Coups and Conflict in West Africa, 1955-2004: Part II, Empirical Findings
Abstract
From independence through 2004, the sixteen West African states have experienced forty-four successful military-led coups, forty-three often-bloody failed coups, at least eighty-two coup plots, seven civil wars, and many other forms of political conflict. Part I of this article used a political-economy approach to provide theoretical explanations of this record. Part II presents a unique data set describing all coup-related events in West Africa since 1955. Military interventions are widespread, occurring repeatedly in fourteen states. These data permit examination of coup behavior over the past fifty years. No evidence of declining coup activity is found. The major instances of war and conflict are reported, and it is shown that coups and conflict are reciprocally related. Changes that might reduce coups and conflict and permit these countries and their 238 million citizens to have better lives are discussed in the conclusion.
Get full access to this article
View all access and purchase options for this article.
References
Richard Jackson, “Violent Internal Conflict and the African State: Towards a Framework of Analysis”,-Journal of Contemporary African Studies 20, no. 1 (January 2002): 48-48.
Patrick J. McGowan, “Coups and Conflict in West Africa, 1955-2004: Part I, Theoretical Perspectives,” Armed Forces & Society 32, no. 1 (2006): 5-23.
Arthur A. Goldsmith, “Risk, Rule and Reason: Leadership in Africa,” Public Administration and Development 21 (2001): 83-83.
Donald G. Morrison, Robert Cameron Mitchell, and John Naber Paden, Black Africa: AComparative Handbook, 2nd ed. (New York: Paragon House and Irvington, 1989), 121-131.
GodfreyMwakikagile, Military Coups in West Africa since the Sixties(Huntington, NY: Nova Science, 2001).
Patrick J. McGowan, “African Military Intervention Events, January 1, 1955 to December 31, 2004” (Unpublished manuscript, Arizona State University, Tempe, 2005), which the author will make available to other researchers. Contact him at [email protected].
Freedom House, Freedom in the World 2003, http://freedomhouse.org/ratings/ (accessed January 29, 2004).
For the procedures used to create these event data, see Patrick J. McGowan, “African Military Coups d'Etat, 1956-2001: Frequency, Trends and Distribution,” Journal of Modern African Studies 41, no. 3 (September 2003): 339-370.
McGowan, “African Military Coups”, 367-367.
Associated Press, “Oil Found in Gambia, President Says”, Washingtonpost.com, February 17, 2004, http://www.washingtonpost.com (accessed February 18, 2004).
McGowan, “African Military Intervention Events”, 142-143.
Abdoulaye Saine, “The Gambia's Changing Political, Economic and Social Landscape: A Regime(s) Performance Evaluation, 1994-2002,” Africa Insight 33, no. 3 (September 2003): 60-60.
Saine, “The Gambia's Changing”; and on African state predation in general, see Arthur A. Goldsmith, “Predatory versus Developmental Rule in Africa,” Democratization 11, no. 3 (June 2004): 88-110.
Aristide Zolberg, “The Military Decade in Africa,” World Politics 25, no. 2 (January 1973): 309-331.
Only five states in West Africa—Benin, Cape Verde, Ghana, Mali, and Senegal—were classified as “free” by Freedom House in 2003; Freedom House, Freedom in the World 2003.
Aristide Zolberg, “The Structure of Political Conflict in the New States of Tropical Africa,” American-Political Science Review 62, no. 1 (March 1968): 70-87.
Robin Luckham, “The Military, Militarization and Democratization in Africa: A Survey of Literature and Issues,” African Studies Review 37, no. 2 (1994): 34-34.
Samuel Decalo, Coups and Army Rule in Africa: Studies in Military Style(New Haven, CT: Yale University Press, 1976), 14-15.
Charles Tilly, “Violence, Terror, and Politics as Usual,” Boston Review 27, no. 3 (Summer 2002), http://www.bostonreview.net/BR27.3/tilly.htm (accessed February 17, 2004); and Paul Collier, “Africa's Revolutionary Routine,” Foreign Policy, May/June 2004, 82-3.
Goldsmith, “Risk, Rule and Reason”, 78-78; and Baffour Ageyman-Duah, “Military Coups, Regime Change, and Interstate Conflicts in West Africa,” Armed Forces & Society 16, no. 4 (Summer 1990): 547-90.
Mutinies can also happen in independent states and can often be quite bloody. In West Africa, they most often occur because of pay arrears and poor conditions of service. The most recent was in Guinea-Bissau in early October 2004; see Alberto Dabo, “Guinea-Bissau Soldiers Stage Mutiny, Kill Army Chief”, Washingtonpost.com,October 6, 2004, http://www.washingtonpost.com (accessed October 8, 2004). The distinction between a mutiny and an attempted coup is sometimes hard to determine but centers on whether the troops involved made any attempt to seize control of the state apparatus such as international airports, radio and TV stations, government buildings, armories and barracks, and government officials. If they did, it was an attempted coup, if not, a mutiny. See McGowan, “African Military Intervention Events,” and “African Military Coups,” 343-44.
Goldsmith, “Risk, Rule and Reason”, 82-82.
ibid., 85.
Afrobarometer 2004, http://www.afrobarometer.org/TableAttitudesDemocracy.pdf (accessed April 19, 2004).
Samuel Decalo, “Coups and Military Regimes 1974-2004: Has Anything Really Changed?” (Paper presented at the U.S. State Department Conference on Military Coups in West Africa and Regional Instability, Washington, DC, March 5, 2004), 5-5.
Noelani King Conradie, “Africa in Focus, Bi-Weekly Update”, First National Bank Economic Subscriptions, April 8, 2004, 6-6. Available online at [email protected](accessed April 12, 2004).
Paul Collier, “Africa's Revolutionary Routine”, Foreign Policy, May/June 2004, 83-83. A real test case for the African Union and the Economic Community of West African States arose in early February 2005 when the Togolese army violated the constitution and imposed Faure Gnassingbe as the new president, succeeding his father, Gnassingbe Euadéma, who died of a heart attack the previous day. Thiswas strongly condemned by African leaders such as the chairman of the African Union Commission Alpha Konaré, by Presidents Obasanjo of Nigeria and Mbeki of South Africa, and by opposition elements within and outside Togo. But, as long as Togo's military stays united, Faure will retain power. See Peter Frabricius, “Events in Togo Show African Leaders' Criticism of ‘Coup’ Was No Hollow Gesture,” Cape Times, February 14, 2005, 11; and Lydia Polgreen, “Clashes in Togo after Late Dictator's Son Succeeds Him,” NYTimes.com, February 14, 2005, http://www.nytimes.com (accessed February 15, 2005).
See, for example, Pierre Englebert, Burkina Faso: Unsteady Statehood in West Africa(Boulder, CO: Westview, 1996); Herbert M. Howe, Ambiguous Order: Military Forces in African States(Boulder, CO: Lynne Rienner, 2001); Eboe Hutchful and Abdoulaye Bathily, The Military and Militarism in Africa(Dakar, Senegal: CODESRIA, 1998); and John A. Wiseman, “Military Rule in the Gambia: An Interim Assessment,” Third World Quarterly 17, no. 5 (1996): 917-40.
Somini Sengupta, “Turmoil in Ivory Coast: Once Again, Things Fall Apart”, The New York Times, November 15, 2004, A5-A5.
Ageyman-Duah, “Military Coups”; Raymond Copson, Africa's Wars and Prospects for Peace(New York: M. E. Sharpe, 1994); Arie E. Kacowicz, “‘Negative’ International Peace and Domestic Conflicts, West Africa, 1957-96,” Journal of Modern African Studies 35, no. 3 (September 1997): 367-85; William Reno, Warlord Politics and African States(Boulder, CO: Lynne Rienner, 1998); Jeffrey Herbst, “Economic Incentives, Natural Resources and Conflict in Africa,” Journal of African Economics 9, no. 3 (2000): 270-94; Jackson, “Violent Internal Conflict,” 29-52; and Catharine Newbury, “States at War: Confronting Conflict in Africa,” African Studies Review45, no. 1 (April 2002): 1-20.
Excluded are the million or more deaths of civilians and combatants in Eritrea'swar of independence against Ethiopia between 1962 and 1989 and in the multisided civil war against the Mengistu regime that lasted until 1991. Milton Leitenberg, Deaths in Wars and Conflicts Between 1945 and 2000(College Park: Center for International Security Studies, University of Maryland, 2001), 42-42. Available online at http://www.puaf.umd.edu/CISSM/People/Milton-files/deaths%20wars%20conflicts%20NEW.pdf (accessed December 9, 2004).
Leitenberg, Deaths in Wars, 43-43. Apeace accord to end thewar between the Sudanese government and the Sudan People's Liberation Movement was signed in Naivasha, Kenya, on December 31, 2004; Wangui Kanina, “Sudanese Government, SPLMSign Peace Deal,” Washingtonpost.com, December 31, 2004, http://www.washingtonpost.com (accessed December 31, 2004).
Paul Collier and Anke Hoeffler, “Greed and Grievance in Civil War” (Working Paper Series/2002-01, Oxford University Centre for the Study of African Economies, March 13, 2002); and Robert Guest, “A Survey of Sub-Saharan Africa,” Economist, January 17, 2004, 1-16.
Jean-Paul Azam, “The Redistributive State and Conflict in Africa” (Working Paper Series/2001.3, Oxford Centre for the Study of African Economies), 11-11. This is not to say that easily lootable natural resources are the only or even the prime cause of West African civilwars and rebellions. However, their existence provides an economic incentive to rebel, and if they come under the control of a rebel group, they provide an economic resource that at the very least, can prolong fighting; Herbst, “Economic Incentives.”
Skirmishes might be more accurate, but these conflicts did involve the national armies of both states, and in December 1985, the fighting was quite intense, if brief. On why there have not been more interstate wars in West Africa since independence, see Kacowicz, “‘Negative’ International Peace.”
Sengupta, “Turmoil in Ivory Coast.”
Kacowicz, “‘Negative’ International Peace,” 369.
Tilly, “Violence.”
For case studies of several of these rebel movements, see Christopher Clapham, ed., African Guerillas-(London: James Currey, 1998).
Somini Sengupta, “Warriors in West Africa Need Jobs as Well as Peace Treaties”, NYTimes.com, May, 23, 2004, http://www.nytimes.com (accessed May25, 2004); and Sengupta,“Turmoil in Ivory Coast.”
Ellen Knickmeyer, “U.N. Coordinates W. African Peacekeepers”, Washingtonpost.com, February 20, 2004, http://www.washingtonpost.com (accessed February 23, 2004).
Loucoumane Coulibaly, “Thousands of Liberian Refugees to Resettle in U.S.”, Washingtonpost.com, February 23, 2004, http://www.washingtonpost.com (accessed February 24, 2004).
See the classic analysis of Samuel P. Huntington, Political Order in Changing Societies(New Haven, CT: Yale University Press, 1968).
Peter Fabricius, “Africa Must Bite the Bullets of Sacrifice and Compromise—or Risk Chaos, New Colonialism”, Cape Times, February 16, 2004, 9-9; and Guest, “Survey,” 9. The United Nations spent about $1.3 billion in 2004 on West African peacekeeping. It has “blue helmets” in Liberia and Sierra Leone, and 6,000 are scheduled for Côte d'Ivoire pending Security Council approval; Economist, “Of Killers and Clowns,” January 31, 2004, 45, 48; and Knickmeyer, “U.N. Coordinates.”
Immanuel Wallerstein, “Africa in a Capitalist World”, in The Essential Wallerstein, ed. Immanuel Wallerstein (New York: New Press, 2000), 64-64.
The insurgency in Senegal's Casamance that began in 1982was not like civilwars in the rest of West Africa, because of its low level of violence and its isolation in a distinct and remote region of the country, far from the capital Dakar.
Ghana's December 2004 presidential and parliamentary elections confirmed its democratic status. As British minister for Africa, Chris Mullin remarked, “The high turnout and overall transparency, fairness and freedom of the electoral processes are a tribute to Ghanaian democracy”; Independent Online, “Britain Welcomes Kufour Victory in Ghana”, December 11, 2004, http://www.iol.co.za (accessed December 11, 2004).
Afrobarometer 2004.
On the democratic transition in Ghana, see John L. Adedeji, “The Legacy of J. J. Rawlings in Ghanaian-Politics, 1979-2000”, African Studies Quarterly 5, no. 2 (Summer 2001), http://web.aftica.ufl.edu/asq/v5/v5i2a1.htm (accessed December 13, 2004); and for Mali, see Mwakikagile, Military Coups, 118-24.
Sengupta, “Turmoil in Ivory Coast.”
Guest, “Survey,” 10.
Decalo, “Coups and Military Regimes”; and Robert Guest, “Africa Earned Its Debt,” The New York Times, October 6, 2004, A31-A31.
In this regard, see David K. Leonard and Scott Straus, Africa's Stalled Development: International Causes and Cures(Boulder, CO: Lynne Rienner, 2003).
Cite article
Cite article
Cite article
OR
Download to reference manager
If you have citation software installed, you can download article citation data to the citation manager of your choice
Information, rights and permissions
Information
Published In
Article first published: January 2006
Issue published: January 2006
Keywords
Authors
Metrics and citations
Metrics
Article usage*
Total views and downloads: 542
*Article usage tracking started in December 2016
Altmetric
See the impact this article is making through the number of times it’s been read, and the Altmetric Score.
Learn more about the Altmetric Scores
Articles citing this one
Receive email alerts when this article is cited
Web of Science: 32 view articles Opens in new tab
Crossref: 22
-
Nomos, Hostis, and War: State-Building Process and Armed Forces in Afr...
-
Public attitudes toward external democracy promotion in Africa
-
African coups in the COVID-19 era: A current history
-
Global adaptation readiness and income mitigate sectoral climate chang...
-
Institutional Quality and Trade Flow: Empirical Evidence from Malaysia...
-
Elite Bargains and External Influence: Security Assistance and Civil-M...
-
Regime types and regime change: A new dataset on democracy, coups, and...
-
Political Leadership in Africa
-
Theories of Military in African Politics
-
Defending Constitutional Rule as a Peacemaking Enterprise: The Case of...
-
Counterbalancing, Spatial Dependence, and Peer Group Effects
-
The impact of political instability on the economic growth of ECOWAS m...
-
The Legitimacy of Groups and the Mobilization of Resources
-
Defending democracy with international law: preventing coup attempts w...
-
The Perils of Drugs in West Africa: Implications on Governance, Econom...
-
Praetorian Militarization and Children's Life Chances
-
The Military Factor in Nigeria’s Democratic Stability, 1999-2009
-
What difference can a path make? Regional democracy promotion regimes ...
-
Guarding the “Guardians”...
-
The Production of Insecurity by African Security Forces: Insights from...
-
Bad Neighbors: Failed States and Their Consequences
-
Political culture, state elites and regional security in West Africa
Figures and tables
Figures & Media
Tables
View Options
Get access
Access options
If you have access to journal content via a personal subscription, university, library, employer or society, select from the options below:
loading institutional access options
IUS members can access this journal content using society membership credentials.
IUS members can access this journal content using society membership credentials.
Alternatively, view purchase options below:
Purchase 24 hour online access to view and download content.
Access journal content via a DeepDyve subscription or find out more about this option.
