With coups occurring more frequently than ever before, it’s more important than ever to get the facts right about the military-led takeover of a government. Yet much of the research that tries to divine why the military topples governments relies on off-the-shelf data sets and coup catalogs whose validity—or even existence—is questionable. Two core findings have survived disconfirmation: that higher income countries experience fewer coups, though the effect is small (and becomes smaller still when models only contain developing countries); and that the probability of a coup declines with time since the last one.
These studies also tend to ignore the role of civilian actors in instigating and consolidating coups. Civilian segments of society may be close to the targeted leader (as in Benin’s thwarted coup plot), or they might represent an elite segment of the governing bureaucracy or a political opposition, such as in Niger and Mali’s coups. Civilians can also organize protests to support coupists and take on important governing tasks alongside a new junta, as in Niger’s 2023 takeover.
It is these nuances that should be front and center as researchers, policymakers and diplomats seek to understand and mitigate the rise of military-led coups. For example, a greater understanding of the role of civilian segments in instigating and consolidating coups could lead to more focused efforts to target these groups—such as sanctioning individuals or cutting off aid to a junta that commits human rights abuses. Such measures are more effective than trying to pass a law that would take a year to pass—and have the potential to produce more accurate results about what really causes military coups.
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