Military Coups in Africa: Here’s What Determines a Return s July 2023 coup celebrate in the capital, Niamey. Balima Boureima/Anadolu Agency via Getty Images
Email
Twitter
Facebook63
LinkedIn
Print
Slightly more than two years after Niger’s first peaceful handover of power from one civilian president to another, the military seized power in July 2023. The coup – the fourth in Nigerien history – follows on the heels of recent military interventions in Africa. Mali (August 2020 and May 2021), Chad (April 2021), Guinea (September 2021), Sudan (October 2021) and Burkina Faso (January and September 2022).
Since the end of the Cold War in 1991, the number of military coups has declined sharply. However, francophone west Africa now accounts for approximately two-thirds of all military coups that have occurred since then.
As a political scientist analysing African politics, I have studied military coups and their outcomes for the last decade and a half. In a recent article, Justin Hoyle, a doctoral candidate in political science at the University of Florida, and I demonstrate that since 1989, military coups across the world have resulted in two outcomes.
First is the withdrawal of the junta from executive power. This means the junta doesn’t participate or interfere in post-coup elections. While it is necessary for the transition to democracy, it isn’t sufficient in itself. This scenario played out in the Nigerien coup of 2010 and the Thailand coup of 2006.
Second is electoral rigging by the junta in favour of its own candidate. This scenario establishes a regime in which coup leaders entrench themselves in executive power.
The research
We studied five countries and 12 post-coup Bolivia WhatsApp Number List transitions: Egypt (coups in 2011 and 2013), Mauritania (coups in 2005 and 2008), Niger (1996, 1999 and 2010), Fiji (2000 and 2006) and Thailand (1991, 2006 and 2014).
Overall, we examined slightly more than a third of all military coups between 1989 and 2017.
Out of a total of 32 post-coup environments, we found that in half of all cases, juntas withdrew from executive power in the coup’s aftermath.
However, even with the military’s withdrawal from power, the transition period to civilian rule was highly volatile. Particularly in sub-Saharan Africa, counter-coup attempts by a rival faction within the armed forces intending to remain in power occurred rather frequently. This was the case most recently in Burkina Faso in 2015.
Closing the gap
There is hope though, because given that cultural factors are responsible for the orgasm gap, changing how we view sex and intercourse will help to improve women’s sexual experiences.
Indeed, educating people on the fact that women don’t have a limited biological capacity for orgasm is important. Likewise, education for both men and women about the clitoris could be a game-changer.
Still, such knowledge alone is unlikely cphonenumber to close the orgasm gap on a personal level. According to a chapter in a sex therapy textbook, women need skills to put this knowledge into practice. This means women must be encouraged to masturbate to learn what they want sexually. And this needs to be coupled with training in communication so they can share this information with partners.