How many of us in this community will support a military takeover in a poorly governed African country? Of course, democracy has become the only yardstick with which we categorize legitimate governments and regular elections have become the vital signs of good democracies. But how much is looted and wasted in our cyclical and farcical elections every four years? I think the time has come to calculate the cost of holding regular elections in Africa and compare it with the cost of running a country under a military regime.
Am I understanding correctly that you wish more EAs would support a military takeover of a poorly governed African country?
If so, I would like to state that EAs putting significant resources into a military takeover of an African country is a bad idea. I might be biased here due to my pro-democracy views, but I would expect that life is on average more unpleasant in a military regime around the globe, not just in the west. You would need to be quite lucky that the military leaders care enough about the country and are competent in running it.
It is fine to do a cost comparison of holding elections and running a military regime, but I have high priors for this case and would prefer that cost effectiveness analyses are run for less obvious questions.
Hi again @harfe thanks for your engaging and stimulating comments. I am by all means not supporting military take over because of the frailty of human nature and its tendency to abuse power absolutely. I believe in the rule of law and I still have some hope in democracy. But the main point here is the word “demo” in democracy is merely a smokescreen meant to hide the real few power holding people in any given country against the interests of the majority. Categorically, EAs putting resources in military takeover is suicidal. I just want to point out that we are currently experiencing democratic backsliding in the whole of Africa not because of military take over but because of some undue influence in our democratic processes. The current bad democratic lock- I mean where the Executive arm of the government is overbearingly wielding unrestrained power over other arms of government is worse than a military regime.
On the other hand, we have seen military regimes in Africa under Thomas Sankara of Burkina Faso and Jerry Rawlings of Ghana who cared enough about their countries and the people gave hope to their countrymen. Finally, I would like to quote STEVEN LEVITSKY & DANIEL ZIBLATT :
Democraices may die at the hands not of generals but of elected leaders—presidents or prime ministers who subvert the very process that brought them to power. Some of the leaders dismantle democracy quickly, as Hitler did in the wake of the 1933 Reichstag fire in Germany.
The above quote captures what I call “bad democratic lock-in” and it takes local military takeover in African context to restore decent democratic processes for the benefits of the people not the elites and their cronies within and without.
Support here means not distancing ourselves from discussing the merit or demerits of an usual phenomenon.
My understanding of history says that usually letting militaries have such power, or initiating violent overthrow via any other means to launch an internal rebellion leads to bad results. Examples include the French, Russian, and English revolutions. Counterexamples possibly include the American Revolution, though notably I struggle to point to anything concrete that would have been different about the world had America had a peaceful break off like Canada later on did.
Do you know of counter-examples, maybe relating to poor developing nations which after the rebellion became rich developed nations?
Thanks @ DOTheMath for sharing your understanding of the history of revolutions and military coups. You mentioned “revolution” which is categorically different from ” military coups”. Since revolutions usually had the support of both the middle class and the lower class including some portions of the elites, definitely they produced systemic changes and improved governance. Remember, most of the revolutions you mentioned succeeded because they were no or little vested interested to thwart the outcome of such revolutions as we see with the subversive meddling of an international syndicates in African contexts. Burkina Faso under Sankara was on it way to development, but he was coldly assassinated because it would be a bad precedent and insult for pro-democrats in the West to have a military regime offer better alternative for development. In the history of coups in Africa, 60 % of them had been orchestrated by foreign powers ( France in Central African Republic, Chad, Togo, DRC , Gabon while the US seems to be discreet and diplomatic in its support for military takeover see the recent coup in Never Republic). The point about this failure is due to the fact that vested interests would start threatening to sanctions such regimes, thus not allowing them achieve their mission: offer viable alternative. Conclusion , military takeovers are not intrinsically bad as evidenced in the support their received in some cases where what is now called a palace coup is orchestrated to remove a democratically elected president by the support and approval of Western governments. What do you say of the ousting of Muhammad Morsi of Egypt?
Overall, the last time I checked, I saw no real democracy anywhere in the world. Let’s take the United States of America for instance. How many political parties exist there? How many of them determine the federal policies? How many democracies embrace multiparty system? Majorly, we are having weak coalitions hiding behind single party system draining democracy of its substance.
Finally, I would rather we have revolution in Africa, where African peoples rise up against bad governance and foreign interferences in the domestic affairs of various African countries. Recently, we saw how the United States institutions reacted to Russian meddling in their electoral process under Trump. This same scenario has not allowed development under military takeover or democratic governments in Africa. A question I would love to ask: do you objectively believe that democracy is a gateway to development, of course development is such a vague term with varying definitions? If yes, show me a developed and independent country practicing democracy in developing countries that attained such level as seen in the Global North.
Am I understanding correctly that you wish more EAs would support a military takeover of a poorly governed African country?
If so, I would like to state that EAs putting significant resources into a military takeover of an African country is a bad idea. I might be biased here due to my pro-democracy views, but I would expect that life is on average more unpleasant in a military regime around the globe, not just in the west. You would need to be quite lucky that the military leaders care enough about the country and are competent in running it.
It is fine to do a cost comparison of holding elections and running a military regime, but I have high priors for this case and would prefer that cost effectiveness analyses are run for less obvious questions.
Hi again @harfe thanks for your engaging and stimulating comments. I am by all means not supporting military take over because of the frailty of human nature and its tendency to abuse power absolutely. I believe in the rule of law and I still have some hope in democracy. But the main point here is the word “demo” in democracy is merely a smokescreen meant to hide the real few power holding people in any given country against the interests of the majority. Categorically, EAs putting resources in military takeover is suicidal. I just want to point out that we are currently experiencing democratic backsliding in the whole of Africa not because of military take over but because of some undue influence in our democratic processes. The current bad democratic lock- I mean where the Executive arm of the government is overbearingly wielding unrestrained power over other arms of government is worse than a military regime.
On the other hand, we have seen military regimes in Africa under Thomas Sankara of Burkina Faso and Jerry Rawlings of Ghana who cared enough about their countries and the people gave hope to their countrymen. Finally, I would like to quote STEVEN LEVITSKY & DANIEL ZIBLATT :
The above quote captures what I call “bad democratic lock-in” and it takes local military takeover in African context to restore decent democratic processes for the benefits of the people not the elites and their cronies within and without.
Support here means not distancing ourselves from discussing the merit or demerits of an usual phenomenon.
My understanding of history says that usually letting militaries have such power, or initiating violent overthrow via any other means to launch an internal rebellion leads to bad results. Examples include the French, Russian, and English revolutions. Counterexamples possibly include the American Revolution, though notably I struggle to point to anything concrete that would have been different about the world had America had a peaceful break off like Canada later on did.
Do you know of counter-examples, maybe relating to poor developing nations which after the rebellion became rich developed nations?
Thanks @ DOTheMath for sharing your understanding of the history of revolutions and military coups. You mentioned “revolution” which is categorically different from ” military coups”. Since revolutions usually had the support of both the middle class and the lower class including some portions of the elites, definitely they produced systemic changes and improved governance. Remember, most of the revolutions you mentioned succeeded because they were no or little vested interested to thwart the outcome of such revolutions as we see with the subversive meddling of an international syndicates in African contexts. Burkina Faso under Sankara was on it way to development, but he was coldly assassinated because it would be a bad precedent and insult for pro-democrats in the West to have a military regime offer better alternative for development. In the history of coups in Africa, 60 % of them had been orchestrated by foreign powers ( France in Central African Republic, Chad, Togo, DRC , Gabon while the US seems to be discreet and diplomatic in its support for military takeover see the recent coup in Never Republic). The point about this failure is due to the fact that vested interests would start threatening to sanctions such regimes, thus not allowing them achieve their mission: offer viable alternative. Conclusion , military takeovers are not intrinsically bad as evidenced in the support their received in some cases where what is now called a palace coup is orchestrated to remove a democratically elected president by the support and approval of Western governments. What do you say of the ousting of Muhammad Morsi of Egypt? Overall, the last time I checked, I saw no real democracy anywhere in the world. Let’s take the United States of America for instance. How many political parties exist there? How many of them determine the federal policies? How many democracies embrace multiparty system? Majorly, we are having weak coalitions hiding behind single party system draining democracy of its substance.
Finally, I would rather we have revolution in Africa, where African peoples rise up against bad governance and foreign interferences in the domestic affairs of various African countries. Recently, we saw how the United States institutions reacted to Russian meddling in their electoral process under Trump. This same scenario has not allowed development under military takeover or democratic governments in Africa. A question I would love to ask: do you objectively believe that democracy is a gateway to development, of course development is such a vague term with varying definitions? If yes, show me a developed and independent country practicing democracy in developing countries that attained such level as seen in the Global North.