The Political Origins of African Military Coups: Ethnic Competition, Military Centrality, and the Struggle over the Postcolonial State

Abstract

Military interventions are strategic in understanding “who gets what, when, and how” in postcolonial Africa. Building on past structural explanations of African coups, we examine two waves of military interventions and different types of coup events, as well as the coup intensity index, the traditional focus of analysis. We find strong support for military centrality and theories of ethnic plurality and competition. There is little evidence of a participation “overload” or of the “social unrest” produced by economic dependency. The early independence coups were rooted in ethnic plurality and competition plus strong militaries; those in the 1970s were rooted in ethnic political competition. Plots had a strong ethnic basis, attempts were facilitated by multipartyism and mobilization levels, and successful seizures by strong militaries. Domestic conflicts played only a small role, and lagging growth, although destabilizing, could not be explained by dependency. Future work should focus on ethnic struggles inside the military as well as civilian governments, the political institutions that regulate these power struggles, and the prospects for an elite settlement that would regularize political competition, eliminating irregular means for acquiring power.