Leader Survival Strategies and the Onset of Civil Conflict: A Coup-Proofing Paradox

• Author: Jonathan Powell
• Date: 01 January 2019
• Published date: 01 January 2019
• DOI: 10.1177/0095327X17728493
• Subject Matter: Articles

Article

Leader Survival Strategies

and the Onset of Civil

Conflict: A Coup-Proofing

Paradox

Jonathan Powell

1

Abstract

It is paradoxical that authoritarian leaders often hold power for long periods of time,

despite their states being plagued with rebellion. Scholarship has argued the practice

of coup-proofing is potentially responsible for this trend. However, though regular

armed forces are often allowed to whither when coup-proofing, states often retain

substantial capabilities in the form of well-armed and well-trained coup-proofing

units. This article argues that coup-proofing is more likely to contribute to rebel-

lion when leaders are hesitant to deploy their coup-proofing units: when coup risk is

high. Using a global sample of authoritarian regimes for the years 1971–2011, tests

indicate that heavily coup-proofed regimes do in fact see a considerable increase in

civil war likelihood when the risk of a coup is high but see no change in conflict

propensity when coup risk is low.

Keywords

civil–military relations, coups and conflicts, military effectiveness, civil wars,

coup-proofing

1

Department of Political Science, University of Central Florida, Orlando, FL, USA

Corresponding Author:

Jonathan Powell, Department of Political Science, University of Central Florida, 4297 Andromeda Loop

N, Orlando, FL 32816, USA.

Email: jonathan.powell@ucf.edu

Armed Forces & Society

2019, Vol. 45(1) 27-44

ªThe Author(s) 2017

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DOI: 10.1177/0095327X17728493

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Observers were shocked to see the ease wi th which the Islamic State (IS) in Syria

and the Levant was able to seize territory from Syria and Iraq in 2014. With IS’s

continuing gains, the United Sta tes was confronted with the reali ty that the Iraqi

state it had invested billions of dollars into over the previous decade was wholly

incapable of slowing the IS advanc e. Regardless of the capabilities possessed by IS,

the U.S. government and other obser vers had drastically overestimated the military

capacity of the Iraqi government. U.S. President Barack Obama had even infa-

mously likened IS to a junior varsity spor ts team earlier in the year, even after the

group had seized Fallujah. Unfortunately, all quantitative assessments of state

military capabilities would agree with PresidentObama’s January 2014 assessment

of the Iraqi armed forces vis-a`-vis IS, and all of these assessments would have

similarly been dead wrong.

The IS advance came just a few years after similar gains witnessed by Islamists in

Mali in early 2012. Mali’s soldiers openly complained that the government was

providing insufficient resources to combat the rebels, a trend that was allegedly due

to President Amadou Toumani Toure´’s desire to “fight a war against the rebels in

return for staying in power” (Radio France International, 2012). A mutiny-turned-

coup unseated Toure´ in March, leading to a larger political crisis and additional

gains by Islamists that amounted to nearly half of Mali’s territory. The deteriorating

security situation ult imately prompted a Fren ch-led military interv ention, while

international pressure and a subsequent countercoup led to the ouster of the coup-

born government. Commentaries on Mali’s crisis tended to blame the coup for the

failures of the Malian army, ignoring the ongoing losses the army had experienced

leading up to the coup. And while these assessments suggest the coup leaders’ stated

motive was little more than post hoc window dressing, the reality is that the army’s

concerns regarding the regime’s commitment to fighting were raised prior to the

coup, and the coup itself spontaneously arose during Toure´’s effort to quell a result-

ing mutiny at an army base.

Toure´ unequivocally rejected claims that he was not providing his military

adequate resources, but it is perhaps paradoxical that many leaders have managed

to retain power, sometimes indefinitely, while portions of their states continue to be

mired in civil war. This trend has been previously noted by comparativisits such as

Herbst (2004)who described the tendency for Africanregimes to reach an equilibrium

in which a capital remains stable while the countryside falls into chaos. This article

investigates this trend by considering the policy choices of leaders, specifically the

claim offered by Mali’s putschists regarding the practice of “coup-proofing.”

While it may at first seem counterintuitive that a leader would create conditions

that would increase the likelihood of a rebellion, I argue that leaders can in fact

increase their prospects of politic al survival by adopting policies that mak e the

likelihood of a civil war increase. Prior work by Roessler (2011) and Powell

(2014), for example, has detailed how coup-proofing can increase the likelihood

of rebellion while decreasing the prospects of a coup. This article extends these

efforts by considering how a higher threat of a coup can influence a leader’s

28 Armed Forces & Society 45(1)