The Rise of Military Coups in Africa
Over the past five years, several African nations have experienced significant political upheavals, with military leaders taking control. Countries such as Mali, Burkina Faso, Niger, Guinea, and Gabon have all seen regime changes led by individuals in military uniforms. In 2025, Madagascar and Guinea-Bissau also faced similar situations. Benin was on the brink of joining this list in early December, but the civilian government managed to retain power.
Academic discussions about coups in Africa have identified a range of factors that contribute to these events. These include:
- Personal and institutional rifts within the armed forces
- Vulnerability to both elite manipulation and popular pressure
- Instigation by foreign powers against governments that are perceived as hostile to their interests
In my recent paper, I explored an additional question: to what extent were democratic failures a contributing factor to the coups over the past six years?
As a journalist and academic who has focused on African political and development issues since the 1970s, I have authored books such as Burkina Faso: A History of Power, Protest and Revolution. In my research, I examined the underlying shortcomings of Africa’s democracies as a major factor leading to military seizures. I focused on the recent coups in Mali, Guinea, Burkina Faso, Niger, and Gabon.
I selected these cases because each of their takeovers was carried out against elected civilian governments. In some instances, other factors beyond poor elections were at play.
The juntas in both Burkina Faso and Niger cited political defects in their elected, albeit somewhat ineffective, governments. However, they mainly blamed their predecessors for failing to suppress growing jihadist insurgencies. Insecurity was also a factor in Mali. But in Mali, Guinea, and Gabon, elections were commonly perceived as rigged or in violation of constitutional term limits. These events provoked popular opposition, prompting officers to intervene.
My main finding was that popular disappointment in elected governments was a prominent element. This established a more favorable context for officers to seize power with a measure of popular support.
This suggests that simply condemning military coups (as Africa’s regional institutions, such as the African Union and Economic Community of West African States, often do) is not enough. African activists and some policymakers have called for a step further: denouncing elected leaders who violate democratic rights or rig their systems to stay in power.
If elected leaders were better held accountable, potential coup makers would lose one of their central justifications.
Problems Beyond Rigged Polls
However, the problems go beyond rigged polls, errant elected leaders, and violated constitutions. Many African governments, whether democratic or not, struggle to meet citizens’ expectations, especially regarding improvements in daily life.
The deeper structural weaknesses of African states further hinder effective governance. As Ugandan anthropologist Mahmood Mamdani, Kenyan political scholar Ken Ochieng’ Opalo, and other African scholars have pointed out, these shortcomings include the externally oriented and fragmentary nature of the states inherited from colonial rule. These characteristics exclude many citizens from active political engagement and ensure governance by unaccountable elites.
A neoliberal model of democracy has been widely adopted in Africa since the 1990s. This model insists that democracy be tied to pro-market economic policies and significantly limit the size and activities of African states. This, in turn, hinders even well-elected governments from providing their citizens with security and services.
Conducting elections while continuing to subject African economies to the economic policy direction of the International Monetary Fund and World Bank has left them with a “choiceless democracy,” as Malawian economist Thandika Mkandawire termed it. That is, while voters may sometimes be able to change top leaders, they cannot alter basic economic policies. Such policies generally favor austerity and cutbacks over delivering jobs, education, and healthcare.
Therefore, in addition to improving the quality of democratic systems on the continent, “coup proofing” African states will also require giving greater scope to popular input into real decision-making, in both the political and economic spheres.
The Role of Popular Mobilization
This will depend primarily on Africans themselves fighting for the democracies they want. Clearing the way for them means ending the all-too-common repression of street mobilizations and alternative views that displease the ruling elites.
Support for democracy remains strong despite the flaws in Africa’s electoral systems. Surveys demonstrate continued strong support for the ideals of democracy. Many ordinary Africans are mobilizing in various ways to advance their own conceptions of democratic practice.
For example, when the Macky Sall government in Senegal used repression and unconstitutional maneuvers to try to prolong his tenure, tens of thousands mobilized in the streets in 2023-24 to block him and force an election that brought radical young oppositionists to power.
In Sudan, the community resistance committees that mobilized massively against the country’s military elites outlined an alternative vision of a people’s democracy encompassing national elections, decentralized local assemblies, and participatory citizen engagement.
Findings by the Afrobarometer research network, which has repeatedly polled tens of thousands of African citizens, provide solid grounds for hope. Surveys in 39 countries between 2021 and 2023 show that 66% of respondents still strongly preferred democracy to any alternative form of government.
For anyone committed to a democratic future for Africa, that is something to build on.
