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How interstate relations affect the likelihood of the
coup d’état in Africa, 1945-1999
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T.S. Leenstra 11262214
Master Thesis
MA Political Science: International Relations
University of Amsterdam Graduate School of Social Sciences June 23, 2017
Under the supervision of:
st 1 reader: Dr. A.A. Steele nd 2 reader: Dr. J. Krause
1
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Abstract
This thesis examines the effect of interstate signals on the likelihood of coups in Africa between 1945 and 1999. The purpose of this thesis is to improve our understanding how interstate relations affect the probability of coups. The dominant school of thought in the literature relies heavily on intrastate conditions (structural factors in society) to explain coup attempts. These explanations appear inadequate to explain considerable variation in coup attempts in Africa: why numerous African states with similar country characteristics faced several coups, while others did not. This thesis addresses the empirical puzzle by claiming that external actors play a key role in destabilizing unfavored governments in Africa. The general argument asserts that hostile signals send by external actors to a targeted state shape a favorable climate to launch a coup against the incumbent government. This argument is tested using measures for troop mobilizations and sanctions as costly signals in combination with events data as a measure for cheap signals. This thesis uses a nested analysis research design as outlined by Lieberman (2005). The first part entails a preliminary large sample of cases (LNA) which found no significant results of the expected relationships. The second part engages in an in-depth case study (SNA) of Libya to show a non-relationship more generally, and seeks alternative explanations to explain Libya’s non-coup outcome. The final section concludes that structural intrastate factors partly explain the variation of interest. The effective coup-proofing techniques implemented by Qaddafi offer a more satisfying explanation in relation to the non-coup outcome. The results demonstrate that hostile signals do not increase the probability of coups in Africa. ______
Keywords: coups, P5 member states, Africa, interstate relations, signaling theory, nested analysis.
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Table of contents
1. Introduction 4.
2. Literature review 8. 2.1 The relevance of International actors 9. 2.2 Coup attempts 10. 2.3 The coup d’état and its relevance 10. 2.4 The purpose of study 11.
3. Theoretical framework 13. 3.1 Rational choice theory 13. 3.2 Signaling theory 15. 3.3 Indicators of hostile signals: MID’s, sanctions and cheap hostile signals 18. 3.3.1 (MID’s) Military interstate disputes 18. 3.3.2 Sanctions 19. 3.3.3 Cheap hostile signals 20. 3.4 Control variables 21. 3.5 Interstate relations and coup risk 22.
4. Research design 25. 4.1 Data 25. 4.2 Nested analysis research design 26. 4.3 Variables of the theoretical model 27. 4.3.1 Dependent variable 27. 4.3.2 Independent variables 27. 4.4 Limitations 28.
5. Data analysis 29. 5.1 Descriptive statistics 29.. 5.2 Bivariate analysis 30. 5.3 Multivariate analysis 32. 5.4 SNA model building 34. 5.5 Case selection 34.
6. Case evidence of Libya & alternative explanations 36. 6.1 Libya and interstate relations 36. 6.1.1 US-Libya relations 37. 6.1.2 Critique on Thyne’s theory 38. 6.2 Alternative explanations: structural factors in Libyan society 39. 6.2.1 Economic performance 40. 6.2.2 Strength of civil society 40. 6.2.3 Regime legitimacy 41. 6.2.4 Recent coups 41. 6.3 Three forms of political violence: coups, revolutions, civil wars 42. 6.4 The final piece of the puzzle: Qaddafi’s efficient coup-proofing techniques 43.
7. Conclusion & discussion 46.
Bibliography 48.
Appendix: Stata Do-File 51.
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1. Introduction
On the 24th of June 1960, Patrice Lumumba became the first democratically elected prime minster of the Democratic Republic of Congo. In the height of the Cold War, an anxious Washington presided by Dwight Eisenhower, feared a spread of communism in the heart of Africa. A country rich in minerals and of significant strategic importance to the United States (US) to restrain Soviet ambitions in the region. Due to Lumumba’s inclination towards the Soviet-Union in the Congo’s struggle for independence, the US, together with Belgium, deliberately set out to isolate the Congo from outside influence and simultaneously aimed to oust Lumumba from power to safeguard Western interests.1 As a result, the US exercised diplomatic pressure on Lumumba, ceased financial assistance and imposed (economic) sanctions on the Congo.2 Moreover, Lumumba further undermined Western interests by engaging in an intrastate military conflict with the pro-Western mineral rich Katanga province to curb its secessionist ambitions. The following quotation clearly illustrates Washington’s hostile position towards the Congo and its resolute stance for regime change.
“On 26 August 1960, the head of the CIA, Allen Dulles, sent a telegram to Lawrence Devlin, the CIA station chief in Leopoldville, saying: ‘In high quarters here it is the clear-cut conclusion that Lumumba’s removal must be an urgent and prime objective’. At a meeting of the US National Security Council (NSC) three days later, President Eisenhower, authorized the CIA to ‘eliminate’ Lumumba”.3
In 1961, already after seven months after his democratic victory, Lumumba was captured and assassinated through a Western backed military coup led by pro-Western army Colonel Mobutu Sese- Sokko. The coup d’état in the Congo is just one clear example where external actors played a key role in destabilizing a foreign government and fostered a favorable climate to stage a coup against an incumbent regime.4 Despite considerable involvement of the US in coup attempts in the Congo and elsewhere in the third world, substantial variation exists in coup attempts on a global scale. Uganda for instance, experienced seven coups between 1966 and 1986. Whereas, Botswana never experienced a coup. Considerable variation exists in the proliferation of coup attempts elsewhere in Africa. While Ghana and Sudan were frequently confronted with coups, Senegal and Eritrea faced none. Again, where countries like Burundi, Sierra Leone and Liberia were continuously plagued by coups, Namibia, Malawi and Mozambique witnessed none. Figure 1 reflects the dispersion of global coup activity and reports values for the total number of coup attempts experienced by a state between 1960 and 1999.5 These comparisons raise the following question: what explains the variation in coup attempts in Africa, diversified from practically zero to more than ten in a specific country between 1945 and 1999? Since the end of the Second World War the world witnessed 616 coup attempts, where 245 occurred in Africa alone.6 Coups, irrespective to their outcome, “can alter political processes and social institutions as drastically as any classic revolution”.7 Despite this recognition among academics and policy makers of the immense consequences for society and the international community, the relevance of coups is seldom covered in the coup literature to claim generalizations about their causes.8 Since coups occur all over the world, they – to a certain extent – are a general phenomenon.9 This suggests there is room for a theory to explain the general causes of coups.
1 Foreign Affairs (2004). 2 Meredith (2006). 3 Meredith (2006) Chapter 6, pp.106. 4 De Witte (2002), Van Reybrouck (2010). 5 Powell (2012). 6 Luttwak (2010), Powell and Thyne (2011). 7 Luttwak (1979). 8 O’Kane (1984). 9 O’Kane (1984). 4
The coup literature offers two different approaches to address the causes of coups, which I prefer to categorize as traditional and progressive approaches. The traditional coup literature focusses primarily on internal characteristics of the state, such as economic performance, regime legitimacy, internal stability, military spending and whether a country experienced a coup in the past.10 These characteristics are framed into intrastate conditions, which on average can predict the probability of a coup in the near future.11 This line of research argues that these objective preconditions influence the stability of the incumbent regime and determine the underlying structural risk of a coup.12 More specifically, the general argument asserts that coups occur as a result of deep rooted causes in society, which in turn can shape a viable political climate to stage a coup. Accordingly, a coup, prerequisites the presence of these objective preconditions to be possible, these conditions simultaneously serve as reliable indicators to determine the likelihood whether a coup would be attempted. Importantly, this assumption is widely shared in the coup literature, and various studies corroborated these findings over time.13 Hence, the relevance and impact of these structural factors is undisputed and I recognize its explanatory power. However, this line of reasoning raises an empirical puzzle: various countries in Africa, where structural factors which shape the underlying structural risk of a coup are present, were indeed plagued by a series of coups, while others seemed immune to the coup. In other words, following the traditional approach, we would expect a coup in each of these countries, because the level of coup risk is high due to presence of structural factors in society. Empirical evidence shows that this argument does not hold. According to the United Nations (UN), on average, both Ghana and Namibia reflect poor economic performance, inhibit a weak civil society and favor high military spending.14 However, both countries vary substantially in the number of coup attempts: Ghana experienced ten coups between 1966 and 1983, while Namibia faced none.15 In a similar view, domestic structural factors fail to explain why coups did not occur in Malawi, Zambia, or Eritrea. Because these general explanations would expect a coup in each country given their poor economic performance, illegitimate government, weak democratic institutions, high unemployment and low income rates. For example, Eritrea meets all structural factors as outlined by the traditional coup literature, but never experienced a coup. Despite Eritrea’s young period of independence, its president Isaias Afwerki, holds power since the country’s independence in 1993. Afwerki’s domestic policies foster economic backwardness and exhibits one of the highest poverty and unemployment rates in Africa. In addition, according to the UN, Eritrea lacks any form of civil society, seats an illegitimate government, enhances strong civic-military relations and structurally violates human rights on a large scale.16 These observations suggest that there is room for a theory which focusses specific on coup risk, rather than wider forms of political instability to explain the variation in coup attempts on the African continent. The puzzle mentioned above suggests that existing explanations put forward in the traditional literature rely too heavily on intrastate conditions and appear inadequate to account for the variation in coup attempts in Africa. A further examination reveals that most African countries – on average – share similar macro level conditions.17 The variation within groups – between African countries – in terms of economic performance, strength of civic society, military expenditure and regime type does not deviate drastically from the continents average. It follows logically to treat these conditions as constant over time. The propensities of these macro level conditions make them partly inadequate to account for the variation in coup attempts and leaves room for alternative explanations. A wider
10 Belkin and Schofer (2003, 2005), Powell (2012), De Bruin (2017), Roessler (2011), O’Kane (1984), 11 Powell, Lasley and Schiel (2016), Agyeman-Duah (1990). 12 Belkin & Schofer (2003). 13 Luttwakk (1968), 14 Nambia: http://data.un.org/CountryProfile.aspx?crName=namibia Ghana: http://data.un.org/CountryProfile.aspx?crName=ghana 15 Luttwak (1968). 16 United Nations (2016) http://www.ohchr.org/EN/HRBodies/HRC/CoIEritrea/Pages/commissioninquiryonhrinEritrea.aspx 17 Luttwak (1968). 5 analysis which includes international factors might provide more satisfying answers to explain the causes of coups. As mentioned earlier, theories focused on intrastate conditions treat coups as pure national phenomena and proclaim that the coup has been, and will be a domestic affair.18 As a result, international dynamics, such as the role of external actors on coups, remains largely untouched. Proponents of the progressive approach19 like Agyeman-Duah, Thyne and Powell, argue that the absence of a systematic examination of the possible linkage between interstate relations and coups in the literature is problematic.20 Because the traditional coup literature assumes that states exist in a vacuum and therefore neglects foreign influence on coup onset and its latter course of action.21 Since African states are interdependent political entities who are embedded in a highly interactive environment where policies of one country have implications for the other. Accordingly, we cannot treat coups and states in isolation to exclusively focus on macro level conditions of a single African country to predict the probability of a coup. The empirical evidence suggests that coups are still relevant in Africa and we can expect that interstate relations continue to fulfill a pivotal role in these events in the future. These observations motivate to explore the direct relationship between hostile signals from external actors and coup risk. This thesis aims to improve our understanding how interstate relations affect the likelihood of coup attempts in Africa by combining qualitative and quantitative literature. Historical qualitative analysis show that the permanent member states of the UN Security Council (P5 countries)22: US, Russia, China, UK and France played an important role in (de)stabilizing African governments over time.23 Whereas quantitative accounts revealed the impact of intrastate conditions to explain coup activity in a specific country. This discrepancy in the literature leaves the role of interstate relations on the occurrence of coups underspecified. This gap in the literature is however identified by Clayton Thyne, who strives to bridge the quantitative research (intrastate conditions) and qualitative research (interstate relations) in relation to coups. The scientific relevance lies within joining both types of literature in order to build a theoretical model to predict potential coup attempts as a function of interstate relations measured by hostile signals. Following Thyne, the contribution to the literature depends whether evidence proposed by the case literature holds across time and space and enables us to compare the impact of interstate relations with intrastate conditions identified in the quantitative literature.24 This objective contributes to narrowing the existing gap in the coup literature. The empirical evidence mentioned earlier shows that African states vary in their vulnerability to coups based on the ability of plotters to organize and execute a coup.25 This thesis attempts to explain the variation in coup attempts in Africa, as a function of interstate relations. It focusses on hostile signals an African country receives from relevant actors in the international system. I attempt to fill the gap in the coup literature by empirically assessing a variety of international signals that can impact the stability of an African regime and the ability of the plotters to organize and execute a coup. This approach therefore recognizes the importance of international actors as relevant indicators to
18 Agyeman-Duah (1990). 19 For the sake of clarity, I prefer to classify the literature which focusses on international dynamics in relation to coups as progressive. I belief this is a valid distinction since a growing number of scholars emphasize the importance of external actors to explain coups. This tendency emerged since the 2000’s and therefore deviates from previous ‘traditional research’ which focus exclusively on national dimensions. 20 Thyne (2011), Powell (1990), Powell and Thyne (2011) and Agyeman-Duah (1990). 21 Thyne (2006), Lutwakk (2016) and Agyeman-Duah (1990). With exception of Gleditsch (2007) and Cunningham and Gleditsch (2009). 22 From now on: permanent member states of the UN Security Council referred to as: P5. In a similar vies, United States is US and United Nations is UN. 23 See Agyeman-Duah (1990) for a detailed account of foreign involvement in African coups. Due to declassified reports, detailed research emerged revealing UK and US involvement in the military coup against the Ghanaian government of Kwame Nkrumah in 1966. Similar research conducted by Ludo de Witte (2000) and David van Reybrouck (2010) show the proactive role of the US and its CIA to overthrow the first democratically elected prime-minister Patrice Lumumba of DRC in 1961 and install Mobutu Sese Seko as president. 24 Thyne (2011), pp.450. 25 Powell (2012). 6 explain the causes of coups. The value of this probabilistic approach to the causes of coups lies within the existence of the conditions that promote coups with the focus on interstate conditions rather than intrastate conditions. More specifically, this thesis tests a general theory which predicts, when a country receives costly hostile signals from international actors over time, increases the likelihood of a coup in the near future. The underlying logic asserts that international signals give rise to internal instability, which in turn encourage coup plotters to stage a coup. The purpose of this thesis is to expand the scope of inquiry by incorporating the role of international factors in the coup literature. My general argument asserts that signals from international actors should have considerable impact on the likelihood of coups in Africa. The answer to the puzzle I put forward is that international actors play a decisive role in coup attempts. In the example of Eritrea, the absence of costly hostile signals from foreign powers, might explain why the country never experienced a coup. In other words, this thesis attempts to explain the covariation that exists as described above, as a function of a hypothesized causal relationship between hostile signals and coup attempts. In doing so, this thesis builds on two main approaches: signaling theory and rational choice, to examine how international actors influence the likelihood of coups in Africa. Therefore, we arrive at the following research question: how international relations affect the likelihood of African coups between 1945 and 1999? This thesis proceeds as follows. First, I discuss the coup literature to support the claim of a shift from intrastate to interstate conditions to address the causes of coups. Then I develop a theoretical framework by drawing on rational choice and signaling theory to explain coup attempts. Next, I lay out the research design of this study by using a nested analysis research design which combines quantitative and qualitative analysis. Thereafter, I run a statistical analysis to test the effect of the hypotheses. Subsequently, I examine an in-depth case study of Libya as a logical next step to complement the results from the statistical analysis. Finally, I draw a general conclusion and discussion of the overall study of this thesis.
Source: Powell (2012).26
Figure 1. Global instances of coups from 1950 until 2010.
26 Powell (2012). 7
2. Literature review
A profound body of the coup literature devotes its interest to the factors that determine the likelihood of coups. In a popular study conducted by Belkin and Schofer, the authors developed a structural conceptualization of coup risk. The authors conceptualize coup risk as “a function of deep, structural attributes of government, society, political culture and state society relations”. Of course, these structural conditions appeared as important determinants influencing coup benefits, but partly fail to explain the variation in coup attempts. Because traditional coup literature attributes the patterns of coup attempts to intrastate conditions, such as economic performance, regime legitimacy, regime type and internal stability. In this regard, international factors have largely been neglected in this scope of inquiry to explain the likelihood of coups. The first scholar who stressed the importance to abandon the traditional understanding of coups as an internal, isolated event whose cause and effect are limited to the country where it takes place, was Steven David.27 In a normative analysis, David proclaims that a considerable amount of coups have been influenced by external actors who have much to lose or to gain in their outcome.28 Several scholars followed David’s recommendation to widen the scope of inquiry to assess the relevance of interstate relations on coup risk as presented by Rowe, Bienen and Luttwak.29 This proposition is consistent with findings proposed by Kristian Gleditsch, who stresses the importance to acknowledge transnational dimensions of social phenomena like civil wars and coups.30 Since the late 2000’s more progressive studies emerged where scholars found well-established findings in the realm of international politics of coup risk. These findings show an important role of external shocks, international war and international signals in shaping a favorable climate to stage a coup.31 Agyeman-Duah for instance, provides convincing evidence that exogenous shocks as international war can trigger coups in the countries involved.32 From a similar approach, Thyne and Sikkink emphasize the ability of foreign powers to indicate their support for a potential coup.33 More specifically, Thyne developed a framework in which external actors send encouraging signals to potential coup plotters in advance, actions that lower the perceived costs of coup attempts.34 Thyne presents a quantified theoretical model to assess the impact of international signals on the cost-benefit analysis of coup plotters. Thereby exhibits the degree of the signal send – cheap or costly – to an incumbent government, which in turn influences the probability of a coup attempt.35 Foreign governments can indicate their support for a potential coup through material supplies to coup plotters to strengthen their capacity to oust the incumbent regime from power. In a post-coup setting – once the coup is successful – the coup plotters regime relies on international recognition as the new legitimate government to enhance political survival. In sum, the central argument in this thesis departs from the general assumption that international actors shape the ‘pre’ and ‘post’ phase of coup politics. Recent empirical research conducted by Thyne shows a causal mechanism between US hostile signals and the likelihood of coups of Latin-America.36 Hostile signals sent by the US to an incumbent government of a Latin-American country has destabilizing internal effects. Thyne’s findings imply that hostile signals from the US shape an appealing environment for potential coup plotters to execute a coup, knowing that the US will likely be inactive to assist the incumbent government when a coup is underway, therefore increasing the likelihood the coup will succeed. In other words, at least by implication, a coup attempt against the government might be a desired outcome of hostile signals.
27 David (1986) p.4. 28 David (186). 29 Rowe (1974), Luttwak (1979), Bienen (1969). 30 Gleditsch (2002). 31 Tansey (2016). 32 Belkin and Schofer (2003, 2005). 33 Thyne (2010), Sikkink (2004). 34 Thyne (2011), Tansey (2016). 35 Tansey (2016). 36 Thyne (2010). 8
This argument is consistent with Luttwak’s reasoning that the level of foreign political influence is often sufficed to prevent, oppose or consolidate a coup.37 Similar evidence is found by Powell, Lasley and Schiel, who strongly emphasize the impact of international organizations on coup plotters decision to stage a coup.38 This is remarkable, since the dominant school of thought of comparative analysis primarily consider a role for external actors on democratic processes, but not on coups. The argument developed in this thesis attempts to bolster the overall argument that hostile signals increase the likelihood of a coup. Further, I build on prior literature on international dynamics and coups to hypothesize that hostile signals increase the probability of a coup. The following section illustrates the ability of foreign actors to influence coups in the developing world.
2.1 The relevance of international actors
Since the process of decolonization, the Western superpowers multilaterally advocated a new foreign policy of deliberate support of democratic institutions on a world wide scale, with the final objective to end dictatorships in the developing world.39 The permanent member states of the United Nations Security Council (P5 countries), to a certain extent, share the general belief to oppose authoritarian regimes – especially those who undermine their strategic interests. Yet, there exists considerable variation in state behavior among the P5 countries how to promote regime change for the sake of democracy. The P5 countries have a long historical record of foreign interventions to influence political regimes and implement democratic structures in the third world. Since, the method of foreign intervention became rather controversial because it provoked fierce international criticism inasmuch it is in violation with international law, P5 countries found more subtle means to advocate regime change abroad. Besides foreign interventions, nation states obtain a broad arsenal of policy options to exercise pressure on foreign governments. A state can impose sanctions, engage in military interstate disputes or sent other hostile signals (e.g., closure of an embassy) to a recipient country. P5 countries obtain the capabilities to exercise significant influence unitarily or multilaterally on a single African country. In the past the US unilaterally imposed economic sanctions on Somalia in the 1990’s which targeted specific individuals and governments for leading unconstitutional usurpations of power.40 These policies eventually led to the overthrow of Siad Barre in 1991. The P5 countries are widely perceived as the major super powers in the international system. The US, China and Russia’s influence in Africa continues to accumulate and therefore their incentives to protect their interests in the region. To a lesser extent, as former colonial powers, the UK and France still obtain severe political influence in Africa. In addition, African countries are embedded in a highly interactive community of African states: the African Union (AU). Which implies that, similar to P5 leaders, African leaders are significant stakeholders in African politics. The important role of P5 countries and other African countries in domestic political affairs has been widely covered in the literature, and are therefore evidently relevant actors in the region with a certain degree of political influence on other African states. In general, the case evidence shows that coups are just too important to leave its course of action to chance by simply rolling the dice. Indeed, all P5 member states have attempted to deter, organize, back and suppress coups in order to strengthen its position in the developing world.41 In sum, external actors can play a key role in destabilizing foreign governments and serve as a reliable indicator to explain the causes of coups in the developing world.
37 Luttwak (2016). 38 Powell, Lasley and Schiel (2016). 39 Escriba-Folch & Wright (2010). 40 US sanctions policy in Sub-Saharan Africa; congressional testimony. Lyman (2016). https://www.usip.org/publications/2016/06/us-sanctions-policy-sub-saharan-africa 41 David (1986). 9
2.2 Coup attempts
It is evident that external actors play a pivotal role in inciting coups in Africa. The next step is to determine which stage of the coup is mostly related to international involvement. The coup literature is divided into two subcategories: coup attempts and coup outcome – success or failure. Although the literature examining the effect of external actors on coups is scarce, it nevertheless implies that the role of external actors is largely related to coup attempts rather than outcomes. From recent research we can infer that once a coup is launched, it usually succeeds or fails within hours.42 Thus, the short time period leaves no room for the international community to influence the outcome of the coup. The outcome of the coup is regularly determinant before anyone outside the capital realized that a coup has been attempted. This particular feature distinguishes coups from civil wars. Coups are often led by members of the elite and use a minimum degree of violence to seize power. In contrast, civil wars are defined as an armed conflict that involves military action against the national government by at least one insurgency group and requires that the state violence exceeds a certain threshold of thousand related battle deaths per year.43 In sum, the involvement of external actors in coups is most likely related to the attempt stage of the coup than its outcome.
2.3 The coup d’état and its relevance
This section explains the notion of the coup d’état and why it is still relevant as a form of political violence today. A coup d’état is an attempt by elite actors from the state apparatus to overthrow the incumbent of a country in order to seize the executive power.44 According to Luttwak, “a coup consists of the infiltration of a small but critical segment of the state apparatus, which is then used to displace the government from its control of the remainder”.45 The expression coup d’etat implies a direct ‘stroke of state’.46 In contrast to a revolution or a rebellion, which prerequisites a substantial military operation before it poses a credible threat to the political entity in power, the coup, as a rapid surprise strike, constitutes a more acute and unpredictable danger to the regime which – when successful – can cause a ‘stroke of the state’.47 The immediate threat comes from those inside the government who obtain the knowledge and skills, and have access to utilize the state apparatus against the incumbent. This definition excludes forceful seizers of power through civil wars, revolutions, mass demonstrations, foreign interventions and coup rumors and coup plots. As Walter Laqueur remarks in the preface of Edward Luttwak’s practical handbook of the coup d’etat: “much has been written under which (objective) conditions revolutions and civil wars take place, but almost nothing on coups”.48 This is surprising, since revolutions and civil wars are much less common forms of political violence in a world were coups enjoyed the most popular mode of political change in the developing world.49 As remarked by Decalo, who claims that “coups became the most visible and recurrent characteristic of the African political experience”.50 In addition, the unpredictable feature of the coup in combination with its swift and lethal outcome – when carried out successfully – poses the greatest threat to vulnerable regimes. Besides the immediate threat against the survival of the incumbent regime, coups can have destabilizing effects on a larger scale. The impact of coups on the domestic and international political level can be disastrous. Coups can result into civil war, revolution, mass protests, crimes against humanity or jeopardize democratization processes.51 These undesirable outcomes evidently
42 Thyne (2011). 43 Sambanis (2004) pp.817. 44 De Bruin (2017), Powell (2012), Thyne (2010), Powell & Thyne (2011), Luttwak (2016). 45 Luttwak (2016), pp.12. 46 Oxford English Dictionary (2010). 47 Roessler (2012), pp. 308. 48 Laqueur (1979), In Luttwak’s preface of the Coup d’état (1979). 49 Luttwak (2016). 50 Decalo (1990). 51 Thyne (2014). 10 pose a significant threat to national, regional and international stability. These propensities of the coup d’etat make it a valuable social phenomenon to fully understand its logic in order to better predict future coups since they contain ever recurring patterns – “the same always different” – from its initial conspiracy to the ultimately seizure of power.52 It is the task of the coup plotters to successfully segregate the political leadership from the military command to effectively seize power.53
2.4 Purpose of study
The literature review stressed the importance to shift the focus from intrastate factors to interstate factors to assess the effect of the latter on coup attempts. In order to achieve this objective I enlarge the scope of inquiry to focus primarily on coup plotters expectations for staging a successful coup as a function of interstate signals to the targeted country. This approach focusses on the effect of signals sent from external actors on the likelihood of coups in Africa. As mentioned by Thyne, the role of external actors on coup activity has foremost been ignored in the coup literature while the accumulation of empirical evidence continues.54 This however, does not imply superiority of one approach over the other – interstate conditions over intrastate conditions. Rather, I attempt to expand the scope of inquiry to combine intrastate and interstate conditions as proxy indicators for coup onset. In other words, intrastate and interstate conditions are complementary, and are therefore not in contradiction. Nevertheless, to test the effect of interstate conditions, intrastate conditions require a secondary role and will be used as control variables in the analysis. If the coup literature – and this thesis attempts to contribute to this objective – is able to combine both types of conditions into one general framework to explain the causes of coups, provides valuable information for scholars, policy makers and statesmen to anticipate a coup more accurately and act accordingly. Furthermore, it is not the aim of this thesis to engage in a foreign policy analysis of the P5 member states in Africa nor to analyse the process of decolonization and its implications for coups. Rather, to demonstrate that on average, external actors play an important role in the likelihood of coup attempts in Africa between 1960 and 1999. The following paragraph narrows down the primary objective of this thesis. In general, the causal argument proposed by Thyne – and proposed here – entails that hostile signals empower the decision making process of coup plotters to stage a coup and therefore increases the probability of coup attempt.55 Although Thyne draws general conclusions based on his model, his analysis has several limitations which could undermine his generalizable results. First, US and Latin- American relations are a unique set of cases due to their historical background and anti-colonial struggles against European powers. Second, other major powers might fulfill a similar role as potential signalers in destabilizing governments to protect national interests in the region (e.g., UK or Russia). When we change the actors of the theoretical model we might discover different mechanism of the role external actors play in the decision making process to execute a coup. This observation raises the question whether Thyne’s results hold over time and space when we include other actors – Russia, China, UK and France – in the analysis to test the theory and change the context – Africa, instead of Latin-America. In other words, can we validate Thyne’s theory when we exclude a unique set of cases (US-Latin-American relations) in our analysis and change its original context? In addition, as mentioned by Bienen, Africa is one of the least studied areas in terms of the relationship between national and international systems and especially the linkage between international signaling and coup activity.56 The absence of Africa in previous research, provides an additional argument to select the continent as the subject of analysis.
52 Laqueur (1978), pp.36-37. In: Luttwak (1979). 53 Luttwak (1979). 54 Thyne (2010). 55 Luttwak (2016). 56 Bienen (1969). 11
Finally, the aim of this thesis is to develop and test a theoretical model for general application, which allows causal inference and comparative analysis of their precision and relevance.57 As a result, we improve our understanding of the relationship between international actors and coup risk measured by MID’s, sanctions and cheap hostile signals.
57 King, Keohane and Verba (1994) and Bienen (1969). 12
3. Theoretical framework
The purpose of this section is to propose a theory how international actors affect the likelihood of coups. This theoretical framework builds on two theoretical approaches: signaling theory and rational choice theory. This section proceeds as follows. I start by laying out the general framework of analysis, which is derived from rational choice theory in the civil war literature. The concept of rational choice proclaims rational expectations, which in turn reflect clear expectations how different types of international signals should affect the likelihood of coups.58 Thereafter, I explain the content of signaling theory and its implications for coup attempts.
3.1 Rational choice
Since we narrowed down the stage of the coup to be the focal point of inquiry – coup attempts – we can specify the mechanisms at play during the decision making process of coup plotters. The decision making process whether to stage a coup finds it origin in rational choice theory. The relevance of rational choice has been recognized in several fields within social sciences (e.g., economics and psychology) and has proven to be a useful framework to explain micro and macro level decision making processes.59 Coup plotters will therefore more likely stage a coup when they belief it will succeed. This assumption implies that when coup plotters decide to execute a coup the benefits outweigh the costs. The nexus between the civil war and coup literature is the widely shared assumption of rational choice to explain why individuals join an insurgency during civil conflict and why individuals launch or join a coup.60 From the logic of rational choice one can infer that the decision to stage a coup is determinant by the anticipated benefits of staging a successful coup and the perceived probability of success.61 These conditions are conceptualized by Thyne and depicted in table 1. The theory predicts, that the likelihood of coups increase when the perceived probability of success increases and the anticipated benefits to stage a coup increase.62 The assessment of coup plotters to stage a coup will be discussed in the following section. Following rational choice theory, this thesis treats coup plotters as rational actors who calculate the expected utility of action by weighing the benefits of success against the probability and impact of failure.63 Departing from a cost-benefit analysis, we expect coup plotters to execute a coup based on an analysis of the contemporary political situation within a country compared with the anticipated situation following a successful coup.64 In such a situation coup plotters calculate the expected pay-off of a particular decision by weighing the gains of success against the consequences of failure.65 A failed coup attempt is most likely to result in execution or exile, while success coincides with a government position and corresponding privileges. Following a rationalist approach, coup plotters are most likely to stage a coup when they are convinced the incumbent regime is weak and when they believe foreign actors will support a successful coup. Support in this context has several facets which are all beneficial to coup plotters. The level of support from foreign actors varies from inaction to fierce condemnation of the coup or the lack of support to the incumbent regime to repel the coup plotters attack. Albeit these actions lack any legitimate support for the coup plotters, in practical terms the course of action from other states immensely affects the likelihood of a coup and its outcome.
58 Thyne (2009). 59 For example, governments will align with other governments when they believe such a decision will benefit their national interest. A similar line of reasoning can be ascribed to individual decision making process when individuals believe a specific action will result in potential gains. 60 Cederman (2004), Macartan and Weinstein (2008), Thyne (2006, 2011), Powell (2012) and De Bruin (2017). 61 Thyne (2011). 62 Thyne (2011). 63 Powell, Lasley and Schiel (2016), Thyne (2010), Powell and Thyne (2012), Powell (2012). 64 Thyne (2011) pp. 65 Powell, (2012), Thyne (2010), Powell et al. (2016). 13
It follows logically to frame inaction or indifferent state behavior from other states as supportive to the coup, because this course of action does not obstruct or hinder the process of the coup. Inaction from influential actors is essential for the coup to succeed. In other words, the indifference from other states sends a signal of indirect support to the coup plotters which implies that a coup would be tolerated. Namely, the broadest range of the spectrum of political action favors coup plotters rather than the incumbent government as depicted in figure 2. Figure 2 captures three possible outcomes of foreign state action as a response to a coup attempt: hostile towards the coup plotters, neutral (inaction) or supportive of the coup plotters. Due to the swift nature of the coup, an incumbent government depends on immediate support from foreign states in order to repel the coup plotters attack. A government which is confronted with a coup only gains support from the far left side of the spectrum above the critical line of -0.5. All state actions from -0.5 onwards is beneficial to the coup plotters. Similar to zero in roulette benefits the casino, zero (inaction) favors coup plotters. Coup plotters obtain the luxury position that they often prefer an inactive position of the international community, because foreign involvement can jeopardize success. In contrast, in order to stay in power aid dependent regimes require outside sources in terms of troop mobilizations or international condemnation of the coup.66 The political survival of these regimes depends on the political will of other states to protect the regime against an ongoing coup.
Figure 2. Foreign state behavior in reaction to a coup.
-1. -0.5 0. 0.5 1. Hostile to coup plotters Neutral (inaction) Supportive to coup plotters
Critical measure of Critical measure of hostile action supportive action
In sum, according to rational choice theory, coup plotters are more likely to stage a coup when the benefits outweigh the costs. The influence of external actors on this decision making process can be decisive in triggering a coup. The following section exemplifies the notion of signaling theory following a rationalist approach.
66 Powell et al. (2016). 14
3.2 Signaling theory
This section explains the content of signaling theory in the context of international politics and its implications on coup risk. International relations covers a large spectrum of political interaction. Interactions between states occur on a day-to-day basis; which varies from events such as frequent trade agreements to rare events like military disputes. These interactions influence the likelihood of coups. Most importantly, interstate interactions act as signals to the coup plotters, which affect their estimation of success, if a coup were attempted.67 Gartzke defines signals as, “actions or statements that potentially allow an actor to infer something about the unobservable, but salient, properties of another actor”.68 Signals are therefore a product of interstate interaction, which in turn provides actors with information to judge the nature of the relationship. The underlying logic of signaling theory asserts that actors – individuals, groups or states – can assess the internal instability of a country as result of hostile signals and simultaneously can anticipate future behavior from the signaler. State interaction therefore coincides with public or private statements which connotes supportive or hostile interaction. These signals might play a pivotal role in relation to coups, because when external actors advocate regime change or a continuation of power in an African country serves as a useful indicator whether the coup plotters will enjoy support or face opposition from influential foreign actors.69 If we accept the claim that signals – as a product of interstate relations – affect coup activity, we must further specify the notion of signals to develop testable hypotheses. Theoretical models of game theory as applied in the interstate conflict literature shows us that the perception of credibility of the signal sent from external actors is the main denominator whether a coup will be attempted.70 This line of reasoning suggests a bargaining framework to explain civil war onset or coup attempts.71 I believe that a bargaining framework is a rather inadequate framework to explain the onset of civil wars and coups. These intrastate events often involve multiple actors that are seldom acknowledged or recognized as legitimate actors by the state (e.g., rebel leaders or rebel groups) and therefore rarely obtain a seat at the negotiation table.72 For example, when two states are on the brink of war, communication runs through formal chains of command with special representatives from both sides. In such a setting, the bargaining framework accurately captures all possible outcomes, and predicts that both states strive towards their preferable outcome which creates a bargaining range of mutually acceptable outcomes.73 In contrast, coups are orchestrated in secrecy and lack any process of negotiations between coup plotters and the incumbent government. The absence of two negotiation players rules out any form of a bargaining framework to explain the occurrence of these events.74 Rather, we can infer that coup plotters make a decision on the basis of the credibility of the threat, not to strike a deal with the government to arrange a mutually acceptable agreement. This might occur in the aftermath of a coup when it fails, then a mutual acceptable agreement is very appealing for the coup plotters to negotiate a safe passage. The coup outcome, however, is not the subject of discussion in this thesis. In other words, intergovernmental relations affect interstate bargaining not intrastate bargaining. In sum, relevant for the theoretical framework of this thesis is that rational choice explains the importance of the credibility of the threat as main indicator whether a coup will be staged, not to determine the preferable outcome between both parties.
67 Thyne (2009). 68 Gartzke (2003). 69 Thyne (2011). 70 See for example Jervis (1988) or Fearon and Laitin (1996). 71 Morrow (1989), Thyne (2006) and Powell (1999). 72 Autesserre (2009). 73 Fearon and Laitin (2003). 74 A bargaining framework is inadequate to explain the onset of coups and to a lesser extent to civil war onset. If a coup fails, negotiations often take place to arrange a peaceful settlement between the coup plotters and the government. In this stage of the coup, a bargaining framework is useful to predict coup outcomes. This stage of the coup is however not the focal point of this thesis and is therefore neglected in the theoretical framework. 15
In relation to rational choice, the credibility of the signal shapes the expected effect of the signal on the coup plotters decision to stage a coup. According to rational expectations, coup plotters respond not only to contemporary circumstances but also to expectations for future events. In other words, coup plotters extrapolate the past and present course of state relations to the future to predict future behavior from external actors when a coup will be attempted. Rational expectations therefore enable coup plotters to infer current and future behavior of external actor’s. For example, the continuum of hostile signals from the US, the UK and Belgium to Lumumba’s government of the Congo, allowed Mobutu to realize that the Western governments opted for regime change due to Lumumba’s sympathizes with the Soviet Union. As a result, Mobutu rightfully anticipated that the Western governments would support a coup against Lumumba, to curb Soviet expansionism in central Africa. This example clearly illustrates the hostile positions of external actors which was signaled in a predictable manner prior to the coup. Mobutu’s final decision to stage a coup and to claim absolute power came as no surprise. The costly signals imposed on Congo – economic sanctions and troop mobilizations – created the perfect environment for Mobutu to stage a coup. One could argue that without the role of external actors it was rather unlikely that Mobutu would have been able to execute a coup. The effect of the cost-benefit analysis of costly signals resulted in rational behavior from Mobutu to stage a coup is outlined in table 1. Interstate relations affect the probability of a possible coup because they signal information about an external actor’s likelihood of supporting either the coup plotters or the government to repel a coup when it is underway.75 From a coup plotters point of view, signals must enjoy a certain level of commitment from the signaler to convince the coup plotter to perceive the signal as credible before they launch a coup. A signal that lacks any credibility would not convince a coup plotter to execute a coup. To scrutinize the effect of a variety of signals from international actors on coup risk enables us to better understand how international signaling influences the likelihood of coup attempts. The credibility of the signal is of vital importance to the coup plotters. To treat signals as an aggregate of all signals sent by external actors, leaves us unable to infer any conclusions regarding the degree of credibility of the signals. To improve our understanding of signals and coup risk, requires a disaggregated analyses of the various signals sent by external actors. In other words, a disaggregated approach results in a detailed analysis of how variations in hostile signals influence the likelihood of coups in Africa. In order to assess the credibility of a signal, Thyne distinguishes signals between ‘cheap’ and ‘costly’ signals.76 Cheap hostile signals can be defined as “day-to-day communications across borders that come with little costs to the signaling state”.77 These can be characterized as verbal criticism in terms of public statements of an incumbent government or the withdrawal of a high level diplomat. Other examples are the closure of an embassy or threats to sanction the recipient state.78 According to Fearon, “these signals are cheap because they do not require significant investments to reinforce a country position”.79 In this regard, cheap hostile signals lack the assurance of future support from foreign governments if a coup were attempted due to its uncertain signal if it sides with the government or potential coup plotters.80 This is the main difference between cheap and costly signals. Both signals have destabilizing effects on regime stability, but cheap signals are less ‘costly’ for the signaler to reflect its position. Costly signals reflect the clear and direct position from the external actor and bear an expensive cost to initiate and preserve.81 In addition, costly signals are more transparent and stable over time as observable flows of information from one country to another. To illustrate, military disputes - which can be observed as troop mobilizations - and economic sanctions can be defined as
75 Thyne (2006, 2011). 76 Thyne (2006) pp.939-940. 77 Thyne (2009) pp.27. 78 Thyne (2009). 79 Fearon (1997). 80 Thyne (2009). 81 Thyne (2010). 16 costly signals, because these are financially expensive and transparent. Costly signals are largely perceived as credible signals because they have a stronger impact on the targeted country and reflect a higher level of commitment of the signaler due to the real costs it brings along.82 The following section will provide a more detailed description of each hostile signal – MID’s, sanctions and cheap hostile signals.
Table 1. Decision making process of staging a coup. Source: Thyne (2011).83 ______Perceived probability of coup success (P) ______Low High ______Anticipated benefits of Low (-) Potential gain: low (-) Potential gain: low staging a successful coup (-) Interstate signals: supportive (+) Interstate signals: hostile (-) Prediction: low probability of (+/-) Prediction: moderate coup attempts probability of coup attempts ______High (+) Potential gain: high (+) Potential gain: high (+) Interstate signals: hostile (+) Interstate signals: hostile (+/-) Prediction: moderate (+) Prediction: high probability of probability of coup attempts coup attempts
Figure 3 reflects the expected effect of signaling theory in a rationalist framework on coup risk. The figure simultaneously shows different degrees of hostile signals.
Figure 3. Variation in coups 1. Low (Cheap) High (Costly) Hostile signals Public statements of Military interstate Credibility condemnation, disputes (MID’s), closure of embassy sanctions
Low probability of a Medium probability coup of a coup
0. 0. Coup risk 1.
82 For example, if the US imposes economic sanctions on Nigeria will result in economic loss for American investments in the region and are therefore classified as a costly hostile signal to the Nigerian government. 83 Thyne (2011) pp.450. 17
3.3 Indicators of hostile signals: MID’s, sanctions and cheap hostile signals
The previous section outlined the general expectations how hostile signals from external actors impact the likelihood of coups in the recipient country. This section provides a detailed description to operationalize the indicators of hostile signals: MID’s, sanctions and cheap hostile signals. The descriptive analysis ends with a formulated hypotheses for each indicator. Before I discuss the different hostile signals, I turn to a methodological issue for clarification purposes. A quantitative analysis to assess the effect of external actors on coups raises a methodological issue. The clandestine nature of coups and its violation of international law to illegally overthrow a foreign government, stimulates external actors to keep their involvement secret with the possibilities of false accusations of complicity by international condemnation.84 As a result, most interactions occur through obscure flows of information through cables or face to face meetings between foreign government officials and coup plotters. Such a dataset is of course not available to academics. Consequently, a quantitative analysis is restricted to observable transparent indicators of interstate relations on coup risk. These indicators are MID’s, sanctions and cheap hostile signals and will explained in the following section.
3.3.1 Military interstate disputes (MID’s)
The first indicator used by Thyne to operationalize costly signals are MID’s. Thyne defines a military interstate dispute (MID) as “an international interaction involving a threat, display, use of military force, or war”.85 Importantly, “these interactions are explicit, overt and authorized by the government and illuminate transparency to the international community”.86 Thyne uses two variations of MID indicators in his model. The first MID indicator contains the total number of MID’s a country is engaged in, by any state during each state-year.87 The second MID indicator is restricted to neighboring countries only.88 It seems plausible that when political instability rises in a country, neighboring countries become more involved than peripheral states to influence the political situation to a desired outcome. For example, following this argument, we expect Angola to be more actively involved than Kenya when political instability rises in South-Africa. According to Thyne, MID’s accurately capture costly hostile signals because they compel the signaling state to engage in financial and political investments to credibly signal its stance.89 Recent events in Africa clearly illustrate this logic. Since the late 2000’s, Rwanda, Tanzania, Zambia and Angola hosted several conferences to discuss the political instability in the Democratic Republic of the Congo (DRC). Because Joseph Kabila’s ambitions to remain in power for a third term in office can result in destabilizing effects to neighboring countries. As a result, these African countries mobilized troops along the DRC’s border and threatened to intervene if the political situation further deteriorates. Following Thyne’s argument, a coup is mostly likely to occur if this situation results into a MID, when signals become costly to maintain stability within Congolese politics. The underlying logic entails that coup plotters judge these signals as credible and calculate potential foreign support if a coup were attempted against the Kabila government. This expectation results in the following two hypotheses:
H1a: Military interstate disputes with all countries increase the likelihood of a coup. H1b: Military interstate disputes with neighboring countries increase the likelihood of a coup.
84 David (1986). 85 Thyne (2007) pp.94. 86 Thyne (2007, 2010), Gochman and Moaz (1984). 87 Thyne (2006, 2007). 88 Thyne (2010). 89 Thyne (2006, 2010). 18
3.3.2 Sanctions
The second indicator to operationalize hostile signals are sanctions. In contrast to MID’s, are sanctions a frequent used tool in international politics to stimulate political change in foreign countries.90 Over time, the international community witnessed a substantial increase of the scope and frequency of sanctions imposed on foreign governments.91 Sanctions are often imposed when a targeted regime violates international law, with a clear intent to destabilize the executive to revise or revoke certain policies and conform to international standards of government.92 The general assumption is that sanctions eventually can result in the overthrow of an incumbent regime. Indeed, as argued by Robert Pape, regime change can be the principal reason of those implementing the sanctions.93 This line of reasoning clearly puts forward that sanctions share a clear purpose, namely a deliberate instrument to push for regime change as a desirable outcome. Thus, as argued by Pape, sanctions can be an effective policy to remove a head of state of a specific country.94 This argument is consistent with Marinov’s conclusion that sanctions are a highly efficient method to undermine foreign governments.95 Other research corroborates this finding and proclaims that the effect of sanctions is most effective when implemented against internal instable regimes which lack democratic institutions and suffer economic backwardness.96 Escriba-Folch and Wright, for instance show that international sanctions have destabilizing effects on regimes in Africa. The authors proclaim a conditional effect of international sanctions mediated by regime type in the target country.97 Accordingly, there exists a causal relationship between international sanctions and the destabilization of authoritarian regimes.98 Because personal regimes are more susceptible to the deprivation of foreign assistance to fund their security units and their cronies who ensure the political survival of the regime. The majority of African regimes build supporting coalitions whose loyalty is largely dependent on financial compensation and political privileges provided by the incumbent regime. In order to maintain the loyalty of these groups requires a constant allocation of benefits to the coalition. Central in the literature is that a decrease in the government’s budget as a result of international sanctions increases the likelihood of a coup or an insurgency because the incumbent loses the backing of the coalition which protects him.99 If political developments take such a course of action the economic payoff to the coalition can be higher under an alternative regime, which triggers the potential support for a coup. More specifically, and particular in authoritarian regimes, political factions will remain loyal to the regime if the payoff from supporting the ruler exceeds the expected payoff of a risky coup plot.100 Political leaders of these regimes are more likely to be destabilized by sanctions than leaders of other regimes. Consequently, sanctions increase the probability of a legal or illegal course of regime change through coups or an insurgency. As a result, international sanctions shape the vulnerability of the regime and produce rational incentives for political actors to defect. For example, western countries effectively destabilized the government of Idi Amin in Uganda by imposing economic sanctions through a boycott on coffee exports for obtaining foreign exchange. According to Escriba-Folch and Wright, Amin relied too heavily on foreign exchange to fund his patronage, who protected his regime. Eventually Amin was ousted in 1979 by Tanzanian forces. It would be an overstatement to claim that the economic sanctions resulted in Amin’s downfall. Nevertheless, one could argue that the economic sanctions brought Uganda in economic turmoil which
90 Escriba-Folch & Wright (2010). 91 Escriba-Folch & Wright (2010). 92 Escriba-Folch & Wright (2010). 93 Pape (1997). 94 Pape (1997), Powell et al. (2016). 95 Marinov (2005). 96 Lam (1990). 97 Lam (1990). 98 Escriba-Folch and Wright (2010). 99 O’Kane (1981). 100 Escriba-Folch and Wright (2010). 19 made it impossible for Amin to finance the forces who protected him. Despite the fact that Amin was ousted through a foreign intervention, the economic sanctions clearly signaled the weakness of the regime, constrained its resources and maneuverability, subverted its support and empowered opponents of the regime.101 In sum, the dependence on external resources makes authoritarian regimes vulnerable to international sanctions because it undermines the conditional support of coalition forces to protect the regime. A reduction in the revenues of external resources decreases the maneuverability of the incumbent to maintain his clientelist network which safeguards the political survival of the regime and increases the expected utility from defection of the former. This expectation results in the following hypothesis: H1c: Economic sanctions increase the likelihood of a coup.
3.3.3 Cheap hostile signals
The third indicator to operationalize hostile signals are cheap hostile signals. The literature is quite decisive that costly signals have a stronger effect on coup risk than cheap signals. Nevertheless, in a similar view, cheap hostile signals have destabilizing effects on foreign governments. These include day-to-day interactions and occur therefore more frequently than costly signals which exhibit more rare events. For this reason, a considerable amount of information is captured by cheap signals. Though these are rather unpredictable over time, and acquire limited explanatory power compared to costly signals, they nonetheless provide useful information.102 Cheap signals include statements of criticism and accusations or threats to another government.103 An African government which faces fierce criticism on its policies from the international community, may be an incentive for potential coup plotters to detect and expose the regime’s vulnerability. Regime vulnerability enables coup plotters to organize and execute a coup conspiracy.104 Potential coup leaders could utilize a political situation wherein the incumbent regime encounters criticism to alter the status quo in their advantage.105 External threats offer a window of opportunity for coup leaders, because they can rely on a potential alley if a coup were attempted. Cheap signals therefore may play in important role for coup plotters to estimate the probability of future support from external actors. At the very least, cheap signals will contribute to the coup plotters perception of staging a successful coup due to the increased support which resonates through public statements from external actors.106 In sum, although cheap signals bear less weight than costly signals in their credibility it makes a coup a likely prospect. This results in the fourth hypothesis:
H1d: Cheap hostile signals increase the likelihood of a coup.
The estimation of the relationship between hostile signals and coup attempts is captured by the following model:
Coup attempt i = xi + β1 MID’s with all countries + β2 MID’s with neighbors + β3 Sanctions + β4 Cheap hostile signals + βj xj + εij
101 Kirshner (1997), Escriba-Folch and Wright (2010). 102 Thyne (2006, 2009). 103 Thyne (2006). 104 Luttwak (2016). 105 Tansey (2016). 106 Thyne (2009). 20
3.3.4 Control variables
The traditional coup literature discussed earlier shows significant results of structural factors on coup risk. In order to control for the effect of these variables we must explicitly measure them in the analysis. To avoid omitted bias, I will include these variables as controls in the analysis. The literature found strong effects of regime instability, democracy, authoritarian regime, military regime and GDP per capita. These variables will be extensively discussed in the case study section, so I surpass them here.
Figure 4. Expected effect of hostile signals on coup probability (P) an African state Expected effect of hostile signals on coup risk 20 18 16 14 12 10
8 Coup risk Coup 6 4 2 0 Hostile signals Cheap signals MID's all MID's neighbors Sanctions
21
3.5 Interstate relations and coup risk
This section applies the theoretical framework described above to interstate relations and their expected effect on coup risk in Africa. Here I focus primarily on the aggregated influence of the US, Russia, China, France and the UK in three spheres: military interstate disputes (MID’s), sanctions and cheap hostile signals. The purpose of this approach is to examine a linkage between these three spheres and coup risk in Africa. Numerous studies have been published discussing the effect of P5 military and humanitarian interventions on coups and civil wars. A systematic inquiry to assess the impact of P5 and African interstate relations on coups in Africa is rather unspecified. The following sections discusses interstate relations between P5 countries and Africa. To reiterate, P5 countries are the five permanent member states of the United Nations Security Council: the United States, the United Kingdom, France, Russia and China.
In the contemporary world is the US the sole superpower in the international system and most heavily engaged off all great powers in economic, political and military relations with Africa.107 The US offers the largest military and financial aid programs, deploys numerous personnel on the ground and is the superpower with most significant trading relations for African countries.108109 The existence of these relationships between the US and African countries proves that the US have both economic and strategic interests in the continent. For instance, Africa is an important consuming market for US exports and are allowed access to strategic military bases to carry out military operations and gather intelligence in the war on terror.110 Similar to the other P5 member states, Russia’s historical linkage with Africa is an eminent feature of its contemporary relations with the continent. Despite the fact that Russia never obtained colonies in Africa like the UK or France, it nevertheless acted as a powerful actor during the Cold War and is experiencing a resurrection of influence in African politics under Vladimir Putin. In the early 1950’s and 1960’s the Soviets sympathized with socialist insurgencies and regimes all over the world in the struggle for independence. Together with African leaders the Soviets introduced the period of the cold war as an era which marked the collapse of the western colonial system of imperialism and emphasized its proactive role of supporting developing countries in their anti-colonial struggle.111 The Soviets therefore sent a clear signal to other western states and national capitalist movements: socialist regimes had the unconditional support of the Soviet-Union. Although geostrategic countries like Egypt and Ethiopia could count on immediate assistance when necessary, it nevertheless empowered socialist regimes elsewhere in Africa against potential coups or revolutions. Moscow’s support of Abdel Nasser’s Egypt in 1956 during the Suez crisis, bolstered his regime and enabled Nasser to control the canal. Other bilateral relations with Ghana and Somalia successfully ensured the political survival of Kwame Nkrumah and Siad Barre, respectively. As observed by David, the Soviet Union was aware that the only way pro-Soviet governments came to power in the developing world was through means of political violence and the coup became a frequent instrument of regime change among African countries.112 The following countries aligned with the Soviet Union after a coup occurred: Benin (1972), Egypt (1952), Somalia (1969), Ethiopia (1974) and Sudan (1969). David concludes that the majority of these coups installed a government which would protect Soviet interests in the region and expand the Soviet empire in return for financial and militarily assistance.113
107 Mearsheimer (2001), Bienen (1969). 108 Bienen (1969). 109 Noteworthy is the increasing activity of China in East and West Africa. It is not unlikely that China will become the most heavily engaged superpower in this region of the African continent. For now I will consider the US as the most influential superpower of Africa. 110 The US has unlimited access to Robertsfield airport near Monrovia, Liberia to carry out military operations. Especially during the conflict with Libya, the airport served as a focal point to support US operations to monitor Gadhafi’s forces. 111 20th Congress of the Soviet party (1956). 112 David (1986). 113 David (1986). 22
Similar patterns occur between the US and African states. Previous pro-Soviet African states turned to the US following a coup: Algeria (1965), Ghana (1966), Mali (1968) and Sudan (1971). Together with the US, the Soviet Union maintains a wide range of strategic, economic and political interests in Africa. These interest vary from access and establishment of military bases to launch military operations, control mineral resources, to prevent other rival powers to gain influence and foremost the traditional desire of cold war policies to expend its influence in the developing world.114 In order to maintain a high level of influence in African politics are countries like the US or Russia dependent on the ideology of the new regime and its policies. The superpowers therefore have a rational incentive in determining the outcome of a coup – pro-American or pro-Russian – because a coup is the most frequently used method for such regimes to emerge.115 These regimes could then be used to threaten or actually launch coups against other African leaders who consider to move away from American or Russian sphere of influence. For instance, the Soviet Union supported coups in Ethiopia and Angola to install pro-soviet regimes and to refrain the US to gain influence in these countries.116 In Angola, the Soviets imposed economic sanctions on UNITA117forces and engaged in severe military disputes with Angolan forces which eventually resulted in the victory of the MPLA118 who broadly embraced socialist ideology. One of the leading figures of the MPLA movement and current president of Angola José Eduardo Dos Santos studied in the Soviet Union and enjoyed military training in the 1960’s. In Ethiopia the Soviet Union continuously send hostile signals towards the pro-Western emperor Haile Selassie, which varied from initial economic sanctions to troop mobilizations along the Ethiopian border. The fierce anti-American Ethiopian Colonel Mengistu believed the time was ripe to stage a coup because he anticipated Soviet support if the coup were successful. Mengistu successfully overthrew Haile Selassie in 1974 and received significant military support from the Soviets to bolster his regime.119 Other examples of profound Soviet involvement were the large scale operations orchestrated with the Cubans who launched several coups against pro-Western African leaders. The Cubans conducted massive operations in Libya, Ethiopia, Congo, Benin, Angola, Sierra Leone, Uganda and Equatorial Guinea.120 Conversely, Anwar Sadat of Egypt emerged as the most pro-Western leader of the Arab world due political efforts in the Camp David accords and established strong relations with the US. Consequently, the US continually send supportive signals to the Sadat government as a sign of friendship which reflected a clear message that the US would support Sadat against a possible coup or other hostilities. As a result, during Sadat’s reign from 1970 until his assassination in 1981 not a single coup was attempted against his regime. This case implies that the lack of hostile signals from a P5 country makes it less appealing for coup plotters to stage a coup because they realize the US will undoubtedly sent in reinforcements to protect Sadat. According to David, the Soviet Union successfully encouraged, assisted and consolidated coups which held Lenist-Marxist beliefs, while not directly organizing the coups themselves.121 Even though China played a less decisive role in Africa during the cold war than the other P5 countries, it nevertheless emerged as key player in Africa due to immense investments, high import ratios of African goods and ongoing purchases of tremendous areas of land.122 The emergence of China as a protagonist in the region opened up a debate whether China will follow similar policy patterns to
114 David (1986, 1991). 115 David (1986). 116 David (1986). 117 The national union for total independence of Angola, led by Jonas Savimbi enjoyed great support of the West. 118 People’s movement for the liberation of Angola. In contrast, to UNITA, MPLA proclaimed a socialist ideology and enjoyed massive support from the Soviet Union. 119 David (1986), puts forward an in-depth analysis why Mengistu had rational incentives to stage a coup. David’s conclusion entails that the Soviets continually sent hostile signals to the emperor of Ethiopia to destabilize his regime and to trigger a pro-Soviet coup. He supports his argument with evidence, that immediate after the coup, the Soviet bloc congratulated Mengistu with his victory and was assured of Soviet troop deployment in Ethiopia at his disposal. 120 David (1986, 1991). 121 David (1986). 122 Holsag (2011). 23 opt for regime change as the other P5 countries in Africa. Recent research reveals a rather pragmatic approach from Beijing to changing political situations to optimize cooperation with any regime, whether pro-Western or pro-Russian.123 In a qualitative analysis of China’s reaction to five successful coups in Africa, Holslag portrays Beijing foreign policy as rather adaptive to political changes as an alternative to the more proactive policies of the other P5 countries which is primarily aimed to shape the political context in African countries.124 Indeed, further evidence demonstrates that China presents itself as a needful economic partner to whoever is in charge. Therefore adopting a rather realistic approach which clearly deviates from the more idealistic and static approaches from the other P5 countries. Nevertheless, China has the political and military power to exercise influence on African countries due to its characteristics as an indispensable economic power for the African continent in general. China is therefore a strong potential signaler along with the other P5 countries to shape a hostile or supportive political climate in African countries. It is namely this climate which shapes the likelihood of a coup against an incumbent African regime. In sum, hostile interstate relations between the superpowers and African states increases the probability of a coup. The case studies presented above show that superpowers and several African states played a pivotal role in inciting coups all over the continent by destabilizing foreign governments and sending military equipment to coup plotters to stimulate a successful ouster of government. To reiterate, the general argument put forward in this thesis asserts that hostile signals from superpowers or other African states increase coup plotters perceived probability of success.125 The support of foreign powers provides the coup plotters with an advantage over the incumbent government in solidifying power once the coup is attempted by sending reinforcements and suspend foreign aid to undermine the functioning of the state apparatus to deter coup attempts.126
123 Holslag (2011). 124 Holslag (2011). 125 Thyne (2011). 126 Thyne (2011). 24
4. Research design
This section outlines the research design of this study. I begin to discuss the data used in this study and simultaneously explain the method of logistic regression in terms of a logit panel model to run the analysis. Then, I outline the research method following a nested analysis research design. Next, I will discuss the variables and measurement of the theoretical model. Finally, I mention several limitations of the study.
4.1 Data
This thesis builds on Thyne’s empirical model for a quantitative test of the hypotheses.127 The unit of analysis is the country-year for African countries from 1945 to 1999. This study uses quantitative international relations as annual observations in the international system.128 These observations are aggregated into a yearly average of conflictual/cooperative relations between states in the international system. International events data therefore provide a useful method in a quantitative form to incorporate international relations into the coup literature.129 On the basis of a quantitative model of international relations we can assess the effect of state interactions on coup risk. In other words, the model estimates the effect of the yearly average of hostile signals an African country receives on coup risk. The dataset used in this study, is a merged dataset which comprises two datasets to attain the variables of the theoretical model. The first data set is an events data set developed by Clayton Thyne, which captures the explanatory variables: MID’s, sanctions and cheap hostile signals. The second data set is developed by Jonathan Powell and contains the dependent and control variables: coup attempt and regime instability, democracy, authoritarian regime, military regime and GDP per capita, respectively.130 The binary outcome of the dependent variable, 0 = no coup attempt, 1 = coup attempt, as a function of hostile signals, makes a logistic regression analysis a suitable method to test the hypotheses. It is important to note that the used dataset contains panel data. Panel data consist of longitudinal data of repeated observations on the same subjects, measured at more points in time.131 Since the analysis is concerned with panel data with a dichotomous dependent variable we can use conditional logit/fixed effects logit models. A logistic regression analysis has several advantages over other methods of regression analysis. First, it is more robust: it does not require a normal distribution of the independent variables or the dependent variable. Second, it does not demand a linear relationship between the independent and dependent variable. Third, there is no assumption of homogeneity of variance assumption. Since the variables of the model lack these assumptions, makes a conditional logit regression an appropriate method. In addition, the variables contain substantial data to achieve reliable, meaningful results for generalization. Finally, the analysis tests the annual cumulative effect of MID’s, sanctions and cheap hostile signals on coup attempts in Africa between 1945 and 1999. The following section outlines the research method of this study.
127 Thyne developed an empirical model to test the effect of interstate relations on civil war onset. 128 King and Lowe (2003). 129 Goldstein (1992). 130 The links to both datasets are included in the appendix. 131 Stata https://stats.idre.ucla.edu/stata/dae/mixed-effects-logistic-regression/ 25
4.2 Nested analysis research design
In order to test to test the hypotheses, I use a unified mixed method analysis as put forward by Lieberman, which he defines as a ‘nested analysis’.132 A nested analysis combines a statistical analysis of a large sample of cases (quantitative) with an in-depth case study within the large sample (qualitative). Following Lieberman, I first run a statistical analysis of a large sample of cases followed with an in-depth case research within the large sample. The large sample of cases (LNA) can be defined as “a mode of analysis in which the primary causal inferences are derived from statistical analysis which eventually lead to a quantitative estimates of the robustness of the formulated theoretical model”.133 Lieberman defines the in-depth case research (SNA) as “a mode of analysis in which causal inferences derived from the LNA are scrutinized from qualitative analysis of a specific case in which the relationship between theory and facts is captured in a rather narrative form”.134 The purpose of this unified analysis is to improve the degree of conceptualization and measurement and whether the central findings are corroborated in both modes of research. The advantage of a nested research design is that LNA and SNA are complementary, by uniting both findings of analysis. Because, LNA provides insights of other explanations and assists in case selection strategies for SNA, whereas SNA increases the quality of measurement instruments and model specifications used in LNA.135 The first step of the analysis is a preliminary LNA to assess the robustness of those results. Next, if my theoretical model is well specified and results are robust, I proceed to test my SNA, if not, model building will be the final step, as outlined in Lieberman’s methodological scheme.136 The purpose of the nested analysis is to make inferences about the unit of analysis that is shared between the two types of analysis: country-periods.137 When we arrive at the SNA analysis, requires a shift of level of analysis since we are interested in within-case processes and variation. Following Lieberman’s methodological schism, the SNA analysis offers two options for further analysis. The first entails model-testing (Mt-SNA), when scholars are content with the specification and the fit of the model specified in the LNA.138 The other side of the spectrum proscribes model-building (Mb- SNA), when the theory is initially weak or not supported by the LNA.139 The scientific difference between both SNA’s is that Mt-SNA demands a deductive approach, whereas Mb-SNA requires a more inductive approach.In addition, the SNA is particular useful when to examine alternative explanations when we cannot, with certainty infer a causal relationship between the hypothesized effect(s).140 In order words, if the LNA finds no support for the hypothesized relationship, we must reexamine alternative explanations to adjust the theoretical model. In sum, the nested analysis as outlined by Lieberman has two advantages to explain complex social phenomena. First, the LNA defines the subsequent segment of the analysis: model testing or model building. In the case of model testing, the results are complemented by case study to improve the confidence findings of generalizable results. In the case of model building, forces the scholar to reexamine alternative explanation to account for the unexplained outcome. Both segments improve our understanding of social phenomena by testing or building applicable frameworks.
132 Lieberman (2005). 133 Lieberman (2005). 134 Lieberman (2005). 135 Lieberman (2005). 136 Lieberman (2005). See pp.437-438; Figure 1. 137 Lieberman (2005). 138 Lieberman (2005). 139 Lieberman (2005). 140 Lieberman (2005). 26
4.3 Variables of the theoretical model
This section discusses each variable of the theoretical model and concludes with an overview of the variables depicted in table 2. To reiterate, the theoretical expectation holds that hostile signals shape the political situation which coup plotters analyse on the basis of rational choice theory whether to stage a coup. Hostile signals sent from external actors – P5 states and African countries – have a direct effect on the decision making process of the coup plotters. The argument illustrated in the previous sections results in three expectations. First, MID’s increase the likelihood of a coup (hypothesis 1a and 1b). Second, sanctions imposed on an African country increase the likelihood of a coup (hypothesis 1c). Third, cheap hostile signals increase the likelihood of a coup (hypothesis 1d). While controlling for other influences, the theory predicts that an increase of hostile signals have a pronounced impact on coup risk in African countries.
4.3.1 Dependent variable
The dependent variable – coup attempt – follows the definition proposed by Thyne and Powell: “attempts by elite actors of the state apparatus to overthrow the incumbent of a country in order to seize the executive power”.141 Coup attempts is therefore a dichotomous variable that accounts for whether or not at least one coup was attempted in a specific year. Hence, the variable is coded 1 for each country-year in which a coup attempt occurred and 0 otherwise. For example, Ethiopia suffered a coup on September 5, 1974 and is therefore coded as 1 in the dataset.
4.3.2 Independent variables
The explanatory variable of the model is the degree of hostile signals sent from external actors to an African country. The degree of hostile signals shape a favorable climate for coup plotters to stage a successful coup against the incumbent. The independent variable: hostile signals comprises the following indicators: military disputes, sanctions and cheap hostile signals. The literature predicts that military disputes have the strongest effect on coup risk followed by sanctions and cheap hostile signals, respectively, see figure 4 depicted below. The following paragraphs briefly discuss the indicators in the sequence of postulated hypotheses (H1a-H1d).
First indicator: MID’s
The first indicator (H1a and H1b) to operationalize costly signals are military interstate disputes (MID’s).This indictor is considered costly because it bears considerable costs for the signaler and is rather constant over time. The MID between Libya and the US accompanied troop mobilizations on behalf of the US which absorbs a sizable part of the US defense budget. According to the theory, a coup attempt most likely to occur in a situation when a country is involved in severe military disputes with other countries. The underlying logic asserts that MID’s demand high investments of the signaler to reinforce its position. Hypothesis 1a predict that the sum of military disputes (MID’s all) increase the probability of a coup. This variable is a continuous variable with a scale from 0 to 14. Where 0 reflects the lowest value and 14 the highest value of military disputes. Hypothesis 1b predicts that when countries are engaged in military disputes with neighboring states, increases the likelihood of a coup. This is measured as binary variable where countries which face a military dispute with a neighboring country (MID’s with neighboring state) are coded 1 and 0 when they are not engaged in a MID with a neighboring state. In order to support the first two hypothesis we must observe a positive significant coefficient. This implies that an increase of military disputes increases the likelihood of a coup in an African country.
141 Thyne and Powell (2011). 27
Second indicator: sanctions
The second indicator (H1c) to operationalize a costly signal are sanctions imposed on a specific African country. Similar to military disputes, are sanctions transparent and readily observable. The theoretical expectation yields that imposed sanctions on a single African country reveals a clear signal that the signaler might support a potential coup against the incumbent. The flow of sanctions from one country to another functions as a viable proxy for interstate disputes which shapes a ‘coup friendly’ environment. By establishing strong hostile international relations by imposing sanctions the signaler(s) might stimulate a potential coup. Sanctions is a binary variable which is coded 1 if a country faces sanctions imposed by an external actor and 0 if it does not face sanctions. In order to support this hypothesis we must observe a positive significant coefficient.
Third indicator: cheap hostile signals
The fourth hypothesis predicts that cheap hostile signals increase the likelihood of coups. Thyne measured cheap hostile signals as a yearly average of the sum of all cheap hostile signals a country receives. This measure results in an aggregated annual average of conflict/cooperation value between African countries. This aggregation reflects a single yearly value ranging from -10 (most conflictual) to +8.3 (most cooperative) for the mean of cheap hostile signals received by each state from 1945 to 1999.142 For example, we can derive from the data set that the cheap hostile signals Burundi received in 1974 accumulated to -2.32 and Tanzania in 1974 accumulated to +3.3. Following the theory outlined in this thesis, we would we expect that Burundi is more prone to experience a coup than Tanzania due the higher value of hostile signals it received. We should observe a positive and significant coefficient for this variable to support hypothesis 1d. Table 2 depicts an overview of the theoretical model.
Table 2. Overview of variables of the theoretical model. Hypothesis Independent Indicators Dependent variable Indicators (H0) variable (x) (x1, x2, x3, x4) (y) Hostile signals Hostile signals - Military interstate Coup attempt Any elite who is increase the disputes (MID’s) part of the state likelihood of a coup with all countries apparatus who - MID’s with attempts to neighboring overthrow the countries chief executive - Sanctions (Powell & Thyne, - Cheap signals 2011).
4.4 Limitations
In a perfect world we would be able to assess the impact of a specific international signal on coup risk in a single African country.143 Then, we would be able to analyse each signal sent by scrutinizing the nature of the signal in terms of financial, economic or militaristic support from country x to country y The available data is insufficient to develop such a direct measure to calculate the impact of the signal. With unlimited data and ‘all others things being equal’ we would be able to calculate the precise effect of hostile signals on coup risk between two specific countries: the country which sent the signal and the country which receives the signal. Since we do not in life in a perfect world, due to the two reasons mentioned above, we are restricted – at least in this thesis – to an aggregated analysis of the cumulative effect of each signal sent by international actors to a recipient country to estimate an average effect on coup risk.
142 Thyne (2006, 2010). 143 Thyne (2010). 28
5. Data analysis
5.1 Descriptive statistics
This section discusses the results of the LNA to test the hypotheses in this thesis in the sequence of descriptive statistics, binary analysis and multivariate analysis. Table 4 depicts the descriptive statistics of all variables of the theoretical model. I will briefly discuss the relevant values of each variable. To reiterate, this thesis attempts to explain the patterns of regime change over time in Africa through coup attempts as a function of military disputes, sanctions and cheap hostile signals. The dependent variable, coup attempts (N=2075)144, shows an average of 0.07 (SE=0.25) with a possible outcome between 0 (no coup attempt) and 1 (coup attempt). The mean value of 0.07 reflects the average number of coup attempts of the sum of African country years between 1945 and 1999. The first independent variable, military interstate disputes (MID’s) with all countries in the world (N=1675), shows an average of 0.17 (SE=0.17) on a scale from 0 till 4, 0 implies most cooperative interstate relations whereas 4 implicates most conflictual interstate relations for each unit. The mean value of 0.17 indicates the average number of MID’s with all countries in the world, African countries are engaged in of the sum of African country years between 1945 and 1999. The second independent variable, MID’s with neighboring countries (N=1880), shows an average of 0.24 (SE=0.47), and a dichotomous outcome of 0 (no MID’s) and 1 (MID’s). The mean value of 0.24 indicates the average of MID’s with neighboring countries, African countries are engaged in of the sum of African country years between 1945 and 1999. The third independent variable, sanctions (N=1880) shows an average of 0.04 (SE=0.20), and a binary outcome of 0 (no sanctions) and 1 (sanctions). The mean value of 0.04 implicates the average number of sanctions African countries received from the international community of the sum of African country years between 1945 and 1999. The fourth independent variable, cheap hostile signals (N=1431) and a mean value of 0.08 (SE=1.65) on a scale from -10 till +8.3. Whereas -10 indicates most conflictual interstate relations and +8.3 implies most cooperative interstate relations. The mean value of 0.08 implies the average of international signals African countries receive from the international community of the sum of African country years between 1945 and 1999.
Table 3. Descriptive statistics of all variables of the model Observations Mean Standard Minimum Maximum (N) deviation
Coup attempts 2075 0.07 0.25 0 1
MID’s with all countries 1675 0.17 0.46 0 4
MID’s with neighbouring 1880 0.24 0.43 0 1 countries
Sanctions 1880 0.04 0.20 0 1
Cheap hostile signals 1431 0.08 1.65 -10 +8.3
144 Country years 29
5.2 Bivariate analysis
This section discusses the bivariate analysis of the model by analyzing the results of table 4 and 5. Table 4 provides information about the correlations between the variables, whereas table 5 actually tests the hypotheses of this thesis. Table 4 depicts the correlations between all variables of the analysis. From table 4 we can derive that none of the variables correlate significant with each other. Therefore, it serves no purpose to discuss the weak correlations between the variables. The main expectation of this thesis holds that hostile signals increase the likelihood of a coup attempt in an African country. Hostile signals are compressed by four indicators: MID’s with all countries, MID’s with neighboring countries, sanctions and cheap hostile signals. Each variable is run separately to avoid problems of multicollinearity between the independent variables and then combined in model 5. For example, model 1 tests the direct effect of MID’s on coup attempts. Model 1a includes the control variables to avoid omitted variable bias and tests whether the effect of MID’s on coup attempts changes. However, since the inclusion of the control variables have no significant effect on the independent variables I see no purpose to discuss them separately. The first hypothesis predicts that the MID’s with all countries in the world an African country is engaged in, should increase the likelihood of a coup attempt. This hypothesis is tested in model 1 depicted in table 5. Model 1 shows a weak negative insignificant relationship between MID’s with all countries and coup attempts (β=-0.06|p>0.1).Despite an insignificant relationship between the variables, it is noteworthy to mention the direction of the effect. In contrast to the theoretical expectation, MID’s with all countries, has a slight negative effect on coup attempts. This implies, that if, the effect was significant, countries who are engaged in MID’s with all countries are less prone to face a coup than countries who are not. In other words, MID’s with all countries seems an insignificant predictor of coup attempts. In contrast to Thyne’s findings of MID’s explanatory power of coup attempts in Latin-America, does model 1 not provide further evidence of a similar effect in Africa. To conclude, on the basis of model we do not find support for the first hypothesis. The second hypothesis predicts that MID’s with neighboring countries increases the probability of a coup. This hypothesis is tested in model 2, depicted in table 5. Model 2 shows a weak negative insignificant relationship between MID’s with neighboring countries and coup attempts (β=- 0.13|p>0.1). Again, the direction of the effect does not correspond with the theoretical expectation. Namely, countries who are engaged in MID’s with neighboring countries are less prone to experience a coup than countries who are not. Hence, MID’s with neighboring countries appears to be an insignificant proxy for coup attempts in Africa. In sum, model 2 finds no support for the second hypothesis. The third hypothesis predicts that when African countries face sanctions it is more likely to trigger a coup attempt. This hypothesis is tested in model 3 pictured in table 5. Similar to the previous two indicators, model 3 shows a weak negative insignificant relationship between sanctions and coup attempts (β=-0.60|p>0.1). Besides the insignificant relationship, the direction of the effect is rather surprising, since considerable research found strong positive effects of sanctions on coup attempts. Because, sanctions are associated with economic backwardness, it is indirectly linked to macro level conditions of economic performance which is mentioned as a strong proxy for both coup attempts and civil war onset.145 In addition, the literature regarding the effectiveness of MID’s as a reliable indicator on coups is rather scarce, which is understandable due to its insignificance in both model 1 and 2. Similar to MID’s, the direction of the effect does not correspond with the theoretical expectation and foremost is close to zero with a p-value far above any standard level of significance. To conclude, sanctions is unlikely acting as a predictor for coup attempts. As a result, model 3 does not support the third hypothesis. The fourth hypothesis predicts that cheap hostile signals increase the likelihood of a coup in an African country. This hypothesis is tested in model 4 of table 5.Model 4 shows a weak positive insignificant relationship between cheap hostile signals and coup attempts (β=0.04|p>0.1). In contrast
145 Escriba-Folch and Wright (2010), Lam (1990). 30 to the three previous indicators, model 4 shows a weak positive effect of cheap hostile signals which is consistent with the theory, although the coefficient is practically zero. This implies, if the effect was significant, countries which receive cheap hostile signals from international actors are more prone for a possible coup attempt. Instead, the insignificant effect of cheap hostile signals indicates a weak proxy to explain the variation in coup attempts. Conclusively, the findings of model 4 show no support for the fourth hypothesis. In sum, the bivariate analysis of model 1, 2, 3 and 4 finds no significant support for the hypothesis 1, 2, 3 and 4. Table 4 and 5 indicate neither correlation nor causation between the variables of the model. Furthermore, only the direction of the effect of the fourth hypothesis is consistent with the theoretical expectation. The direction of the first three hypotheses does not correspond with the theory outlined in this thesis. The following section will discuss the multivariate analysis which includes all explanatory variables and controls.
Table 4. Correlations of all variables of the analysis. Coup attempt MID’s with all MID’s with Sanctions Cheap hostile Countries neighboring signals Countries
Coup attempt -
MID’s with all 0.009 - countries
MID’s with neigh- -0.004 0.54 - boring countries
Sanctions -0.04 0.09 0.06 -
Cheap hostile 0.026 -0.09 -0.08 -0.16 - Signals
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5.3 Multivariate analysis
This section will discuss the multivariate results of model 5 which includes the four explanatory variables and five control variables depicted in table 5. The multivariate results shows several statistical changes compared to the bivariate results. First, MID’s with all countries, MID’s with neighboring countries and sanctions remain insignificant predictors to explain coup attempts with p-values ranging from 0.24 to 0.42, which are far above the standard levels of significance (0.05 and 0.1). Noteworthy, is the change of the direction of the effect of MID’s with all countries from negative (-0.06) to positive (0.25). This means that if the effect was significant, countries that are engaged in MID’s with all countries are more likely to face a coup attempt. Furthermore, the marginal effects of these indicators slightly increase in comparison to the bivariate models. The direction of the effect of MID’s with neighboring countries and sanctions remains the same. Second, salient of model 5 is that the fourth indicator – cheap hostile signals – becomes significant when we include the remaining variables in the model (β=0.12|p<0.1). The direction of the effect remains positive and is consistent with the theoretical expectation. Namely, when an African country consistently receives cheap hostile signals over time from external actors it is more susceptible for a coup attempt. The case of Libya provides an example of this process. Since Muammar Gadhafi claimed power through a military coup in 1969 he consequently implemented anti-Western policies. Features of his policies against imperialist governance of the West, Qaddafi quickly closed all British and American military bases in Libya – which were of significant strategic importance to the West during the cold war – nationalist western-owned property, became a strong supporter of Sharia-law in the Arab countries and supported Nasser in his pan-Arab crusade. These policies antagonized the West and evoked severe hostile interstate relations with Western governments. As a result, Western countries and later African countries as well, multilaterally closed their embassies in Libya and terminated several trade and international agreements. Although Gadhafi was eventually overthrown by a civil war and not a coup, cheap hostile signals nevertheless serve as a reliable indicator for the countries turmoil, as showed by Thyne.146 Third, several control variables remain largely consistent with previous findings.147 The LNA produces significant effects of GDP per capita, military regime and instability. Finally, the models themselves produce a poor fit overall. The potential improvement of the goodness of fit after including the control variables. Although the only variable that increases significantly is cheap hostile signals, the other variables become stronger. This suggests that cheap hostile signals as the single significant predictor of coup attempts is the solely candidate for future research to explain coup attempts in Africa or elsewhere. In this line, the multivariate analysis finds no support for the first three hypotheses. Contrary, with a significant standard of 0.1, model 5 produces support for the fourth hypothesis: cheap hostile signals have a significant effect on coup attempts in Africa. The preliminary LNA suggests to temper the optimism that transnational dimensions are reliable indicators for coup risk. Past findings of constant macro level conditions may be more appropriate indicators to account for coup attempts as we can derive from the significance of the control variables as shown in model 5 in table 5. For now we observe a general non-relationship between hostile signals and coup attempts in Africa. Therefore, we proceed with a case study to explain this non-relationship more generally.
146 Thyne (2006, 2010). 147 Belkin and Schofer (2003, 2005), Powell (2012). 32
Table 5. Logistic regression analysis: the effect of hostile signals on the probability of a coup. M1 M1a M2 M2a M3 M3a M4 M4a M5 ______MID’s with all countries -0.06 -0.09 0.25 (0.22) (0.25) (0.32) MID’s with neighboring -0.13 -0.26 0.19 countries (0.24) (0.27) (0.35)
Sanctions -0.60 -0.82 -0.75 (0.63) (0.63) (0.63) Cheap hostile signals 0.04 0.12* 0.12* (0.07) (0.07) (0.07) Controls Instability 0.44* 0.45* 0.43 0.43 0.42 (0.25) (0.24) (0.25) (0.27) (0.28) Democracy 0.55 0.58 0.55 0.24 0.22 (0.39) (0.39) (0.39) (0.47) (0.47) Authoritarian -0.28 -0.29 -0.25 -0.54* -0.54* (0.25) (0.25) (0.25) (0.27) (0.27) GDP/Capita -0.52** -0.52** -0.54** -0.47** -0.50** (0.18) (0.18) (0.19) (0.20) (0.21) Military regime 1.78** 1.77** 1.79** 1.86** 1.89** (0.22) (0.22) (0.22) (0.24) (0.24) Constant 0.54 0.62 0.72 0.28 0.51 (1.34) (1.34) (1.36) (1.47) (1.51) Observations 1599 1512 1798 1512 1798 1512 1363 1268 1268 ______*Significant at 0.10. **Significant at 0.05
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5.4 SNA Model building
Up to this point, I conducted a preliminary large-N analysis (LNA) which resulted in non-robust and unsatisfactory results. On the basis of the insignificant coefficients estimates we can conclude a poor fit between the theoretical model and the empirical data. This suggests a weak theory to address the variation in coup attempts in Africa. The notion of model building implies a more wide-ranging and inductive approach of the Mb-SNA.148 In other words, a subsequent case study must develop well specified theoretical accounts to explain the variation in coup attempts. In this regard, alternative explanations ought to be used to develop reliable indicators within the theoretical model.149 A reexamination of rival explanations may find an adequate piece to the puzzle. The next step of the nested analysis is an in-depth case study (SNA) to explain a non-relationship more generally of the hypothesized relationship. This segment of the nested analysis proclaims alternative explanations to explain a non-coup outcome. According to Lieberman, this line of research proceeds with process tracing, linking cause and effect to a significant narrative.150 In sum, the preliminary LNA shows that the indicators of hostile signals do not hold any explanatory weight to account for the variation in coup attempts in Africa. Moreover, the absence of an adequate model to explain the variation of the empirical data proceeds in developing alternative explanations within a single case.
5.5 Case selection
The nested analysis provides methodological strategies regarding case selection on the basis of the LNA findings. One of the strategies proposed by Lieberman is to select a case when the scholar already has a predisposition towards a specific case prior to the preliminary LNA.151 The knowledge of the scholar about a particular case can leverage the accumulation of case relevant skills and background information to conduct an in-depth case study. Following this approach, we can select a case based on predicted and actual scores on the dependent and independent variable to explain a non-relationship more generally of the theoretical model.152 The segment of Model building of the nested analysis prescribes to select a case that has not been well predicted by the best-fitting statistical model. This approach forces the scholar to analyse a case that is inadequately explained by the variables included in the preliminary LNA. Elaborating on the preliminary results of the LNA, the selection process is based on initial scores on the dependent variable. The lack of a good theoretical model forces the scholar to explain important variation on the outcome.153 King et al., highlight the importance of this basic rule by stating “selection should allow for the possibility of at least some variation on the dependent variable”.154 For this reason I deliberately included both scores on the dependent variable – coup attempt and no coup attempt – to explain the likelihood of a coup as a function of hostile signals. Ideally, ‘off-the-line’ or ‘on-the-line’ cases provide a useful tool to select a particular case for the second step in the nested analysis. Since a strong model is absent and hence the regression line, I am forced to choose a case randomly or deliberately. However, since we are in the segment of model building we should avoid random selection, which can result in a weak theory and an inappropriate case. In this regard, the nested analysis allows the researcher to identify the particular information of interest to collect from a specific case. In order to assess the potential added value of such analysis to the general theory used in this study.155 This results in deliberate case selection of ‘off-the-line’ cases.
148 Lieberman (2005). 149 Lieberman (2005). 150 Lieberman (2005). 151 Lieberman (2005). 152 Lieberman (2005). 153 Lieberman (2005). 154 King, Keohane and Verba (1994). 155 Lieberman (2005). 34
In sum, the LNA does not support the hypothesized effect of hostile signals, operationalized by MID’s, sanctions and cheap hostile signals to explain the variation in coup attempts in Africa between 1945 and 1999. Consequently I proceed inductively to generate explanations to explain the variation in coup attempts through deliberate case selection. To use the terminology of Lieberman, the case of Libya is clearly ‘off the line’. Libya is off the line because the high scores of the explanatory variables fail to explain the expected outcome: a coup. The presence of MID’s, sanctions and cheap hostile signals but a non-coup outcome, make Libya a case of particular interest. In the case of Libya, the theory predicts that the hostile signals the country received over time should increase the probability of a coup against the Qaddafi government. The case study of Libya examines the specific actions of individuals and groups in order to find evidence why the patterns of human behavior and political actions did not result in a coup.
35
6. Case evidence of Libya and alternative explanations
The purpose of this case study is to show a non-relationship between hostile signals and coup risk more generally. This section discusses alternative explanations to account for the unexpected non-coup outcome in Libya in 2011. This section proceeds as follows. First, I apply Thyne’s model of signaling theory in the context of Libya to show why external actors played a minor role in coup plotters decision making process. Second, due to the unsatisfying results of these interstate explanations, I then shift the focus on intrastate explanations to address the piece of the puzzle. Third, since both interstate and intrastate explanations partly explain Libya’s non-coup outcome, requires an additional explanation to address the final piece of the puzzle: coup-proofing techniques. For clarity, it is not the purpose to explain the Libyan revolution nor the NATO intervention of 2011. Rather, to find alternative explanations to account for the non-coup outcome in Libya.
6.1 Libya and interstate relations
This section applies Thyne’s theory of hostile signals to the case of Libya during Qaddafi’s reign from 1969 until 2011. The purpose of this section is to show a non-relationship between hostile signals and coup risk more generally by an in-depth examination of Libyan politics. Although several examples clearly illustrate Thyne’s theory, it nevertheless appears inadequate to explain Libya’s non-coup outcome. The theory, to a certain extent, captures the deliberate intentions of foreign powers to promote a coup through the means of hostile signals. Despite the amount of hostile signals the Libyan government received over time, it appeared indecisive to trigger a coup. Colonel Muammar Qaddafi seized power through a military coup in 1969 and ruled Libya with an iron fist until his regime was toppled during a revolution in 2011. Due to its substantial oil resources, Qaddafi established a disproportionate powerful military apparatus to pursue an interventionist foreign policy and to ensure the political survival of his regime.156 Qaddafi interfered in domestic affairs of numerous African countries by providing either financial or military support to allied regimes or organized clandestine operations to support insurgencies.157 Qaddafi’s ultimate goals were to liberate Africa from imperialism like colonialism and apartheid, isolate Israel and promote Islam.158 According to Western analysts, Qaddafi’s unchristian policies highly destabilized the African region by deliberately supporting coups and insurgencies. In other words, the case of Libya clearly fits all three indicators of hostile signals it received from external actors.
First in regard to MID’s, Libya unilaterally invaded Chad in 1983 on the basis of territorial demands on the Aouzou strip to fall under Libyan sovereignty. According to the West, this MID was the result of Libyan aggression based on ungrounded claims to revise the ratified treaty of 1935 which proclaimed the Aouzou strip to be part of Chad. France, and the US in particular, were in no mood to consent with Libyan’s territorial claims and its hegemonic ambitions in North-Africa. As a result, Chad’s president received immense support from Western governments to repel Libyan forces from its territory in 1987. Second, regarding sanctions, Qaddafi proclaimed himself as a revolutionary world leader which droves his ambition to become a regional hegemon. This outspoken desire spread fear among the governments of Egypt and Sudan, who both responded with isolationistic policies towards Libya to halt Qadaffi’s expansionism. The countries plead for a boycott against the Libyan economy to force Qaddafi to withdraw his troops. Significant were the international sanctions imposed on Libya after fierce accusations of Libya’s involvement in the Lockerbie bombing of 1988. The US prohibited bilateral and
156 Huliaras (2001). 157 Oye Ogunbadejo (1986). 158 Hularies (2001). 36 multilateral transactions that would benefit the Libyan government.159 Shortly after, the US accused Libya of manufacturing chemical weapons and engaged in a MID in the Gulf of Syrte, where the US navy destroyed to Libyan fighter jets. In addition, the Libyan bombing of West-Berlin nightclub in 1986, provoked an American air raid on Tripoli and Benghazi for retaliation purposes. The Ford and Carter administration progressively extended the arms, technology and trade embargoes. This series of events paved the way for an economic boycott by the US advocating a freeze of Libyan assets in the US. Moreover, the Iran-Libya Sanctions Act (ILSA) of 1996 refrained foreign investments in Libya oil and gas sectors.160 The passing of UN resolution 731 in March 1992 banned all commercial flights to Libya and imposed an arms embargo on the country. The lack of Qaddafi’s cooperation resulted in UN resolution 883 of December 1993, which extended the sanctions already in effect. In contrast to Qaddafi’s expectation, the Arab League unanimously enforced the sanctions imposed by the UN which clearly signaled their hostile position towards Libya.161 Third, in relation to cheap hostile signals, Qaddafi provoked fierce international condemnation of his domestic policies and aggressive behavior. To deliberate support terrorist movements and secessionist insurgencies. For example, Charles Taylor, leader of the National Patriotic Front of Liberia (NPFL) and Foday Sankoh, leader of the Revolutionary United Front (RUF) of Sierra Leone, were trained in Libya to start rebellions against their Western-backed governments. Another example shows accumulating evidence of Libyan’s support of the Irish Republican Army (IRA) in Northern-Ireland against its fight against the British government and its assistance to the African National Congress (ANC) in its struggle for independence. Salient was Libya’s extreme support of Palestine. When Egypt recognized Israel in 1979, Qaddafi singled out Egypt as a special target for insurgency attacks. As a consequence, Qaddafi publically backed Palestinian terrorist groups prior to the foundation of Hamas in 1987. His pro-Palestine attitude adopted such proportions that Qaddafi build large training camps on Libyan soil to oppose any settlement with Israel and to run his pan-Arab mission. As a result, the Reagan administration closed the American embassy in Tripoli, citing Qaddafi’s support for international terrorism.162 In sum, Libya’s proactive foreign policy destabilized North-Africa and his deliberate support of illegal insurgencies undermined Western interests and provoked fierce reactions from foreign government against the Qaddafi government.
6.1.1 US-Libya relations
The extreme hostile relations between the US and Libya deserve special attention due to its unique relationship and profound effect on Libyan politics. Edward Schumacher for instance puts it this way “if the ouster of Qaddafi has not been the administration’s [US] avowed goal, it clearly has become a virtual obsession”. This assertion follows logically from a cabinet statement of 1986, where Schultz states “if a coup takes place, that is all to the good”.163 In Washington the outspoken belief prevailed that dealing with Qaddafi, the US would lead the Western World to neutralize promoters of international terrorism. In particular, the US did not refrain from advocating regime change in countries it accused of supporting movements of international terrorism. The US considered Qaddafi as the symbol of these movements and believed it to be necessary to remove him from power to curb the threat of international terrorism.164 A bulk of reliable sources proclaim that the US, and especially the CIA, became increasingly obsessed with overthrowing Qaddafi and subsequently shaped its foreign policy accordingly: efforts to persuade other countries in sending hostile signals to Libya, to eventually ‘smoke’ Qaddafi out.165
159 Huliaras (2001). 160 Huliaras (2001). 161 Huliaras (2001). 162 Schumacher (1986), Zoubir (2006). 163 Schumacher (1986). 164 Huliaras (2001). 165 Schumacher (1986). 37
According to Schumacher, “the Reagan administration has since continued to apply more subtle military and covert pressure in hopes of provoking a Libyan coup”.166 According to the memoranda of Reagan’s national security adviser John Poindexter, the US administration continuously sponsored a disinformation campaign to exaggerate disinformation of internal dissent and opposition to unsettle Qadaffi.167 Several analysts argue that Washington, and especially the CIA coordinated systematic efforts to support Libyan exiles and dissents to destabilize the Libyan government by shaping a favorable climate for a coup. In a congressional testimony in 2000 US ambassador Ronald Neumann concluded: “US policy and policy goals vis-à-vis Libya have remained consistent through three administrations, and a regional intervention is clearly on the table”.168 In the 1980’s there even emerged voices in the Libyan army of high ranking officers that the increasing hostilities of France, the US, Tunisia, Chad and Egypt jeopardized the coherence and stability within the army. Most of these officers went through military training in the West and questioned the high costs of these hostilities in terms of lives and money.
6.1.2 Critique on Thyne’s theory
Insofar, Libya meets all three conditions of hostile signals as outlined by Thyne’s model: MID’s, sanctions and cheap hostile signals. Following Thyne’s theory, Libya seemed the perfect candidate to experience a coup. In reality, a coup attempt remained absent during Qaddafi’s period in power. Before we turn to alternative explanations to explain the non-coup outcome, I address a possible flaw in Thyne’s theory and in the progressive coup literature in general. A further analysis of Libya might explain why a coup did not occur. A plausible explanation might be the absence of a certain threshold of hostile signals a country must receive to predict the onset of a coup. Although Libya received substantial hostile signals over time, these were only send by a limited amount of countries, which appeared to be indecisive to trigger a coup against the government. In the aftermath of the Cold War, a vast bulk of Sub-Saharan African countries adopted a more pro-Libyan attitude which diminished the effect of hostile signals.169 In addition, China and Russia showed reluctant to interfere with the Libyan case and adopted a more neutral stance. This evidence implies that the Western dominated alliance against Libya was unable to shift the balance of power in their advantage. As a result, Libya maintained powerful allies (e.g., South- Africa and Nigeria) whom ensured the political survival of the Qaddafi regime. More importantly, despite the multilateral sanctions imposed on Libya, its economy was far from strangled.170 The country was still allowed to sell all its oil and import other commodities and consumer goods. This evidence demands a certain threshold which specifies both the quantity and the quality of the hostile signal to be decisive. Quantitative in terms of a minimum amount of countries which must be involved in sending the hostile signal. Qualitative in relation of the nature and the degree of the signal to determine its impact and which countries sends the signal. For instance, a hostile signal send from the P5 countries to a recipient country has a stronger impact than a hostile signals from several minor African states. In sum, the absence of a clear demarcation in Thyne’s theory of a minimum amount of hostile signals a country must receive to experience a coup could be the underlying reason why Qaddafi remained immune to coups. To include such a threshold would increase the theory’s falsifiability and hence its explanatory power. A second flaw in the international politics literature is the contradictory effect of hostile signals. In contrast to the general expectation in this thesis, isolationistic policies imposed on a recipient country can favor the incumbent’s reputation domestically.171 This is exactly what happened in Libya. According to Huliaras, “the international sanctions had the perverse effect of bolstering the
166 Schumacher (1986) pp.335. 167 Foreign Affairs (1986). 168 St John (2008). 169 Huliaras (2001). 170 Schumacher (1986). 171 Hularias (2001). 38 domestic image of Qadafi in Libya”.172 He continues, “the Libyan leader skilfully manipulated the stand- off with the UN to rally popular support”.173 Qaddafi’s charismatic personality enabled him to attribute the countries isolation and poor economic performance to Western imperialism. As one observer noticed, “inside Libya, Qaddafi overcame what many around him said was a state of depression”.174 Qaddafi even publicly denounced Western predictions of a coup against his government while watching a military parade to display his power.175 Hularius analysis is consistent with Schumacher’s proclamation that Western intentions to provoke a coup, “proved to have the opposite immediate effect of strengthening him (Qaddafi) vis-à-vis his rivals inside the government”.176 Hence, a reexamination of the theoretical effect may offer a narrower specification of what degree of which signals produces a specific effect, rather than a general expected outcome of domestic instability. To conclude, if we link the long record of foreign actors efforts of military (MID’s), economic (sanctions), diplomatic (cheap hostile signals) and covert pressures to Thyne’s theory of hostile signaling, we must observe a coup outcome according to the theory. Since, Libya’s political situation resulted in a non-coup outcome, alternative explanations may offer more fruitful insights to explain the course of action of Libyan politics and its eventual non-coup outcome.
6.2 Alternative explanations: Structural factors in Libyan society
This section focuses on alternative explanations, by relying on structural domestic factors to explain the non-coup outcome of Libya. Insofar, international factors offered unsatisfying results to address the non-coup outcome. The general argument postulated in this thesis advocates a shift from intrastate conditions to interstate conditions to explain the variation in coup attempts. In both methods of analysis, interstate conditions appeared to bear no explanatory power to explain the variation of interest in this thesis. As a result, a reexamination of intrastate conditions might offer more fruitful insights. The general argument made in the literature concerned with intrastate conditions, entails that a coup prerequisites several preconditions before one is attempted. Although several studies differ in terminology and prioritizing the relevance of each condition, the literature is quite consistent regarding one coherent set of indicators as a framework of intrastate conditions. This implies that when these preconditions are absent, it is unlikely a coup will be attempted. To use the terminology of O’Kane, Belkin and Schofer, “the general underlying causes of coups lies in the existence of objective preconditions that promote them”.177 We can postulate the following objective preconditions: economic performance, the strength of civil society, regime legitimacy and whether a country experienced a recent coup. Not surprisingly, one of the most important government responsibilities is economic performance.178 According to O’Kane, economic stability and growth are the backbone of each society and when this sector deteriorates usually forms the basis for accusations of incompetence and corruption, which in most cases precedes a coup attempt. The general notion of economic performance comprises several indicators: unemployment rate, GDP per capita, poverty and exports- imports rates. In sum, poor economic performance create grievances among the general public and foster accusations of mismanagement, incompetence and corruption which in turn promotes a coup. A second set of indicators refers to structural attributes of government, society, political culture and state society-relations as outlined by De Bruin, Powell, Belkin and Schofer.179 The structural
172 Huliaras (2001) pp.19. 173 Huliaras (2001) pp.19. 174 Schumacher (1986). 175 Huliaras (2001). 176 Schumacher (1986) pp.336. 177 O’Kane (1984) pp.289. Belkin and Schofer (2003, 2005). 178 O’Kane (1984). 179 De Bruin (2017), Powell (2012), Belkin and Schofer (2003, 2005). 39 factors of society are shaped by the strength of civil society, regime legitimacy and the past history of coups.180 These factors are deeply embedded in the political system and society and are constant over time. The first component, strength of civil society, is measured by voluntary non-state organizations, such as political parties, trade unions and voluntary associations. These institutions are powerful actors in society who are decisive in the coups outcome since they control the masses and therefore can back or obstruct a coup once it is underway.181 Following this logic, non-institutionalized societies bear greater risk to suffer a coup.182 The second component legitimacy, builds on the acceptance of the general public whether the incumbent regimes has a monopoly to make rules. The third component recent coups, entails whether a country experienced a coup in the past.183 The following paragraphs discuss each factor in the sequence mentioned above.
6.2.1 Economic performance
During its peak in 2010, the Libyan economy generated $75 billion of gross domestic product (GDP) and an average annual per capita income of $12,250.184 The UN Human Development Report 2010, ranked Libya as the most advanced and wealthiest country in Africa and 53rd on the world ranking scale. However, a broader perspective to analyse Libya’s economic performance from 1969 to 2011, results in a less optimistic view. The sanctions imposed on Libya brought a significant blow to its economy. The boycott of Libya’s primary imports and exports together with Qaddafi’s domestic policies dropped its oil revenue to a historical low point. Since the oil export produced 90 percent of Libya’s GDP, the economy resulted in turmoil. For example, labor migrants from Angola and Morocco flooded the labor market and a structural shortage of food and consumer goods resulted in massive unemployment. The government’s budget deficit resulted in massive salary cuts and welfare benefits. Unavoidably, the country’s economic crisis produced fertile grounds for grievances and hence accusations of incompetence and corruption. In sum, if we apply the first critical objective precondition of economic performance to the Libyan economy, we can conclude that despite a peak in this sector in 2010, the Libyan economy was in crisis for most of Qaddafi’s rule. And unavoidable resulted in deep rooted grievances among the general public. In addition, Qaddafi’s bold economic policies and ruthless dictatorship further antagonized Libyan citizens. The constant stagnation of oil prices and shortages of food and consumer goods in combination with immense arms purchases and inflation, diminished Qaddafi’s popularity and led to accusations of mismanagement and lack of leadership. Libya’s poor economic performance increased the country’s structural coup risk.
6.2.2 Strength of civil society
In the midst of the Arab spring in 2011, mass demonstration in Egypt and Tunisia spread to Libya were thousands of ant-regime protestors clashed with Libyan security forces.185 It appeared that Libyan society reached its boiling point after forty-two years of authoritarian rule under Colonel Qaddafi. During this period the authoritarian regime deprived Libyans of their fundamental rights, to deny freedom of speech, press freedom, political activity and social equality.186 The regime’s increasing radicalism reached its height in the 1980’and 90’s and made daily life for the average Libyan even more chaotic.187 The regime abolished the first four years of elementary school, closed high schools,
180 Belkin and Schofer (2003). 181 Belkin and Schofer (2003). 182 Belkin and Schofer (2003). 183 Belkin and Schofer (2003, 2005). 184 House of Commons Foreign Affairs Section (2017). See full report: https://www.publications.parliament.uk/pa/cm201617/cmselect/cmfaff/119/119.pdf 185 Capasso (2013). 186 Schumacher (1986). 187 Schumacher (1986). 40 international study programs were ended and obliged military training for citizens above eighteen.188 Moreover, the proliferation of the Revolutionary Committees in all facets of society fostered widespread public antipathy.189 The non-existence of voluntary associations like trade unions and political parties to articulate public demands and critique against the government further contributed to the general discontent in Libyan society. According to various UN reports, fundamental human rights remained largely absent by state repression of civil society. The Libyan government systematically deprived Libyans of their freedom of assembly and expression, membership of voluntary associations, denied plural political representation and prohibited trade unions.190 The repressive apparatus in society led to the arrests and executes of thousands of citizens without prior trials. As Schumacher puts it, “Qaddafi’s authoritarian regime jailed thousands of dissidents, where torture seems a daily practice”.191 In sum, Libya is characterized as non-institutional society where the average Libyan lacks any form of institutional representation to articulate its concerns. Libya’s weak civic society increased the country’s structural coup risk
6.2.3 Regime legitimacy
The sanctions imposed on Libya in combination with increasing hostilities with external actors discredited Qaddafi’s credibility among the general public. As a direct consequence of American bombings, border hostilities and economic sanctions, made Libyans doubt whether Qaddafi was the rightful leader of their nation. Discontent among the general public intensified when Qaddafi seemed incapable to protect the Libyan population from internal and external threats. The Green Booklet published by the regime after the coup in 1969, proclaimed that the defense of Libyan’s borders was a collective responsibility of all Libyans. The lack of security, economic recess, penetration of revolutionary committees in civil society and abstention to fundamental rights, resulted that parts of society denounced Qaddafi as their leader. The authoritarian regime together with its corruption and increasingly radical policies diminished the level of legitimacy among the general public. Qaddafi’s grip on power relied heavily on the Revolutionary Council (RC) and its radical committees which suppressed any form of citizen activity. In sum, Libya’s increasing instability due to external threats and economic decline crumbled the legitimacy of the Qaddafi regime. Qaddafi’s lack of legitimacy increased the country’s structural coup risk.
6.2.4 Recent coups
Qaddafi’s distrust of the regular army was a product of four coup attempts staged by military officers after 1975.192 In regard to the political and economic instability as described above, the armed forces articulated similar critique as the Libyan citizens. Military leaders rightly concluded that legal regime change through general elections were out of the question, since Qaddafi already selected his eldest son Islam-Alsaif as heir to the presidency. A military coup remained the solely option to oust Qaddafi from power. The armed forces organized four (failed) coup attempts in 1983, 1984, 1985 and 1993. All coup attempts were crushed by Qaddafi’s loyal forces. As a result, Qaddafi reinforced the Revolutionary Guard Corps (RGC), rather than the military to suppress any future popular or Islamist uprising. Libya’s history of coups further increased the country’s structural coup risk.
Overall, Libya’s poor economic performance, weak civil society, lack of legitimacy and history of coups constituted a high structural coup risk in Libyan society. Following the traditional coup literature, the presence of all four objective preconditions make Libya a suitable candidate to experience a coup.
188 Schumacher (1986). 189 Schumacher (1986). 190 United Nations, Human Development Report 2010, Human Rights Watch, World Report 2011: Libya. 191 Schumacher (1986) pp.342. 192 Gaub (2013). 41
6.3 Three forms of political violence: Coups, revolutions and civil wars
Since both interstate and intrastate conditions fail to explain Libya’s non-coup outcome, deserves a brief remark regarding the outcome both theories attempt to explain. In theory and in reality, theories about civil war onset, revolutions and coups overlap considerably. In the sense that the theoretical model of each social phenomenon share great similarities. The coup literature draws heavily on conceptual indicators used in the civil war literature to explain coup attempts, and vice versa. As noticed by Belkin and Schofer, “in one form or another, coup risk plays an important role in prominent theories of war, revolution and democratization”. For instance, Thyne’s signaling theory was initially designed to explain civil war onset. Consequently, Thyne applied this similar model to explain coup attempts in Latin-America.193 In a similar light, Alexander Anievas explains revolutions as a function of international relations.194 Thus, these studies actually explain different outcomes – coups, civil wars or revolutions – while using a similar set of indicators. In other words, the majority of these studies utilizes a vast set of variables which they select on the basis of their preference (intrastate or interstate conditions or both) to explain the outcome of interest – coups, revolutions or civil wars. More specifically, Thyne and Powell both use a similar set of explanatory variables to explain different outcomes: coups and civil war.195 A coup is just one form of political violence that can occur after internal instability. The most likely outcome of domestic instability is thus open for debate, even though each form of political violence prerequisites similar objective preconditions. If we strictly adhere to the theory central in this thesis we would expect a coup as the most logical outcome. Namely, the theory predicts that hostile signals shape a favorable climate to stage a coup since it reveals the vulnerability of the incumbent regime and predicts foreign support for a coup attempt. However, one could argue that domestic instability can provoke several outcomes. Since coups, civil wars and revolutions differ in their means and dynamics, they to a certain extent share a similar objective, which is the seizure of power. As a result, the country’s instability can led to a coup, a civil war or a revolution. In other words, hostile signals can cause one of the above and in the case of Libya the internal instability resulted in a revolution. Empirical evidence of Angola, Afghanistan, Chile and Liberia support this claim. In each case, both structural factors and hostile signals were present which constituted a structural high level of coup risk, but triggered different forms of political violence. As O’kane observes, “coups are just a particular strategy for overthrowing governments, which could likewise be achieved through revolutions or civil wars”.196 Although the means of each strategy differ substantially, their essence is similar. Skocpol argued four decades ago, the administrative and military power of the state must break down before any form of political violence can occur – whether a revolution, a civil war or a coup.197 To conclude, despite the presence of two proxy conditions of coup risk – hostile signals and structural factors – a coup attempt remained absent in the Libyan case. To account for the none-coup outcome we must include a final alternative explanation to solve the final piece of the puzzle: coup- proofing techniques.
193 Thyne (2006, 2009, 2011). 194 Anievas (2015). 195 Thyne (2010), Powell (2012). 196 O’Kane (1984).pp.288. 197 Skocpol (1979). 42
6.4 The final piece of the puzzle: Qaddafi’s efficient coup proofing techniques
This section provides the final piece of the puzzle to explain Libya’s non coup outcome, to explain why Qaddafi’s counterbalancing techniques ensured his political survival and effectively deterred coup attempts against his regime. The previous two sections revealed that all structural causes of coups were present in Libya, but coup attempts largely remained absent. Namely, the regime experienced four coup attempts who were all crushed in a preliminary stage and failed to gain momentum to pose an imminent threat to the regime. The final piece of the puzzle to explain why Qaddafi was ousted by a revolution and not by a coup was can be ascribed to his effective implemented counterbalancing strategies. This theory finds it origin in the model of Belkin and Schofer: when the level of coup risk is high – due to the presence of structural factors – and regime coup-proofing efforts are high and effective.198 More specifically, “coups are somewhat uncommon and structural causes of coups are present, but regimes implement effective coup-proofing survival strategies”.199 According to Gaub and Quinlivan, coup proofing techniques encompass a set of procedures to be effective: (1) the exploitation of individual loyalties;200 (2) creation of paramilitary structures;201 (3) establishment of security agencies which monitor the loyalty of the military;202 (4) the financing of such measures.203 The purpose of these measures is a deliberate effort to deny elite actors within the state apparatus to stage a coup. As Gaub observes, “Qaddafi logically perceived the armed forces as a potential threat since it could bring to power a group just as much as it could topple it”.204 As we will see, Qaddafi carefully implemented the coup-proofing techniques as described above to consolidate his power. First, Qaddafi’s exploited individual loyalties by founding a military body composed the twelve members of the original coup leaders of 1969 who brought Qaddafi to power. This military body constituted the Revolutionary Command Council (RCC), who are Qaddafi’s final assurance of power.205 This political council serve the sole purpose to remain in power at all costs. The members of the Revolutionary Council (RC) were generous rewarded for their loyal services to their country, each member was given a farm to control state food distribution channels to turn in profitable assets.206 For instance, armed factions who receive financial rewards lack the motivation and the ability to attempt a coup. The underlying logic asserts that soldiers are reluctant to jeopardize their favorable position if a potential coup arises.207 Second, Qaddafi created paramilitary structures within the RCC. Qaddafi replaced the hierarchy of professional well educated officers with vague militia who’s motivations were pure ideological. For example, in 1986 Qaddafi stripped the only two generals of the army of their ranks and moved the army headquarters to a remote village in the desert. Moreover, to continuously rotate the general command of the armed forces, Qaddafi effectively undermined cohesion in the military. As a consequence, he granted the RCC absolute power to protect the revolution (similar to Iran), with a mandate to neutralize potential threats to the regime. Qaddafi provided additional forces and equipment to establish several revolutionary brigades which he called the ‘revolutionary committees’. In 1979, the revolutionary committee’s military wing obtained approximately 3,000 troops and controlled the key elements of society. Several analysts observed that the Libyan government was so tightly closed with various factions loyal to Qaddafi that no single group could gain a security monopoly in a specific area.208
198 Belkin and Schofer (2003). 199 Belkin and Schofer (2003). pp.599. 200 Gaub (2013). 201 Quinlivan (1999). pp.133. 202 Quinlivan (1999). 203 Gaub (2013). 204 Gaub (2013). pp.226. 205 Schumacher (1986). 206 Capusso (2013). 207 Powell (2012). 208 Gaub (2013), Schumacher (1986). 43
Third, these committees had the sole purpose to monitor the regular army and report directly to the RCC, who in turn reported to Qaddafi. The revolutionary committees outranked all other factions in the regular army. The privileged status of the committees guaranteed full control over the armed forces. Moreover, the revolutionary committees practically infiltrated every area of strategic importance, such as neighborhoods of the large cities, government offices, police stations, airports, factories and judicial courts. For example, these loyalist soldiers held critical positions like ammunition depots which coup plotters must capture during a coup attempt. The members of these committees are loyal fanatic figures who acts as informants which makes it incredible difficult for potential coup plotters to remain unnoticed when organizing a coup. Forth, Qaddafi deliberately reserved a significant amount of the state’s budget to finance his coup-proofing policies. In 2008 the military expenditures of the armed forces amounted $2 billion dollars which equals roughly 2 percent of Libya’s GDP.209 Furthermore, in contrast to less privileged units, the 32nd Brigade of the Libyan Army, commanded by Qaddafi’s son Khamis, enjoyed considerable privileges. Soldiers underwent extensive training, received state of the art military equipment and enjoyed great respect from Qaddafi’s government. When the revolution reached Tripoli in August 2011, this brigade was the last resort for Qaddafi’s protection. Additional empirical evidence that shows Qaddafi’s extensive coup-proofing techniques, is the ineffectiveness of the regular’s army fighting capacity. As argued by Roessler, coup-proofing strategies produces a substitution effect between coup risk and military effectiveness.210 The strategies Qaddafi implemented had such impact on the military’s hierarchy, cohesion and leadership it practically became ineffective to conduct regular warfare against external threats. The effects of these policies became increasingly apparent during the military conflict with Chad in the 1980’s. The military proved incapable of coordinating troops, artillery and infantry.211 Libya finally withdrew its troops in 1987 after a nine yearlong conflict. The army’s retreat clearly shows the impact of extensive coup-proofing strategies on military effectiveness. Finally, similar to Saddam Hussein of Iraq, Qaddafi frequently abandoned his headquarters and moved around the country in an armored bus and never slept in the same place two nights in a row.212 These tactics make it increasingly difficult to organize and plan a successful coup, because the location and destination of the head of state changes constantly. In sum, these policies deliberately unsettled the hierarchy in the military and ruined any remaining chances of a military coup against the regime.213 The lack of opportunities to stage a coup is an important piece of the puzzle to account for the non- coup outcome as put forward by Belkin and Schofer.
Belkin and Schofer offer a useful explanation for the non-coup outcome in Libya by disaggregating the notion of coup risk. The authors criticize studies who treat “the opportunities for launching a military coup” equivalent to coup risk.214 They propose a distinction between opportunities to launch a military coup and coup risk as two different social phenomena which together constitute the likelihood of a coup. More specifically, a country may reflect the level of structural coup risk due to the presence of structural factors in society (e.g., poverty and illegitimate regime) but lack viable opportunities to launch a coup as a result of effective coop-proofing strategies. This theoretical distinction explains the non-coup outcome in Libya. Where Qaddafi’s counterbalancing techniques effectively hindered or deterred coups during his forty-two year rule. Following Belkin and Schofer’s, the military or other elite
209 In absolute numbers, Libya ranks five amongst the highest African countries in terms of military spending; after Algeria, Egypt, Angola and South-Africa. http://hornaffairs.com/2011/06/12/africa-top-25-military-spending-countries/ 210 Roesler (2015). 211 Gaub (2013). 212 Schumacher (1986). 213 Schumacher (1986). 214 Bekin and Schofer (2003). 44 actors within the state apparatus lacked opportunities for staging a coup, not because coup risk was low but rather because of the effectiveness of the coup-proofing techniques Qaddafi implemented.215 In sum, we can define Libya as a vulnerable regime because the country’s structural coup risk was high. Qaddafi’s coup-proofing techniques minimized a clear opportunity to stage a coup and effectively ensured the regimes survival until the revolution in 2011. In other words, Qaddafi’s ruthless policies in combination with effective coup-proofing strategies evaporated any support for a potential coup and hence the opportunity to launch a coup against his regime. We can conclude that neither the hostile signals send by foreign powers to Libya nor the structural factors of society gained momentum to trigger a coup against the Qaddafi regime. The final piece of the puzzle can therefore be found in counterbalancing theory, which in the case of the Libya bears more explanatory power that interstate and intrastate theories combined.
215 Bekin and Schofer (2003). 45
7. Conclusion and discussion
This section outlines the general results of this study and concludes with a discussion. The aim of this thesis was to scrutinize the effect of interstate relations on the likelihood of African coups. The covariation scrutinized in this thesis contains the divergence in coup attempts in Africa between 1945 and 1999. To address the variation of interest I tested a general theory of hostile signals send by external actors to African states, measured by MID’s, sanctions and cheap hostile signals. By relying on rational choice and signaling theory as a general framework of analysis, the theory predicted that hostile signals increase the probability of a coup. The hypothesized relationship between hostile signals and coup risk proved inadequate to explain the observed covariation. The theory outlined in this thesis predicts that when an African country receives hostile signals – MID’s, sanctions and cheap hostile signals – from international actors, it is more prone to face a coup. The general underlying logic of this argument asserts that these hostile signals produce a favorable climate for a coup and encourage coup plotters to take advantage of the vulnerability of the regime and potential foreign support. Both parts of the analysis – the statistical analysis (LNA) and the in-depth case study of Libya – found no support for a causal relationship between hostile signals and coup risk. As mentioned earlier, the model developed by Thyne, used identical indicators to explain the variation in coup attempts in in Latin-America. Thyne concludes, “it is also possible that the qualitative literature used to build the theory is unique to Latin America”, he continues, “an analysis of coups in Africa might uncover different mechanisms at work, or find that external actors play a very minor role in the decisions of coup plotters”.216 Apparently, there exists a certain divergence between coups in Latin-America and Africa. The divergence in coups between Africa and Latin-America has two implications. First, it appears that international dynamics in terms of hostile signals increase the likelihood of coups in Latin-America but not in Africa. Second, it seems that structural factors, such as strength of civil society, regime type, regime legitimacy and economic performance are more reliable indicators to explain the causes of African than international dynamics. In other words, intrastate conditions are more important than interstate conditions to explain the causes of coups in Africa. International actors are therefore of less influence in the decisions of coup plotters in African than in Latin-America. We have seen that both parts of analysis found support for the effect of intrastate conditions on coup onset in Africa. The plea for a shift from intrastate conditions to interstate conditions to explain the causes of coups is a bridge too far. In the defense of this study, one important remark deserves attention. The clandestine nature of the coup makes it a difficult social phenomenon to study. Especially to investigate the role of external actors in inciting illegal attempts to overthrow foreign governments. In this regard, a quantitative analysis is restricted to transparent and readily observable state interactions, such as MID’s, sanctions and cheap hostile signals. By definition, these indicators predict a general form of internal instability, rather than a causal relationship of a specific international signal and coup risk. As a result, the indicators used in this study may not be the perfect indicators to assess the impact of interstate relations on coup risk. This raises the issue of validity, since the indicators evidently capture interstate relations, but not necessarily measure hostile signals deliberately aimed to overthrow foreign governments. Several implications can be drawn for future research. First, it appeared that Thyne’s intuition is right. The effect of external actors on coups in Latin-America is not applicable to African coups and reveal other mechanisms at play which focus on domestic factors of society. Second, future research should focus primarily on structural factors to explain the causes of coups. Third, scholars who wish to further assess the impact of international dynamics on coups should develop specific expectations of the effect of external actors about coup risk in particular, rather than wider forms of political instability. For example, the absence of a certain threshold of hostile signals a country must receive to face a coup, in Thyne’s theory, leaves out clear expectations when a coup would be likely. Forth, the case study
216 Thyne (2011) pp.460. 46 showed the significant effect of coop-proofing techniques to deter coup attempts and deserves future attention. Finally, as previous research shows, the set of explanatory variables is used in a similar fashion to explain three forms of political violence: coups, revolutions and civil wars. When indicators aim to explain wider forms of political instability, each form of political violence can be a logical outcome. To conclude, despite the negative results, the analysis contributes to our general understanding of international dynamics and coups, because it provides some indication about the non-relationship. That is, international actors are of less influence in coup plotters decision making process in Africa than in Latin-America.
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Appendix
Merged dataset: Link Thyne’s dataset 2006: http://www.uky.edu/~clthyn2/research.htm Link Powell’s dataset 2012: http://www.jonathanmpowell.com/coup-detat-dataset.html
Stata Do-file
Date: June 23, 2017 Author: Tim Leenstra This do file contains the commands necessary to run the statistical analysis used in the thesis by the author. The dataset is a merged dataset of two datasets created by Clayton Thyne (2007) (Master dataset 1) and Jonathan Powell (2012) (Used only 2). Unbalanced dataset 1945-1999.
Commands: use merged dataset use "C:\Users\Tim Leenstra\Desktop\Stata Files Thesis\Merged Data Thyne-Powell.dta" (Replication data for Thyne, Clayton (2007). 'Cheap Signals...' JCR, Feb.)
* set the dataset for panel analysis xtset ccode year
** include African countries, following Gleditsch’s (2003) country codebook. keep if ccode==615 | ccode==540 | ccode==571 | ccode==439 | ccode==516 | ccode==471 | ccode==482 | ccode==483 | ccode==490 | ccode==484 | ccode==651 | ccode==411 | ccode==531 | ccode==530 | ccode==481 | ccode==420 | ccode==452 | ccode==438 | ccode==404 | ccode==437 | ccode==501 | ccode==570 | ccode==450 | ccode==620 | ccode==580 | ccode==553 | ccode==432 | ccode==590 | ccode==541 | ccode==600 | ccode==565 | ccode==436 | ccode==475 | ccode==517 | ccode==433 | ccode==451| ccode==520 | ccode==560| ccode==625 | ccode==572| ccode==510 | ccode==461 | ccode ==616 | ccode==500 | ccode==551 | ccode==511 | ccode==552
**analysis summarize attempt MID_all MID_neigh sanctions cheap_sig corr attempt MID_all MID_neigh sanctions cheap_sig
* bivariate analysis Model 1 xtlogit attempt MID_all Model 1a xtlogit attempt MID_all instab dem auth lgdppcl milreg Model 2 xtlogit attempt MID-neigh Model 2a xtlogit attempt MID_neigh instab dem auth lgdppcl milreg Model 3 xtlogit attempt sanctions Model 3a xtlogit attempt sanctions instab dem auth lgdppcl milreg Model 4 xtlogit attempt cheap_sig Model 4a xtlogit attempt cheap_sig instab dem auth lgdppcl milreg
* multivariate analysis Model 5 xtlogit attempt MID_all MID_neigh sanctions cheap_sig instab dem auth lgdppcl milreg
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