Rethinking Coup Risk: Rural Coalitions and Coup-Proofing in Sub-Saharan Africa

Abstract

Military interventions continue to be prevalent in Africa. In the 21st century alone, 14 coups have been successfully staged. Whereas most studies of coup risk examine how militaries are organized or what structural conditions are associated with coups, we take a novel approach. We explore how coalition politics relate to coup risk. It has long been observed that regimes try to hold power by buying off urban consumers. We argue that focusing on urban consumers actually makes regimes more prone to military intervention. Instead, leaders who ally with established rural elites are more effective at thwarting coups. To test our hypothesis, we develop a unique data set of rural political strategies, coding regimes in 44 sub-Saharan countries from 1960 to 2000. Using a continuous-time Cox proportional hazards regression model, we find a robust correlation between policies supportive of rural elites and lower coup risk.