{"id":77094,"date":"2025-07-01T08:01:00","date_gmt":"2025-07-01T08:01:00","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/sahel.watch\/coups-impact-security-west-africa-sahel\/"},"modified":"2025-07-01T08:01:00","modified_gmt":"2025-07-01T08:01:00","slug":"coups-impact-security-west-africa-sahel","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/sahel.watch\/en\/coups-impact-security-west-africa-sahel\/","title":{"rendered":"What impact do coups have on security?"},"content":{"rendered":"<p>\nCoups d\u2019\u00e9tat are often justified by their authors as a response to insecurity, corruption or the \u201cfailure\u201d of the state. The reality is more ambivalent. In many contexts, and particularly in West Africa and the Sahel, they tend to further weaken security systems that are already under strain, even when they respond to genuine popular discontent.\n<\/p>\n<h2>Coups: what exactly are we talking about?<\/h2>\n<p>\nA coup d\u2019\u00e9tat refers to the seizure of power, usually rapid, by a small group of actors (often military), outside constitutional procedures. It differs from:\n<\/p>\n<ul>\n<li>a revolution, which involves broad and sustained popular mobilisation;<\/li>\n<li>a negotiated transition, resulting from a compromise between political and social forces;<\/li>\n<li>a simple mutiny, limited to corporate demands without a seizure of power.<\/li>\n<\/ul>\n<p>\nIn West Africa, recent coups (Mali 2020\u20132021, Burkina Faso 2022, Niger 2023, Guinea 2021) have taken place against a backdrop of deep security crises, distrust of political elites and a reshaping of international alliances. Coup leaders frequently present themselves as \u201ccorrectors\u201d of failing trajectories, promising to restore security.\n<\/p>\n<h2>An institutional shock that disrupts the security apparatus<\/h2>\n<p>\nA coup first produces a shock effect on security institutions. Several dynamics combine:\n<\/p>\n<ul>\n<li>\n    <strong>Reshaping of military and security hierarchies<\/strong>: arrests, sidelining or exile of officials, accelerated promotions of those loyal to the new authorities. This reconfiguration can create internal rivalries, frustration and a temporary loss of cohesion.\n  <\/li>\n<li>\n    <strong>Short-term decision-making paralysis<\/strong>: chains of command are reorganised, priorities redefined, and ongoing operations sometimes suspended or reviewed. In conflict zones, this period of uncertainty often offers a window of opportunity to armed groups.\n  <\/li>\n<li>\n    <strong>Increased politicisation of the forces<\/strong>: when the army becomes the central political actor, considerations of career, loyalty and political survival tend to take precedence over strictly professional criteria, including in the management of security operations.\n  <\/li>\n<\/ul>\n<p>\nThese effects do not automatically mean the collapse of the security apparatus, but they create a structural vulnerability, particularly in the months following the coup. In contexts already marked by armed conflict, this vulnerability has direct consequences on the ground.\n<\/p>\n<h2>Impact on terrorism and armed groups<\/h2>\n<p>\nJihadist groups and other non-state armed actors watch national political crises very closely. The available data on the Sahel often show an intensification or reconfiguration of violence around coup periods, even if causality is rarely linear.\n<\/p>\n<p>\nSeveral mechanisms recur:\n<\/p>\n<ul>\n<li>\n    <strong>Exploiting windows of disorganisation<\/strong>: taking advantage of institutional confusion, some groups step up their attacks on security forces or extend their territorial hold, particularly in rural areas where the state presence is already limited.\n  <\/li>\n<li>\n    <strong>Stepped-up propaganda<\/strong>: jihadist organisations present coups as proof of the failure of \u201cimpious\u201d or \u201ccorrupt\u201d regimes. They emphasise the instability of political and military elites to attract new recruits, particularly among marginalised young people.\n  <\/li>\n<li>\n    <strong>Readjustment of local alliances<\/strong>: changes in leadership can undermine tacit agreements or local arrangements (formal or informal) between authorities, communities and armed groups. Already precarious balances can break down, relaunching cycles of violence.\n  <\/li>\n<\/ul>\n<p>\nIn some cases, the new authorities express a determination to \u201crefocus\u201d the military effort on counter-terrorism, with an intensification of operations. However, without a thorough reform of security governance and of the relationship between security forces and populations, this military escalation has mixed effects, and may even be counterproductive if it is accompanied by abuses.\n<\/p>\n<h2>Organised crime, trafficking and the informal economy<\/h2>\n<p>\nCoups do not concern jihadist groups alone. They also affect illicit economies and criminal networks, which play a central role in many border or peripheral areas.\n<\/p>\n<p>\nTypical effects include:\n<\/p>\n<ul>\n<li>\n    <strong>Reshaping of protection networks<\/strong>: traffickers and actors in the informal economy often depend on protection within the state apparatus (corruption, local arrangements). A change of regime forces these protections to be renegotiated, which can generate targeted violence or increased competition between networks.\n  <\/li>\n<li>\n    <strong>Opportunities linked to sanctions and isolation<\/strong>: regional or international economic sanctions, frequent after some coups, create new rents for smuggling circuits (fuel, foodstuffs, currency). Cross-border corridors can be strengthened, to the benefit of criminal actors and sometimes armed groups.\n  <\/li>\n<li>\n    <strong>Pressure on local populations<\/strong>: economic deterioration and the rising cost of living, amplified by political instability, push some households towards risky activities (trafficking, illegal gold mining, smuggling), which indirectly feeds conflict economies.\n  <\/li>\n<\/ul>\n<p>\nThese dynamics show that the security impact of a coup goes far beyond the military question alone: it reaches the heart of the political economy of territories, where relations between the state, armed groups and formal and informal economic actors are forged.\n<\/p>\n<h2>Civil-military relations and public trust<\/h2>\n<p>\nHow a coup is perceived by the population strongly influences its effects on security. In several West African countries, recent coups enjoyed, at least initially, significant popular support, fuelled by fatigue with previous regimes and the hope of a security turnaround.\n<\/p>\n<p>\nHowever, this support is often conditional and shifting:\n<\/p>\n<ul>\n<li>\n    <strong>If security expectations are not quickly met<\/strong>, disappointment can turn into distrust, or even protest, which military authorities tend to manage through coercive measures (restrictions on freedoms, repression of dissent), further weakening the legitimacy of the state.\n  <\/li>\n<li>\n    <strong>If security forces commit abuses<\/strong> (extrajudicial executions, abuses against civilians, stigmatisation of communities), the rift between populations and institutions deepens. In conflict settings, this rupture feeds the narratives of armed groups, which present themselves as protectors or alternatives.\n  <\/li>\n<li>\n    <strong>If local channels of dialogue are weakened<\/strong> \u2013 local authorities, customary leaders, civil society organisations \u2013 the capacity for social mediation declines, leaving more room for armed actors and the logic of communal revenge.\n  <\/li>\n<\/ul>\n<p>\nSecurity therefore depends not only on the military resources deployed, but also on the quality of the link between the state, its security forces and local communities. Coups tend to make this link more fragile and more conflictual, especially when the political transition remains undefined or opaque.\n<\/p>\n<h2>Regional dimension and the reshaping of alliances<\/h2>\n<p>\nThe security effects of coups also play out at regional level. In West Africa, the reactions of regional organisations (notably ECOWAS) and international partners have a direct impact on internal dynamics.\n<\/p>\n<p>\nSeveral trends can be observed:\n<\/p>\n<ul>\n<li>\n    <strong>Suspension of security cooperation<\/strong>: freezing of programmes, withdrawal of foreign forces, reduced support for training, equipment or intelligence. In the short term, this can weaken the operational capacity of national forces, particularly in the face of transnational threats such as Sahelian jihadist groups.\n  <\/li>\n<li>\n    <strong>Search for new partners<\/strong>: regimes resulting from coups sometimes turn to other international actors, state or private, to compensate for diplomatic isolation. This diversification can alter regional balances and introduce new security actors (including private military companies), with ambiguous effects on the protection of civilians and the regulation of violence.\n  <\/li>\n<li>\n    <strong>Tension between sanctions and the security imperative<\/strong>: economic and political sanctions aim to deter coups, but they can also weaken states already in crisis. The risk is that a lasting gap opens between some military regimes and their neighbours, to the detriment of cooperation against shared threats (terrorism, trafficking, piracy, organised crime).\n  <\/li>\n<\/ul>\n<p>\nIn cross-border areas, where armed groups move easily, any deterioration in regional cooperation quickly translates into a worsening security climate for populations and economic actors.\n<\/p>\n<h2>Effects that vary with the duration and trajectory after the coup<\/h2>\n<p>\nThe impact of a coup on security depends heavily on what happens next. Several trajectories are possible:\n<\/p>\n<ul>\n<li>\n    <strong>Short transition with a return to constitutional order<\/strong>: when the timetable is clear, inclusive and broadly respected, the destabilising effects can be partly contained. Continuity in security policy is more easily preserved, even if internal tensions do not disappear.\n  <\/li>\n<li>\n    <strong>Lasting establishment of a military regime<\/strong>: the longer the transition drags on, the greater the risk of authoritarian drift and personalisation of power. The priority shifts towards the political survival of the regime, at the expense of the necessary structural reforms (justice, local governance, oversight of the security forces).\n  <\/li>\n<li>\n    <strong>Succession of coups or coup attempts<\/strong>: repeated institutional ruptures reinforce a climate of permanent uncertainty. Political and military elites devote a significant share of their resources to preventing or organising new overthrows, which diverts attention from managing security threats.\n  <\/li>\n<\/ul>\n<p>\nIn all cases, coups tend to shift the centre of gravity of public debate towards the question of the legitimacy of power, relegating to the background the deep reforms needed to address the structural causes of insecurity: territorial inequalities, marginalisation of certain communities, access to land and resources, local governance, justice, corruption.\n<\/p>\n<h2>A \u201ccure\u201d for insecurity with largely counterproductive effects<\/h2>\n<p>\nCoup leaders often put forward one central argument: the civilian state has failed to guarantee security, and army intervention is a \u201clast resort\u201d response. Empirically, the results are mixed, but several constants emerge:\n<\/p>\n<ul>\n<li>\n    <strong>In the short term<\/strong>, coups often worsen security uncertainty, because of the institutional shock, the disorganisation of the security apparatus and the reshaping of local and regional alliances.\n  <\/li>\n<li>\n    <strong>In the medium term<\/strong>, regimes born of coups frequently struggle to turn their security promises into tangible and lasting improvements, for lack of governance reforms and renewed trust with the population.\n  <\/li>\n<li>\n    <strong>In the long term<\/strong>, repeated coups erode the credibility of institutions, normalise political intervention by the army and set up a cycle in which force appears to be a \u201cnormal\u201d way of regulating political crises \u2013 which structurally weakens security, including for economic actors.\n  <\/li>\n<\/ul>\n<p>\nThe impacts of coups on security are therefore neither uniform nor mechanical, but the trends observed in several West African countries suggest that they are more a factor of increased vulnerability than a lasting lever for stabilisation, especially when they are not accompanied by genuine work on the root causes of insecurity and on rebuilding the contract between the state and its citizens.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"<p>Coups d\u2019\u00e9tat are often justified by their authors as a response to insecurity, corruption or the \u201cfailure\u201d of the state. The reality is more ambivalent. In many contexts, and particularly in West Africa and the Sahel, they tend to further weaken security systems that are already under strain, even when they respond to genuine popular [&hellip;]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":1,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"closed","ping_status":"closed","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"_acf_changed":false,"footnotes":""},"acteur":[157,158,156],"niveau":[173],"risque":[170,171],"thematique":[159,163],"zone":[144,146,147,149],"class_list":["post-77094","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","acteur-armed-and-security-forces","acteur-non-state-armed-groups","acteur-states-and-public-institutions","niveau-analytical-level","risque-political-risks","risque-security-risks","thematique-armed-conflict-and-terrorism","thematique-governance-and-political-transitions","zone-burkina-faso","zone-guinea","zone-mali","zone-niger"],"acf":[],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/sahel.watch\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/77094","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/sahel.watch\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/sahel.watch\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/sahel.watch\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/1"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/sahel.watch\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=77094"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/sahel.watch\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/77094\/revisions"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/sahel.watch\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=77094"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"acteur","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/sahel.watch\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/acteur?post=77094"},{"taxonomy":"niveau","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/sahel.watch\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/niveau?post=77094"},{"taxonomy":"risque","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/sahel.watch\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/risque?post=77094"},{"taxonomy":"thematique","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/sahel.watch\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/thematique?post=77094"},{"taxonomy":"zone","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/sahel.watch\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/zone?post=77094"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}