Swiss daily Neue Zürcher Zeitung asked in 2019 whether Ethiopia under Abiy Ahmed was becoming a new model state in Africa—or whether the praise from abroad was racing ahead of the country’s conflict and governance realities.
Model-state talk is a recurring foreign-policy habit around Ethiopia: rapid growth narratives in the late EPRDF years, then reform-darling coverage in 2018–19. Each wave left behind useful questions about evidence versus branding.
For Horn readers, the NZZ frame is less about Swiss opinion and more about how international capital, diaspora politics, and domestic power struggles feed on each other’s stories. A “model” that cannot secure peace or accountable federal bargains is a story that collapses.
Sources: Neue Zürcher Zeitung
