Lessons from Sudan on how to make a country safe from seizures of power

IT is now two weeks since the residents of Khartoum, the capital of Sudan, woke up to find that a coup had taken place. The international community was quick to condemn the coup, with strong messages from the African Union, the European Union, the United States and the United Kingdom. The response from the street was swift, with large, well-planned protests. These protests were peaceful, although there were reports of shots fired by the military as they attempted to clear the improvised barricades people had erected.

The situation in Sudan looks as if it might be heading – to everyone’s relief – towards a negotiated political settlement.

Military coups sometimes do. The reality of military coups is far more complex than the cartoon imagine of the mustachioed, over-decorated general seizing power and then ruling as a dictator.

While most coups are associated with the authoritarian right, some also come from the authoritarian left, such as the Egyptian coup of 1952. Some coups aim to hold power and to permanently change the direction of the country, like the 1958 coup in Iraq. Others – such as, arguably, the 1960 coup in Turkey – are temporary interventions, with limited aims over a defined timespan, after which the military hand power back to elected civilian leaders. Some coups aim to kill democracy, like the 1973 coup in Chile.

Others aim to create democracy, like the 1975 coup in Portugal, where the military overthrew an authoritarian regime and embarked on a long but ultimately successful process of democratic transition.

As this brief survey shows, no two coups are alike. They all have their own dynamics, shaped by their particular context and by the interests and ideologies of the actors involved.

Nevertheless, it is possible to analyse military coups as a distinct political phenomenon, with certain common causes and effects. Doing so may help us take steps to prevent them.

To understand coups we need to go back to ancient Rome. For five centuries, from the expulsion of the last King, Rome had developed a complex republican political system. Under this mixed constitution Rome became the superpower of the Mediterranean world.

Unfortunately, conquest brought great wealth, and that wealth was concentrated at the top of a deeply unequal society.

The free yeoman farmers who had once formed the basis of Roman society were undercut by large landowners using slave labour.

For landless urban Romans, recruitment into the new professional army, established by Gaius Marius in 107 BC, was a means of escaping poverty.

Meanwhile, populist leaders appealing to the material needs of the poor squared off against the oligarchs intent on protecting their own wealth.

The supreme amongst these populist leaders was Julius Caesar, who – when he was not busy conquering Gaul – placed himself at the head of the people’s party.

His well-rewarded armies, more loyal to him than to an increasingly corrupt and oligarchic political system that had seemed to fail them, crossed the Rubicon, marching on Rome and helping him to become dictator for life. From then on, the Roman Republic was effectively dead.

Pride’s Purge in 1648 was perhaps the first modern coup. Although Cromwell’s New Model Army had defeated Charles I, there was no agreement about what should be done next. What constitutional settlement would provide for the foundations of the new state?

To this question the leaders of the New Model Army tried to provide an answer by force, occupying London, entering the House of Commons and arresting 45 members. (There is a sad irony here. In 1642, when Charles I attempted to arrest five members of Parliament, he was thwarted by the established institutions: first by the Speaker, then by the City of London and the Inns of Court. By 1648, however, there was no one left to stop tyranny.)

Europe’s most infamous coup was that launched by Napoleon on 18 Brumaire of the Year VIII in the French revolutionary calendar (November 9, 1799). With France’s economy in crisis and the radical Jacobins – who favoured the interests of the working class – in the ascendancy, Napoleon “came to the rescue” by deposing key members of the French government, before leading soldiers into Parliament and seizing control of the state. He then tore up the constitution and issued a new one of his own devising, giving himself near-absolute power.

These historical examples are worth studying because they provide some enduring insights into the nature, origins and consequences of coups.

Firstly, coups are likely to occur when civilian institutions are already weak, broken, or losing legitimacy. When there is no consensus about the constitutional order, no broad and settled agreement on what the basic ground-rules of political life should be, ambitious generals may exploit this weakness.

In Rome in 49BC, England in 1648, and France in 1799, and in so many cases since, institutions had already begun to crumble, and constitutional norms had already been repeated violated by partisan strife or recent revolutions before the military stepped in.

Secondly, coups occur when civilian leaders are felt to be incapable of solving the existential problems facing society.

If politicians are perceived as ineffective and corrupt, feathering their own nest and bickering amongst themselves for cheap partisan points rather than working together to solve the problems facing ordinary citizens, they lose legitimacy and public trust, which makes it far easier for the military to step in.

In many cases, the military are – at first, anyway – hailed as saviours: “At last,” people say, “some order, some discipline amongst all the chaos, some doers to replace the endless talkers”.

Thirdly, coups often make things worse, not better. Military government is rarely stable or effective. Generals are usually poor at the practical business of governing. The underlying constitutional and political difficulties do not simply go away. Legitimacy proves elusive. Sometimes a strongman emerges and imposes order by force, resulting in an increase in oppression. Alternatively, there may be a continued slide into instability, with coup followed by counter-coup, until the whole country is in ruins.

Armed forces are necessary for the security of the state and the furtherance of its strategic interests, but they are supposed to be servants, not masters.

Keeping the military in their proper place, under elected and responsible civilian government, is therefore a vital part of state-craft. Doing so requires a careful mixture of institutional design and deliberate enculturation – through tradition, ritual and habit – into the proper constitutional norms.

However, the best way to keep the generals playing war-games rather than politics is for civilian leaders to demonstrate credible and capable government.

If they show that political institutions are healthy, respected and legitimate, and that through these institutions they can satisfactorily resolve the country’s social and economic issues, coup risk is minimised.

The countries we really need to worry about are those where institutional norms are routinely violated, where constitutional consensus has broken down, where politicians are corrupt and parties are incapable of working together, where gaps between rich and poor are widening, and where all this translates into obvious failures of policy – isolation from markets, fuel shortages, empty shelves, child poverty, inability to manage a pandemic.

If you are in a Union with such a country, it might be best to take some sensible precautions, such as becoming independent and establishing a stable, legitimate and effective democracy.