Description
It is widely argued that incumbent regimes in Africa use foreign aid as a source of patronage to co-opt strategic elites and prolong their rule. But what are the effects on regime social control when development interventions distribute their resources outside of state systems? There are studies tracking the effects of so-called ‘bypass aid’ on government effectiveness and legitimacy, but its consequences for elite formation and co-optation are less well understood.
This paper seeks to address this gap by reviewing the consequences of a rural development intervention in Ethiopia in the 1990s and early 2000s on rural social structure and elite co-optation. I find that the intervention – the Merhabete Integrated Rural Development Project implemented by Menschen für Menschen, a German-Austrian NGO – had a significant impact on social structure in the district of implementation. The intervention’s resource streams and employment opportunities shifted hierarchies in the district, empowering rural elites vis a vis the regime and undermining its ability to co-opt them. Ten years after the intervention closed, this shift in hierarchies still had legacies affecting regime social control in the district.
