African Military Coups d'Etat and Underdevelopment: A ...€¦ · African politics : (I) military...

African Military Coups d'Etat and Underdevelopment: A Quantitative HistoricalAnalysis

Pat McGowan; Thomas H. Johnson

The Journal of Modern African Studies, Vol. 22, No. 4. (Dec., 1984), pp. 633-666.

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The Journal of Modern African Studies, 22, 4 (1984), pp. 633-666

African Military Coups d ~ t a t and

Underdevelopment: a Quantitative

Historical Analysis

by P A T M c G O W A N A N D T H O M A S H . J O H N S O N *

THEAugust I 983 overthrow of Major Jean-Baptiste Ouedraogo by Captain Thomas Sankara in Upper Volta (now Burkina Faso), the New Year's Eve abrupt termination in Nigeria of Black Africa's largest multi-party democracy, and the decision by the Guinean army in April 1984 to remove their party leaders after the death of President SCkou TourC, illustrate two of the most salient realities of contemporary African politics : ( I ) military coups d'e'tat are the principal form of rCgime change, and ( 2 ) they can happen under any type of political system - a functioning democracy, a personalistic civilian dictatorship, or an already existing military junta.

By May 1984, only 24 of the 45 majority-ruled states of sub-Saharan Africa had some form of civilian government. The pervasiveness of armed intervention and military rule is readily apparent when it is recalled that during the last I 2 years only Uganda has reverted to and remained under civilian authority.' Since General Ibrahim Abboud overthrew the Sudanese Government in November 1958, these states have experienced 56 military coups d'e'tat that have been successful - see

* Pat McGowan is Professor and Chair, Department of Political Science, Arizona State University, Tempe, and Thomas H. Johnson is Senior Policy Scientist, The Orkand Corporation, Silver Spring, Maryland.

The military interventions reported herein were collected partially with the support of Contract No. MDA 908-82-C-0303 from the Department of Defense. The views and conclusions contained in this article are those of the authors, and should not be interpreted as necessarily representing the official policies, whether expressed or implied, of the United States Government. We wish to thank the following Arizona State University students for their assistance in collecting our data: John Anene, Kate Manzo, and Ken Kelleher.

2 Ruth Leger Sivard, World Military and Social Expenditures, 1983 (Washington, D.C., 1983)~ q. I I ;Africa Coup Project Event Files; Clifford D. May, 'Military Rule Is Contagious in Africa , in The N e w York Times, 6 May 1984; and Crawford Young, 'Politics in Africa', in Gabriel A. Almond and G. Bingham Powell, Jr. (eds.), Comparative Politics Today (Boston, 1984), pp. 468-9. Sivard defines military control as meeting one of the following conditions: 'key political leadership by military officers; existence of a state ofmartial law; extra-judicial authority exercised by security forces; lack of central political control over large sections of the country where official or unofficial security forces rule; control of foreign military forces.' The last condition does not apply in any of our cases.

634 P A T M C G O W A N A N D T H O M A S H. J O H N S O N

the Appendix for a chronological listing - and a further 65 that have failed, albeit often with bloody consequences, such as the April 1984 attempt in Cameroun which cost several hundred 1ives.l

By extending the definition of military intervention to include 'plots' by soldiers and/or policemen - of which there have been a t least ~ o g during this period - as well as attempted and successful coups, only six states have not witnessed some form of extra-legal armed involvement in national politics, since 1958, namely: Botswana, Cape Verde, Djibouti, Lesotho, Mauritius, and Swaziland. Even discounting reported 'plots' because they are sometimes manufactured by the rkgime in power, it is still the case that 36 states - exactly 80 per cent - have experienced a t least one successful or attempted military-led coup since 1956.

The activities of African military establishments have generated an extensive literature by journalists, political scientists, area specialists, sociologists, and historians. These writings have sought to describe and explain specific coups, sometimes also offering more general hypotheses and theories regarding military involvement in third-world politic^.^ This article further contributes to that literature and to our understanding of African military coups d'ktat by presenting a quantitative historical description of these interventions, and by providing a theoretical interpretation that stresses the nature of political conflict and instability under conditions of unsuccessful industrialisation.

I . Definitions

The coups d'dtat discussed here refer to events in which existing rkgimes are suddenly and illegally displaced by the action of relatively small groups, in which members of the military, police, or security forces of

Clifford D. May, 'Cameroon Is Reported to Execute Coup Plotters After Secret Trials', in The N e w York Times, lo May 1984 Official government sources estimated deaths as less than loo, while other reports put the loss of life between 500 and 1,000.

This literature is vast. Among the books we have found most useful are: Henry Bienen (ed.), T h e Military Intervenes: case studies inpolitical development (New York, 1968) ;Ruth B. Collier, Regimes in Tropical A f7ca: changing forms o f supremacy, 1945-1975 (Berkeley and Los Angeles, 1982) ;Samuel Decalo, Coups and Army Rule in Africa (New Haven, 1976) ;Samuel E. Finer, The M a n on Horseback: the rob o f the military in politics (Baltimore, I 967); Ruth First, The Barrel o f a Gun :political power in Africa and the coup d'dtat (London, 1970); William F. Gutteridge, T h e Military in African Politics (London, 1969); Samuel P. Huntington, Political Order in Chanting Societies (New Haven, 1968); Eric A. Nordlinger, Soldiers in Politics: military coups and governments (Englewood Cliffs, 1977); William R. Thompson, The Grievances of Military Coup-Makers (Beverly Hills, 1973); Claude E. Welch, Jr. (ed.), Soldier and State in Africa (Evanston, 1970); and Claude E. Welch, Jr. and A. K. Smith, Military Role and Rule (North Scituate, Mass., 1974).

- -

the state play a key r61e, either on their own or in conjunction with a number of civil servants or politicians. The scope of change in any rtgime resulting from a successful intervention can vary from the wholesale displacement of leaders and officals by the instigators of the coup and their followers, to a dissolution of previously existing constitutional relationships among the key decision-makers and organs of the state for example, by the dissolution of a legislature - without-any substantial removal of those previously in authority. The stated aims of the coup-makers can vary from reaction to revolution. Likewise, the degree of violence involved can range from non-existant to pronounced.

Central to our conception of military coups d'itat is the notion that they are sudden usually of a few hours or days duration. Lengthier -struggles for power typically involve mass participation and, while they are also examples of political instability, they are more appropriately categorised as rebellions, revolutions, and civil wars.

For the purposes of our analysis, the displacements of government personnel or constitutional relationships lasting a t least one week have been classified as 'successful' coups d'ttat. Falling below this threshold, 'attempted' interventions are defined as those which involved either (i) displacements lasting less than seven days, or (ii) actual or attempted assassinations and arrests of some members of the existing rtgime, or (iii) the mobilisation of the military, police, or security forces explicitly aimed a t a governmental take-over.

Plots are another form of extra-legal military involvement in African politics. Outsiders generally learn of their existence from the announce- ments of governments which have discovered them prior to their becoming visible public events. This immediately raises the question whether the various reported plots did in fact exist, or whether they were manufactured by incumbents as a justification for eliminating political opponents. I t is also the case that a number may have been hatched and later dropped for some reason without the government knowing about them, much less exposing their existence.

In the course of our research we decided to record only those plots that had been reported in a least two of our data sources. By these standards it was alleged in 109 instances that a plot had been uncovered. Again, it is not possible to guarantee that in all instances these were 'actual ' as opposed to 'manufactured ';nor can the claim be made that no more have occurred in the 45 African states studied. None the less, reported plots are important data, indicating military involvement in


politics and, for that reason, worth examining with these caveats in mind.l

Using a number of news ch rono l~g ie s ,~ information was collected on seven aspects of each military intervention that occurred from I January 1956 until 30 April 1984: ( I j the location, ( 2 ) the type, (3) the date, (4) a description, (5) a roster of known o r alleged participants, (6) the apparent and reported causes of the events, and (7) the official and press sources cited. T h e following is one example ofour collected information :

KENYA Attempted Coup I August 1982 Description: Junior airforce officers and troops seized the radio station in Nairobi, but were later overpowered by loyal army and police units who regained control. Fighting broke out in Nairobi and at the Embakasi airforce base outside Nairobi killing between 129 and 300 persons. While in control of the radio station the rebels, calling themselves the 'National Redemption Council', announced the overthrow of the Government, the suspension of the constitution, a 24-hour curfew, and instructed the police to stay at home. More than 3,000 persons including the entire airforce were arrested, although the coup leaders were at the time reported to be still at large. President Daniel T . arap Moi described the coup attempt as ' a serious form of hooliganism by misguided youth'.

Participants: The attempt was carried out by approximately 200 members of the Kenya airforce led by Senior Private Hezekiah Ochuka and Senior Sargeant Pancras Oteyo, both of whom fled to Tanzania. The former head of the Kenya Police, Ben Gethi, and other senior officers were arrested.

Apparent Causes: The rebels alleged that President Moi's Government was corrupt and dictatorial. According to The New York Times, rapid population growth, inadequate food supplies, and the continuing need for land reform were factors behind the uprising. There appeared to be much popular support for the coup attempt. Widespread damage caused by looting was said to have cost millions of pounds. The uprising precipitated months of dissent.

Sources: Africa Research Bulletin (Exeter), 1982, p. 6559; Index to The New York Times, 1-15 August 1983, p. 33; The New York Times, 6 and 29 August 1983; and the Washington Post, 3, 16,and 22 August 1983.

O u r descriptions of 230 military interventions, once compiled, were

For a similar argument, see: D. G. Morrison, R. C. Mitchell, J. N. Paden, H. M. Stevenson, and associates, Black Africa: a comparative handbook (New York, 1972). p. "8, and Robert W. Jackman, 'The Predictability of Coups d'Etat: a model with African data', in The Amencan Political Sczence Review (Washington, D.C.), 72, 1978, pp. 1262-75.

Morrison et al. op. cit. pp. 177-383; African Research Bulletin (Exeter), 1964-84; Index to The New York Times, 1960-84; Keesing's Contemporary Archives (New York), 196-84; the Foreign Broadcast Information Seruice (Wmhington, D . C . ) , 1960-82; as well as daily and weekly editions of The New York Times, The Washington Post, and West Africa (London).

then used to discern patterns in African coup activity during the period I 956-84.'

2 . Measuring Military Intervention

It was decided to summarise the results of the data collected by creating a quantitative index which would provide a numerical score for each African state representing the extent of military intervention that had occurred there since I 956 (or from the date of independence) . 2 The resulting Total Military Involvement Score (T.M.I.S.) is a simple weighted sum of all such events, and was constructed in the same fashion as several earlier attempts to rank African states according to their past experiences withkliteinstability and military coups.3 TheT.M.1.S. values shown in Table I were derived by allotting to each African state 5 points for a successful coup, 3 points for an attempted coup, and I point for each reported plot. Ghana's highest ranking score of 55, for example, is the result of five coups, six attempted coups, and I 2 plots.

Questions of reliability and validity arise in any effort to construct an index. To start with, it must be emphasised that every event recorded in Table I was reported by at least two independent news sources. I t is probable that additional plots - a less easily authenticated category of intervention - took place since 1956, above the ~ o g identified here. However, since the exclusion of plots from the T.M.I.S. index would not appreciably change the rank ordering of the 45 states, they can usefully remain as a component.4

The T.M.I.S. index should also be considered valid for a number of reasons. First, it is appropriate to combine scores for different types of

' Readers of this article who wish to obtain copies of our event file and codebook should write to Professor Pat McGowan, Department of Political Science, Arizona State University, Tempe, Arizona 85287, U.S.A.

Our starting date is I January 1956, when the Sudan became independent, and we have used this for Ethiopia and Liberia as well.

Similar indexes may be found in Jackman, op. cit.; Morrison et al. op. cit. p. 128; and Pat McGowan, 'Predicting Political Instability in Tropical Africa', in Michael K. O'Leary and William D. Coplin (eds.), Quantitative Techniques in Foreign Policy Analysis and Forecasting (New York, '975).

* The product moment correlation between T.M.I.S. with and without plots is 0.983, and the Spearman rank order correlation of the two alternatives is 0.982. Empirically, then, they are so similar that it makes no difference which version is used in analysis. Since T.M.I.S. with plots contains more information than when these are omitted, we use that version. Furthermore, the correlation between T.M.I.S. 1960-75 and Jackman's coup index for 29 countries is 0.91 I , indicating a high degree of reliability. Cf. Thomas H. Johnson, Robert 0.Slater, and Pat McGowan, 'Explaining African Military Coups d'Etat, 196+1982', in The American Political Science Review, 78, 1984, p.628.

3


Rank Order of 45 Sub-Saharan African States by their Total Military Involvement Score (T.M.I.S.), I January 1956 to 30 April 1984~

Attempted Reported Ranka State T.M.1.S. COUPS COUPS Plots

Ghanab Beninb Sudanb Uganda Congob Burkina Faso" Central African Republicb Nigeriab Burundib Zai'reb Ethiopiab Madagascarb Equatorial Guineab Nigeld Mauritaniab Sierra Leone Guineab Somaliab Togob Liberiab Chadb Guinea-Bissau Malib Rwandab Zambia Comoros Seychelles Kenya Tanzania Cameroun Gambia Zimbabwe Angola Gabon Ivory Coast Mozambique Senegal Malawi SBo Tom6 & Principe Botswana Cape Verde Djibouti Lesotho Mauritius Swaziland

a Where states have the same T.M.I.S. they have been ranked first, according to the number of coups they have experienced, and second, alphabetically.

"he 2 I states under military rule as of 30 April I 984.

Source: Africa Coup Project Event Files, Tempe.

I

events, because as Table I clearly shows, in no instance has a successful military intervention taken place in an African state that has not also experienced attempted coups, plots, or both. Secondly, while the 5-3-1 weighting scheme employed is arbitrary, coups should logically be weighted more than coup attempts, which should in turn count more than plots. Experimentation with alternative weighting schemes failed to alter significantly the ordering of results reflected in Table I .l Also, this ranking of African states conforms with what we know to have been their historical experience. This test for 'face validity' is perhaps the best guarantee we have that the T.M.I.S. index measures what it sets out to depict.

3. Comparisons Among African States

Perhaps the most striking characteristic of the data reported in Table is the very widespread nature of military involvement in African

politics. Only six states, all of which are among the continent's smallest and least significant politically and economically, have T.M.I.S. values of zero, indicating no history of military intervention. Botswana, Lesotho, and Swaziland exist in the shadow ofwhite-ruled South Africa and maintain relatively small military and police establishments. The potential for external intervention by South Africa to keep in power friendly rCgimes in these three states may be a strong deterrent to coup-making by any 'radical' elements that may exist in their security forces. Djibouti, Cape Verde, and Mauritius together have less than two million inhabitant^,^ ahd are each in their own way remote from the main-stream of African affairs.

The nearly endemic nature of military involvement in African politics is reinforced by the fact that ofthe states ofany size and political-economic significance, only the Ivory Coast and Malawi have yet to experience a successful or attempted coup d'dtat. That they have intentionally constricted the scale and influence of their disciplined armed forces and have followed traditionally conservative policies may account for their freedom from serious military interventions.

Another remarkable feature of Table I , already noted above, is that every African state that has witnessed a successful coup has also experienced one or more attempted coups, plots, or both. Clearly, the prospects for military uprisings within these African states must be taken seriously because attempts, as shown, have a nearly 50 per cent chance of being

Evidence to this effect is provided in ibid. p. 626.

The World Bank, World Development Report, 1983 (New York, 1983)~p. 204


successful. Here is dramatic evidence of the continuing frailty of African political institutions, irrespective of the differing forms of government.

Because a number ofstates have such high T.M.I.S. values, they pull the average ( I 3) above the median (g), the latter being the point on the scale at which one-halfof the 45 states are either above or be1ow.l While military involvement in African politics has been widespread during the past 28 years, the following eight states have intervention scores that range from twice to more than four times the average: Nigeria, the Central African Republic, Burkina Faso, Congo-Brazzaville, Uganda, the Sudan, Benin, and Ghana. Their different historical backgrounds notwithstanding, each has been (such as Uganda under the rule of Idi Amin), or is still (as Ghana under Jerry Rawlings), a praetorian state in which military rule has been the norm and not the exception. Collectively, they have experienced 31 of all the coups d'ktat that have been successful since 1956 (55 per cent) and 32 of those that have been attempted (49 per cent).

An additional point concerning Table I is less readily apparent: the possible relationship between length ofindependence and T.M.I.S. The eight praetorian states with the highest scores have all been independent since a t least I 962 (Uganda). Conversely, a number of low scoring states only recently achieved this status: Zimbabwe in 1980, Djibouti in 1977, Angola and Cape Verde in 1975. Numerically the correlation between the frequency of intervention and the number of years that a state has been independent up to the end of *April 1984 is +0.534, which is significant for 45 observations. When T.M.I.S. is statistically regressed on length of independence, the resulting equation is:

T.M.I.S. = -7.679-t 1.052 (time independent)

These statistics indicate ( I ) that 28.5 per cent of the variation in T.M.I.S. is due largely to length of independence, and (2) that each passing year adds one T.M.I.S. point to each state's score. But because the passage of time accounts for fewer than 30 per cent of the variation in T.M.I.S., it is clear that other factors affect each state's score.

Indeed, duration of independence in this context is a 'proxy' variable which itself correlates with other time-dependent processes, such as the loss oflegitimacy by repressive and maladroit rkgimes, or the intensifying pressure on resources created by an increase in population that exceeds the rate of economic growth. Thus, while it is true to say that, all other things being equal, the longer an African state has been independent

1 For an explanation of the simple statistical techniques used in this article, see Roderick Floud, A n Introduction to Quantitative Methods for Hi.storians (Princeton, 1973).

the more military intervention it is likely to have experienced, the mere passage of time is not per se an explanatory factor of theoretical significance, nor is it a variable subject of control by political actors who seek to avert military interventi0ns.l

A further feature of Table I is worthy of comment: the median value of nine appears to distinguish between states that have had coups and those that have not. All 23 states with a T.M.I.S. of nine or more have experienced a t least one successful coup d'dtat, whereas only Rwanda, the Comoros, and the Seychelles have fared similarly with scores of less than nine.

Thus, a threshold effect clearly operates in African politics wherein only a few attempted interventions can be contained by civilian rCgimes before a successful coup removes them from the scene. The 45 states in Table I may be divided into two groups: (i) the 26 that have witnessed a t least one successful coup, and (ii) the 19that have not. In this latter category, six have never seen a military intervention of any sort, while the other I 3 have been subject to I 3 plots and I I attempted coups. As of April 1984 the T.M.I.S. values ofall 19coup-free states range from zero (for six) to seven (for Zambia), with an average of 2.4.

As regards the 2 6 states that have experienced successful coups, the data show that at the time of the jrs t they had T.M.I.S. values which ranged from zero (for I 3) to ten (for Guinea), with an average of I -8. Only Zambia has so far reached a score of more than five and not experienced a military-led coup d'dtat. If the future is like the past, as an African country accumulates more than five T.M.I.S. points, then it is entering a danger zone which history suggests is conducive to a successful coup d'dtat. This inability to resist the military virus is but another way of expressing the general weaknesses inherent in the political institutions of post-independence Black A f r i ~ a . ~

4. Comparisons Over Time

Table 2 addresses the relationship between the passage of time and the general patterns of African military intervention.

The period 1960-4 saw four successful coups in Zaire, Togo, Benin (then Dahomey), and Congo-Brazzaville, but in none of these states did the military decide to form a government itself. Rather, in each

Standardising T.M.I.S. for length of independence would, in effect, remove from the index presented in Table I just what needs to be explained, namely: Why, as time passes, do African states, in general, experience more military interventions?

It is interesting to note that during the period 1958-83 Guinea had accumulated lo T.M.I.S. points, and that when President Ahmed SCkou Tour6 died on 26 March 1984 a military coup happened on 3 April 1984.

-- -- - -


TABLE2 Distribution of Military Interventions by Time, 1956-84'

-

Type 1956-9 196+4 1965-9 197-4 1975-9 198e4 Totals

Coups I 4 2 I 8 I I I I 56

1.8% 7'1 % 37'5% 14'3% 19.6% 19'62% looa

Attempted 2 8 7 1 2 18 18 65

COUPS 3'1 % 12.3% 10,896 18'5% 27.7% 27.7% 100%

Plots o 8 20 31 22 28 109 7.3 % 18'3% 28.4% 20.2% 25.7 % 100%

T.M.I.S. I I 52 I 46 107 131 '37 584

1.9% 8.9% 25.0% 18.3% 22.4% 23.504 100%

a Percentages have been rounded and may not sum to ~ n o .

instance, the soldiers gave power to another set of civilian leaders. I t was during the next five years that military interventions erupted upon the African scene on a large scale, particularly in 1966, when eight successful coups took place, making a total of 21 that occurred everywhere on the continent save Southern Africa, then still partially under colonial rule.

Since 1970 military coups d'e'tat have become a regular feature on the African political landscape: 30 (or 54 per cent) have occurred during these past 14 years, while attempted coups (48) and reported plots (81) have become nearly endemic. The year 1970 is midway across the time scale in Table 2; fully 64.2 per cent of our index scores are recorded in this and following years, as against only 35.8 per cent previously. Intervention activity is clearly worsening, not improving, as time passes.

One likely explanation, of course, is that decolonisation has created a larger number of independent African states. This argument assumes that each has a similar probability ofexperiencing military interventions, and that as time passes and more states come into existence the total number of African-wide coups and attempted coups will increase proportionally.

This plausible hypothesis is explored in Figure I , where the dashed line represents the number of independent African states in any year and the solid line represents the annual value of T.M.I.S. from I 956 to the end of 1983 (the last full year for which data are available). In I 956 there were only three independent states in Black Africa: Ethiopia,

Source: Africa Coup Project Event Files.

Number of States 1

Total Military \ / \ 1 Intervention scores

5 5 5 5 6 6 6 6 6 6 6 6 6 6 7 7 7 7 7 7 7 7 7 7 8 8 8 8 6 7 8 9 0 1 2 3 4 5 6 7 8 9 0 1 2 3 4 5 6 7 8 9 0 1 2 3

FIGUREI Distribution of T.M.I.S. and Number of Independent African States by Years, 1956-83

Liberia, and the Sudan. By the end of 1960 there were 22, and by 1980 there were 45. Since only Zanzibar has been juridically independent and then ceased to exist when it became part of the United Republic of Tanzania in I 964, the trend line for the number of independent states increases steadily.

This is not the case for the T.M.I.S. index, however. The year 1966 shows an unprecedented score of 47 points, the next highest being 1980 with 41 points. Nevertheless, Figure I visually demonstrates that T.M.I.S. is increasing over time, as has the number of independent states. The two variables would appear to correlate, again supporting the hypothesis that what is causing the growth trend in T.M.I.S. is simply the steadily increasing number of independent states.

This hypothesis receives strong confirmation when the annual value of T.M.I.S. is regressed on the number of independent African states by year:

Annual T.M.I.S. = - 1.946 +0.7 (N of states), with an R square of 0.545.

Thus, nearly 55 per cent of the annual variation in intervention scores can be accounted for by the number of independent African states. However, this raises important theoretical questions, since it is rare for


a single factor to account for so much variation in a dependent variable like T.M.I.S.

A first step towards an explanation is to note that when the annual value of T.M.I.S. is regressed on the passage of time, as from 1956 to 1983, the resulting equation is :

Annual T.M.I.S. = 6.596 + I ,047 (year), with an R square of 0.47 I . There is clearly a strong trend for T.M.I.S. values to increase over this 28-year period. But again, time is a proxy variable for various political and economic processes, including decolonisation and world depression. It would appear that two forces at work do much to explain the pattern seen in Figure I . First, it would seem that all African governments are prone to military interventions, and as the number of these states increases, so too does the value ofT.M.1.S. Second, and as shown above, 28.5 per cent of the score variation can be explained by the time passed since attaining independence. Therefore, annual T.M.I.S. is positively associated with the passage of time because there has been an increase in the number of not only independent states from I 957 (Ghana) to I 980 (Zimbabwe), but also in their opportunities to experience forces leading to coups.

5. Colonial Heritage

It was in the area of military policies, organisation, and traditions that the African colonial policies of the occupying European powers most differed.l Tables 3 and 4 examine these background factors and consider the influence of time as well.

The contrast presented in Table 3 is between the former 1 7 French and 16 British territories, which together account for 73 per cent ofBlack Africa's 45 states. It will be seen that the francophone group has experienced the most coups, and that these have tended to occur earlier

Works that discuss thesediffering military traditions are: Anton Bebler, Military Rule in Africa: Dahomy, Ghana, Sierra Leone, and M a l i (New York, I 973);M. J. V. Bell, Army and Nation in Sub-Saharan Africa (London, 1g65), Adelphi Papers No. 2 I ;James S. Coleman and Belmont Brice, Jr., 'The Role of the Military in Sub-Saharan Africa', in John J.Johnson (ed.), The Role of the Military i n Underdeveloped Countries (Princeton, 1962) ;Chester A. Crocker, 'Military Dependence: the colonial legacy in Africa' in TfteJournal of Modern African Studies (Cambridge), r 2 , 2June 1974, pp. 265 -86; William J. Foltz, 'The Military Factors', irr Vernon McKay (ed.) African Diplomacy: 5tudie.r in the determination offoreignpolicy (New York, 1966) ;William F. Guttcridge, The Military i n African Poliiics (London, 1969); J . M. Lee, African Armies and Cioil Order (New York, 1969); Pierre L. van den Berghe, 'The Role of the Army in Contetnporary Africa', in Africa Report (Washington, D.C.), 10, 3, March 1965, pp. 12-17; and George Weeks, 'The Arrr~ies of Africa', in ibid. January 1964, pp. 4--2 I .

TABLE3 Distribution of Military Intervention by Colonial Heritage

and Time, I 956-84'

Colonial Heritage TY pe 1956-69 1970-84 Totals

Former French Statesa Coups 1 2 I4 26 N = 17 Attemped Coups 7 17 24

Plots I 2 25 37

Former British Statesb Coups 9 10 I9 N = 16 Attempted Coups 6 2 I 27

Plots 8 31 39

Former Portuguese StatesC Coups - I I

N = g Attempted Coups - 3 3

-Plots 2 2

Former Belgian Statesd Coups 4 2 6 N = 3 Attempted Coups I 2 3

Plots 4 5 9

Other Heritagese Coups I 3 4 N = 4 Attempted Coups 3 5 8

Plots 4 18 22

a Benin ( q ) , Cameroun (q), Central African Republic (26), Chad (g), Comoros (6), Congo (33), Djibouti (o), Gabon (3), Guinea (15), Ivory Coast (3), Madagascar (IS), Mali (g), Mauritania (16), Niger (18), Senegal (3), Togo (14), and Burkina Faso (30).

* Botswana (o), Gambia (q), Ghana (55), Kenya (5), Lesotho (o), Malawi ( I ) , Mauritius (o), Nigeria (25), Seychelles (6), Sierra Leone (16), Sudan (qo), Swaziland (o), Tanzania (5), Uganda (37), Zambia (7), and Zimbabwe (4).

Angola (3), Cape Verde (o), Guinea-Bissau (g) ,Mozambique (3), and SHo Tomt & Principe (1).

Burundi (20), Rwanda (a), and Zai're (20). Equatorial Guinea (18), Ethiopia (20), Liberia (13), and Somalia (15).

as Yet all 33 ex-colonies have sustained attempted coups and reported plots with similar frequency. In terms of the total number experienced by these two categories there is no sharp difference owing solely to colonial legacy, although it must be noted that the T.M.I.S. record of the English-speaking states is due in large part to the very high scores of just four: Ghana, Nigeria, the Sudan, and Uganda.

There are interesting differences to be found in the sequence of military interventions among these 33 states. These are developed in

' Source: Africa Coup Project Event Files. Of course, the francophone states of West and Central Africa were independent earlier than

most of their anglophone neighbours.


Date of Last Successful Military Coup d'ktat, and Total T.M.I.S.

Points Since the First, by Colonial Heritage1

Former French Colonies Former British Colonies Other Colonial Heritages

198e4:

Guinea, April 1984 (o) Nigeria, December 1983 (20) Guinea-Bissau,

Burkina Faso, August 1983 (25) Ghana, December 1981 (47) November 1980 (4)

Central African Republic, Uganda, May 1980 (32) Liberia, April 1980 (5)

September I 98I (2 I )

Mauritania, January 1980 ( 10)

'975--9:

Comoros, May 1978 ( I ) Seychelles, June 1977 ( I ) Equatorial-Guinea,

Chad, April 1975 (3) August 19793 (7)

Madagascar, January 1975 (12) Burundi, November 1976

(12)

197-4: Niger, April 1974 (7) Ethiopia, September Benin, October 1973 (37) '974 (9)

Rwanda, July 1973 (3)

1965 -9:

Mali, November 1968 (4) Sudan, May 1969 (35) Somalia, October 1969 (7)

Congo, September 1968 (28) Sierra Leone, April

Togo, January 1967 (7) 1968 (10) ZaYre, November 1965 (15)

Table 4, where all 26 that have experienced at least one military-led coup d'ttat are listed, along with their colonial backgrounds, as well as the date on which the last coup took place, and the T.M.I.S. points they have accumulated since their first. The greater vulnerability of the states of French heritage is readily apparent when viewed in this way: I 2 (or 70 per cent) have suffered coups, whereas only six (or 38 per cent) of the former British territories have done so.

I t is also important to examine what happens in the aftermath of a successful coup. Generally, the result is to encourage more intervention by the military. Apart from Guinea, which had its first coup only in April 1984, the 25 others that have also had coups average 14'5 T.M.I.S. points after experiencing their first; their index scores range from one for the Comoros and the Seychelles, to highs of 35 for the Sudan, 37 for Benin, and 47 for Ghana.

Three different patterns of post-coup activity can be isolated. First,

' Source: Africa Coup Project Event Files.

the countries listed towards the top ofTable 4 with large T.M.I.S. values since their first coup have become praetorian societies, where the military has continued to intervene time and again. This is particularly the case in Burkina Faso, the Central African Republic, Ghana, Nigeria, Equatorial Guinea, and perhaps also in Mauritania and Liberia.

Alternatively, even though they may have once suffered considerable intervention, some former French states, such as Togo, Mali, the Congo, and Benin, have instituted relatively stable 'one-party plebiscitary rtgimes' under military guidance.l This is also the case among the three French-speaking former Belgian territories, with Zai're being a model of this type of authoritarian and personalistic African rtgime.

Thus far among the former British territories only the Sudan has moved in this direction; yet its frequent tlite and communal instability challenge the long-term success of this experiment. Ghana under Rawlings might be put in this category; but again, the degree of instability there and the newness of the rtgime make it difficult to say that it will be able to follow what is now an established tradition among the francophone states. In a similar vein, both Ethiopia and Somalia have one-party rtgimes under military guidance, but their freedom from additional coups may be more a function of their conflict with each other than popular and tlite support for their leaders.

Lastly, in the cases of Sierra Leone and Uganda, the military establishments have withdrawn, and a t least in the former a stable civilian rtgime has endured since I 968. Among the states listed in Table 4, only these two, plus the Comoros, Guinea-Bissau, and the Seychelles, are not now under the rule of military rtgimes of one form or another.

Of the 19low-scoring states that have never experienced a successful coup, only five were previously French (29 per cent) and ten were British (62 per cent) : Cameroun, Djibouti, Gabon, Ivory Coast, Senegal, Botswana, the Gambia, Kenya, Lesotho, Malawi, Mauritius, Swaziland, Tanzania, Zambia, and Zimbabwe. While it can be argued that several francophone states such as Senegal, the Ivory Coast, and Gabon are at present among the most stable civilian rtgimes in Black Africa, the same statement may be made for a number of English-speaking states, and, indeed, twice as many of these are in the relatively stable category. So it would seem that colonial experience is, in fact, a relevant factor, with the former French territories evidencing greater praetorianism, both in terms of intervention and long-term rule by the

Collier, op. cit. pp. 147-8.


military. I t should be noted, however, that six of the stable English- speaking states are part of the Southern African region. I t is not clear if these differences between francophone and anglophone Africa may be explained by colonial background or geographic location.

Looking at the states with other colonial legacies (listed in Tables 3 and 4), it would appear that the former Portuguese territories have been somewhat less prone to serious military interventions than have the ex-British and French possessions. Only Guinea-Bissau experienced a successful coup, in November 1980. The two previously Portuguese island republics of Cape Verde and SHo Tom6 & Principe have been very stable, and Angola and Mozambique have also been free from military intervention since coups failed shortly after independence. However, because of direct South African intervention and indirect support for local guerrilla movements, both of these Portuguese-speaking states have suffered high levels of domestic political turbulence and outbreaks of violence.

6. Regionalism

Regional factors also appear to have affected the incidence of domestic military interventions in state politics because, as Samir Amin has argued, tropical Africa is divided into three historically determined regional political economies.l Geographic, demographic, and societal factors such as rainfall, climate, mineral resources, and disease vectors, in conjunction with population densities and European settlement patterns, have created sharply different economic regions on the continent. I t is likely that shifts in world commodity and mineral prices since 1960 may have helped or hurt each region differently, and that such unequal impacts may have affected local political economies, including the incidence of military intervention^.^

As will be seen from Table 5, West Africa has not only the most states ( I 5), but also the greatest record of coup activity. Encompassing one-third of all majority-ruled African states, this region has seen 55 per cent of all coups d'ttat, as well as a third of all attempted coups, and a half of all reported plots -moreover, this trend is increasing with time, particularly in the two latter categories. Only three states have avoided a military takeover - Senegal, Gambia, and the Ivory Coast -- while Benin, Ghana, Nigeria, and Burkina Faso are four of the eight most

Samir Amin, 'Underdevelopment and Dependence in Black Africa: origins and contemporary forms', in The ,7ournal of Modern African Studies, 10, 4, December 1972,pp. 503-24.

2 Rosemary H. T. O'Kane, 'A Probabilistic Approach to the Causes of Coups d'ktat ' , in The British Journal of Political Science (London), 2 , 1981,pp. 287-308,has argued persuasively that negative price fluctuations in commodity exports are causally related to third-world coups.

TABLE5

Distribution of Military Interventions by Region and Time,

1956-84'

Region Type 1956-69 197e84 Totals

West Africaa Coups '4 ' 7 3' N = 15 Attempted Coups 6 '5 2 I

Plots '5 39 54

Central Africab Coups 8 6 '4 N = g Attempted Coups 5 '3 18

Plots 7 I 0 '7

Eastern AfricaC Coups N = 7 Attempted Coups

Plots

Southern Africad Coups o o o N = 8 Attempted Coups o 5 5

Plots 0 3 3

African Islandse Coups N = 6 Attempted Coups

Plots

a Benin (42), Gambia (4), Ghana (55), Guinea ( 1 5 ) ~ Guinea-Bissau (g), Ivory Coast (3), Liberia ( 1 3 ) ~ Mali (g), Mauritania (16), Niger (18), Nigeria (25), Senegal (3), Sierra Leone (16), Togo (I.+), and Burkina Faso (30).

Burundi (20), Cameroun (4), Central African Republic (nq), Chad (g), Congo (33), Equatorial Guinea (18), Gabon (3), Rwanda (8), and Zalre (20).

Djibouti (o), Ethiopia (20), Kenya (5), Somalia ( IS) , Sudan (40), Tanzania (5), and Uganda

(37). Angola (3), Botswana (o), Lesotho (o), Malawi ( I ) , Mozambique (3), Swaziland (o), Zambia

(7), and Zimbabwe (4). Cape Verde (o), Comoros (6), Madagascar (r8), Mauritius (o), SPo Tom6 & Principe ( I ) ,

and Seychelles (6).

coup-prone states in the continent. West Africa is, therefore, the region par excellence of the military coup d'ktat.

In contrast, Southern Africa is a region ofmarked stability, not having experienced a single successful coup since the states there first achieved independence, beginning with Malawi in 1964.Four governments have contended with coup attempts (Angola, Mozambique, Zimbabwe, and Zambia), but three of these occurred so soon after independence was at- tained that they for this reasondid not seriouslyjeopardise the new rtgimes inpower. Not onlydoes Southern Africacontrast sharply with West Africa,

' Source: Africa Coup Project Event Files.


but also with Central and Eastern Africa, each characterised by roughly the same numbers of states.

Central Africa has seen double the number ofsuccessful coups than has Eastern Africa, although comparable military interventions have been endured by both regions. Each includes two of the more coup-prone states studied - the Central African Republic, Congo, the Sudan, and Uganda. Only Gabon and Cameroun have been stable in Central Africa, and only Djibouti, Kenya, and Tanzaniain Eastern Africa. As regards the six island republics, most coup activity has taken place in Madagascar, the only politically and economically significant member ofthis grouping.

The differences among the five regions are made evident by calculating the average T.M.I.S. for the states concerned: West Africa, 17.5; East- ern Africa, I 7.4; Central Africa, 15.7; Island Africa, 5-2; and Southern Africa, 2 . 2 . These values demonstrate both the pervasive character of

military coups and other interventions in most of the African continent, as well as the uniqueness of Southern Africa in this regard. Regionalism does, indeed, appear to have had a marked impact.

Three alternative explanations may account for this. First, Southern Africa was the last region to be decolonised and, because of Namibia's contested status and the Republic of South Africa's minority-rule for- mula, this process is still not yet complete. Consequently, the patterns described above have had less time to take affect in this region.

Second,cross-regionalinfluencesmayhaveproducedcontagionin West and Central Africa. The wave of I 7 coups in these two regions during the period 1963-9 may have created chain reaction or domino effects. More recently, the June I 979 coup by Rawlings in Ghana and the April I 980 coup by Doe in Liberia have shown that quite young soldiers can seize the reins ofpower from both civilian and military governments, including rtgimes ofmore senior officers. These two calls for 'national redemption' may have inspired the attempted coup of 6 April 1984 in Cameroun by young officers and non-commissioned officers, described then as being 'ready for the supreme sacrifice'.'

Finally, the deterrent influence of the Republic of South Africa on coup-making in Southern Africa cannot be ignored. The economic and military power of this rtgime, and its demonstrated willingness to intervene in the domestic affairs of its black neighbours, has surely produced strong disincentives for coups d ' i t ~ t .The external threat posed by South Africa had served to remind the armed forces of the states in the

Charles I. Powers, 'Cameroon: coup virus overcome' in The Los Angeles Times,2 I April I gUq. This is how the rebels described themselves during the brief period they controlled the national radio station in Yaounde.

region that their main r61e is to provide for national defence and security rather than to plot the overthrow of their own governments.

Because of South Africa's dynamic economy, the members of the Rand monetary zone -Botswana, Lesotho, and Swaziland -may have benefited economically from ties to the Republic. Their comparative economic prosperity may have lessened their coup proneness by diminishing grounds for dissatisfaction with their governments. More- over, just as it is often assumed that France would intervene to protect favoured rkgimes in Senegal, the Ivory Coast, Gabon, and Cameroun, might not the same behaviour be expected of Pretoria in Sojlthern Africa? A 'law of anticipated reaction' may be operating in that region to deter those who wish to seize power by force.

As we have seen, 80 per cent of the independent states ofAfrica south of the Sahara have experienced a successful or attempted military coup. These interventions form a syndrome because failed take-overs and reported plots always appear along with successful coups d'itat. And, while widespread in their distribution, military interventions are also concentrated in their location, with just eight of the 45 states having been the scene of nearly one-half of all of these events. Additionally, there appears to be a threshold effect in operation, since only Kaunda's civilian Government in Zambia has witnessed a combination of plots and attempted coups totalling more than five T.M.I.S. points and still survived.

The colonial experience of African states has been shown to have interacted with the main political-economic regions to produce distinct patterns of coup activity. The French-speaking states with their French and Belgian colonial legacies, principally located in West and Central Africa, have been especially vulnerable to coups. Most of the former British states in West Africa, as well as the Sudan and Uganda, have been equally open to military interventions, but the remainder of English-speaking Africa, located primarily in Southern Africa, has not. The former Portuguese territories - of which the two most important, Mozambique and Angola, are located in Southern Africa - have been less coup-prone than all the other ex-colonial states.

Finally, all majority-ruled African states would appear to have some significant chance of experiencing serious coup activity, and this probability seems to increase with the passage of each year. For the continent as a whole, domestic upheavals have multiplied as more states


have become independent. The question remains: Why are military interventions so pervasive in Black Africa?

T H E P O L I T I C S O F U N S U C C E S S F U L I N D U S T R I A L I S A T I O N

Explanations of specific COUPSd'ktat require detailed, historically- grounded case-studies,l especially if we wish to discover why some countries are much more prone to them than others. Here the concern is with the broadest possible reasons for the patterns described earlier, and hence we must analyse the problems of development that continue to confront all African states since their achievement of independence.

The concept of 'modernisation' is one of the most problematic in the social sciences because of the dubious polarity between tradition and modernity, as well as the often implicit assumption that the only road to modern status is to replicate the historical experiences of the advanced capitalist democracies of the W e ~ t . ~ Because of these valid criticisms, this key concept is used here as a short-hand for the social changes experienced in and among third-world countries as they have gradually been incorporated into the global economy and polity since the sixteenth ~ e n t u r y . ~ In this sense, Africa has been undergoing 'modernisation' for over 400 years.

Examples of 15 such studies, just from The Journal of Modern African Studies, are as follows: James O'Connell, 'The Inevitability of Instability', in J M A S , 5, 2, September 1967, pp. 181-91 ; Claude E. Welch, 'Soldier and State in Africa,', in J M A S , 5, 3, November 1967, pp. 305-22; Christopher Clapham, 'The Ethiopian Coup d'Etat of December 1960') i n J M A S , 6,4, December 1968, pp. 495-507; Humphrey J. Fischer, 'Elections and Coups in Sierra Leone, 1967' in J M A S , 7, 4, December 1969, pp. 61 1-36; Michael F. Lofchie, 'The Uganda Coup -Class Action by the Military', in J M A S , 10, I May 1972, pp. 19-35; Claude E. Welch, 'Praetorianism in Common- wealth West Africa', i n J M A S , 10, 2, July 1972, p p 203-21 ;I. M. Lewis, 'The Politics of the 1969 Somali Coup', in J M A S , 10, 3, October 1972, pp. 383-408; Samuel Decalo, 'Military Coups and Military Regimes in Africa', in J M A S , I I , I , March 1973, pp. 105-27; Aidan Southall, 'General Amin and the Coup: great man or historical inevitability?', in J M A S , 13, I , March 1975, pp. 85-105; Valerie Plave Bennett, 'Military Government in Mali', in J M A S , 13, 2, June 1975, pp. 249-66; Claude E. Welch, Jr., 'Continuity and Discontinuity in African Military Organisation', in J M A S , 13, 2, June 1975, pp. 229-48; Richard Higgott and Finn Fuglestad, 'The 1974 Coup d'fitat in Niger: towards an explanation', in J M A S , 13, 3, September 1975, pp. 383-98; Miles D. Wolpin, 'Dependency and Conservative Militarism in Mali', in J M A S , 13,4, December 1975, pp. 585-620; Miles D. Wolpin, 'Legitimising State Captalism: Malian militarism in third-world perspective', in J M A S , 18, 2, June 1980, pp. 281-95; and Elise Forbes Pachter, 'Contra-Coup: civilian control of the military in Guinea, Tanzania, and Mozambique, i n J M A S , 20,4, December 1982, pp. 595-612.

2 Criticisms of modernisation theory may be found in Aidan Foster-Certer, 'From Rostow to Gunder Frank: conflicting paradigms in the analysis of underdevelopment', in World Development (Oxford), 4, March 1976, pp. 167-80; Dean C. Tipps, 'Modernization Theory and the Compara- tive Study of Societies: a critical perspective', in C. E. Black (ed.), Comparative Modernization: a reader (New York, 1976); and Immanuel Wallerstein, 'Modernization: Requiescat In Pace', in Social Forces (Chapel Hill, N. C.), 55, 2, December 1976, pp. 273-83. %argued by Immanuel Wallerstein in The Modern World-&stem: capitalist agriculture and origins

of the European world-economy in the sixteenth century (New York, 1974)~ and The Modem World-System, 11: mercantilism and the European world-economy, 16-1750 (New York, 1980).

It is also unnecessary to assume that modernisation is continuous, progressive, and irreversable. John Kautsky has persuasively argued that the essence of this process is industrialisation, and that 'there is very little evidence, as distinguished from teleological and normative assumptions, to support the widely held expectation that all underdeveloped countries must sooner or later be successfully industriali~ed'.~ In Kautsky's view, tropical Africa has been modernised from 'without' rather than from 'within'. The continent's inclusion in the world political economy began with the European-organised Atlantic slave trade, and continued in the nineteenth century with the more legitimate commodity trade between Africa and Western Europe. Full incorpora- tion was achieved through European imperialism and colonialism from the 1880s until the early 1960s.~ While the impact of this historical process varied considerably within and among the African colonies of the European powers, by the end of World War I1 it had everywhere produced 'modern men': the new tlites of Black Africa.

As is well known, these African modernisers organised political parties and movements to struggle for independence - and, in many cases, for regional or continental unity as well - and between 1956 and I 980 they successfully created 45 new 'nations '.The modernisers shared three common traits: ( I ) western education, often at the post-graduate level; (2) the objective of achieving state power by replacing the European colonial officials and settler politicians; and (3) the goal of developing their societies, economies, and states. The data presented in Table 6 suggest that the goal of societal modernisation through industrialisation, and all the desired social changes associated with that process, have so far proved to be unattainable in Black Africa.

From the point of view of African modernisers, Table 6 makes for dismal reading. The figures for gross national productper capita indicate that tropical Africa remains the poorest region in the world. Indeed, African countries represented 21 (62 per cent) out of 34 of the World Bank's poorest category of 'low-income economies ' in 198 I . The Congo and the Ivory Coast are the only two states in Africa with populations exceeding one million that have a G.N.P. per capita greater that $1,000. By this rather imperfect but still widely used measure, Black Africa remains starkly underdeveloped.

Even more troubling is the exacerbation of this condition with the

John H. Kautsky, The Political Consequences of Modernization (New York, 1g72), pp. 162-3. As discussed in L. S. Stavrianos, Global Rift: the Third World comes of age (New York, 1 9 8 1 ) ~

pp. 99-121, 196-204, and 278-308; and J. Forbes Munro, Africa and the International Economy, 18orr-1960(London, 1976).

--


TABLE6

Economic Conditions and Performance and Total Military

Involvement Scores, I 956-8q1

G.N.P. p e ~capita Average Percentage of

G.N.P. Average Annual Rate Labour Force Region and per capita Annual Growth of Inflation in Industry T.M.I.S.

Country 1981 ($) 1960-81 (x) 197-81 (%) 1960 1980 195&84

I. West Africa

I . Benin 2. Burkina Faso 3. Gambia

4 Ghana

5. Guinea 6. Guinea-Bissau

7 Ivory Coast 1

8. Liberia 9. Mali

lo. Mauritania

11. Niger 12. Nigeria 13. Senegal 14. Sierra Leone 15. Togo

Regional Averagea 435 1.0 9'7 6.8 12.8 I 7.5

11. Central Africa I. Burundi 2. Cameroun 3. C.A.R. 4. Chad 5. Congo 6. Equatorial

Guinea

7. Gabon 8. Rwanda 9. Zai're

Regional Averagea 789 ''4 15'3 5.6 9.1 15.7

111. Eastern Africa I . Djibouti 480 - 12.6 o 2. Ethiopia 140 1'4 4" 5 7 20 3. Kenya 420 2'9 10.2 5 10 5 4. Somalia 280 -0'2 I 2.6 4 8 I5 5. Sudan 380 -0'3 15'9 6 10 40 6. Tanzania 280 "9 I I '9 4 6 5 7. Uganda 220 -0.6 41'2 4 6 37

Regional Averagea 3'4 0.8 '5'5 4'7 7'8 '7'4

Sources: World Bank, op. cit. pp. 148-9, 188-9, and 204, and Africa Coup Project Event Files.

- -

- -

- -

TABLE6 (cont.)

G.N.P. per capzta Average Percentage of

G.N.P. Average Annual Rate Labour Force Region and per capita Annual Growth of Inflation in Industry T.M.I.S.

Country 1981 ($) 196-81 (%) 197-81 (%) 1960 1980 1956-84

IV. Southern Afrzca I . Angola - - - 12 I 6 3 2. Botswana 1,010 7'9 11.6 0 3. Lesotho 540 7'0 10.5 2 4 o 4. Malawi zoo 2'7 10.3 3 5 I 5. Mozambique - - - 8 18 3 6. Swaziland 760 5'5 II'5 - - o 7. Zambia 600 0.0 8.4 7 I I 7 8. Zimbabwe 870 1.0 10.1 I I I5 4

Regional Averagea 663 4'0 I 0.4 7.2 I 1.5 2'2

V. African Islands I . Cape Verde 340 - 11.2 - - 0 2. Comoros 320 0'7 11.8 6 3. Madagascar 330 -0'5 10.6 2 4 18 4. Mauritius 1,270 2' I 15'0 0 5. SHo Tomt

& Pnncipe 3 70 0.0 8.8 - - I

6. Seychelles I ,800 2'9 - - - 6

Regional Averagea 738 1.0 II'5 - - 5'2

VI. International Comparisons I . India 260 2. China 300 3. South Korea 1,700 4. Hungary 2,100 5. Mexico 2,250 6. South Africa 2,770 7. U.K. 9,"O 8. France 12,190 g. U.S.A. I 2,820

a Regional averages do not include states with missing data.

passage of time, since most African economies have experienced severe setbacks since independence. Indeed, between I 960 and I 98 I , nine registered negative economic growth, the only states in the world to have done so during this period, other than the three small Caribbean islands of Dominica, Antigua, and the Bahamas. If growth per capita of 2 . 5 per cent per annum is defined as slow but satisfactory for such poor


states, then only nine (or 20 per cent) of the 45 African states have equalled or surpassed this standard during the same 22-year period.

Inflation between 1970 and 1981 was no more pronounced in Black Africa than elsewhere in the world, apart from Uganda and Zai're. As the international comparisons illustrate, the continent is characterised by areas of general poverty, weak or negative growth rates, and particularly by low levels of industrial employment. Given their poor initial conditions in 1960 and slow rates of growth since then, none of the governments have been able to create a 'Newly Industrialising Country' (N.I.C.), as for example did Mexico and South Korea during the same period.

Indeed, the failure of African industrialisation thus far is understated in Table 6, because the employment data include extractive industries, such as mining and petroleum. An alternative method for estimating the extent of true industrialisation is to calculate the percentage of G.D.P. generated by manufacturing. Among the 28 countries from which the World Bank collected such information in 1981, the range is from 3 per cent in Zalre to 27 per cent in Zimbabwe, while the next highest was Zambia with I 8 per cent. The average figure for all 28 states was 9.2 per cent.l

If 2 0 per cent or more of G.D.P. in manufacturing industry marks a N.I.C. ( 2 2 per cent in Mexico and 28 per cent in South Korea in I 98I ), then only Zimbabwe can be considered as having been so transformed. Yet its G.D.P. in manufacturing percentage of 27 in 1981, up from 17 in 1960, was achieved under white settler rule and a t the expense of black Zimbabwean labour - not by black capital, technology, or management. Since independence in 1980, Zimbabwe has suffered a severe deterioration of economic conditions. I t remains to be seen whether industrialisation will progress, or whether the country will suffer negative growth as white capital and management migrate elsewhere.2 For these reasons the dreams of African leaders to transform their societies into industrial-based, modernised states have so far been denied.

An explanation of why every state in Black Africa has so far failed to industrialise, and why most economies have not grown rapidly since 1960, is beyond the scope of this article, yet several of the major causal factors need to be m e n t i ~ n e d . ~ I t is clear that nature has not helped,

World Bank, op. cit. p. 152. For a detailed survey ofpost-independence political and economic developments in Zimbabwe,

see TheEconomist (London), 2I April I 984. John Walsh, 'Sahel Will Suffer Even If Rains Come', in Science (Washington, D.C.), 224,

4648,4May 1984,pp. 4.67-71.

as serious droughts between 1968 and 1974, and since 1982, have racked the continent. The advanced industrial nations and the Organisation of Petroleum-Exporting Countries have not helped either, as inflation and economic stagnation a t the core of the world economy have resulted in slack demand for African exports, causing prices to slump, while the actions of O.P.E.C. since 1973 have greatly increased energy costs for all the non-oil producing states. Several colonial rCgimes, particularly the Portuguese, also contributed to this stagnation by forcing African modernisers to fight for independence, as did the white settlers in Rhodesia. The toll of these wars on the local economies has yet to be recouped. While these and other factors have been beyond the control of most African leaders, their impact could have been less harmful in the aggregate had different policies been followed after 1960.

Many national populations are continuing to increase a t the rate of 2.5 to 3.5 per cent or more annually, and little has been done by most African governments and foreign assistance donors to cope with the implications of this 'explosion'. The economic development policies adopted by many African modernisers are now thought to have over-emphasised parastatal corporations and urban needs, rather than transforming African peasant agriculture as a precursor to in-dustria1isation.l As a consequence, much of the continent is today suffering from declining food production, as is the case among the eight West African Sahelian countries, where populations are presently growing by 2.7 per cent and food production by only 1.5 per cent per a n n ~ m . ~Such declining output is itself a break on economic growth and development and, to the extent that this leads to the importation of basic foods rather than capital goods, an already bad situation is further exacerbated.

What may be the political consequences of these generally unsatisfac- tory economic trends? The legitimacy and authority of the first generation of African modernisers was initially based upon their successful struggle for political independence. Except in instances where this was achieved through costly wars of national liberation, continued legitimacy was predicated upon the ability of the early leaders to move rapidly towards the attainment of modernisation and a strong economy. Unfortunately, the states of Black Africa have come to be suspended between a dependent, agrarian colonial past, to which it is unthinkable to return, and a modern industrial goal which so far has been

As discussed in the controversial report, World Bank (I.B.R.D.), Accelerated Development in Sub-Saharan Africa (Washington, D.C., 1981).

2 Walsh, loc. cit. pp. qqo-I.

658 P A T MCGO-WAN A N D T H O M A S H. J O H N S O N

unattainable. In such circumstances political power is likely to remain in the hands of contemporary Elites, because the new social forces, groups, and leaders that arise along with industrialisation have not yet emerged.

While the rule of the would-be modernisers is secure in the absence of viable alternatives, their continuing failure to transform their societies via industrialisation

...also frustrates the modernizers, and those out of power and especially in government and military positions below the top level, disappointed with those in power, will seek to take their place. Thus, several generations of revolutionary modernizers seem possible, and a long succession of coups and conspiracies, both successful and unsuccessful, should result. These conflicts may involve only a relatively few people, and hence also relatively little violence, for revolutionary symbols can, for quite some time, keep much of the population content even in the absence of the tangible benefits which successful industriali- zation would eventually pr0vide.l

Kautsky's hypothesis certainly seems to fit Black Africa since 1966, because nowhere has industrialisation succeeded ;rather, this failure has been a setting conducive to coups a ~ d political conspiracies.

Table 6 presents evidence that supports this theoretical conclusion. Here the rate of growth in G.N.P. per capita is reported for 39 states between 1960 and 1981. Looking at the 19 from this group whose 1956-84 T.M.1.S values are equal to or greater than the average of 13, we find that their annual rate of economic growth was only 0.6 per cent, while for the 23 whose T.M.I.S. values were less than 13, the rate was 2.4 per cent. The correlation between T.M.I.S. for the period 1956-84 and the average annual growth in G.N.P. per capita from 1960 to 1981 is -0.484, indicating with reliability that the countries whose economies grew most rapidly experienced less military interventions in politics than did the slow (or negative) performers. When these variables are related in a regression, the resulting equation is:

T.M.I.S. 1956-4/84 = 9.3 18 -1-99 (G.N.P. per capita average growth, 1960-81), with an R square of 23.4 per cent.

In other words, for every one per cent increase in the rate of economic growth among these 39 African states, there was a three point decrease in their T.M.I.S. values.

Economic growth is not in itself tantamount to industrialisation, although it is a necessary precondition. In a more complex multiple

Kautsky, op. cit. pp. 164-5, and O'Connell, loc. cit.

M I L I T A R Y C O U P S D ' E T A T A N D U N D E R D E V E L O P M E N T 659

regression analysis we have found, when other factors are equal, that African states whose industrial employment increased the most from I 960 to I 978 had significantly fewer military interventions between I 960 and 1982 than did states whose industrialisation programmes had stagnated.l Since 1960, therefore, there is good evidence that slow economic growth and the failure to industrialise - as Kautsky predicted -are related to military coups and conspiracies in Black Africa. As time haspassed, the frustrations emanating from unsuccessful industrialisation and the escalating expectations of modernisation have been the key elements behind the African coup virus. But causation does not in all likelihood run one way in this regard, for it is equally apparent that the political instability generated by coups d'ktat has itself hindered African economic development. We are left with the image of a vicious circle in which economic stagnation and decline lead to military interventions, which themselves in turn usually produce more economic uncertainty and stagnation.

Can the states ofBlack Africa break out of the underdevelopment trap in which they now find themselves? Only time will tell, but some theoretical considerations can be offered. Although the United States economy appears to have 'recovered ' by 1984, the world as a whole has not, and prospects for African exports remain bleak.' I t is quite likely, then, that conditions in the continent will change little throughout the rest of the decade, and that economic stagnation will continue, while the military intervention syndrome begun in 1966 will persist for perhaps another generation. If the world economy accelerates its growth in the I 990s and enters an era of upswing, such as that described by N. V. Kondratieff, African economic conditions may then improve, with some states reaching N.I.C. status by the year 2000 .~Should that happen, the social changes associated with industrialisation will most certainly foster a decline in military interventionism.

A third scenario i8 equally possible. While many African economies are stagnating, African societies are not. Certain dimensions of social change often associated with modernisation continue to expand. Education and literacy are growing in Africa, as is exposure to printed and electronic media. Migration to towns and cities increases the

Johnson, Slater, and McCowan, loc. cit. Table 7, p. 635. The World Bank, World Development Report 1984 (New York, 1984), pt I. Angus Maddison, Phases of Capitalist Development (New York, 1982), p p 64-73. N. V. Kondra-

tieff, a Russian economist, posited that capitalist development since the mid-eighteenth century was characterised by 'long waves' of 40 to 60 years in length, in which a period of economic prosperity was followed by stagnation or noticeably slower growth. Following this scheme, the 25 years after 1945 witnessed economic expansion, while the period 1970 to circa 1995 is, and will be, characterised by slower growth and stagnation. As of 1984, Kondratieff's analysis still holds.


proportion and densities of African urban populations, many of whom are unemployed or underemployed. Improved transportation and communications networks are enhancing social and political communi- cation. And finally, largely through medical and hygienic advances, the number of black Africans exposed to these dimensions of modernisation expands yearly. Presumably, so too will their expectations for a materially and psychologically more satisfying 1ife.l

This pseudo-modernisation in the absence ofa genuine transformation predicated upon industrialisation could well lead to a situation in which

various groups of modernizers in power and out of power and in conflict with each other will seek support from the discontented lower strata, and will thus deliberately mobilize them politically. In the course of their conflicts, they may lead workers, especially unemployed ones, and the remnants of the old townspeople in demonstrations and riots and they may perhaps even organize peasants for guerrilla warfare. In time, then, the conflicts among revolutionary modernizers may involve increasing numbers of people and may assume the form of bloody uprisings and even of prolonged civil wars.

In the African context the capacity to mobilise 'discontented lower strata' along ethnic, religious, and regional cleavages only makes this forecast more likely. For societies such as those in Black Africa, which have seen modernisers come to power in anti-colonial revolutions, but which have been unable to move on to effective industrialisation, one can 'predict an indefinite period of widespread discontent and turmoil, of coups and conspiracies, of riots and revolts, and hence of domestic and often international instability ' . 3

C O N C L U S I O N

With the exception of Southern Africa, military coups d'ltat and attempted coups have been widespread in the continent, and they have increased over time as decolonisation has created more independent African states, and as each of them experiences the frustrations of unfulfilled industrialisation. I t would appear that the only way out of the continuing stage of underdevelopment would be for African states to industrialise. Various examples of this process exist in the West, in the Soviet Union and Eastern Europe, and in Japan. African leaders must either adapt these to African circumstances, or create new models, if they wish to avoid a prolongation of the current pattern of coups, and conspiracies, and forestall Kautsky's prediction of riots, revolts, and civil wars.

Kautsky, op. cit. pp. 165-6. Ibid. p. 166. Ibid. p. 168.

M I L I T A R Y C O U P S D ' E T A T A N D U N D E R D E V E L O P M E N T 661

The emergence of newly industrialised countries, such as South Korea, Taiwan, Singapore, and Mexico since 1960, indicates that in the late twentieth century it is still possible to become industrialised.' It is also surely the case that for very late developers this transition is much more problematic than it was for the states that industrialised in the nineteenth and the first half of this century. Solutions to the underdevelopment trap of contemporary Africa must ultimately be found by African modernisers themselves.

African intellectual and political creativity will not be sufficient in the absence ofoutside assistance and understanding. Unfortunately, the present structure of the international capitalist world economy, with its hierarchical division of labour between core and periphery, suggests that comprehending help may not be forthcoming from either the western powers or from the socialist states. Should this prove to be the case, and if present trends continue, then Black Africa's future may resemble the 'nightmare' findings of the U.N. Economic Commission for Africa, in which 'socioeconomic conditions would be characterized by a degradation of the very essence of human dignity'.2 This will hopefully prove to be no more than another mistaken forecast. But, as demonstrated here and in the historical experience of these states, its theoretical plausibility is frightening.

A P P E N D I X

C H R O N O L O G I C A L LIST OF 56 A F R I C A N M I L I T A R Y C O U P S

D'ETAT F R O M I J A N U A R Y 1956 T O 30 A P R I L 1984

'958 I 7 November, SUDAN :4,000 troops under the command of General

Ibrahim Abboud occupied Khartoum and arrested all members of the Cabinet headed by Prime Minister Abdullah Bey Khalil.

I 960 14 September, ZAIRE: The army under the leadership of the Chief

of Staff, Colonel Joseph DCsirC Mobutu, removed Prime Minister Patrice Lumumba from office, and handed power over to a 'Collkge' of young technocrats.

We are clearly ignoring here the current problems ofmost N.I.C.s, notably their authoritarian rCgimes and international debt situations.

Walsh, loc. cit. p. 471.


1 963 13January, TOGO: Members of the army assassinated President

Sylvanus Olympio in front of the U.S. Embassy, and handed power over to Nicholas Grunitzky.

15 August, CONGO: After a general strike and sporadic violence, the military forced President AbbC Fulbert Youlou to resign, and then placed Alphonse Massemba-DCbat in power.

23 October, BENIN :After widespread strikes and demostrations and the resignation of President Hubert Maga, Colonel Christophe Soglo suspended the constitution and took power.

1965 2 5 November, ZAIRE: In a bloodless coup, General Joseph D6irC

Mobutu deposed President Joseph Kasavubu and Prime Minister Evariste Kimba, and declared himself President.

29 November, BENIN: General Christophe Soglo intervened and appointed Tahirou Congacou as leader of the Government, after President Sourou Migan Apithy and Vice-President Justin AhomadCgbC had been forced to resign.

22 December, BENIN: General Christophe Soglo dismissed the Government, banned political parties, suspended the constitution, and appointed himself as Head of State.

I 966 I January, CENTRAL AFRICAN REPUBLIC: In a bloodless

coup, military officers under the command of Colonel Jean Bedel Bokassa overthrew the elected rCgime of President David Dacko.

3 January, BURKINA FASO: The civilian Government of President Maurice YamCogo was overthrown by the military, led by Colonel Sangouli Lamizana, after demonstrations in the capital.

15January, NIGERIA: Junior army officers assassinated the Prime Minister, Sir Abubakar Tafawa Balewa, and other leading political figures, and forced the Government to be turned over to General Aguiyi Ironsi.

22 February, UGANDA: With the support of army and police units, Prime Minister Milton Obote suspended the constitution, removed the President from office, and arrested civilian and military opponents.

24 February, GHANA: While President Kwame Nkrumah was out of the country, units of the army and police overthrew his Government, and appointed retired Major-General Joseph Ankrah as Head of State.

8 July, BURUNDI: With the support of the army led by Captain Michel Micombero, Prince Charles Ndizeye replaced his father as Head of Stare.

29July, NIGERIA: Northern army officers killed the Head of State, General Aguiyi Ironsi, and within a few days the Army Chief of Staff, Lieutenant-Colonel Yakubu Gowon, assumed control.

28 November, BURUNDI: In a bloodless coup, Captain Michel Micombero deposed King Ntare V, and appointed himself President of the new Republic.

1967 I 3 January, TOGO: In a bloodless coup, the army led by the Chief

of Staff, Lieutenant-Colonel ~ t i e n n e Eyadema, overthrew the rCgime of President Nicholas Grunitzky.

2 I March, SIERRA LEONE: An army coup led by Brigadier David Lansana arrested newly-elected President Siaka Stevens, and subsequently handed over power to Lieutenant-Colonel Andrew Juxton-Smith.

17 December, BENIN: After a general strike, a number of paratroopers under the command of Major Mathieu Kerekou and Colonel Maurice KouandCtC, overthrew the rCgime of President Christophe Soglo, and subsequently appointed Colonel Alphonse Alley as Head of State.

I 968 18 April, SIERRA LEONE: Army officers loyal to ex-President

Siaka Stevens overthrew Colonel Juxton-Smith and returned power to Stevens.

3 August, CONGO: Following his arrest, army elements loyal to Captain Marien Ngouabi ousted President Massemba-DCbat, and appointed Lieutenant A. Poignet as Head of State.

2 September, CONGO: In a second coup, Captain Marien Ngouabi removed Massemba-DCbat from all duties, and appointed Premier Alfred Raoul as interim President.

19 November, MALI : The army led by Lieutenant Moussa TraorC overthrew the civilian rCgime of President Modibo Keita in a bloodless coup.

1 969 25 May, SUDAN: The military led by Colonel Gaafar al-Nimeiry

overthrew the Government of Prime Minister Mahgoub in a bloodless coup, and appointed al-Nimeiry as Head of State.

2 I October, SOMALIA: Following the assassination of President Abdirashid Ali Shermake by a policeman, army commanders with the support of the police seized power, and appointed Major-General Siad Barre as Head of State.


10December, BENIN: A junta led by Lieutenant-Colonel Maurice KouandCtC overthrew the civilian Government of President Emile Derlin Zinsou.

I971 25 January, UGANDA: While he was out of the country,

President Milton Obote was overthrown by the Uganda army under the leadership of General Idi Amin.

'972 I 3January, GHANA: While Prime Minister Kofi Busia was abroad,

the military led by Colonel Ignatius K. Acheampong seized power. I 8 May, MADAGASCAR : After six days of anti-Government riots

and demonstrations, the military forced President Philibert Tsiranana to resign, and appointed General Gabriel Ramanantsoa as Head of State.

26 October, BENIN: Paratroopers under the command of Major Mathieu Kerekou removed President Justin AhbadCgbC from power.

'973 5 July, RWANDA: In a bloodless coup, the armed forces led by

Major-General JuvCnal Habyalimana overthrew the Government of President GrCgoire Kayibanda.

I974 8 February, BURKINA FASO: With the support of the army,

President SangoulC Lamizana suspended the constitution and seized power.

15 April, NIGER: The army led by Lieutenant-Colonel Seyni KountchC overthrew the regime of President Hamani Diori in a bloody coup.

12 September, ETHIOPIA: An 'Armed Forces Co-ordinating Committee' led by Lieutenant-General Aman Michael Anoom deposed Emperor Haile Selassie.

'975 25 January, MADAGASCAR : Under pressure from factions of the

military, Major-General Gabriel Ramanantsoa dissolved the Govern- ment and handed power over to Lieutenant-Colonel Richard Ratsimandrava.

13April, CHAD: Units of the army and gendarmerie led by General Noel Odingar ousted the civilian Government of President N'Garta Tombalbaye.

29 July, NIGERIA: While President Yakubu Gowon was abroad, a bloodless coup by young army officers replaced him with a Supreme Military Council, headed by Brigadier Murtala Mohammed.

'976 I November, BURUNDI: In a bloodless coup, the armed forces led

by Lieutenant-Colonel Jean-Baptiste Bagaza deposed Lieutenant-General Michel Micombero's Government.

7977 4-5 June, SEYCHELLES : Police and armed workers overthrew the

rCgime of President James Mancham while he was out of the country.

'978 5 May, COMOROS: President Ali Soilih was removed by an

alliance of politicians and soldiers under the leadership of a Belgian mercenary, Robert Denard.

5 July, GHANA: Pressure by junior and senior officers forced General Ignatius Acheampong to sign a letter of resignation, and thereafter he was replaced by Lieutenant-General Frederick Akuffo as Head of State.

10July, MAURITANIA: The Army Chief of Staff, Lieutenant- Colonel Mustapha Salek, overthrew the Government of President Ould Daddah in a bloodless coup.

'979 4 June, GHANA: Troops loyal to Flight-Lieutenant Jerry Rawlings

freed him from jail, removed Lieutenant-General Frederick Akuffo from power, and appointed Rawlings as Chairman of the Armed Forces Revolutionary Council.

3 August, EQUATORIAL GUINEA: In a bloodless coup, the army led by Lieutenant-Colonel Teodoro Nguema Mbasogo overthrew President Macias Nguema Masie.

20 September, CENTRAL AFRICAN REPUBLIC: While 'Emperor' Jean-Bedel Bokassa was abroad, soldiers loyal to former President David Dacko seized power and reappointed him as Head of State.

I 980 4 January, MAURITANIA: With the tacit support of the army, the

Prime Minister, Lieutenant-Colonel Mohamed Khouna Ould Haidalla, removed President Mustapha Salek from power.

1 2 April, LIBERIA: In a violent coup, army units led by Master-


Sergeant Samuel K. Doe ousted the civilian Government and killed President William R. Tolbert.

I I May, UGANDA: Soldiers loyal to former President Milton Obote removed President Godfrey Binaisa from power and asked Obote to take over the Government.

14 November, GUINEA-BISSAU: Troops loyal to the Prime Mini- ster, Major JoZo Vieira, overthrew the administration of President Luis Cabral and appointed Vieira as President.

2 5 November, BURKINA FASO: Elements of the army led by Colonel Saye Zerbo overthrew the Government of President Sangoule Lamizana.

1981 I September, CENTRAL AFRICAN REPUBLIC: The army under

the leadership of General AndrC Kolingba overthrew the rCgime of President David Dacko.

31 December, GHANA: Military units led by Flight-Lieutenant Jerry Rawlings overthrew the administration of elected President Hilla Limann after heavy fighting.

I 982 7 November, BURKINA FASO :Junior ranks in the army overthrew

the Government of President Colonel Saye Zerbo in a bloody coup, and installed a 'Provisional People's Salvation Council' led by Major Jean-Baptist Ouedraogo.

1983 4 August, BURKINA FASO: The Government of Major Jean-

Baptiste Ouedraogo was overthrown by elements of the military led by Captain Thomas Sankara.

31 December, NIGERIA: The military under the leadership of Major-General Mohammed Buhari overthrew the recently elected Government of President Alhaji Shehu Shagari in a nearly bloodless coup.

1984 3 April, GUINEA: Three days after the funeral of President Ahmed

Sekou TourC, the military led by Colonel Lansana ContC took over the Government in a bloodless coup to prevent a power struggle among TourC's civilian successors.

African Military Coups d'Etat and Underdevelopment: A ...€¦ · African politics : (I) military...

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