Since the fall of military-socialist government in 1991 in Ethiopia, the Ethiopian Peoples' Revolutionary Democratic Front (EPRDF) has embarked on the total restructuring of the state. It has presented Nations, Nationalities, and Peoples as an organizing principle and it has been working towards the rebuilding of the Ethiopian state along this line. The focus of this paper is EPRDF's policies and practices of engagement of Ethiopian emigrants. The analysis is based on information and interviews with government officials in Addis Ababa and with Ethiopian migrants in Washington DC during February-May 2013. This study indicates that the EPRDF government gradually started to focus its attention on Ethiopian migrants around the world, mainly due to the growing economic significance of their transnational engagement in Ethiopia. The study also shows the circumstances in which political debates about the conditions in Ethiopia has been permeating interactions within Ethiopians emigrants. © 2015 Taylor and Francis.

Transnationalism Emigration Political antagonism Diaspora

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