Summary

Introduction

Once the world’s putsch-continent, Africa appeared to have turned the page on coups d’état and military rule in the late twentieth century, a period marked by a “third wave of democratizations’—to quote the American political scientist Samuel Huntington—that washed into at least the Sub-Saharan part of the continent. This was particularly remarkable in West Africa, the region that accounted for over 46% of all coups and coup attempts in Sub-Saharan Africa between 1956 and 2000. Military rulers fell one by one throughout the decade, starting with Benin in 1990 and ending with Nigeria in 1998. Those who were not removed—Eyadema Gnassingbe in Togo and Lansana Conte in Guinea—formally adopted democratic governance, unable to resist the zeitgeist. In 2001, the regional organization, the Economic Community of West African States (ECOWAS), enshrined democracy as the region’s ruling norm in a binding clause that supplemented its founding treaty. The clause proclaimed “zero tolerance for power obtained or maintained by unconstitutional means” and added that “the armed forces must be apolitical and must be under the command of a legally constituted political authority.” Thus, it was primarily aimed at coups d’état and military rule.

Between the adoption of ECOWAS’ democracy norm in 2001 and the recent spate of coups that began in Mali in August 2020, five coups d’état occurred in the region, four of them in the countries currently ruled by juntas. However, these coups ultimately led back to democracy, either because the putschists adhered to that regime, as in Niger in 2010, or because they were compelled by various forces: another military leader in Guinea in 2008, regional pressures in Mali in 2012, and a popular uprising in Burkina Faso in 2015. In the rest of the subcontinent, coups have become even scarcer, and democratic formalities are nearly universal. This does not mean that dictatorship has disappeared from the region, far from it. However, democracy has become the subcontinent’s hegemonic political norm, albeit one that is often honored in the breach.

Thus, the succession of military takeovers within three years (2020-2023) in five African countries—in chronological order, Mali, Guinea, Burkina Faso, Niger, and Gabon—was a shock. The repeated violation of the norm suggested a potential reversal and a return to the militarization of politics in Africa. Since all the countries involved are former French colonies, and the putschists in Mali, Burkina Faso, and Niger are vocally hostile to France, many analysts have linked the coups to French (neo)colonialism. These conclusions are unwarranted. First, the five coups should not be lumped together and therefore do not form a trend. Second, while France is indeed a factor in the Sahel, it is not in the other two countries; moreover, France’s involvement may not be significantly related to colonialism, whether old or neo. More importantly, the crisis of the democracy norm to which they refer is more a cause than a consequence of the coups. Additionally, the new geopolitical polarizations and tentative realignments of today’s world have created opportunities that were unavailable to putschists under the hegemony of the democratic norm, which significantly explains their staying power; however, the putschists do not exploit these opportunities in the same way.

This paper focuses on the crisis of the democracy norm as a general cause of coups; examines the proximate causes that explain the differences between them; briefly analyzes the impact of the geopoliticization of international relations on these events; and explores possible scenarios for the future before concluding with the conditions for a democratic revival.

Crisis and Coups

Democracy is relatively new in Africa. Before the 1990s, only Botswana, Senegal, and Mauritius (an island country far from the mainland nations) had democratic institutions, competitive suffrage, and a political class. In the 1990s, the end of the Cold War and triumphalist Western democracy promotion converged with an African rejection of failed authoritarianism—which imposed despotism without development—to provide that regime with a social base of friends and enthusiasts across the continent. In some countries such as Senegal in West Africa, democracy has grown strong and entrenched enough to defeat its enemies, while in others, it never gained its footing. Initially, the most powerful enemies of democracy were individuals in power or seeking power. On the one hand, vestigial dictatorial rulers attempted to maintain control by containing or limiting democratization. In West Africa, Togolese rulers Eyadema Gnassingbé and his son and successor, Faure Gnassingbé, have been particularly successful in this regard, whereas the Burkinabe ruler Blaise Compaoré ultimately failed after twenty-seven years of undisputed rule. On the other hand, portions of the political class and civil society spawned by democratization became objectively or ideologically opposed to democracy. This includes rulers who engage in tactics of democracy containment similar to those employed by surviving dictators, such as violence, corruption, intimidation, fraud, and the strategic undermining of democratic institutions and the judiciary—all while operating within the rules of formal democracy. Although such rulers are not opposed to democracy, they are, objectively speaking, its enemies. In Francophone countries, they are referred to as pouvoiristes, or “power-ists” in the sense that they prioritize remaining in power above all else. Ideological enemies include Islamists in Muslim-majority countries such as Mauritania, Senegal, Mali, and Niger, who aspire to establish a Caliphate or an Islamic republic; as well as African nationalists who have convinced themselves that democracy—and human rights—are Western imperialist impositions. The latter group was seemingly an obscure minority until the coups in the Sahel revealed their significance.

The crisis of the democratic norm in West Africa, particularly in its Francophone regions, was initiated by the pouvoiristes. This crisis can be traced back to a Francophone epidemic of transgressing the consensus on presidential term limits that began in Niger in 2009, when President Mamadou Tandja managed to extend his tenure beyond his final term. Tandja was preceded in this by Eyadema Gnassingbé of Togo, in 2003, and Olusegun Obasanjo of Nigeria in 2007. However, in the case of Gnassingbé, he was perceived as a dictator in disguise, and his actions did not resonate in countries where democratic institutions appeared stronger than in Togo. In Obasanjo’s case, those robust democratic institutions—namely the National Assembly and the Senate—effectively thwarted his attempt.

TTandja’s actions in 2009, which included an attempt to prolong his rule first through a failed manipulation of the democratic institutions and then through a successful constitutional coup, inspired other pouvoiriste leaders, including Senegal’s Abdoulaye Wade, Mali’s Amadou Toumani Touré, Burkina Faso’s Blaise Compaoré, Guinea’s Alpha Condé, and Côte d’Ivoire’s Alassane Ouattara. Touré. Touré wisely renounced the tactic after Tandja was ousted in a coup in early 2010. The others attempted it but ultimately failed, with the exception of Ouattara. Wade lost at the polls, demonstrating the strength of Senegal’s democracy; Compaoré was ousted by a popular insurrection; and Condé was removed in one of the coups examined in this paper. In more recent developments, Senegal’s Macky Sall contemplated this very idea, despite having come to power after his compatriots defeated Wade’s earlier attempt. It is rumored—not entirely speculatively—that the Niger coup of July 2023 originated as a maneuver by former President Mahamadou Issoufou to regain the power he had (reluctantly) transferred within his own party to President Mohamed Bazoum.

The coups in Guinea and Gabon are directly linked to this crisis of the democracy norm. In a speech at the United Nations in September 2023, coup-maker Mamadi Doumbouya justified his actions by blaming the tricks and manipulations of pouvoiriste politicians for the military’s intrusion into politics. Unfortunately, while ECOWAS has a clause against coups, it lacks provisions against the dubious tactics of these politicians, as long as they formally adhere to the rules. ECOWAS suspended Niger in 2009 because Tandja unconstitutionally scrapped the constitution when he realized he could not change it through the established processes. In Gabon, the coup was executed against a vestigial dictator, Ali Bongo, son of President Omar Bongo; the pre-coup situation was very similar to that in Togo.

In Mali, Burkina Faso and Niger, the crisis of the democracy norm played a more indirect role. The immediate cause of the coups in Mali and Burkina Faso was the expansion of the conflict zone engulfing both countries since 2012. This expansion was perceived as a defeat for the sitting governments, and defeats historically threaten the survival of any regime. The protests destabilizing the governments in these two countries were heterogeneous and did not aim to dismantle democracy. However, similar to Niger—where the immediate cause of the coup stemmed more straightforwardly from a conspiracy—the coups garnered mass support, partly due to the crisis of the democracy norm. In early 2020, many Malians were frustrated by political scandals and the egregious handling of the legislative electoral process by the ruling party. In Niger, although President Bazoum was somewhat popular, in stark contrast to his predecessor Mahamadou Issoufou, there was much resentment at what was universally seen as his fraudulent accession, in 2021.

Despite these differences, the five coups have resulted in a junta, a military regime governing through decrees, irregular laws (voted on by unelected legislatures), and unilateral decisions while indefinitely suspending political institutions and putting the rule of law on hold. The model, under the democratic norm, was that a putschist soldier would assume the position of interim head of state while civilians - the political class and civil society - would organize a return to democratic governance. During such periods, the rule of law and political freedoms remained active; indeed, they tended to be even more robust than under an elected regime because there were no party lines to toe, and the reforms leading back to democracy required full-throated freedom of expression. The Mali putschists initially adhered to this model until their “coup within the coup” in May 2021, which established the junta counter-model. Other coup-makers took note, as the trial-and-error approach of the Malian pioneers evolved into a blueprint for establishing a junta, first in Burkina Faso, with the Ibrahim Traoré coup in September 2022, and then in Niger in July 2023. Guinea and Gabon have adhered more closely to the older model, but with significantly more interference from the military rulers, who oscillate between the role of the supervisory soldier (i.e., the “back to democracy” model) and that of the military ruler (i.e., the “junta building” model), leading to the emergence of a new mixed model, that of the supervisory junta. This situation owes much to the geopolitical polarization of the early 2020s.

Geopolitical Opportunity

When the Cold War ended around 1990, democracy trended globally. With the return to geopolitical polarization reminiscent of the Cold War, sovereignty is coming to the fore. This is true both for great powers like the U.S., Russia, and China and for small states in Africa, where polarization provides the kind of elbow room that comes from being able to play the great powers off against each other.

Under the US-led post-Cold-War international order, the naked pursuit of national interest at the expense of norms and values was prevalent, including among the US and other Western states. However, the absence of serious competitors largely allowed for the advancement of cherished norms such as democracy and human rights. In Africa, for much of this period, the West had no grand strategic interests to protect. As a result, while it did not live up to its pledges to provide strong support for democratization, it offered routine support and promotion of both democracy and human rights on the continent—in contrast, for example, to the Middle East, where American interests generally inhibited such policies. Given that the West was the hegemon in this international order, this orientation benefited the friends of democracy in Africa, notably by bolstering its emerging democracy norm.

In the context of geopolitical polarization, small states can chart more autonomous courses by diversifying their partnerships. This is not necessarily a move away from democratic governance and human rights, but it may be. In the new competitive environment, interests tend to outweigh values in the eyes of states, and the West’s discourse on democracy and human rights, once delivered with the self-confidence of a hegemon, tends to yield to imperatives of “engagement,” that is, finding some common ground with regimes that can now demand “respect” even when they transgress norms. This is true not only for the juntas of the Sahel but also for Guinea and Gabon. Indeed, in the case of the two latter juntas, fears that they may follow in the footsteps of those in the Sahel have led the representative hegemon—France—to be sparing with sanctions and reproaches: Guinea’s suspension from the Francophonie organization did not last, and multilateral donors have turned a blind eye to brutalities that are barely less egregious than those in the Sahel.

The new geopolitical climate, which deprives the democracy norm of the hegemonic support it once enjoyed, is instrumental in assisting the Sahel juntas in their experimentation with a return to military rule and in pushing those in Guinea and Gabon to adopt the underhanded stance of the supervisory junta.

The question is: where is this leading the countries concerned, and where does it leave the friends of democracy?

Time will tell

None of the five juntas is rejecting democracy; all proclaim that they are in a transition process—back to democracy—even as they continue to push for the conclusion of this process into the mists of an open-ended future, with the exception of Gabon (for now). Two factors explain this attitude: one is geopolitical polarization, as explained in the previous section, and the other is the domestic context. Here, too, we must distinguish between the Sahel and Guinea/Gabon. All the juntas use fear and violence to impose their rule, but those in the Sahel have added ideological mobilization, which they were fortunate to find at their disposal at the time of their coups, thanks to their domestic contexts.

The coups in the Sahel transpired when the countries were in the grips of a sovereigntist panic, stoked by foreign military intervention and social-media ebullition—a lot of which was fueled by disinformation—and nationalist exaltation. The putschists realized they could rely on sovereigntist ideology to carve a social base of legitimacy for themselves and ignore demands based on the democracy norms. This was reinforced by a widespread belief in the Sahel that military rulers are more honest and patriotic than civilians, with the memory of the past military dictatorships’ failings fading and the corruption of the democratic political class fresh in everyone’s minds.

Still, the juntas do not have time on their side. In Guinea, we may expect a return to formal democracy once junta leader Mamadi Doumbouya ensures he will win the elections. In the Sahel, future developments will depend on whether or not the juntas maintain their current advantages, namely, their geopolitical opportunity and domestic base of legitimacy. The juntas have limited their geopolitical opportunity by aligning themselves exclusively with Russia, complicating their engagement with the West out of ideological conceit. However, a pro-Russia, sovereigntist U.S. foreign policy under the incoming Trump administration may bolster that opportunity, as the clamor of “Trump-AES: same fight” in the pro-junta Malian press suggests (AES is the French acronym for the Alliance of Sahelian States, the club of the Sahel juntas). On the other hand, the populations in the Sahel will experience increasing junta fatigue. The structural position of the juntas is not different from that of the civilian rulers; the countries have not changed just because they took power. Like the previous rulers, they control a small rent-based official economy that cannot deliver public goods to the population, but that tempts them to enrich themselves. While ideological grandstanding may obscure this fact for a time, it is eroding their social base of legitimacy, just as it did for the civilian rulers. Change will become possible if the enemies of the juntas, who are currently silenced or exiled, can exploit the volatile domestic situation that will arise from this.

Moreover, even among the AES juntas, there are differences that will influence future developments. Mali, the pioneer in the establishment of junta rule, harbors more potential for change—including the possibility for the junta to reestablish a democratic transition process—than Burkina Faso and Niger. Whereas Burkina Faso’s junta has postponed such a process to 2029 or perhaps beyond, and Niger’s is not even broaching the subject, Mali’s junta is taking steps toward restarting it, under pressure from civilian leaders who are more vocal here than in the other two countries. In Niger, peril may arise for the junta from division within the military, whose apparent unity may fracture under the pressure of the country’s rapidly deteriorating economic conditions. Perhaps the same is true for Burkina Faso.

Saving Democracy

The enemies of the junta are not all necessarily friends of democracy. The only way to make democracy sustainable in the Sahel, and indeed in Africa, is to support its friends and thus grow its social base, as the cases of the few stable democracies on the continent suggest. The West has supported institutional democracy but not the culture of democracy—the hardware, not the software. Within the countries, the friends of democracy have been sidelined by those who wanted to use democratic institutions for their own ends—such as the pouvoiristes—and those who detest the regime.

In the Sahel, support for the friends of democracy in the current situation is best channeled through the media. The free press was at the vanguard of democratization in the region and stands today as the last line of defense. Quite apart from remaining bravely critical of the juntas or, when in exile, using their domestic networks to help report from the outside, journalists in conscientious media supply valid information, the only remedy to the massive disinformation that has played such a pivotal role in the destabilization of democracy in the region.

About the author

Abdourahamane Idrissa Abdoulaye

Rahmane Idrissa is a political scientist and historian based at Leiden University’s Africa Studies Centre. He has written extensively on Sahelian issues, including the book The Politics of Islam in the Sahel: Between Persuasion and Violence (2015) and the essay ‘Mapping the Sahel’ for the New Left Review (2021).