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On the Structural Explanation of African Military Interventions

Published online by Cambridge University Press:  11 November 2008

David Goldsworthy
David Goldsworthy
Affiliation:
Reader in Politics, Monash University, Clayton, Victoria, Australia
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Extract

As numerous review articles attest, approaches to the study of military interventions in African politics have varied widely in their methodology and foci of concern.1 Over the last decade, a good deal of runing has been made by quantitatively-inclined political scientists, such as Alan Wells, Roberta McKown, Ruth Collier, and especially Robert Jackman, whose particular path towards the understanding of military interventions has Iain through aggregate-data analysis of structural fratures of African states.2 This line of approach has recently been brought to a high level of sophistication in two major articles: Thomas H. Johnson, Robert O. Slater, and Pat McGowan, ‘Explaining African Military Coups d'Etat, 1960–1982’, in The American Political Science Review (Washington, D.C.), 78, 3, September 1984, pp. 622–40, and Pat McGowan and Thomas H. Johnson, ‘African Military Coups d'Etat and Underdevelopment: a quantitative historical analysis’, in this Journal, 22, 4, December 1984, pp. 633–66. The A.P.S.R. article is described by the authors as ‘only the latest and not the last word on these matters’ (p. 637), and it has already fulfilled this implicit prophecy by generating debate among those who have adopted a similar methodology.3

Type
Africana
Information
The Journal of Modern African Studies , Volume 24 , Issue 1 , March 1986 , pp. 179 - 185
Copyright
Copyright © Cambridge University Press 1986

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References

Page 179 note 1 For useful overviews, see Charlton, Roger. ‘Predicting African Military Coups’, in Futures (London), 15, 4, 08 1983, pp. 281–92,Google Scholar and Welch, Claude E. Jr, ‘African Military and Political Development: reflections on a score of years, and several score of studies’, in Issue (Los Angeles), 13, 1984, pp. 4–5. The term ‘military interventions’ embraces successful and attempted coups, as well as plots.Google Scholar

Page 179 note 2 Wells, Alan, ‘The Coup d'Etat in Theory and Practice: independent black Africa in the 1960s’, in American Journal of Sociology (Chicago), 79, 4, 01 1974, pp. 871–87;Google ScholarMcKown, Roberta, ‘Domestic Correlates of Military Intervention in African Politics’, in Journal of Political and Military Sociology (De Kalb), 3, 2, Fall 1975, pp. 191–206;Google ScholarCollier, Ruth, ‘Parties, Coups and Authoritarian Rule: patterns of political change in tropical Africa’, in Comparative Political Studies (Beverly Hills), 11, 1, 04, 1978, pp. 62–93;Google Scholar and Jackman, Robert, ‘The Predictability of Coups d'état: a model with African data’, in The American Political Science Review, 72, 4, 12 1978, pp. 1262–75.Google Scholar

Page 179 note 3 Jackman, Robert, O'Kane, Rosemar, Johnson, Thoman, McGown, Pat, and slater, Robert, ‘Explaining African Coups d'Etat’, in The American Political Science Review, 80, 1, 03 1986, pp. 225–49.CrossRefGoogle Scholar

Page 180 note 1 The major works referred to here are Zolberg, Aristide, ‘Military Invervention in the New States of Africa’, in Bienen, Henry (ed.), The Military Intervenes: case studies in political development (New York, 1968),Google Scholar and Decalo, Samuel, Coups and Army Rule in Africa: studies in military style (New Haven and London, 1976).Google Scholar

Page 181 note 1 Goldsworthy, David, ‘Civilian Control of the Military in Black Africa’, in African Affairs (London), 80, 318, 01 1981, pp. 49–74,Google Scholar and ‘Armies and Politics in Civilian Regimes’, in Baynham, Simon (ed.), Military Power and Politics in Black Africa (London, 1986).Google Scholar

Page 182 note 1 Decalo, op.cit. p.21.

Page 183 note 1 See Goldsworthy, ‘Armies and Politics in Civilian Regimes’, for examples drawn from Kenya and Mozambique, among other countries.

Page 183 note 2 Zartman, I. William, ‘Social and Political Trends in Africa in the 1980s’, in Legum, Colin et al. , Africa in the 1980s: a continent in crisis (New York, 1979), pp. 82–3.Google Scholar

Page 184 note 1 This is not itself a novel observation. Horowitz, Donald remarked some years ago in Coup Theories and Officers' Motives: Sri Lanka in comparative perspective (Princeton, 1980), p. 15, that ‘structure and motive…are compatible enough to be complements in explanation, instead of alternative components of competing schemes.’Google Scholar

Page 184 note 2 As is done, for example, in Timothy Shaw's critical comments on Jackson, Robert H. and Rosberg, Carl G., Personal Rule in Black Africa: prince, autocrat, prophet, tyrant (Berkeley, Los Angeles, and London, 1982) in Towards a Political Economy for Africa: the dialectics of dependence (London, 1985), p. 25.Google Scholar

Page 184 note 3 This appears to be the view taken, for example, by Shaw, op.cit.

Page 185 note 1 On the extractive conception of politics and its cultural roots, see Richard, Hodder-Williams, An Introduction to the Politics of Tropical Africa (London, 1984), pp. 95–9,Google Scholar and Hyden, Goran, No Shortcuts to Progress: African development management in perspective (Berkeley and London, 1983), chs. 1 and 2.Google Scholar