Much Ado About Coups with Naunihal Singh
The Lawfare Podcast
The Lawfare Institute
4.7 • 6.4K Ratings
🗓️ 13 September 2023
⏱️ 46 minutes
🧾️ Download transcript
Summary
On August 30, soldiers and high-ranking officers of the Armed Forces of Gabon seized control of government buildings and communication channels in the capital city of Libreville, detaining Gabon’s President Ali Bongo in his residence and declaring an end to the Bongo family’s 56-year rule. It was a coup—one of nine in the last three years in West and Central Africa, including in Niger just one month prior.
Lawfare Managing Editor Tyler McBrien spoke with Naunihal Singh, author of the book “Seizing Power: The Strategic Logic of Military Coups,” to discuss the spate of coups in the region, the origins of coups, what makes certain countries more coup-prone than others, and the rise and fall of anti-coup norms during and after the Cold War. They also dispelled several coup myths, including the myth of the coup contagion.
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| 1:03.7 | So there's definitely an uptick, right? We are seeing more coos and I think part of what |
| 1:09.7 | might be responsible for this is like I said, an increased permissive atmosphere. The |
| 1:16.9 | fact is that hunter leaders know that they've got a lot more options than they used to. |
| 1:23.4 | But beyond that, I see no reason to believe that coos are going to be back the way they |
| 1:28.9 | were in the 1970s, which was the heyday of coos. I think that instead what we see is that |
| 1:35.1 | coos are going to continue in the parts of the world where there had been a lot of coos, |
| 1:42.7 | where they've been poor and where democracy is not fully taken hold. And so we will see |
| 1:50.1 | that in African countries that are coup-prone, we might see it in some Middle Eastern countries, |
| 1:55.5 | we might see it in other Asian countries. That's how we got a coup in Burma. |
| 2:01.3 | I'm Tyler McBrion, Managing Editor of Lawfare. And this is the Lawfare Podcast, |
| 2:05.9 | September 13th, 2023. On August 30th, soldiers and high ranking officers of the Armed Forces |
| 2:12.3 | of Gabon seized control of government buildings and communication channels in the capital city |
| 2:17.4 | of Libraville, detaining Gabon's president Ali Bongo in his residence and declaring an end to |
| 2:22.8 | the Bongo family's 56-year rule. It was a coup, one of nine in the last three years in West |
... |
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