When do civilians resist military coup attempts?

Abstract

When do ordinary civilians mobilise to resist military coup attempts? Existing literature based largely on single case studies puts forward three variables: political culture, popular support for the government, and material (economic) dependency between the government and its supporters. Finding these explanations insufficient, we first utilise existing military coup data sets and identify the universe of cases of civilian resistance (19) to military coups. Taking our next cue from social movement and mobilisation studies, we focus on mobilisation networks and leadership as possible causal conditions. We also follow the approach of searching for the causes-of-effects, working backward from the outcome of interest (civilian resistance) to look for additional causal conditions. A comparative analysis of eight positive (civilian resistance) cases shows that collective yearning for change, transformative leadership, resistance by the leadership and robust mobilisation power in the state capital and largest cities may together carry more explanatory power. Validation of evidence provided by six negative (no civilian resistance) cases indicates that while a collective desire for change and transformative leadership may set the stage for resistance, it is ‘mobilisation power’ and ‘leadership resistance’ that exert more impact on the causal process of emergence of civilian resistance to military coups d’état.

Keywords:

• Coup d’état
• civil–military relations
• populism
• civilian resistance
• transformative leadership
• democracy

Acknowledgements

The authors gratefully acknowledge valuable comments received on earlier drafts of this article by Dr Şener Aktürk and Dr Ekrem Karakoç. We thank our reviewers for taking the time and effort necessary to review the manuscript. We sincerely appreciate all comments and suggestions that helped us to improve the quality of the manuscript.

Disclosure statement

No potential conflict of interest was reported by the authors.

Notes

1 In Burkina Faso, it was the Regiment de Sécurité Présidentielle (Regiment of Presidential Security, RSP) that initiated the coup. The army sat at the fences initially.

Additional information

Notes on contributors

Ömer Aslan

Ömer Aslan is Associate Professor of International Relations at Ankara Yıldırım Beyazıt University. He is the author of The United States and Military Coups in Turkey and Pakistan – Between Conspiracy and Reality (Palgrave Macmillan, 2018). His research interests centre on comparative civil–military relations, South Asian politics, Turkish foreign policy, and terrorism and political violence. His publications have appeared in Turkish Studies, British Journal of Middle Eastern Studies, Journal of Balkan and Near Eastern Studies, Middle East Critique, Mediterranean Politics and Oxford Research Encyclopedia of Politics.

Mehmet Özkan

Mehmet Özkan is Professor of International Relations at the Joint War Institute, National Defence University in Istanbul, Turkey. He has extensive experience in academia, think tanks and government, where he worked as Executive Director of the Maarif Foundation USA in New York, founding Regional Director for the Turkish Cooperation and Coordination Agency (TIKA) in Colombia, and Director of the International Center for Terrorism and Transnational Crime (UTSAM) in Turkey. He held fellowship positions at the SETA Foundation in Ankara; the Institute for Defense and Security Analysis (IDSA), New Delhi, India; the Center for Global Policy in Washington DC, USA; and Cairo University in Egypt. After studying in Turkey, South Africa, Sweden, India and Egypt, he completed his PhD at Sevilla University, Spain, and his academic interest focusses on politics of the Global South, religion and politics, the Middle East, the Horn of Africa, Latin American politics, radicalisation, civil–military relations, foreign policy of emerging powers, development, and more specifically Turkish foreign and domestic policy. His articles have appeared, inter alia, in the Journal of Modern African Studies, Turkish Studies, Review of African Political Economy, Journal of Balkan and Near Eastern Studies, Insight Turkey, Journal of International Development, Strategic Analysis, Religions, and Journal of Muslim Minority Affairs.