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ABSTRACT
Despite being traditionally seen as the largest threat to democratization, coups have recently been argued to provide a window of opportunity for a democratic transition. Central to post-coup democratization is the belief that the international community can exert sufficient leverage to coerce coup-born governments to allow a transition to civilian rule. We contribute to this young body of work by theorizing that less coercive aspects of transnational economics can prompt coup-born governments to voluntarily transition to civilian rule. In short, we argue that coups in states that are more closely tied to the international economy through trade dependence, and are more vulnerable to loss of investor confidence due to reliance on high contract intensiveness, will see coup-born governments attempt to legitimize a new government and to restore confidence in the rule of law by swiftly stepping down. A cross-national assessment of over 200 coups from 1950 to 2010 provides strong support for the argument, as trade dependence and contract intensive money are far stronger determinants of post-coup democratization than other factors commonly associated with democratization.
Disclosure statement
No potential conflict of interest was reported by the authors.
Notes on contributors
Mwita Chacha is an Assistant Professor in the Department of Political Science and International Relations at Nazarbayev University, Astana, Kazakhstan. His research examines the regional integration processes and the impact of economic interdependence on domestic security and conflict. His recent publications have appeared in Conflict Management and Peace Science and Journal of Peace Research.
Jonathan Powell is an Assistant Professor in the Department of Political Science at the University of Central Florida. Specializing in comparative politics and international relations, his research explores the role civil–military relations in conflict processes and political transitions. His work has been especially focused on the causes and consequences of coups d’état, and has appeared in outlets such as the Journal of Conflict Resolution and Journal of Peace Research.
Notes
1. Goemans, Gleditsch, and Chiozza, “Introducing Archigos”; and Powell and Thyne, “Global Instances of Coups.”
2. Welch, Soldiers and the State in Africa, 1.
3. Feaver, “Civil-Military Relations,” 218.
4. Nordlinger, Soldiers in Politics, 109–110.
5. Marinov and Goemans, “Coups and Democracy,” 799.
6. Finer, “The Retreat to the Barracks.”
7. Croissant et al., “Beyond the Fallacy of Coup-ism”; and Feaver, “Civil-Military Relations.” For clarity, a democratic transition does not suppose the armed forces completely exit from politics. Additionally, our argument rests on perceptions of the legitimacy of who governs in the post-coup environment, and our treatment of democratization is consistent with commonly used data assessing qualitative characteristics such as multipartyism and demonstrable turnover of power. By legitimacy, we mean the extent to which the regime in power and the policies it advances are perceived as representing the country’s general welfare and are demonstrating a level of accountability and rule-based governance that make the policy environment stable and predictable to domestic and international actors. We further do not rule out that the armed forces, seeing their interests undermined by a resulting government, might re-enter politics with a new coup in the future. Our models only consider cases to have democratized if they transition to and remain a democracy for three years following the coup.
8. Powell and Chacha, “Investing in Stability.”
9. Bayer and Rupert, “Effects of Civil Wars”; and Collier, “On the Economic Consequences of Civil War.”
10. Hegre, Gleditsch, and Gissinger, “Globalization and Internal Conflict.”
11. Mousseau, “Capitalist Development and Civil War.”
12. Gleditsch, “Transnational Dimensions of Civil War.”
13. Stojek and Chacha, “Adding Trade to the Equation.”
14. Londregan and Poole, “The Coup Trap.”
15. Bell and Sudduth, “The Causes and Outcomes of Coup”; and Johnson, Slater, and McGowan, “Explaining African Military Coups.”
16. Leon, “Loyalty for Sale?”; and Mbaku, “Military Coups as Rent-Seeking Behavior.”
17. Powell and Chacha, “Investing in Stability.”
18. Ibid.
19. Ibid.
20. Alesina et al., “Political Instability and Economic Growth,” 191.
21. Fosu, “Political Instability and Economic Growth.”
22. Asiedu, “Foreign Direct Investment in Africa”; and Feng, “Democracy, Political Stability and Economic Growth.”
23. Gleditsch, “Expanded Trade and GDP Data.”
24. OECD/AfDB, African Economic Outlook 2001/2002.
25. Keeler, “Investors Flee South Sudan”; Laurent, “Madagascar Coup Raises Questions.”
26. Nordlinger, Soldiers in Politics.
27. Derpanopoulos et al., “Are Coups Good for Democracy?”; Miller, “Violent Leader Removal and Democracy”; and Onwumechili, African Democratization and Military Coups.
28. Ibid.
29. African Union, “African Charter.”
30. Bell and Sudduth, “Causes and Outcomes of Coup”; and Kim, “Revisiting Economic Shocks and Coups”; Londregan and Poole, “The Coup Trap.”
31. Londregan and Poole, “The Coup Trap.”
32. Huntington, The Third Wave.
33. Boix, Miller, and Rosato, “Data Set of Political Regimes”; Cheibub, Gandhi, and Vreeland, “Democracy and Dictatorship Revisited”; Geddes, Wright, and Frantz, “Autocratic Breakdown and Regime Transitions”; and Marshall and Jaggers, “Polity IV Project.” For others using these measures, see Escribà-Folch and Wright, “Dealing with Tyranny”; Pevehouse, “Regional Organization and the Consolidation of Democracy”; and Przeworski, Democracy and Development.
34. Our analyses utilize a three-year window for democratization to avoid conflating these dynamics with other potentially pro-democratization developments that will occur from time to time. Further, a shorter window better reflects our belief that the transition should happen “quickly.”
35. Miller, “Violent Leader Removal and Democracy.”
36. Marinov and Goemans, “Coups and Democracy.”
37. Escribà-Folch and Wright, “Dealing with Tyranny.”
38. Thyne and Powell, “Coup d’Etat or Coup d’Autocracy?”
39. Although our argument is applicable to a range of international financial dynamics, including FDI, we largely limit our discussion to international trade due to data limitations of other financial indicators particularly FDI.
40. Marinov and Goemans, “Coups and Democracy.”
41. Ibid.
42. Alesina et al., “Political Instability and Economic Growth”; and Feng, “Democracy, Political Stability and Economic Growth.”
43. Souaré, “The African Union as a Norm Entrepreneur.”
44. Shannon et al., “The International Community’s Reaction to Coups”; and Wobig, “Defending Democracy with International Law.”
45. Powell, Lasley, and Schiel, “Combating Coups d’Etat in Africa.”
46. Pye, Personality, and Nation Building.
47. Jackman, “The Predictability of Coups d’Etat”; and Kennedy and Louscher, “Civil-Military Interaction.”
48. Doucouliagos and Ulubaşoğlu, “Democracy and Economic Growth”; and Helliwell, “Empirical Linkages between Democracy and Economic Growth.”
49. Egypt Independent, “Egypt 4th Most Sued by Investors.”
50. Kholaif and Lohade, “Bets on Egypt Currency.”
51. Barany, “The Role of the Military.”
52. Yuvejwattana and Blake, “Post-Coup Thailand.”
53. Ibid.
54. Gleditsch, “Expanded Trade and GDP Data”.
55. United States Senate, “Covert Action in Chile 1963–1973.”
56. Fosu, “Political Instability and Economic Growth.”
57. Carbone, Memoli, and Quartapelle. “Are Lions Democrats?”
58. Powell and Thyne, “Global Instances of Coups.”
59. Ibid., 252.
60. Cheibub, Gandhi, and Vreeland, “Democracy and Dictatorship Revisited.” In our appendix, we run alternative specifications including coups against democracies and a control for a lagged measure for democracy. These specifications include 199 coup events.
61. Thyne and Powell, “Coup d’etat or Coup d’Autocracy?”
62. Chebibub, Gandhi, and Vreeland, “Democracy and Dictatorship Revisited.”
63. Przeworski, Democracy and Development.
64. As anticipated, the two- and five-year windows did not perform quite as well, though the results are still consistent overall, while the four-year window generally performed better than the results presented here.
65. N’Diaye, “Mauritania’s Transition from Military Rule.”
66. Marinov and Goemans, “Coups and Democracy.”
67. Coveney, “FIRTHLOGIT”; Firth, “Biased Reduction of Maximum Likelihood Estimates”; and King and Zeng, “Logistic Regression in Rare Events Data.”
68. Barbieri and Keshk, “COW Project Trade Data Set Codebook”; and Barbieri, Keshk, and Pollins, “Trading Data.”
69. Dollar and Kraay, “Institutions, Trade, and Growth.”
70. Mousseau, “Capitalist Development and Civil War.”
71. Ibid.
72. Ibid.
73. Mousseau, “Contract Intensity of National Economies,” 3.
74. Hidalgo and Hausmann, “The Building Blocks of Economic Complexity.” Recognizing the issue of small sample size and loss of observations due to data limitations (across time and space), we include reduced form versions of the models in the appendix. Results are unchanged.
75. Huntington, The Third Wave.
76. Geddes, “What do we Know about Democratization?”
77. See Londregan and Poole, “The Coup Trap”; Casper and Tyson, “Popular Protest and Elite Coordination.”
78. See Gleditsch, “Expanded Trade and GDP Data.”
79. Chebibub, Gandhi, and Vreeland, “Democracy and Dictatorship Revisited.”
80. Pevehouse, “Regional Organization and the Consolidation of Democracy.”
81. Alternative specifications consider the proportion of democracies and limit distances to 1000 km. We also follow the lead of Crescenzi et al., “A Supply Side Theory of Mediation,” by considering the global proportion of democratic states. The measure is insignificant.
82. Additional models investigated the effect of FDI flows. We avoid reporting the results here due to concerns with missing data and variation. These results however can be found in the Appendix.