A recent coup in the Central African nation of Gabon is the latest nondemocratic transition of power on the continent, following a July coup in Niger and 2022 coups in Burkina Faso and Mali. But Gabon\u2019s putsch is quite different from a series of coups in Africa\u2019s Sahel region, highlighting the striking variation of coup efforts from region to region, with factors like history, foreign intervention, economics, and politicization of the military all playing a role.<\/p>\n
Though military coups tend to have some common elements, Gabon\u2019s doesn\u2019t exactly fit the pattern of other recent coups in western Africa; there were no serious security threats like the Islamist terror that plagues Mali and Burkina Faso in particular \u2014 meaning there\u2019s no justification for the coup from a security standpoint. And the ousted President Ali Bongo was part of a dynastic dictatorship that had ruled the country for four decades, unlike in Niger, Burkina Faso, and Mali, which had at various points in the past four decades made strides toward democratic civilian rule.<\/p>\n
Coup leaders from Gabon\u2019s presidential guard, in particular Gen. Brice Clotaire Oligui Nguema, took advantage of the Bongo family\u2019s corruption and disputed election results declaring another win for 64-year-old Ali Bongo. The Bongo family and its close associates have long profited off of Gabon\u2019s oil wealth, but didn\u2019t invest it into state institutions like healthcare, education, or infrastructure \u2014 rather, the ruling elites hoarded that wealth and left the vast majority of the population poor.<\/p>\n
But rather than change that system, experts told Vox that Gabon\u2019s coup leaders have undertaken a continuity coup, in which very little will change other than the figurehead benefiting from the state\u2019s resources.<\/p>\n
A recent coup in the Central African nation of Gabon is the latest nondemocratic transition of power on the continent, following a July coup in Niger and 2022 coups in Burkina Faso and Mali. But Gabon\u2019s putsch is quite different from a series of coups in Africa\u2019s Sahel region, highlighting the striking variation of coup efforts from region to region, with factors like history, foreign intervention, economics, and politicization of the military all playing a role.<\/p>\n
Though military coups tend to have some common elements, Gabon\u2019s doesn\u2019t exactly fit the pattern of other recent coups in western Africa; there were no serious security threats like the Islamist terror that plagues Mali and Burkina Faso in particular \u2014 meaning there\u2019s no justification for the coup from a security standpoint. And the ousted President Ali Bongo was part of a dynastic dictatorship that had ruled the country for four decades, unlike in Niger, Burkina Faso, and Mali, which had at various points in the past four decades made strides toward democratic civilian rule.<\/p>\n
Coup leaders from Gabon\u2019s presidential guard, in particular Gen. Brice Clotaire Oligui Nguema, took advantage of the Bongo family\u2019s corruption and disputed election results declaring another win for 64-year-old Ali Bongo. The Bongo family and its close associates have long profited off of Gabon\u2019s oil wealth, but didn\u2019t invest it into state institutions like healthcare, education, or infrastructure \u2014 rather, the ruling elites hoarded that wealth and left the vast majority of the population poor.<\/p>\n
But rather than change that system, experts told Vox that Gabon\u2019s coup leaders have undertaken a continuity coup, in which very little will change other than the figurehead benefiting from the state\u2019s resources.<\/p>\n
The regions that saw the most attempts were Africa, with 214 attempts, 106 \u2014 or just under half \u2014 of which were successful. Latin America was a close second, with 146 attempts. Of those, 70 were successful.<\/p>\n
Both regions were coming out of centuries of colonialism, the effects of which are still being felt today. Both were relatively poor and overall suffered from high inequality, and both were also the loci of a Cold War-era proxy battle for influence, which capitalized on instability and represented a real struggle over what kind of governance and economic system was superior.<\/p>\n
All of those elements can help drive coups, but perhaps the biggest predictor of whether one will happen in any given country is precedent \u2014 has there been a coup attempt before? Any sort of precedent, whether or not the attempt was successful, shows that it\u2019s at least possible to try, and that other indicators for coup conditions are present. \u201cIf you\u2019ve had a coup attempt in the last three years, controlling for a bunch of different factors, there are various studies that point to your probability of having a coup in the current year to be something between 25 and 40 percent, which is really, really high when you think about how rare these events are otherwise,\u201d Powell, a political science professor at the University of Central Florida, told Vox in an interview.<\/p>\n
That can also inspire coup plotters in other nations that might have similar challenges or contexts, like in Mali, Burkina Faso, and Niger, which all to one extent or another struThe regions that saw the most attempts were Africa, with 214 attempts, 106 \u2014 or just under half \u2014 of which were successful. Latin America was a close second, with 146 attempts. Of those, 70 were successful.<\/p>\n
Both regions were coming out of centuries of colonialism, the effects of which are still being felt today. Both were relatively poor and overall suffered from high inequality, and both were also the loci of a Cold War-era proxy battle for influence, which capitalized on instability and represented a real struggle over what kind of governance and economic system was superior.<\/p>\n
All of those elements can help drive coups, but perhaps the biggest predictor of whether one will happen in any given country is precedent \u2014 has there been a coup attempt before? Any sort of precedent, whether or not the attempt was successful, shows that it\u2019s at least possible to try, and that other indicators for coup conditions are present. \u201cIf you\u2019ve had a coup attempt in the last three years, controlling for a bunch of different factors, there are various studies that point to your probability of having a coup in the current year to be something between 25 and 40 percent, which is really, really high when you think about how rare these events are otherwise,\u201d Powell, a political science professor at the University of Central Florida, told Vox in an interview.<\/p>\n
That can also inspire coup plotters in other nations that might have similar challenges or contexts, like in Mali, Burkina Faso, and Niger, which all to one extent or another struThe regions that saw the most attempts were Africa, with 214 attempts, 106 \u2014 or just under half \u2014 of which were successful. Latin America was a close second, with 146 attempts. Of those, 70 were successful.<\/p>\n
Both regions were coming out of centuries of colonialism, the effects of which are still being felt today. Both were relatively poor and overall suffered from high inequality, and both were also the loci of a Cold War-era proxy battle for influence, which capitalized on instability and represented a real struggle over what kind of governance and economic system was superior.<\/p>\n
All of those elements can help drive coups, but perhaps the biggest predictor of whether one will happen in any given country is precedent \u2014 has there been a coup attempt before? Any sort of precedent, whether or not the attempt was successful, shows that it\u2019s at least possible to try, and that other indicators for coup conditions are present. \u201cIf you\u2019ve had a coup attempt in the last three years, controlling for a bunch of different factors, there are various studies that point to your probability of having a coup in the current year to be something between 25 and 40 percent, which is really, really high when you think about how rare these events are otherwise,\u201d Powell, a political science professor at the University of Central Florida, told Vox in an interview.<\/p>\n
That can also inspire coup plotters in other nations that might have similar challenges or contexts, like in Mali, Burkina Faso, and Niger, which all to one extent or another ggle with Islamist insurgencies. A coup attempt can seem appealing in \u201ccircumstances where the government might be seen as providing ineffectual leadership or is not giving the military the tools and the resources that it needs to be able to successfully fight a counterinsurgency,\u201d Powell said.<\/p>\n
That also allows for a kind of ripple effect as seen in the Sahel coups; in Niger, though the economic and security situation was trending more positively under the democratically elected President Mohamed Bazoum, General Abdourahamane Tchiani and his fellow coup-plotters in the presidential guard used the security situation as an excuse to take over the government in July. But military governments don\u2019t necessarily deal with security problems better than civilian governments; that\u2019s demonstrated in both Mali, where the military governments have brought in the Wagner Group, Russia\u2019s private military contracting company that mounted a challenge to Russia\u2019s military establishment back in June. In Mali, civilian deaths due to violent incidents related to the insurgency have actually increased due to Wagner\u2019s presence and military rule.<\/p>\n
Are coup outcomes always bad?
\nGabon\u2019s coup has close parallels with Zimbabwe\u2019s coup in 2017 which ousted longtime authoritarian President Robert Mugabe in favor of Emmerson Mnangagwa, a close ally of Mugabe who represents a continuation of Mugabe\u2019s ZANU-PF party. In both cases, a major change to the system, like instituting true democratic reforms and holding free and fair elections, would actually harm the interests of the ruling elite.<\/p>\n
That\u2019s a similar situation to Thailand, which has had a high number of military coups in recent decades. There, the putsches on the part of the military are to protect the power of the Thai monarchy and essentially keep progressive democracy from being able to develop \u2014 and thus threaten the establishment\u2019s access to power and resources.<\/p>\n
Even if the junta in Gabon does implement civilian rule, that\u2019s not the same thing as democracy, as other post-coup governments have shown.<\/p>\n
In Zimbabwe, where the ruling ZANU-PF party just won the national elections and gave Mnangagwa his second term in office, it\u2019s difficult to argue that holding elections means that the country is actually functioning based on democratic norms, Joseph Siegle, head of the research and strategic communications program at the Africa Center for Strategic Studies, told Vox in an interview. \u201cThere\u2019s really no pretense there,\u201d of having competitive elections carried out by a robust electoral body. \u201cThey\u2019re just going through the motions.\u201d<\/p>\n
But often, that\u2019s good enough for Western and international bodies who provide aid to support democracies in developing nations, Powell said. Over time, entities like the African Union and the Economic Community of West African States (ECOWAS), as well as Western powers like the US \u201cbecame more tolerant of really just any sort of a post-coup election, just so long as you had an election,\u201d he told Vox. \u201cJust so long as whoever won that election was wearing a suit instead of a military uniform, that would be enough to get sanctions lifted\u201d and aid would flow back to the country in question.<\/p>\n
That\u2019s not to say that democratization never happens after a military coup; Niger and Mali are actually themselves examples of that. But that\u2019s often \u201cjust an accident,\u201d Powell told Vox. \u201cIn some cases, they might have specifically not wanted to have a democracy, but just because of various different things going on \u2014 social pressures, international pressure and things like that, the military finds themselves in a situation where they basically have to step back and allow a bonafide civilian government to take over.\u201d<\/p>\n
One notable exception, though, is Portugal in the 1970s; a military coup overthrew that nation\u2019s long-standing fascist dictatorship in what\u2019s now called the Carnation Revolution. In that instance, a military coup led to a real, durable, and competitive democracy and \u201calso kind of started what folks refer to as the third wave of democratization where we saw a wave of democratization projects around the world,\u201d Powell said.<\/p>\n
That\u2019s not to say that it was all positive, and it\u2019s easy to romanticize it in hindsight. But during the Processo Revolucion\u00e1rio Em Curso, or the Ongoing Revolutionary Process, the country saw additional coup attempts, left- and right-wing violence leading to hundreds of deaths, a wave of refugees returning to the country from Portugal\u2019s colonies, and massive economic upheaval.<\/p>\n
Recent coups are part of a broader shift away from democracy<\/p>\n
Undemocratic changes in power look different in different countries and in different regions \u2014 and they don\u2019t always look like military coups.<\/p>\n
While there were a number of military coups throughout Latin America during the 20th century, power grabs or attempts at power are more likely to take the form of an autogolpe, or self-coup, as Peru\u2019s populist former President Pedro Castillo attempted last year. Guillermo Lasso, the president of Ecuador, was also accused of launching an autogolpe when he dissolved the National Assembly in May of this year, which is allowed under the country\u2019s constitution. Lasso, however, did not stand in recent elections.<\/p>\n
Daniel Ortega, the president of Nicaragua, has also used the institutions of democracy to cling to power; though he has been reelected multiple times, those elections cannot meaningfully be called free and fair, and he continues to erode institutions and opposition within the country.<\/p>\n
It\u2019s useful to think about coups and other nondemocratic power changes as part of a broader, global turn away from democracy, especially in the context of a great power struggle between the US and authoritarian governments like Russia and China.<\/p>\n
\u201cThere\u2019s a real tension between the West and the Russian groups for influence, especially in the Sahel region, where the Wagner group is operating quite freely,\u201d Monty Marshall, director of the Center for Systemic Peace, told Vox. \u201cAnd, you know, it\u2019s a powerful argument in these contexts, that a military response is the only potentially effective way to manage the situation. And civilians really have trouble making a counter argument because they really need the military on their side, in order to control the situation.\u201d<\/p>\n
Particularly in countries where the economy and security is dependent on foreign aid \u2014 if there\u2019s not a strong indigenous economy, Marshall said \u2014 democracy is difficult to sustain because it\u2019s expensive. Without resources to sustain not only a government and a professionalized military but also to build up national institutions and integrate people into a sustainable economy, the political situation becomes much more tenuous and insecure. Foreign aid without sustained, wholesale investment in a country\u2019s institutions is a recipe for democratic failure, especially when autocratic regimes are willing to step up to the plate.<\/p>\n
Furthermore, in polarized societies, it becomes that much more difficult to build civilian institutions like labor or civic organizations that have the capability to push back against military rule, and to negotiate with governments to get people\u2019s needs met.<\/p>\n
\u201cThe risk of these kinds of coup situations or onset of armed conflict are highest in situations where the local population is strongly divided,\u201d Marshall said. \u201cWe call it polarization \u2014 it\u2019s become a buzzword in this country these days. But polarization is a symptom of societal disintegration and for democracy to work, you need the society to be fully integrated.\u201d<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"
Not all coups are the same \u2014 but they do have some important commonalities.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":12963,"featured_media":33372,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[16,15],"tags":[7,26,25],"class_list":{"0":"post-33375","1":"post","2":"type-post","3":"status-publish","4":"format-standard","5":"has-post-thumbnail","7":"category-news","8":"category-politics","9":"tag-apie-project","10":"tag-news","11":"tag-politics"},"yoast_head":"\n