Let's not kid ourselves, Egypt did experience a coup last night. All coups are not necessarily bad, it's not obvious that last night's falls into this category though - time will tell. How has Africa been doing on the coup front though? The graph below highlights coups in Africa since 1960 (from Systemic Peace's database). Small negative trend for all attempted coups. However, it was interesting to see the 1990's as the decade with the highest number of coup attempts (55 - although maybe it was just harder to fully track attempted coups in the 60's and 70's in all the world's far flung banana republics), and the naughties the lowest (29). Perhaps the end of the Cold War had something to do with this as foreign powers retreated slightly from the continent. Hopefully things are starting to settle, but 29 is still too high.
*Egypt and Libya in 2011 were not counted as coups - they were classified as a loss of authority/resignation and change of power after armed conflict respectively.
Looking at successful coups by decade in Africa, there is a substantial decrease, 15 in the 1990's (despite the highest number of attempts) and only 7 in the 2000's, down from 21 successful coups in the 1960's. Crudely put, in the 1960's over 50% of coups were successful, while last decade less than 25%. Decreasing chances of success probably further help to reduce coup attempts, as plotters are less willing to take a chance - especially for those plotters that are motivated by economic rents (greed) and not political gripes (grievances - see Collier).
*Egypt and Libya in 2011 were not counted as coups - they were classified as a loss of authority/resignation and change of power after armed conflict respectively.
Looking at successful coups by decade in Africa, there is a substantial decrease, 15 in the 1990's (despite the highest number of attempts) and only 7 in the 2000's, down from 21 successful coups in the 1960's. Crudely put, in the 1960's over 50% of coups were successful, while last decade less than 25%. Decreasing chances of success probably further help to reduce coup attempts, as plotters are less willing to take a chance - especially for those plotters that are motivated by economic rents (greed) and not political gripes (grievances - see Collier).
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