The Uganda Coup—Class Action by the Military

Lofchie, Michael F.

doi:10.1017/s0022278x00022072

Cited by 45 publications

(6 citation statements)

References 2 publications

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“…! For African case studies that illustrate this, see Apter (1969), Baynham (1980), Bebler (1972), Bennett (1973), Bienen (1968), Clapham (1968), Decalo (1973Decalo ( , 1974Decalo ( 1976, Dent (1975), Feit (1969), First (1971), Fisher (1969), Hansen and Collins (1980), Higgott and Fuglestad (1975), Laitin (1976), Lewis (1972), Liebenow (1981), Lofchie (1972), Nelkin (1967), Okolo (1981), Pachter (1982), Southall (1975), Terray (1964), Tixier (1966), Twaddle (1972), Welch (1967Welch ( , 1970, Wolpin (1980), and Yannopoulos and Martin (1972). permit us to explain theoretically military interventions in the states of Sub-Saharan Africa during the period .…”

mentioning

confidence: 99%

Explaining African Military Coups d'Etat, 1960-1982

Johnson¹,

Slater²,

McGowan

1983

Am Polit Sci Rev

109

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The purpose of this article is to contribute to the theoretical understanding of African military coups d'etat. We begin by replicating a well-known model (Jackman, 1978) that purports to identify the structural determinants of coups d'etat within the states of Sub-Saharan Black Africa. When the research problem is changed slightly to focus exclusively on military coups, we find major weaknesses in the original Jackman model. We then extend and refine this model and thereby account in a theoretically meaningful fashion for 91% of the variation in military coups within 35 Black African states from 1960 through 1982. Our major substantive findings indicate that Black African states with relatively dynamic economies whose societies were not very socially mobilized before independence and which have maintained or restored some degree of political participation and political pluralism have experienced fewer military coups, attempted coups, and coup plots than have states with the opposite set of characteristics.

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confidence: 99%

Explaining African Military Coups d'Etat, 1960-1982

Johnson¹,

Slater²,

McGowan

1983

Am Polit Sci Rev

109

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“…Moreover, there is no convincing evidence that any of the four military coups were linked to material grievances among military leaders. While Lofchie (1972) famously claimed that the 1971 coup was a response to declining military privileges from the late 1960s, in particular in the context of Obote's "Move to the Left", these socialist proposals were hardly implemented and the army continued to be well-served until the coup (Chick 1972;Gershenberg 1972). Finally, there is also little evidence that variation in the provision of more indirect payoffs can help to account for differences in coup occurrence.…”

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confidence: 99%

The Ethnic Politics of Coup Avoidance: Evidence from Zambia and Uganda

Lindemann

2011

Africa Spectrum

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Though military interventions seem endemic in sub-Saharan Africa, more than a third of all countries have been able to avoid military coups. To solve this puzzle, this article relates the likelihood of military coups to the degree of ethnic congruence between civilian and military leaders, arguing that coup avoidance is most likely when government and army either exhibit the same ethnic bias or are both ethnically balanced. This argument is illustrated by a comparison of the diverging experiences of Zambia and Uganda. While Zambia is among Africa's coup-free countries, Uganda's vulnerability to military intervention has varied over time – with four coups under Obote and the Uganda National Liberation Front (UNLF) but no coups under Amin and Museveni. Drawing on original longitudinal data on the ethnic distribution of political and military posts, the article shows that the absence of military coups in Zambia goes back to the balanced composition of government and army. In Uganda, coup avoidance under Amin and Museveni can be linked to the fact that government and army exhibited the same ethnic bias, whereas the coups against the Obote and UNLF regimes reflected either ethnic incongruence between civilian and military leaders or the destabilising combination of a similarly polarised government and army.

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“…When coups d'état became frequent and widespread in SSA during the second half of the 1960s, scholars began to produce an impressive array of single-case studies. Those published in this Journal alone include: Bennett (1975), Fischer (1969), Higgott & Fuglestad (1975), Lewis (1972), Lofchie (1972), and Southall (1975). Also appearing were more comparative, qualitative studies of the role of the military in African politics; those published in this Journal include Decalo (1973), O'Connell (1967, and Welch (1967Welch ( , 1972Welch ( , 1975.…”

Section: I L I T a R Y C O U P S D'é T A Tmentioning

confidence: 99%

African military coups d'état, 1956–2001: frequency, trends and distribution

McGowan

2003

J. Mod. Afr. Stud.

187

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Described here is a new data set including all successful coups d'état (80), failed coup attempts (108) and reported coup plots (139) for all 48 independent sub-Saharan African (SSA) states for the 46-year period from January 1956 until December 2001. Elite political instability (PI) in this form remains widespread in SSA, in contrast to other regions of the global South. Military-led PI has been shown to adversely affect economic growth and human development in SSA, and is a major cause of the current African ‘crisis’. The frequency of these instability events is given for each state for all 46 years and for the two periods 1956–79 and 1980–2001. A Total Military Intervention Score (TMIS) for each state is calculated and examined over time to explore trends in coup behaviour. The distribution of these events among major African regions is presented. Appendix A lists all coups and failed coups by state and date. Major findings are that military interventions have continued to be pervasive in Africa, despite democratisation trends since 1990; that coups, failed coups and coup plots form a syndrome of military-led PI; that colonial heritage is unrelated to coup activity; that the chance of success when launching a coup attempt has averaged more than 40% since 1958; that once a successful coup has occurred, military factionalism often leads to more coup behaviour; that except for a declining rate of success once a coup is undertaken, there is no major difference between 1956–79 and 1980–2001; that no trends of increasing or decreasing coup behaviour are evident, except that up to around 1975 as decolonisation progressed, TMIS also increased; and that West Africa is the predominant centre of coup activity in SSA, although all African regions have experienced coups. States that have been free of significant PI since 1990 are examined and those with institutionalised democratic traditions appear less prone to coups.

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The Uganda Coup—Class Action by the Military

Cited by 45 publications

References 2 publications

Explaining African Military Coups d'Etat, 1960-1982

Explaining African Military Coups d'Etat, 1960-1982

The Ethnic Politics of Coup Avoidance: Evidence from Zambia and Uganda

African military coups d'état, 1956–2001: frequency, trends and distribution

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