Ignore, Condemn or Sanction It? African Regional Organizations and Their Reactions to Coups D’État

Abstract: Despite the emergence of a global “anti-coup norm” over the past two decades, coups d’état still constitute one of the major challenges to African security governance. Organizations on the regional (AU) and subregional level (ECOWAS, SADC) combine the benefit of institutional legitimacy with a deep and inclusive knowledge about region-specific issues and dynamics, which qualifies them as ideal candidates to deal with unconstitutional leader changes in their member states and in neighboring countries. Besides, many African Regional Organizations (ROs) have enshrined explicit norms about constitutionality and democracy in their statutes and have specified penalty mechanisms following infringements of these norms. However, African ROs seem to be quite inconsistent in the enforcement of those norms: Whereas they react to some coups d’état with harsh verbal reactions, the imposition of sanctions and sometimes even military intervention, they remain comparatively silent on or even tacitly approve other turnovers. Which factors explain whether ROs take action against coup leaders and what shapes their choice of responses? Do ROs differ in this respect, and if so, how and why? Are the approaches of different ROs coordinated with each other, as well as with the UN’s responses? Drawing on a unique and novel dataset including 99 attempted and successful coups d’état in Africa between 1990 and 2015, the paper assesses the striking variation in the attitudes and responses of ROs towards coup leaders in Africa and illustrates common patterns. On this basis, the paper uses theories of institutional design, governance transfer and regional power constellations in order to develop hypotheses on the variation of reactions to coups d’état within and across ROs. These hypotheses are tested with quantitative methods. The results reveal interesting insights into the considerations shaping the choice of instruments of African ROs towards coups d’état, such as negative externalities, geopolitical considerations and RO capacities. The paper concludes with a discussion on the implications of the findings for African security governance and on the potential of ROs to influence the post-coup development of affected countries.