Chapter 4 focuses on the political dynamics that shaped the EPRDF’s development strategy from 1991 to the death of Prime Minister Meles Zenawi in 2012. Despite military dominance, the EPRDF was vulnerable due to its lack of a political base outside Tigray. The new government sought to consolidate control of the ethnically diverse peasantry through a dual strategy: establishing federalism that provided for ethnic self-determination; and a broad-based development strategy to secure compliance through mass distribution. From early on, however, the government recognised that the main form of distribution – land access – would be undermined by population growth, necessitating industrialisation and mass employment creation to maintain mass acquiescence. During the early 2000s, the EPRDF leadership experienced a series of crises that resulted in increased elite cohesion and a shared sense of the threat facing the ruling elite. The result was Ethiopia’s ‘developmental state’ model, comprising infrastructure development, industrialisation and agricultural commercialisation to deliver the economic transformation required to meet the mass distributive challenge facing the regime.