Military Rule Research Articles

고려 무신집권기 유통경제의 성격

The period of Military Rule in Goryeo is the period when various aspects of the distribution economy in the late Goryeo period appear. In the period of Military Rule, public power was relaxed in various fields including politics. The appearance of public power relaxation appears as paralysis of Gyongsiseo’s function, embezzlement of officials, bribery, and the gambling of the bandits. The private distribution economy, which was maintained under the control of public power, was activated in the relaxation of public power. The development of private distribution economy led to various illegal activities by the power class in conjunction with the relaxation of public power. In the era of the Military Rule, the powerful actively participated in the private distribution economy. They sold the products of the large farm, or adjusted the merchants behind the scenes, participating in domestic commercial activities, and securing the necessary luxury goods through foreign trade. On the other hand, in the period of the Military Rule, a new form of gift receipt emerged among bureaucrats as a complementary method of distribution economy. The private distribution area centered on the ruling class spread more in the late Goryeo period, as the state’s control over the distribution economy has fallen from the Military Rule. The state also actively participated in the trend of development of private distribution area. In the late Goryeo period, privately owned permanent stores increased in the situation of increasing investment and monopoly on commercial activities of privileged forces. The growth of merchants was also remarkable in the development of the distribution economy. The wealthy merchant of the late Goryeo period grew through activities as agents of the ruling class, private connection with the ruling class, or independent economic activities. On the other hand, the development of the distribution economy has led to the differentiation of merchants, and the activities of small merchants as well as the wealthy merchant have gradually increased.

명종대 전반의 공적 정치에 대한 인식과 그 추이

This paper investigates what the perception on public politics was and how it progressed during Myungjong’s early reign. The focus is especially on the overlapping of the multiple sub-realms of public politics that interweaved political reality. This paper argues that the public politics was composed of three particular realms；Value, Institution, and Behavior. These three realms were gravely affected by the Revolts of the Military in 1170. The former king, Uijong, was criticized for the failure to accomplish the traditionally proper public politics. However, under the military rule, the restoration of the traditionally proper system of public politics was not the objective. During Uibang Lee’s regime, military leaders sought to increase the benefits for the military officials and changed the institutions accordingly. Brutal behaviors by the military were prevalent. Traditional values of the politics were disregarded. Later, Jungbu Jung utilized traditional systems to achieve his objective, transforming the system towards his will. This evoked the anti-military movements by Bodang Kim and Wichong Jo. They claimed the current regime was not the proper public political system. This started the pluralization of claims for the proper public political system. Although their challenges failed, it unleashed the flow of claims for the proper public political system by the various members of Goryeo society.

Islam and Christianity in 19/20th Century South Asian Debates

Abstract Islam and Christianity share much in common but also much that is different. The evidence of interactions between them go right back to the origins of Islam in the seventh century. In early Muslim traditions, Jesus was largely presented as an ascetic, whereas their prophet Muhammad was presented as a political and military ruler; Christianity as a quietist faith and Islam as conquering faith-polity. These early traditions possibly informed the rather oppositional South Asian debates of the nineteenth century. We know that the Muslim conceptions of Jesus have been changing over time. To what extent has the image of Muhammad among Christians changed over time is also a relevant question. Muhammad and Christ were unquestionably often the focal points of the Christian Muslim debates in the nineteenth and the early twentieth century South Asia. Preliminary enquiry of sources suggest that Christians largely looked at Christ and Muhammad as fundamentally opposing characters belonging to different domains; their Muslim counterparts attempted to argue that Muhammad and Christ had much in common and, that Muhammad was in fact the very fulfilment of Christ’s own prophecy. This paper digs both into Muslim (religious doctors) and Christian (missionaries/converts) sources: i. to bring to light a new context of debates (South Asia) on Christ and Muhammad; ii. To examine how Jesus and Muhammad were portrayed in these debates and; iii. To what extent, this South Asian evidence on how Jesus and Muhammad are seen aligns with what we know from writings about them from the Middle Eastern context?

ATTITUDES OF THE ARAB CITIZENS OF ISRAEL TOWARDS THE CELEBRATION OF INDEPENDENCE DAY DURING THE PERIOD OF MILITARY RULE 1948-1966

This research will examine the relationship of the Arab citizens of the State of Israel to the Independence Day celebrations during the period of military rule. Independence Day is considered as the highest degree to show belonging and national identity. The Arabs are the citizens of the state, the Palestinians are the citizens of the state, the Arabs of Israel are all the same names for the citizens who were converted with the declaration of the state of Israel as a minority within their homeland. The research question is why did Arab citizens celebrate Independence Day during the period of military rule, especially in the first decade of the establishment of the State of Israel? In order to get the answer, I used two sources and analyzed their content. The first source is the articles that were written in Al-Ittihad newspaper between the years 1949-1958. The second source is ten interviews I conducted in 2016 with ten women and men. I found that people's motives were different, but they were not naive, and varied between the desire to join the state or the desire to enjoy the only freedom day available during the year. Or perhaps the desire to be part of modernity. And most of them with the end of the military rule ended their desire to celebrate. Whoever remained, despite the outward appearance, was the celebration, but the inner part was still linked to the roots.‎

Exploring the Root Causes of the Persecution Policy Against Rohingya People: A Study based on Three Constitutions of Burma/Myanmar

This article presents and analyzes the complex case of the Rohingya, a large group that allegedly migrated from the Bengal area and has been deprived of citizenship through the sociopolitical measures of the Myanmar government, thereby making them de facto stateless people in Myanmar. Through archival research investigating extensive historical records in Myanmar with a particular focus on the three constitutions of the country, this study attempted to identify and analyse the sociopolitical reasons and underlying sociocultural rationale for why Rohingya migrants are deprived of citizenship in Myanmar, treated as illegal immigrants, and subjected to criminal prosecution and oppression under Myanmar’s military rule. While violence against the Rohingya people should be condemned, the Buddhist nationalism of the majority of Myanmar citizens and the concern about territorial sovereignty of the Myanmar government must be well understood before effective tutelary measures can be contemplated for the Rohingya people.

Nollywood: A Dark Horse Dreams of Becoming the Black Swan

NollywoodA Dark Horse Dreams of Becoming the Black Swan Tade Ipadeola (bio) Click for larger view View full resolution Click for larger view View full resolution Named after Hollywood and Bollywood, Nollywood—Nigeria's motion-picture industry—began on VHS tapes, literally gained altitude as in-flight offerings in the 1990s, and now has films streaming on Netflix and Amazon Prime. Nigerian poet and lawyer Tade Ipadeola traces this rise of the industry, along with its rising scrutiny. To begin where we are, as the poet Czesław Miłosz exhorts, is a great piece of advice when it comes to Nollywood. Born ostensibly on the wrong side of the tracks and named after more famous cousins, Hollywood in the United States and Bollywood in India, Nollywood stubbornly climbed into some reckoning as a motion-picture industry. When the word "Nollywood" began to gain currency in the early 1990s, it was as some kind of insider joke. At the time, the motion pictures from Nigeria were not big-budget celluloid affairs but VHS home videos. They were produced daily. The quality, for the most part, was so abysmal that purists could not but object to their description as films. The Nollywood "films" nevertheless began to sell, and soon the African diaspora began to patronize them. Nostalgia has its uses. And then, by and by, the world took notice. When King of Boys, a film by Kemi Adetiba, premiered in 2018, it went on to win a brace of awards at the Africa Movie Academy Awards. It was a modest commercial success and was followed by a sequel, King of Boys 2, in 2021. There is something of the je ne sais quoi of Nollywood in the story [End Page 30] of those works and in the story of their producer. Very few movies from Nollywood have mastered social topics in the way that the film and its sequel did. The works held a serious mirror to the face of Lagos—and Nigeria—deftly navigating the power blocs of a vibrant and protean society. All these things the film did in the guise of a thriller with a vixen at its heart. The first films in Nigeria were made and directed by men, but women have more than made up for starting out of the block late. And they are leveling up as actors and producers every passing day. King of Boys is available on Netflix. Living in Bondage, produced by Ken Nnebue in 1992, followed by a sequel in 1993, is widely regarded as the first true Nollywood blockbuster. In the way that serendipity often finds its moments, Nnebue happened upon a glut of magnetic media that was soon to be superseded by superior digital technologies and capitalized on his moment. One remarkable thing about the work today, when compared with contemporary productions, is how basic and rudimentary the production was. The grain and texture of these pictures are somewhat quaint and can be sampled on YouTube. Coming after the age of celluloid film productions had ground to a halt in Nigeria, Living in Bondage, made in the Igbo language (with subtitles in English), was distributed mainly as VHS tapes to a worldwide audience. The story, not the technique, was the ultimate magnet. Between 1996 and 1998, Tade Ogidan produced Owo Blow, a Yoruba Nollywood trilogy. The cast of that production, most of them making their cameo appearances at the time, are now big-time actors and central figures in Nollywood. The production was a critical success, and the ambition it demonstrated has since been imitated in innumerable films from Nollywood. Nigeria at the time was the subject of many economic sanctions due to the peculiar barbarity of Sani Abacha, the military ruler in charge. Abacha ran death squads, hanged Ken Saro-Wiwa, a notable Nigerian writer and screenwriter—alongside eight of his Ogoni brothers—for protesting the oil pollution and ill treatment of Ogoni land. The shoestring budget of Tade Ogidan for the production dictated a number of decisions he made to get the script unto the screen. If James Agee made films, some of them would be in the mold of Owo Blow. Swallow, a film by...

On Social Networks, Anonymous Testimonies, and Other Tools of Feminist Activism against Sexual Violence in Egypt

On Social Networks, Anonymous Testimonies, and Other Tools of Feminist Activism against Sexual Violence in Egypt

정한경의 당대사 서술 배경과 현실 인식

The goal of this research is to learn about Henry De Young’s persperctive on history through his published book. Henry De Young is an independence activist in America. Henry De Young who was born in 1890, moved to America and earned a master's degree in Nebraska University and a PhD from American University. His master's thesis, titled "The Oriental Policy of the United States," criticized the United States' East Asian policy and Japan's assertive diplomacy. It is notable in that Korea was the first country to reveal to the U.S that it had made treaties with numerous countries before to the Japanese colonial era, and that the invasion of Japan had severed ties with them. In addition, his dissertation based on 5,000 pamphlets and 10,000 magazines was created on the Japanese colonial era “The Case of Korea” which promotes March 1st Movement and Japan's actual colonial control. The despotic Korean colonial rule of Japan was explained with particular examples based on data gathered by Western missionaries in Korea and data published in the journal. Henry De Young not only gave a speech on the subject of the book at her Ph.D. graduation, but also distributed it across the United States. The independence petition made by Henry De Young, the mandate petition, and the brochure issued during the first Korean Congress in Philadelphia all include common terms and expressions. He published “The Russian Came to Korea” in 1947, praising the United States' military presence in Korea while denouncing the Soviet Union's military presence in North Korea. Furthermore, while the military administration of the United States ruled South Korea in a fairly democratic manner, the Soviet Union ruled North Korea in a very oppressive manner, and it held a negative view of communism in South Korea and North Korea's Kim Il-sung. He wrote the original book The American Came to Korea, which he experienced directly, from 1958 to 1963, and it was published after his death in 2000. His critical views on democracy and military rule are presented in this work.

Use and Abuse of Social Media in Myanmar between 2010 and 2022

Myanmar, or Burma as it was previously known, has been under almost most continuous military rule since 1962 except for a brief period from 2016 until 1 February 2021. The military started the transfer of power to a civilian government in 2010 until the military staged a coup on 1 February 2021. The country has essentially been in a state of various civil wars since its independence in 1948. The period from 2010 saw the opening up of the telecommunications sector and a rapid uptake in social media. The spread of smartphones has opened up communication to the masses and provided them with access to information; the Myanmar Military has also used it to spread disinformation. These campaigns are used to uphold the state, people and religion. To the military, this essentially means the Burman (Bamar) majority, the Buddhist religion and the unitary state (with the military as its guardian). In many of these endeavours, they have been supported by non-state actors such as militant Buddhist monks. Since the military takeover in 2021, the resistance has also used social media, particularly young people and the many ethnic armed groups. Keywords: Social-media, disinformation, human rights, military rule, cyber security legislation

미얀마의 보건의료 현실과 ‘국가-사회’ 관계의 동학

The civil disobedience movement launched by medical staffs at public hospitals in response to the coup conducted by Myanmar's military in 2021 shows the perception that the political crisis triggered by the coup is more fatal to the safety and health of the people of this country than the health crisis caused by COVID-19. Myanmar's healthcare system has gone backwards over the past 50 years under military rule. Myanmar has established systems and policies aimed at universal health security from a very early age, but the reality has shown a big gap with it. Rather, most people’s right to health has been seriously violated as the military, which reigns over the people as a ‘state within a state’ exclusively monopolizes scarce healthcare resources and utilizes them politically. This situation had undermined public health system and resulted in catastrophic out-of-pocket expenditures accounting for more than 70% of total healthcare spending of this country. Therefore, it can be said that Myanmar's healthcare crisis is fundamentally caused by a political crisis. By examining the implications of the civil disobedience movement and the characteristics and limitations of Myanmar's health care policy, this article emphasizes that the improvement of Myanmar's poor healthcare should start with resetting the multi-layered 'state-society' relations, which has been marked by long conflicts.

고려 무신집권기 경대승의 집권과 그 정치적 의의

After the military coup of 1170, Goryeo confronted political changes like the emergence of military rulers, the functional extension of the council of generals, and military officials’ concurrent holding of civil offices. At the same time, military officials committed illegalities, such as infringing on royal authority and expropriating lands.BR However, Gyeong Dae-Seung returned the lands dispossessed by his father, Gyeong Jin to Seongun, and removed Jeong Gyun who attempted to marry a princess and and his father Jeong Jung-Bu who incited the murder of King Uijong. After seizing power in 1179, he opposed the appointment of a military official as Seungseon and tried to eliminate Lee Ui-Min, who had murdered King Uijong. He even removed Heo Seung and Kim Gwang-Lip, who were actively involved in his coup, when they behaved arrogantly while serving the crown prince in 1180.BR At last his consistent behaviors gained the trust of King Myeongjong and military officials. King Myeongjong favored and supported him, which enabled him to suppress the illegalities of military officials effectively. In turn, the king became more free to make a political decision. As Gyeong Dae-Seung did not deny the political changes, the military officials were able to participate in state affairs through the council of generals or civil offices as long as they did not commit illegal activities. After all, Gyeong Dae-Seung contributed to the stabilization of the military government by suppressing the illegalities of military officials.

Military culture and political leadership in Nigeria’s democracy

ABSTRACT The nature and pattern of sustenance of democratic rule in Nigeria since the inception of the fourth republic which followed the exit of military rulers in 1999 have continued to generate scholarly debates. The conundrum of whether or not the country has freed itself from the ominous influence of the culture of military rule is a huge concern. Using former President Obasanjo and current President Buhari as case studies, this article examines the extent to which the reemergence of Nigeria’s former military Heads of State as civilian administrators since 1999 has affected constitutionalism and democratization in Nigeria’s political leadership. The patterns of administration of civilian government as well as democratic infractions of both regimes are considered. The paper relies on secondary data and the descriptive method of analysis. The Military Transition Model, a strand of Transition Theory, was used as a framework for further clarification. Rather than improve on the tenets of democracy, findings show that elements of absolutism and arbitrary rule are strongly perceptible. There are no convincing proofs that the reappearance of Nigeria’s former military rulers into political leadership is reinforcing the country’s long awaited democratization processes. The current political leadership in Nigeria has not demonstrated sufficient political will to eschew the dregs of contempt for rule of law. The study concludes that problems of democratic infractions are prevalent in the current political system largely due to the persisting influence of military culture of political leadership.

Amnesty and the Limits of Transitional Justice in Brazil: The Case of Expelled Low-Ranking Soldiers, 1964–2014

Abstract This article shows the continuities of the military dictatorship and the limits of transitional justice in Brazil, arguing that the violations the military regime inflicted on certain groups persisted over three decades after democratization. Between 1964 and 1985 the military officers who took power strived to eliminate opposition to their rule from all sectors of society. Inside the armed forces, they expelled over 6,500 officers and soldiers from their ranks after accusing them of subversion. Between 1979 and 2014 the state created policies to start a democratic transition and address the civil and human rights violations perpetrated during military rule. It offered amnesty and reparations to individuals who had their political rights stripped from them after their names were published in Institutional Acts, legal instruments created by the military government to justify the political persecution of its opponents. Yet, transitional justice policies failed to address different mechanisms the dictatorship used to eliminate opposition, such as Air Force Decree 1,104, which determined that soldiers would be hired on four-year contracts. Masquerading it as a tool to regulate the organization of the Air Force, military officers used Decree 1,104 to expel soldiers whom the regime saw as politically subversives. This article shows how the transitional justice policies created in Brazil were insufficient to deal with the multiple ways the dictatorship punished its political opponents.

Authoritarian Rule and the Weaponisation of Natural Disasters: The Case of Myanmar from Cyclone Nargis to the COVID-19 Pandemic (2008–2021)

Myanmar’s 2021 military coup paved the way for a ruthless weaponisation of the COVID-19 pandemic, aimed at crushing opposition groups and ethnic minorities who opposed the army’s power grab. The manipulation of natural disasters for political purposes, however, is nothing new for Burmese praetorian regimes, which employed a similar strategy in the aftermath of the 2008 Cyclone Nargis in order to further marginalise and subjugate their internal enemies. To a large extent, such a callous decision stems from the powerful political implications brought about by natural disasters, which are perceived by authoritarian leaders as exogenous shocks capable of triggering a process of heightened popular contestation and regime change. In the case of Myanmar, this specific fear thus persuaded military rulers to weaponise the impact of natural calamities and health crises as part of a longstanding counterinsurgency playbook, centred on the so-called ‘four cuts’ doctrine. As a result, those who do not conform with the Bamar-Buddhist image of Myanmar professed by the army—or dare to criticise its dominant position in Burmese politics—have been deliberately excluded from post-disaster relief efforts, in what appears as a further testament of the junta’s unwavering resolve in retaining the reins of power. Building upon the existing literature on the political implications of natural hazards in authoritarian settings, the following article sheds light on the drivers and rationale that persuaded Myanmar’s Generals to weaponise humanitarian crisis against ethnic minorities and opposition forces, by looking at the two case-studies provided by Cyclone Nargis and the COVID-19 pandemic.

Military Rule with a Weak Army: Myanmar's Late Expansion

Under Ne Win's rule, Burma lacked a strong military. The army's capacity was only upgraded considerably in the late 1980s and early 1990s. What accounts for its late expansion? I argue that Burma's military upgrade depended on a threat to the regime that would incite autocrats to divert limited resources toward strengthening the army. That threat did not materialize until military rule was unsettled by a social revolution in 1988. Lacking the technology to produce warfare, military development also required strong ties to a state with the capacity to support Burma's expansion. That state was China. The ebb and flow in diplomatic relations between Rangoon and Beijing in the 1960s and 1970s, and China's isolation and military weakness under Mao Zedong made it unlikely to provide military support to Burma then. By the late 1980s, however, Rangoon and Beijing's relations had improved significantly, and China's capacity as a weapons provider had also increased. Burma could, from then on, easily access China's arms market.

Occupied America: British Military Rule and the Experience of Revolution by Donald F. Johnson

Occupied America: British Military Rule and the Experience of Revolution by Donald F. Johnson

Dorothea E. Schulz. Political Legitimacy in Postcolonial Mali.

Reviewed by: Political Legitimacy in Postcolonial Mali by Dorothea E. Schulz Bruce Whitehouse Dorothea E. Schulz, Political Legitimacy in Postcolonial Mali. Suffolk, UK: James Currey, 2021. 239pp. $120 Paper. Many of us observing Mali’s political trajectory have presumed that throughout the country’s two decades of multiparty, democratic rule which began in the early 1990s, the Malian state commanded unprecedented political legitimacy. We believed that the Malian people generally considered the elected regimes of Presidents Alpha Oumar Konaré (1992–2002) and Amadou Toumani Touré (2002–2012), despite their obvious flaws, as far more legitimate than their single-party predecessors had been. The military coup that ousted Touré in March 2012 was viewed as a giant step backward, ushering in a profound political crisis for the country. But what if Malians have never seen their postcolonial state as legitimate? What if Mali has been suffering, not from a post-2012 “crisis” of political legitimacy but instead from a chronic failure to generate legitimacy, a failure as old as the postcolonial state itself? What if, moreover, scholars have not adequately understood either what “legitimacy” means or how to assess it in African postcolonies? These are among the provocative questions raised by anthropologist Dorothea Schulz in her latest book, the product mainly of her fieldwork in rural western Mali. Less a traditional monograph than a wide-ranging set of reflections on how ordinary people have articulated with the Malian state, Political Legitimacy in Postcolonial Mali is a challenging, theoretically rich work of ethnography. In her attempt to define legitimacy and understand how it is constructed, Schulz engages deeply with political philosophy and with theories of the African state. In the book’s introduction and five chapters, Schulz attempts to come to terms with the ill-defined concept of legitimacy. Chapter One examines the state from the micropolitical perspective of rural farmers, many of whom remember the country’s period of military rule (1968–1991) as a time when the state and party politics were mercifully absent from their villages. To these villagers, the state’s primary function was to ensure stability and provide for dependents, and they judged Mali’s post-1991 democratic order as failing on both counts. Chapter Two considers the use of cultural performance (specifically jeli praise singers) by successive Malian regimes as a tool of political legitimization. While these performances helped to naturalize the Malian nation-state, Schulz contends, they failed to legitimize the people or institutions running it. Chapter Three argues that Mali’s political decentralization process, initiated in the mid-1990s, instead of bringing decision-makers closer to their rural constituents, only multiplied competing layers of authority and left farmers reliant on urban intermediaries to get the attention of the state and its bureaucrats. Chapter Four traces the Malian state’s efforts since the 1990s to construct legitimacy through the promotion of “local culture” via festivals and media broadcasts (specifically, the “Terroir” program on Malian state television). [End Page 222] The fifth chapter, which explores the emergence of Islamism in Mali, stands out in many respects from the preceding ones. Schulz zooms out from her focus on village/state encounters in the western Kayes region to view the phenomenon of Islamic renewal through a national-level lens. Building on the problems discussed earlier in her book, she convincingly portrays Islamism, both in its mainstream political and militant armed manifestations, as a response to a political order seen as “devoid of legitimacy because it cannot ensure the basic conditions for citizens to live in proper moral terms” (2021, 159). In other words, the Islamist challenge to Mali’s secular state is not an atavistic or irrational anti-modern backlash. This chapter considers this challenge through a profile of the charismatic Muslim leader Shaykh Chérif Haïdara and his complex positioning vis-a-vis the Malian government. The book ends with a brief concluding chapter followed by a postscript bringing the reader up to date with the events that toppled yet another of Mali’s elected presidents, Ibrahim Boubacar Keïta, from power in August 2020. The largely rural perspectives in these chapters (with the exception of Chapter Five) offer a necessary corrective to the urban bias...

Post-colonialism: Corruption and representation in Ngozi Adichie’s Half of a Yellow Sun

Nigerian military authority was marked by poor leadership and autocratic actions during the time. This work tries to examine and expose the corrupt practices used by politicians and military rulers. The work will also examine some symbols that represent political corruption and foreign leadership in Nigeria since the coming of the British. This work will adopt post-colonial and sociological theories in the analysis of the text. Finally, the arrival of the British in Nigeria brought civilization, but it also brought corruption and ethnic differences, which led to war. War kills people and things, so it should be avoided at all costs.

Who votes for virtue? Religion and party choice in Thailand’s 2019 election

Does religion shape political competition in Thailand? Despite the prominence of religiously inflected rhetoric of good and evil in contemporary political contestation, existing research suggests that it does not. This article challenges this conventional wisdom. Survey data collected in connection with Thailand’s 2019 general election, which marked a transition from direct military rule to a hybrid regime, allow us to examine the political relevance of religious belonging, belief, and behaviour. Our analysis finds evidence for the political salience of a secular/religious cleavage: voters who self-identified as more religious were more inclined to support the main pro-military party Palang Pracharath and its closest allies, whilst more secularised voters tended to support anti-military parties in general and the Future Forward Party in particular. We also find that Thailand’s religious minorities were politically divided: Muslims and Protestants backed the pro-military parties whilst Catholics opposed them. Our analysis underscores the need for more attention to the role of religious cleavages in Thai political contention.

Authoritarian Personality vs Institutional Performance – Understanding Military Rule in Africa

ABSTRACT Sub-Saharan Africa is the region where democracy has encountered the most difficulties in establishing itself, where the most military coups have occurred and, in addition, where public demonstrations of support on the streets are common after a coup d’état. In fact, the last 15 years has seen growing popular support for military rule. This study aims to analyse the underlying reasons for the public approval of military rule in Africa. Two main explanatory theories are contrasted: the institutional performance approach versus the cultural approach. The research takes the form of a quantitative analysis, making extensive use of survey data to analyse the factors that explain the support for military rule in eleven African countries. The results indicate that in Sub-Saharan Africa institutional performance and authoritarian personality and values, are the main factors driving societal support for military rule.