Tactical Communication: Mutiny as a Dialogue in West and Central Africa

Abstract

This article expands our understanding of the objectives of mutinies through an analysis of trends in tactics. It explores actions within mutinies through a review of 66 cases of mutiny from 1960 to 2012 in West and Central Africa. Despite wide variations in context among these mutinies, there are remarkable similarities in the tactics used by mutineers in the region and across time. These commonalities challenge the popular image of African mutinies as chaotic or devoid of strategy. The article demonstrates that the most common tactics used by mutineers in West and Central Africa all serve to open a dialogue with leadership and provide a platform for soldiers to vocalize their expectations in an environment that intentionally stifles the voices of the junior members. It suggests mutiny be viewed as an act of communication rather than merely a form of insubordination.

Coup with Adjectives: Conceptual Stretching or Innovation in Comparative Research?

“…Whereas the threat of coups is lower than ever before, the dangers of concept misformation of coups is rising. Even though we can identify several recent interesting and positive conceptual developments in the literature that distinguish between different types of coups (Aksoy et al, 2015) or between coups and mutinies (Dwyer, 2015; Johnson, 2018), our main concern has been with the proliferation of diminished subtypes of coups. In today’s democracies, we particularly warn against conflating coups with legal tactics for government replacement.…”

“… 9. This distinction still holds relevance in the study of military mutinies and how they are distinct from (but may evolve into) coups (Dwyer, 2015; Johnson, 2018). …”

Mutiny in Africa, 1950–2018

“…Although a useful starting point, subsequent studies have refined these descriptions. Most notably, Dwyer (2015b), building on the prior work of Rose (1982), defines mutiny as ''an act of collective insubordination, in which troops revolt against lawfully constituted authority for primary goals other than political power. ''…”

“…The democratic wave that commenced during the 1990s, meanwhile, could allow soldiers to more freely mutiny. Within these democracies, the active nature of civil society and the strategies and tactics employed by civilian organizations in their negotiations with the government served as templates for the military, potentially emboldening them to mutiny in an effort to remedy grievances (Dwyer, 2015b(Dwyer, , 2017.…”

“…On four different occasions in 2017, the government of Coˆte d'Ivoire was confronted with mutinies from multiple elements of their armed forces. Defined as ''an act of collective insubordination, in which troops revolt against lawfully constituted authority for primary goals other than political power,'' mutinies are distinct from other forms of military disobedience such as coups in that they do not target power, but are quite important events with serious implications for civil-military relations (Dwyer, 2015b;Rose, 1982: 562-563). In the case of Coˆte d'Ivoire, the initial events began in early January when soldiers seized control of the instances of mutiny over the same geographic and temporal coverage (Dwyer 2017).…”