Cultural Diplomacy, ed. David Herbert and Jonathan McCollum. Lexington Books 2022.

Abraha Weldu and Jan Magne Steinhovden’s article offers perspectives on how music and arts policies have shifted across recent generations of Ethiopian political history.  They trace the history of music research in Ethiopia and note that although Ethiopia is home to a very multicultural society, cultural policy has only been introduced in recent decades, but serves to mediate cultural diplomacy across the disparate nations that comprise the state of Ethiopia. Cultural rights and their contribution to sustainable development have tended to receive little attention from the rulers of Ethiopia. Rather, regimes have utilized culture to inculcate their moral and political values through cultural policy development in Ethiopia across the Imperial, the Derg, and the incumbent FDRE governments. The authors pay due attention to the influence and ideology of each regime on the development of culture for sustainable development.