Don't Forget the Coup Plots!

Salah Ben Hammou

While fully-realized coup attempts (successful and failed) have dominated the headlines within the last year, thwarted coup conspiracies in locales such as Jordan, Madagascar, Kyrgyzstan, Guinea-Bissau, Mali, Nigeria, Burkina Faso, Djibouti, and the Democratic Republic of Congo (DRC) have notably received less attention from observers. Discussions of the recent “coup epidemic” generally exclude mentions of thwarted plots and related arrests. Coup researchers also tend to overlook these events, often referring to Henry’s Kebschull’s claim that plots can be “deliberately contrived nonsense put forth to serve the regime’s interest.”

Across the board, coup plots are generally treated as afterthoughts.

 However, far from negligible events, thwarted conspiracies can often signal important developments in a given country and should receive more attention by observers and researchers alike. 

WHY CARE ABOUT COUP CONSPIRACIES?
To be clear, it is natural that observers express more interest in concrete actions to overthrow the government rather than thwarted conspiracies. After all, actual coup attempts often see tanks deployed into the capital city, soldiers capturing radio and television stations, and in some cases, high levels of violence.  In other words, coup attempts can generally be hard to miss. Beyond their spectacle, these events also lack many of the uncertainties associated with alleged plots. Harkening back to Kebschull, governments can indeed use false allegations of a coup conspiracy to advance some purpose. Details surrounding thwarted coup plots are also often ambiguous. 

There are two issues with neglecting coup plots on this basis. 

First, discarding all thwarted plots on the basis of fabrication and ambiguity overlooks the importance of actual conspiracies, which can often signal discontent with the standing regime. In some cases, uncovered plots can serve as a precursor to an actual attempt. Second, fabrications do not occur in a vacuum and can reflect ongoing power struggles within the government or an incumbent’s attempts to consolidate their authority. Put otherwise, fabricated coup allegations are not randomly assigned and represent a “...commonly-used tool for consolidating power” by targeting political rivals. 

USING COUP PLOTS AS SIGNPOSTS
Recent examples highlight both of these considerations. For instance, the developments in Burkina Faso perhaps best illustrate that an uncovered conspiracy can serve as an early signal of the armed forces’ discontent with the government. On January 8, 2022, Burkinabe authorities arrested eight soldiers on allegations of plotting to oust President Roch Kaboré. Details on the coup plotters’ motives and demands were scarce but observers speculated that the plotters were disgruntled over the government’s response to Jihadist violence, a grievance shared by thousands of protestors back in November 2021. It would not be long before other forms of military discontent occurred. Two short weeks later, Burkinabe soldiers rallied together for a mutiny demanding a change to the government’s policy towards the insurgencies. On January 24, soldiers successfully removed Kaboré in a coup and installed a military junta led by Lt. Col. Paul-Henri Damiba. Similarly, October 2021 saw authorities alleged to have uncovered a coup conspiracy by junior officers in Guinea-Bissau. Five months later, soldiers attempted to unseat President Umaro Embaló but ultimately failed to do so. Rather than assuming that these coup plot allegations were simply contrived nonsense, observers could have seen these events as telltale signs of serious discontent against the government. 

Coup plots - fabricated or otherwise - can also signal the consolidation of power by a variety of actors and can reflect the culmination of a longstanding power struggle. Saddam Hussein’s famous 1979 purge was predicated on allegations that he had uncovered a coup plot by senior Baathist officials and used this event to brutally eradicate several opponents in the regime. Later, the allegations were revealed to be false. More recently, in the DRC, the arrest of Francois Baya - often considered the country’s “intelligence strongman” - comes in the midst of President Felix Tshisekedi’s efforts to sweep away holdovers from the former Kabila regime as argued by Jonathan Powell earlier this week. This week’s coup-related arrests in Djibouti might also reflect an attempt to shore up Guelleh’s regime in the midst of coup attempts across the continent. 

However, incumbents are not the only ones who can use coup plots for such purposes. In particular, the intelligence services can often emerge as a clear benefactor following a thwarted conspiracy. For example, Jordan’s highly ambiguous 2021 coup plot, which implicated Prince Hamza,  may have represented a broader power struggle within the Hashemite regime amid an ongoing COVID-19 crisis as argued by Rosalie Rubio and myself last year. However, we also note that the General Intelligence Directorate (GID) could have fabricated the plot to cement their valuable position in the government. In 1991, a fabricated coup plot (the Barraket Essahel affair) implicated several members of the Tunisian armed forces in the early years of President Zine Abidine Ben Ali's regime. Some have alleged the Interior Ministry concocted the plot albeit based on shaky evidence at best. In any case, the plot served a purpose to continue to curtail opposition towards the regime. 

TAKEAWAYS: INTEGRATING COUP PLOTS
Thwarted conspiracies can be highly useful for researchers and forecasters interested in a variety of different questions concerning political instability. Despite their scarcity, efforts using coup plots and related arrests have illustrated the utility of these events. For instance, studies by Mehmet Bardakçi (2013) and  Gürsoy (2012) have illustrated the process in which Recep Tayyip Erdogan has consolidated power in his regime. Bell (2016) uses coup-related arrests to distinguish between the strategies of democracies and autocracies in responding to coup threats. Writing for the Monkey Cage, Bell and Powell (2016) reveal that recent coups can spark coup-related arrests among geographic neighbors. The finding is particularly relevant given the recent coup cascade seen in 2021 and now in 2022. 

Overall, collecting data on thwarted coup conspiracies poses a host of different challenges. Current efforts to collect coup plot data by the Center of Systemic Peace and the Cline Center emphasize the questionable nature of these events. However, as questionable as they may be, coup conspiracies play an important role in the story of coups, authoritarianism, and political instability.