Coups and conflict in West Africa, 1955-2004: Part II, empirical findings

Armed Forces and Society

Volumn 32, Issue 2, 2006, Pages 234-253

  McGowan, Patrick J ^a,b  

^a STELLENBOSCH UNIVERSITY   (South Africa)

^b ARIZONA STATE UNIVERSITY   (United States)

Author keywords

Conflict; Coups; War; West Africa

Indexed keywords

EID: 29344446378     PISSN: 0095327X     EISSN: None     Source Type: Journal    
DOI: 10.1177/0095327X05277886     Document Type: Review

References (77)

1. 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.
2. Patrick J. McGowan, "Coups and Conflict in West Africa, 1955-2004: Part I, Theoretical Perspectives," Armed Forces & Society 32, no. 1 (2006): 5-23.
3. Arthur A. Goldsmith, "Risk, Rule and Reason: Leadership in Africa," Public Administration and Development 21 (2001): 83.
4. Donald G. Morrison, Robert Cameron Mitchell, and John Naber Paden, Black Africa: A Comparative Handbook, 2nd ed. (New York: Paragon House and Irvington, 1989), 121-31.
5. Godfrey Mwakikagile, Military Coups in West Africa since the Sixties (Huntington, NY: Nova Science, 2001).
6. Patrick J. McGowan, "African Military Intervention Events, January 1, 1955 to December 31, 2004" (Unpublished manuscript, Arizona State University, Tempe, 2005), which the author will make available to other researchers.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 Patrick.McGowan@asu.edu.
7. Freedom House, Freedom in the World 2003, http://freedomhouse.org/ ratings/ (accessed January 29, 2004).
8. 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): 339-70.
9. McGowan, "African Military Coups," 367.
10. Associated Press, "Oil Found in Gambia, President Says," Washingtonpost.com, February 17, 2004, http://www.washingtonpost.com (accessed February 18, 2004).
11. McGowan, "African Military Intervention Events," 142-43.
12. 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.
13. Saine, "The Gambia's Changing";
14. 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.
15. Aristide Zolberg, "The Military Decade in Africa," World Politics 25, no. 2 (January 1973): 309-31.
16. 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.
17. 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.
18. Robin Luckham, "The Military, Militarization and Democratization in Africa: A Survey of Literature and Issues," African Studies Review 37, no. 2 (1994): 34.
19. Samuel Decalo, Coups and Army Rule in Africa: Studies in Military Style (New Haven, CT: Yale University Press, 1976), 14-15.
20. 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);
21. and Paul Collier, "Africa's Revolutionary Routine," Foreign Policy, May/June 2004, 82-3.
22. Goldsmith, "Risk, Rule and Reason," 78;
23. and Baffour Ageyman-Duah, "Military Coups, Regime Change, and Interstate Conflicts in West Africa," Armed Forces & Society 16, no. 4 (Summer 1990):547-90.
24. 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).
25. 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.
26. Goldsmith, "Risk, Rule and Reason," 82.
27. "Risk, Rule and Reason," Ibid., 85.
28. Afrobarometer 2004, http://www.afrobarometer.org/TableAttitudesDemocracy. pdf (accessed April 19, 2004).
29. 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.
30. Noelani King Conradie, "Africa in Focus, Bi-Weekly Update," First National Bank Economic Subscriptions, April 8, 2004, 6. Available online at Subscriptions@fnb.co.za (accessed April 12, 2004).
31. Paul Collier, "Africa's Revolutionary Routine," Foreign Policy, May/June 2004, 83.
32. 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. This was 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;
33. 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).
34. See, for example, Pierre Englebert, Burkina Faso: Unsteady Statehood in West Africa (Boulder, CO: Westview, 1996);
35. Herbert M. Howe, Ambiguous Order: Military Forces in African States (Boulder, CO: Lynne Rienner, 2001);
36. Eboe Hutchful and Abdoulaye Bathily, The Military and Militarism in Africa (Dakar, Senegal: CODESRIA, 1998);
37. and John A. Wiseman, "Military Rule in the Gambia: An Interim Assessment," Third World Quarterly 17, no. 5 (1996): 917-40.
38. Somini Sengupta, "Turmoil in Ivory Coast: Once Again, Things Fall Apart," The New York Times, November 15, 2004, A5.
39. Ageyman-Duah, "Military Coups";
40. Raymond Copson, Africa's Wars and Prospects for Peace (New York: M. E. Sharpe, 1994);
41. 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;
42. William Reno, Warlord Politics and African States (Boulder, CO: Lynne Rienner, 1998);
43. Jeffrey Herbst, "Economic Incentives, Natural Resources and Conflict in Africa," Journal of African Economics 9, no. 3 (2000): 270-94;
44. Jackson, "Violent Internal Conflict," 29-52;
45. and Catharine Newbury, "States at War: Confronting Conflict in Africa," African Studies Review 45, no. 1 (April 2002): 1-20.
46. Excluded are the million or more deaths of civilians and combatants in Eritrea's war 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. Available online at http://www.puaf.umd.edu/CISSM/People/Milton-files/ deaths%20wars%20conflicts%20NEW.pdf (accessed December 9, 2004).
47. Leitenberg, Deaths in Wars, 43. A peace accord to end the war between the Sudanese government and the Sudan People's Liberation Movement was signed in Naivasha, Kenya, on December 31, 2004;
48. Wangui Kanina, "Sudanese Government, SPLM Sign Peace Deal," Washingtonpost.com, December 31, 2004, http://www.washingtonpost.com (accessed December 31, 2004).
49. 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);
50. and Robert Guest, "A Survey of Sub-Saharan Africa," Economist, January 17, 2004, 1-16.
51. Jean-Paul Azam, "The Redistributive State and Conflict in Africa" (Working Paper Series/2001.3, Oxford Centre for the Study of African Economies), 11. This is not to say that easily lootable natural resources are the only or even the prime cause of West African civil wars 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;
52. Herbst, "Economic Incentives."
53. 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."
54. Sengupta, "Turmoil in Ivory Coast."
55. Kacowicz, "'Negative' International Peace," 369.
56. Tilly, "Violence."
57. For case studies of several of these rebel movements, see Christopher Clapham, ed., African Guerillas (London: James Currey, 1998).
58. Somini Sengupta, "Warriors in West Africa Need Jobs as Well as Peace Treaties," NYTimes.com, May, 23, 2004, http://www.nytimes.com (accessed May 25, 2004);
59. and Sengupta, "Turmoil in Ivory Coast."
60. Ellen Knickmeyer, "U.N. Coordinates W. African Peacekeepers," Washingtonpost.com, February 20, 2004, http://www.washingtonpost.com (accessed February 23, 2004).
61. Loucoumane Coulibaly, "Thousands of Liberian Refugees to Resettle in U.S.," Washingtonpost.com, February 23, 2004, http://www.washingtonpost. com (accessed February 24, 2004).
62. See the classic analysis of Samuel P. Huntington, Political Order in Changing Societies (New Haven, CT: Yale University Press, 1968).
63. Peter Fabricius, "Africa Must Bite the Bullets of Sacrifice and Compromise - or Risk Chaos, New Colonialism," Cape Times, February 16, 2004, 9;
64. 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;
65. Economist, "Of Killers and Clowns," January 31, 2004, 45, 48;
66. and Knickmeyer, "U.N. Coordinates."
67. Immanuel Wallerstein, "Africa in a Capitalist World," in The Essential Wallerstein, ed. Immanuel Wallerstein (New York: New Press, 2000), 64.
68. The insurgency in Senegal's Casamance that began in 1982 was not like civil wars 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.
69. 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).
70. Afrobarometer 2004.
71. 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);
72. and for Mali, see Mwakikagile, Military Coups, 118-24.
73. Sengupta, "Turmoil in Ivory Coast."
74. Guest, "Survey," 10.
75. Decalo, "Coups and Military Regimes";
76. and Robert Guest, "Africa Earned Its Debt," The New York Times, October 6, 2004, A31.
77. In this regard, see David K. Leonard and Scott Straus, Africa's Stalled Development: International Causes and Cures (Boulder, CO: Lynne Rienner, 2003).