2014/09/17 by Kristen A. Harkness · 127 citations
Social Sciences · #Corporate governance #Decolonization #Democracy #Democratization #Development economics #Economics #Ethnic group #Ethnic violence #Law #Peacebuilding and International Security #Political Conflict and Governance #Political economy #Political science #Politics #Politics and Conflicts in Afghanistan, Pakistan, and Middle East #Sociology #State (computer science)
paper · open access · doi:10.1177/0022002714545332
published in Journal of Conflict Resolution 60(4), 587-616 (SAGE Publishing)
openalex publication_date 2014/09/17 · openalex created_date 2016/06/24 · openalex updated_date 2026/07/25
Military coups have posed a persistent threat to political stability in Africa, undermining democratization efforts, igniting insurgencies, and leading to years of devastating military governance. Initial cross-national studies found little consistent evidence linking ethnicity to coups, leading recent formal and statistical work on coup risk and coup-proofing to largely ignore ethnic politics. This article, however, argues that in two important contexts of African political development—decolonization and democratization—ethnic politics are critical to understanding the occurrence of coups. Both case study evidence and statistical analysis of original data on African military history and ethnic politics reveal that practices of ethnic manipulation within security institutions have driven coup attempts. When leaders attempt to build ethnic armies, or dismantle those created by their predecessors, they provoke violent resistance from military officers.