Africa’s reputation for coups is a stubborn echo from the late twentieth century, yet the present landscape is more intricate than that label suggests. Since 2020, a cluster of putsches stretching from the Atlantic to the Red Sea, Mali, Guinea, Sudan, Burkina Faso (twice), Niger and Gabon reignited debate over the military’s place in politics and society. Analysts count at least seven to nine successful seizures of power in this period, alongside numerous failed attempts, concentrated in what has been dubbed a Sahelian “coup belt”. The pattern is tethered to worsened insecurity, fiscal strain after the pandemic, and stalled governance reforms, rather than a simple relapse to an earlier era.
The army’s role today is no longer reducible to barracks versus ballot. Juntas in the central Sahel promised security restoration, yet violence by jihadist and other armed groups has continued to rise. Independent conflict monitors report that political violence across Africa increased markedly between 2020 and 2024, with the Sahel among the hardest-hit theatres; in some stretches of 2024, fatalities linked to extremist violence reached record highs compared with pre-coup benchmarks. This mismatch between promise and outcome underscores that force without governance rarely stabilises a polity.
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Public opinion mirrors this ambivalence. Recent continental surveys show that Africans tend to trust their militaries more than many civilian institutions, yet two-thirds still say the army should not govern, though that opposition has weakened, and a majority would tolerate intervention if elected leaders seriously abuse power. The danger is obvious: when governance fails, the barracks regain allure.
The Battlefield Moves Beyond The Front Line
Civil–military relations now straddle counter-insurgency, peace operations, and state-building. African militaries are deeply embedded in global peacekeeping and regional stabilisation. As of late 2024 and early 2025, African states are among the top providers of blue helmets, with Rwanda, Ghana, Morocco, Egypt, Tanzania and Ethiopia supplying sizeable contingents. These deployments influence doctrine at home, from rules of engagement to human-rights training, and create professional networks that can either reinforce constitutionalism or, if misdirected,
According to global monitoring, Africa’s military outlays rose to an estimated $52.1 billion in 2024, up 3 per cent year-on-year and 11 per cent above 2015 levels. North Africa drove much of the increase, while sub-Saharan trends varied by threat environment and fiscal space. The global environment matters, too: worldwide military spending climbed to a record $2.718 trillion in 2024. Budgets are shaping force structures and procurement choices, which in turn shape how militaries see their domestic role.
The Regional Chessboard Is Being Reset
The Sahel crisis has redrawn regional alignments. After sanctions and threats of force over the July 2023 Niger coup, Mali, Burkina Faso and Niger announced withdrawal from ECOWAS in January 2024 and consolidated their Alliance of Sahel States. The episode exposed friction between regional deterrence of unconstitutional changes and the political economies of sanction-hit societies. It also raised hard questions about how to coax juntas back toward credible transitions without deepening humanitarian pain or hollowing cross-border economic ties.
The Rulebook On The Table
Africa is not navigating this crisis without a compass. The normative map is dense and, on paper, robust.
At the continental core is Article 30 of the African Union’s Constitutive Act, which bars governments that seize power unconstitutionally from participating in AU activities. This principle, echoed repeatedly by the AU Commission and the African Commission on Human and Peoples’ Rights, is operationalised through suspension and targeted sanctions, as seen in the AU’s response to coups from Egypt (2013) to Niger (2023). The AU’s Peace and Security Council, the backbone of the African Peace and Security Architecture (APSA), enforces these norms alongside early-warning and mediation tools.
Two companion instruments deepen the ban on power seizures. The 2000 Lomé Declaration codified the AU/OAU response to “unconstitutional changes of government”, while the African Charter on Democracy, Elections and Governance (ACDEG, adopted 2007; in force since 2012) binds states to prevent and sanction coups, alter legal frameworks only through constitutional means, and uphold democratic transfers of power. Implementation has been uneven, but the legal yardsticks are unambiguous.
Sub-regional organisations add their own guardrails. ECOWAS’s 2001 Protocol on Democracy and Good Governance established zero tolerance for unconstitutional ascents to power and has underpinned repeated suspensions and sanctions; similar principles animate SADC and the EAC’s election and security frameworks. The recent ECOWAS–Sahel rupture therefore tests not the existence of norms, but their calibration and legitimacy during prolonged transitions.
These African rules sit within a wider global frame. The UN Charter’s Chapter VII permits collective action against threats to peace, while the Responsibility to Protect (R2P) doctrine, endorsed in 2005 commits states and the international community to prevent mass atrocities. In Africa, the AU’s Constitutive Act goes further, contemplating intervention in cases of genocide, war crimes and crimes against humanity, anchoring a distinctive sovereignty-as-responsibility doctrine.
The Hinge Of Reform
Treaties deter worse outcomes; they do not, by themselves, create professional, accountable security institutions. Here, the AU’s policy infrastructure is often overlooked but essential. The AU Policy Framework on Security Sector Reform (2013) established an African-owned template for aligning militaries, police, intelligence and justice with democratic control and human security. The policy links SSR to disarmament, demobilisation and reintegration, and to the AU’s Post-Conflict Reconstruction and Development policy, which the AU revised in 2024 to reflect today’s nonlinear conflicts and climate pressures. Taken together, these are the blueprints for re-centring civilians without weakening state capacity.
On the ground, continental support has included technical assistance to national SSR processes and transition contexts from The Gambia’s post-authoritarian reforms to various AU-backed planning missions under the guidance of PAPS and the Peace and Security Council. Success, however, depends on domestic ownership, credible timelines for transitions, and the political will to submit uniforms to parliamentary oversight and judicial scrutiny.
The Economics Of The Barracks
Sanctions bite, but so do blockades and border closures on already fragile economies. The wave of punitive measures against juntas since 2020 curtailed illicit rents and signalled continental resolve; it also disrupted trade corridors, spiked prices and fuelled anti-regional rhetoric. Think-tanks monitoring the ECOWAS–Sahel split warn that poorly sequenced sanctions can entrench juntas and fray integration. A more surgical approach, targeted asset freezes and travel bans paired with humanitarian exemptions and clear transition benchmarks better aligns with the spirit of ACDEG and the Lomé Declaration.
Peacekeepers At Home And Abroad
Many of Africa’s most professional forces cut their teeth in UN operations. Rwanda’s expeditionary engagements from UN missions to bilateral deployments against ISIS-linked militants in northern Mozambique, have cemented its image as a capable security provider, even as Rwanda’s role in eastern DR Congo and the rise of the M23 insurgency have drawn intense scrutiny and diplomatic censure. The lesson for civil–military relations is double-edged: external prestige can modernise doctrine and discipline, but unresolved regional rivalries can normalise militarised diplomacy at home.
From The Coup Cycle To The Social Contract
Breaking the coup cycle requires converting coercive capacity into legitimate authority. The survey evidence is clear that citizens want security and accountable rule, not permanent military guardianship. That implies credible, time-bound transitions; constitutional rewrites that limit executive tenure and strengthen legislatures; professional education that inoculates officers against partisan temptations; and justice systems that can try abuses by soldiers and civilians alike. The AU’s SSR and PCRD frameworks, anchored in APSA and Agenda 2063, already sketch this route. What is needed is steadier funding, patient regional diplomacy and a recalibrated sanctions playbook that punishes putschists without punishing the public.
The Road Ahead
A rethought civil–military balance in Africa starts with a political settlement: the military protects the constitution, not a faction; civilians respect the expertise and risks borne by the armed forces; and both submit to law. The legal scaffolding is in place Article 30, the Lomé Declaration, ACDEG, the ECOWAS Protocol, APSA’s institutions and the AU’s SSR and PCRD policies. The data are sobering, rising conflict events in parts of the continent, higher defence outlays, fraying public trust in politics alongside enduring confidence in the army. The choice is whether to read the recent coups as a return ticket to the past or a last warning that governance must catch up with security realities.
If Africa treats its frameworks as living instruments, enforced consistently, resourced adequately, and translated into barracks-level training and parliamentary oversight, then the soldier’s most vital role will be to make political interventions unnecessary. That is the only sustainable way to put the coup era truly behind us.
