The factors behind three recent coups in West Africa: A comparative analysis of Mali, Guinea and Burkina Faso

The upsurge of coups in West Africa in recent years has caught the attention of the global community, sparking debates on whether such occurrences are indicative of democratic decline. This thesis seeks to explain the factors that led to the resurgence of military coups in West Africa, with the view that the recent coups in West Africa were triggered by democratic backsliding commonly called autocratisation in political parlance. The inability of the people to effectively remove or address the shortcomings of their governments left them with limited alternatives for leadership change. Consequently, coups emerged as the only available means to remove incumbent leaders, despite the fact that the military did not represent the will of the people. Using Robert A. Dahl's Democratic Theory as a framework for analysis, which highlights the significance of citizen engagement, voting equality, effective representation, and the existence of enlightened knowledge in the creation and maintenance of a functional democratic system, this study explores the coups in Mali, Guinea, and Burkina Faso. Through a combination of expert interviews, an extensive literature review, and secondary sources, the study uncovers that the coups in these former French colonies were mainly a result of failed democratic processes triggered by weak institutions, poor governance, 'constitutional coups', abuses of power, corruption as well as political and economic crisis. The conclusion of the thesis is that the recent military coups in West Africa can be attributed to democratic backsliding and the failure of democratic processes in the region. Weak institutions and poor governance played a significant role in the occurrence of these military coups. Keywords: Democracy, Coups, Military, West Africa, democratic backsliding