The Arab Spring and the subsequent wave of youth movements across the Global South saw young people widely credited with bringing about regime change and sparked a renewed interest in the role of youth in securing demo cratic futures. Yet in the years since, adolescents and young people have continued to be excluded from political processes, and initial successes in instigating regime and policy change have largely failed to efect the antici pated structural economic, social or political transformations (Maganga, 2020; Belschner, 2021; Mansouri, 2022). However, whereas in the Middle East and North Africa region, informal youth movements represented a break with institutional political participation, in Ethiopia, the youth move ments that have instigated change have a long history of being linked with formal political participation. The Ethiopian Youth Movement (established in the 1950s) became a key platform for mobilisation, becoming a student movement that was at the forefront of overthrowing the imperial regime in 1974. Young people were also on the front line in the civil war against the Derg regime, which was replaced by the Ethiopian People’s Revolutionary Democratic Front (EPRDF) in 1991 (Tareke, 2009; Zewde, 2014).
Young people’s political activism in Ethiopia must also be understood in the context of the country’s constitutional order. Ethnic identity has histori cally been the primary means by which politics is organised in Ethiopia and is also an important organising principle for youth movements (Keller, 2014; Mekonnen, 2019). The weakening of the TPLF-led federal government from 2012 onwards contributed to the political conditions that gave rise to the Qeerroo, whose members (mostly well educated) wanted transformative change and greater Oromo political representation (Forsen and Tronvoll, 2021). Since 2014, the Qeerroo has become increasingly organised, using social media and grassroots mobilisation to coordinate mass protests around the country. From 2016 to early 2018, the Qeerroo movement was embraced by leaders and government cadres in the Oromia regional government led by Lemma Megersa, ex-president of the Oromia region. The movement’s online activities were led by the famous Oromo activist, Jawar Mohammed (based in the United States and Europe) who was responsible for mobilising a very active diaspora movement for change. This coordinated Qeerroo mobilisa tion has been partly credited with regime change and the coming to power of Abiy Ahmed in 2018 (Abebe, 2020; Forsen and Tronvoll, 2021).
Nevertheless, under Abiy Ahmed’s premiership, youth movements have struggled to penetrate formal political structures in ways that challenge the status quo. Although never a unifed movement as such, as time has passed, fractures have begun to emerge within the Qeerroo. Some members have been co-opted into government structures through eforts to restore law and order and services (Østebø and Tronvoll, 2020). However, others are increasingly critical of Abiy Ahmed and the government, not just for failing to deliver transformative change but also for the repression and imprisonment of Qeer roo leaders, particularly following protests triggered by the assassination of the famous Oromo artist Hachalu Hundessa in 2020. These evolving dynam ics underscore the need for a more nuanced analysis of the role of youth mobilisation in relation to institutional politics, and particularly the extent to which informal movements can avoid co-optation of spaces for grassroots youth participation.
Although the socioeconomic background of young people involved in youth movements has been widely discussed in the extant literature, there has been little attention to gender. Discriminatory gender norms have histori cally excluded women from participating in civic and political activities in Ethiopia (Kassa and Sarikakis, 2019; Semela et al., 2019; Dessie and Demis sie, 2022). However, women played an important role in the struggle against the Derg regime and, during the 2017–2018 protests in the Oromia region, activists began to use the feminine term ‘Qarree’ both to recognise young women’s role and make the movement more gender-inclusive (Tola, 2019; Forsen and Tronvoll, 2021). Despite this, relatively little is known about the role of young women involved in mobilising for change in Ethiopia (Geset and Moges, 2021).