In Ethiopia, the level of institutional development of government is deteriorating with a concomitant negative impact on the development of social organization. These retrogressive processes have in turn retarded the accountability of the state. State and Civil Society provides an analysis of failure in development policy by the Ethiopian People s Revolutionary Democratic Front- led government through the examination of its first fifteen years rule in Ethiopia. This in-depth analysis of the issue of civil society and the condition of state and society provides important insight into the question of why poverty and unfreedom reinforce each other in Ethiopia.