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This study tests the proposition that liberalizing African states may avoid coups d'etat and other forms of military intervention in their politics. It hypothesizes that one way for African states to gain legitimacy is by following a trajectory of gradual liberalization. The study shows that this legitimacy, in turn, tends to inoculate African states against military intervention. Many African regimes, on the other hand, have experienced an "authoritarian drift" after nominal transitions to "democracy." Unlike the regimes governing liberalizing states, "electoral authoritarian" regimes—ones that fall prey to authoritarian drift—become more vulnerable to both civil war and military coup.

This paper enquires into the reasons for Uganda's 1998 intervention in the recent Congo war, arguably the most important impediment to economic and political progress in sub-Saharan Africa. It examines a number of prominent arguments about the intervention, and determines that the Rwanda–Uganda alliance should be at the centre of a ‘thick description’ of the intervention. That is, the Uganda–Rwanda alliance was the key to President Museveni's initial decision in 1998, but other explanations contribute to our understanding of the intervention by providing information about its context, justification and permissive causes. Further, the paper suggests that Uganda's initial reasons for entering Congo differ from its reasons for remaining there after having failed to realise its initial goals.

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