The colonial roots of structural coup-proofing

Abstract

Colonially inherited institutions are a key determinant of the regime type and economic outcomes of postcolonial countries. This study extends this claim to civil-military relations, arguing that former French colonies are especially likely to invest in structural coupproofing. France created paramilitary units throughout its colonies for which many natives were recruited. After independence, these paramilitaries proved persistent and were consequently used to counterbalance the regular armed forces. In contrast, countries without existing paramilitary organizations had stronger militaries which deterred and even forcibly prevented structural coup-proofing. Quantitative tests using global data on coup-proofing and a paired comparison of civil-military relations in Cote d'Ivoire and Ghana support the claim that former French colonies are more likely to heavily invest in counterbalancing. By showing how French colonial institutions provided post-independence governments with the opportunity to coup-proof, the study contributes to our understanding of civil-military relations as well as the institutional long-term effects of colonialism and foreign rule more generally.

Exploring the Relationship between Colonial Education and Nationalism in Indonesia: A Reading of Pramoedya A. Toer’s This Earth of Mankind

“…The second reason behind the provision of colonial education was the colonizers' realization that they could not rely solely on military or brute physical force to maintain their rule over the colonized indefinitely (Mehri, 2021). This was due to the high cost of maintaining the armed forces, both financially and in terms of human resources, and the number of people living under colonial rule was significantly more significant than the number of European settlers and soldiers (Manu-Osafo, 2021).…”

How Mechanization Shapes Coups

“…Along these lines, we also further investigate whether our results are driven by mechanization picking up on organizational or cultural attributes that affect putsch activity: as French and British colonial origins affect how post-colonial militaries are organized (Asal et al, 2017; Mehrl & Choulis, 2021), we control for a country’s main colonial ruler. And to ensure that the armed forces professionalism or culture do not influence our main effect, we control for several proxies of these nonmaterial phenomena.…”

Secret Police Organizations and State Repression

“…2.This contrasts with other parts of the security apparatus which can exhibit remarkable continuity across regime changes (Mehrl and Choulis 2021). …”