This article examines the ways in which discourses and narratives around pastoralism and climate change have been communicated within policy-making in Ethiopia over an eleven-year period (2007-2017), the interests of different actors shaping these policies, as well as some of the consequences of policy solutions for pastoralist livelihoods. Employing discourse analysis of policy relevant documents, combined with data drawn from interviews with a cross-section of policy actors, it highlights how new concerns over climate change – combined with the drive for transformation and modernisation of pastoral areas – are being used by the state and other powerful actors as tools in contestations over land and other resources. Predominantly technocratic policy prescriptions and investments are, in turn, leading to new patterns of social differentiation and vulnerability for some. The extent and nature of change in Ethiopia’s drylands call for political responses that address social inequities and power imbalances, that safeguard pastoralists’ resource rights, and that allow for more inclusive forms of governance.