A comprehensive understanding of the operational part of a federal system calls for the study of therncomportment on which the center-state relationship is based. Keeping this line, the Ethiopianrnfederal setup which is suspected of being coercive as regards the rapport between the orders ofrngovernment, is an interesting area of academic as well as political significance. The paper aims atrnexploring whether such suspicion is valid or not by scrutinizing the prevailing politico-economic asrnwell as constitutional stratum in which the federal experiment is functioning