Authoritarian armies and democratizing states: how the military influences African transitional politics

Abstract

ABSTRACTThis article uses descriptive statistics, cross-country regression analysis, and cases in Niger, Chad and Mali to investigate how authoritarian armies impact democratic transition and survival in Africa. It argues that the interaction between military rule and ethnic stacking facilitates three predominant democratization patterns. Africa’s military regimes are nearly always ethnically stacked, which leads to frequent but often short-lived transitions to democracy. When non-military-led regimes stack the armed forces with co-ethnics, the result is most often a blocked transition. Only non-military-led regimes that do not ethnically stack their armies' tend to result in stable democratic rule.