"Coups and nascent democracies: the military and Egypt's failed consolidation" (original) (raw)
Related papers
Leaving the Barracks: Military Coups in Developing Democracies
Politics and Policy, 2020
A large body of research has examined the factors that influence military coups in authoritarian and democratic states. While this research is informative, we contend that three factors are central in assessing the likelihood of military coups in developing democracies: the perception of corruption within regimes, levels of popular support, and the incentives segments of the military have to initiate coups. In utilizing a historical case-study analysis with six states in Africa, Asia, and Latin America (from 1970-2010) we find that successful military coups are more likely to occur when the ruling administration is increasingly viewed by the public as being corrupt, is unpopular with large portions of society and key factions within the state, and when segments of the military perceive their position within the state as being threatened by the current regime. These findings have important implications for democratic governance in developing democracies.
Mediterranean Politics, 2015
The popular mass uprisings in the Middle East and North Africa (MENA) call into question the assumption, widespread prior to the "Arab Spring", that militaries in these countries were subservient to civilianized and consolidated authoritarian regime incumbents. In most countries militaries have stepped in to suppress uprisings, replace incumbents, or cause civil wars. The analysis of political-military relations explains the immediate outcome of popular mass mobilization in the MENA region and helps re-conceptualize coup-proofing as an important authoritarian survival strategy. Accounting for variation in the degree of officers' loyalty toward incumbents provides an opportunity to test the efficacy of coupproofing. The article accounts for questions largely ignored in the theoretical literature: which coup-proofing mechanisms work best, and under which circumstances? In a qualitative comparison of Egypt and Syria, the article illustrates that authoritarian regimes have applied fundamentally different coup-proofing strategies. The Syrian regime has engineered integrative strategies to tie officers closer to the incumbent, provoking a greater degree of loyalty during regime crisis than in Egypt where officers were excluded from politics.
Partisans' and Civil Elites' Role in Supporting Military Coups: The Case of the Egyptian Elites
journal of politics and law, 2020
The study reported in the article below tried to examine partisans’ and civil elites’ role in military interventions and coups. The 2013 Egyptian coup d'état that took place on 3 July 2013 was used as a model of analysis. Concisely, this study sought to identify the defining characteristics of the partisans and civil elites who supported that military coup in Egypt, including their social origins, their level of education, their views of democracy and constitutional legitimacy as well as the nature of their allegied tie-up with the armed forces. In order to do just this, the study used Samuel Huntington's hypothesis as a theoretical framework of analysis. Accordingly, elites’ support for military coups underlies weakness (and therefore ineffectiveness) of the country’s civil institutions as well as absence of institutional political channels that regulate competition and conflict between parties with differing interests and resources. An immediate outcome of such a state of affairs was that partisans and civil elites had demonstrated their superiority over the army as they possessed the means of power that enabled them to impose their control. The findings of the study showed that those partisans and civil elites, formed by mechanisms based on mutual interests and wealth, are only theoretically oriented in the sense that they only accept the principles of democracy and constitutional legitimacy in the event that they lead to their arrival to power. However, if that legitimacy comes from other political currents, (e.g. The Muslim Brotherhood), they soon turn against it.
Military Coup and Constitutional Amendments: Building Legitimacy for Authoritarianism in Egypt
Think India Journal , 2019
Much of the hope for Egypt’s transition to be democratic was lost when military seized control of the transition process in 2011. The problem is not that Egypt rushed to elections early. Truth is that elections do not always deliver democratic results; and for Egypt it was no mystery at all. Any party that would have come to power would have wielded its own idea into the process of constitution drafting. For society as such, it was a two-edged sword: not going to polls meant giving Army too much time, which would have been a severe political mistake given its past experience; and going to polls early meant that any party that would come to power can misuse the vote as a referendum for anything they wanted to include or exclude from the constitution.Throughout the transition period, the Egyptians were called to polls over and over again. Since military was to overlook the transition process, it called Egyptian people to polls to approve a series of constitutional amendments in March 2011. This paved a way for the new constitutional order to be built. This phase of election received a mixed response: with Islamists embracing the referendum as it promised a quick transition process. But this did not get along with the idea of non-Islamists. Given the apprehensions that Islamists might hijack the revolution, they rallied behind the idea that the process of writing the constitution should come first.This paper aims to assess how the military and the deep state worked hand in glove to build legitimacy for the military coup that ousted the elected government. The paper will also highlight how the redrafting constitution under military influence will push Egypt further into the clutches of authoritarianism.
Military Electoral Authoritarianism in Egypt
Election Law Journal, 2017
Authoritarian regimes hold elections not to democratize, but to maintain the status quo. Egypt is no exception. As far back as the 1970s, Egypt’s multiparty electoral system has been a democratic façade. As President Anwar Sadat shifted Egypt’s external alliance from the Soviet Union to the United States and marginalized Abdel Nasser’s socialist base, he proclaimed his commitment to political liberalization. In holding Egypt’s first multiparty elections - albeit tightly controlled through an electoral scheme that always guaranteed his party’s victory - Sadat transitioned Egypt from one party into multiparty electoral authoritarianism. The neoliberal business class would dominate Egypt’s political elite for the next forty years, with the military holding sway behind the scenes. In exchange for loyalty to the authoritarian state, this neoliberal elite was allowed to siphon off state resources. Elections became the elite’s mechanism for rent seeking. As such, parliamentarians had privileged access to government ministries to expediently obtain licenses, permits, and public contracts for themselves and their constituents. They engaged in corruption while immune from criminal prosecution due to their elected official status. An interdependency thus arose between the political elite and the executive. President Hosni Mubarak continued Sadat’s legacy with a few key differences. The most important being that the influence of the military in political affairs waned as domestic security forces became the primary coercive arm of the authoritarian state. Moreover, Mubarak pruned his son Gamal to become the next president, and as a result, elevated Gamal’s business cronies to key executive and legislative positions. Over time, the military, while still a key political stakeholder, was marginalized from the center of power. This Article argues that the current regime under President Abdel Fatah Sisi has established a military electoral authoritarian state with a non-dominant party electoral system. Coupled with Egypt’s long tradition of nepotism, cronyism, and patronage networks, the new election laws perpetuate a fragmented, depoliticized parliament wherein no mobilized opposition can take shape to challenge the military's dominance. The cause of Egypt’s current depoliticization, however, is not a weak central party beholden to the presidency - as was the case under Sadat and Mubarak - but rather hundreds of rent-seeking parliamentarians with no party affiliation. Sisi intentionally structured the parliament to consist of over four hundred individual, self-interested actors who are vulnerable to bribery or coercion to keep them depoliticized and compliant. This strategy facilitates purging any parliamentary figures that emerge to challenge the executive.
Democracy and the Armed Forces: Lessons from the Coups of Egypt in 2013 and Turkey in 2016
Jurnal Hubungan Internasional
Tulisan ini menganalisa secara komparatif kudeta militer yang terjadi di Mesir tahun 2013 dan Turki tahun 2016. Dua pertanyaan yang didiskusikan adalah: pertama, terkait dengan faktor yang mendorong terjadinya dua kudeta tersebut, dan kedua, alasan mengapa dua fenomena tersebut berbeda, kudeta berhasil di Mesir dan gagal di Turki. Untuk menjawab dua pertanyaan tersebut, tulisan ini melihat sejumlah aspek yang terkait dengan kondisi sosial dan kekacauaan politik menjelang kudeta, mulai dari krisis ekonomi, kebijakan non-demokratis, sikap masyarakat sipil sampai karakteristik angkatan bersenjata kedua negara. Dua kudeta milter yang terjadi ini menunjukkan bahwa proses demokratisasi di dunia muslim sesungguhnya sangat ditentukan oleh aktor politik, di mana peran terpenting dimainkan oleh angkatan bersenjata, selain itu juga dibentuk oleh doktrin Islam sendiri.
An assessment of the ‘democratic’ coup theory
African Security Review, 2014
The Egyptian military's unconstitutional removal of President Mohamed Morsi has reignited a debate regarding the theory of the 'democratic coup'. Though coups are almost invariably condemned, many political observers and a few scholars have recently argued that coups can act as catalysts for democratisation. This paper empirically assesses the democratic coup hypothesis for Africa. Multivariate analyses from 1952 to 2012 suggest that coups statistically improve a country's democratisation prospects. Extensions of the model show that coups appear to be likely precursors for democratisation in staunchly authoritarian regimes, have become less likely to end democracy over time, and their positive influence has strengthened since the end of the Cold War. As of 2012, countries that have experienced a recent coup are expected to be four times more likely to witness a democratic transition than those that have remained coup-free. Forthcoming at African Security Review 'favoritism in public appointments,' and his benefitting 'the rich, big men.' 2 Perhaps more sincerely, Colonel A.A. Afrifa has rather elegantly written about the Ghanaian army's action as a 'last resort' to combat the authoritarian entrenchment of the once wildly popular Kwame Nkrumah. 3 But even an army that brings about some degree of democratisation can also promote a constitution that reserves 'substantive constitutional powers for itself…' or 'may establish counter-majoritarian institutions…that continue to enforce the military's policy preferences…' 4 Focusing solely on praetorian outcomes such as Amin's Uganda, however, inevitably biases our ability to assess the potential for coups to lead to a wider range of outcomes, including democratic gains. Few would
Coup Agency and Prospects for Democracy
International Studies Quarterly, 2021
This research note introduces new global data on military coups. Conventional aggregate data so far have conflated two distinct types of coups. Military interventions by leading officers are coups "from above," characterized by political power struggles within authoritarian elite coalitions where officers move against civilian elites, executive incumbents, and their loyal security personnel. By contrast, power grabs by officers from the lower and middle ranks are coups "from below," where military personnel outside of the political elite challenge sitting incumbents, their loyalists, and the regime itself. Disaggregating coup types offers leverage to revise important questions about the causes and consequences of military intervention in politics. This research note illustrates that coup attempts from the top of the military hierarchy are much more likely to be successful than coups from the lower and middle ranks of the military hierarchy. Moreover, coups from the top recalibrate authoritarian elite coalitions and serve to sustain autocratic rule; they rarely produce an opening for a democratic transition. Successful coups from below, by contrast, can result in the breakdown of authoritarian regimes and generate an opening for democratic transitions.