Perspectives
Coup contagion? A rash of African power grabs suggests copycats are taking note of others’ success
Salah Ben Hammou, Rice University and Jonathan Powell, University of Kentucky
In a scene that has become familiar across parts of Africa of late, a group of armed men in military garb appeared on state TV on Dec. 7, 2025, to announce that they had suspended the constitution and seized control.
This time it was the West African nation of Benin, and the coup was relatively short-lived, with the government regaining full control a day later. But a week before, senior military officers in Guinea-Bissau had more success, deposing President Umaro Sissoco Embaló and effectively annulling the Nov. 23 election in which both Embaló and the main opposition leader had claimed victory. A month earlier it was Madagascar, where a mass Gen-Z uprising led to the elite CAPSAT unit of the Malagasy military ousting President Andry Rajoelina and installing Colonel Michael Randrianirina as leader.
The cluster of coup attempts follows a broader pattern. Since 2020, there have been 11 successful military takeovers in Africa: one each in Guinea, Guinea-Bissau, Niger, Sudan, Chad, Madagascar and Gabon; and two each in Burkina Faso and Mali. Benin represents the fifth failed coup over the same period.
The prevalence of military takeovers led United Nations Secretary-General António Guterres to warn as far back as 2021 of a coup “epidemic.”
But can coups, like the pathogens of many epidemics, be contagious? Certainly observers around the world continue to ask whether a military takeover in one country can influence the likelihood of another one happening elsewhere.
Do coups spread?
Cross-national research offers little firm evidence that a coup in one country directly increases the chances of another. And some scholars remain skeptical that such a phenomenon exists. Political scientist Naunihal Singh, for instance, argues that the recent wave’s coup plotters are drawing less from contemporary events than from their own countries’ long histories of military intervention.
In addition, he suggests that any observed regional cluster mostly reflects shared underlying conditions. For example, the countries across the Sahel region that have been the center of post-2020 African coups share a common set of coup-prone pressures: chronic insecurity driven by insurgencies, weak state capacity and widespread frustration over quality of governance.
Likewise, Michael Miller and colleagues at George Washington University, in a broader analysis, contend that would-be plotters pay closer attention to domestic dynamics than to foreign coups when deciding whether to move against their own governments.
As scholars of military coups, we recently explored the phenomenon and have come to a different conclusion.
Our forthcoming study argues that would-be plotters do indeed pay close attention when contemporaries seize power. A number of dynamics, however, could keep a statistical trend from being realized.
For one, statistical modeling typically requires contagion to occur within a tight temporal window, often 1 to 3 years.
Our findings challenge this approach. A wave of so-called “Free Officers” coups – military takeovers led by junior or mid-ranking nationalist officers, inspired by Egypt’s 1952 Free Officers movement – is a widely invoked example of contagion. The original Free Officers ousted King Farouk and went on to abolish the monarchy and end British influence in Egypt.
However, it took a full six years before a second “Free Officers” coup occurred in the region, in Iraq in 1958.
Rather than blindly follow the lead of Egypt’s coupists, would-be copycats watched closely, took notes and moved only when two factors lined up: the rewards appeared to be worth the risk, and they obtained the ability to make a takeover possible.
In the case of the post-1952 Middle East, the potential “rewards” of emulating Egypt’s Free Officers were not immediately apparent, even in countries with circumstances very similar to Egypt’s.
It wasn’t until the original Free Officers Movement’s leader, Colonel Gamal Abdel Nasser, emerged as a revolutionary icon in the region that others attempted to emulate his success. Nasser’s status grew further through his anti-colonial sentiments and victories, like his handling of the Suez Crisis of 1956.
As Nasser’s influence grew, the perceived value of a military takeover increased, and Free Officers-inspired plots quickly proliferated against the region’s monarchies. Six years after the Egyptian coup, the first copycat coup succeeded in Iraq, followed by additional successes in Yemen, Libya and Sudan between 1962 and 1969.
A further complication to establishing a firm trend is that the success of one takeover may actually hinder the immediate progress of another. After all, would-be copycats are not the only observers.
Vulnerable leaders and their allies can take cues from coups in other countries to try to mitigate their spread at home.
Thwarted conspiracies in Jordan and Saudi Arabia, which were uncovered between 1955 and 1969, demonstrated that while the sentiment to emulate Egypt’s coup was widespread, not all plotters had the capacity to act. Some governments were better prepared to block these attempts. Foreign partners like the United States and Great Britain also played no small role in helping shore up their monarchical allies against coup plots.
Africa’s coup wave
The case of the Free Officers Movement shows that plotters wait for clear signals that a coup is worth the risk. In Africa today, those signals are more immediate, even without a monumental figure like Egypt’s Nasser.
Coupists now see visible domestic support for military takeovers and muted international consequences for those who seize power.
It is increasingly clear to us that the region has seen a large increase in public support for military rule during this post-2020 wave.
Military coupists like Burkina Faso’s Ibrahim Traoré and Mali’s Assimi Goïta have not only attracted domestic support but also regional popularity, lauded for their anti-colonial rhetoric against France and their willingness to confront the Economic Community of West Africa States.
Data from Afrobarometer, which has regularly asked about respondents’ positions on having military rule, illustrate this shift clearly.
In the survey wave that ended in 2013, less than 11% of respondents in Benin said they supported or strongly supported army rule. This nearly doubled to 19% by 2021 and has now tripled, with 1 in 3 people in Benin expressing support for military rule. While a majority still opposes military rule, the direction of this change is significant.
These attitudes are reinforced by military leaders’ promises to “clean up” corrupt or ineffective governments. In Madagascar, for example, over 60% of citizens in 2024 said it was permissible for the armed forces to remove leaders who abuse power.
Highly visible images of cheering pro-military crowds in countries like Niger and Gabon further signal that a takeover can gain public support.
International indifference
The international signals are just as important. From the near-absent reaction to the Zimbabwean military’s removal of Robert Mugabe in 2017 to the lukewarm response to Chad’s military takeover in 2021, these cases suggest that international punishment can be temporary or even nonexistent.
The message is reinforced when coup leaders who are initially condemned, like Madagascar’s Randrianirina, later gain acceptance from regional organizations like the South African Development Community. In Guinea-Bissau, attention on last month’s coup has somehow seemed to focus more on President Embaló’s alleged involvement in the coup than on the military’s unconstitutional seizure of power.
And the lessons drawn from international responses involve more than just the seizure of power. Contemporary military leaders are staying in power much longer than their predecessors in the early 2000s, either by indefinitely delaying elections or by directly contesting them.
Although the African Union’s framework specifically forbids coup leaders from standing in elections, there has been virtually no consequences for coupists consolidating their rule via elections in places like Chad and Gabon.
This is not lost on would-be plotters, who see their contemporaries seize and legitimize their authority with minimal pushback.
To some degree, the spread of coups depends on how they are received. And in the case of the recent rash of military takeovers in Africa, the international community and domestic policymakers have done little in the way of stemming that spread.
Salah Ben Hammou, Postdoctoral Research Associate, Rice University and Jonathan Powell, Visiting Assistant Professor of Political Science, University of Kentucky
This article is republished from The Conversation under a Creative Commons license. Read the original article.
JNIM now strikes at capitals and governs territory, and the bet that Mali, Burkina Faso, and Niger placed on Russia as their sole security guarantor has failed. Analyst and researcher Joseph McCarthy writes that the fire will not stop at the Sahel’s borders, and Ghana stands directly in its path.
The Sahel is Burning, and West Africa Cannot Look Away
By Joseph McCarthy
At dawn on 18 June 2026, fighters stormed Diori Hamani International Airport in Niamey, the most heavily guarded site in Niger’s capital. It is not merely an airport. The complex houses the air force, most of the country’s drones, the headquarters of the Alliance of Sahel States’ joint force, the Russian personnel meant to help crush the insurgency, and even uranium stocks the state hopes to sell. JNIM claimed the assault, which killed eleven soldiers and two civilians. It was the second strike on that complex this year; the Islamic State’s Sahel Province claimed a January raid. Both of the region’s jihadist franchises have now breached the defences of a capital. This was not just another attack. It was a strategic signal.
It was also no act of opportunism. Hitting a fortified installation in a capital demands months of surveillance, intelligence on shift changes, the logistics to move fighters and weapons over long distances, and the ability to slip past layered security. It implies networks operating close to, or inside, the capital itself. As the Armed Conflict Location and Event Data project noted, the Sahel’s insurgents have moved from localised rural fighting to coordinated strikes on vital national infrastructure. The pattern is everywhere. In Mali, JNIM has throttled Bamako with a fuel blockade since September 2025, destroying hundreds of tankers; in April, it overran the garrison town of Kati and killed the defence minister in his own home; it has since placed a bounty of two million euros on the head of Mali’s junta leader, Assimi Goïta.
More troubling than the firepower is the governance. A Reuters investigation found that JNIM now arbitrates land disputes, collects taxes, enforces rules and imposes a rough order in territories the state has vacated. Forged from the merger of four groups, it increasingly presents itself not as a militia but as an alternative authority, building legitimacy among populations long neglected by distant governments. History is unkind here: from Afghanistan to Somalia, insurgencies that learn to govern outlast those that only fight. The contest is no longer simply about defeating armed men. It is about whether the state, rather than an armed movement, remains the most credible source of authority, justice and security.
Against all this, the juntas made a bet. Mali, Burkina Faso and Niger expelled Western forces, walked out of ECOWAS, and rebuilt their security around a single guarantor: Russia, first through the Wagner Group, then the Africa Corps. On 26 June, Burkina Faso severed diplomatic relations with France entirely, accusing Paris of backing the very terrorists it claims to fight, an allegation offered without evidence and flatly rejected. Niger’s government, for its part, blamed the Niamey attack on mercenaries funded by President Macron, again without proof. The promise was straightforward: sovereignty restored, foreign influence reduced, terrorism defeated. Judged by the junta’s own promise, the bet has failed. The violence has not receded. It has spread.
This should not be read as a uniquely Russian failure. It exposes the limits of any strategy built around a single external guarantor. No partner, whether Russia, France or the United States, can resolve a conflict rooted in governance failure, economic exclusion, local grievance and hollow institutions. Force can kill fighters. It cannot rebuild public trust, settle a quarrel between communities, open a clinic or create a job for an idle young man, and those are the very conditions the insurgents harvest for recruits. Russia carries constraints of its own: bogged down in Ukraine, its resources finite, it was outfought alongside Malian troops at Kidal even after reportedly receiving a warning of the assault. A security architecture resting on a single distracted partner does not reduce risk; it concentrates it, and when that partner underdelivers, there is no second line. The 2026 Global Terrorism Index now names the Sahel the global epicentre of terrorism, the source of more than half the world’s terrorism deaths and one in five of its attacks.
None of this stays in the Sahel. Ghana shares roughly 550 kilometres of frontier with Burkina Faso, much of it porous and threaded with informal crossings used daily by traders and herders. Southward expansion rarely begins with a spectacular attack. It begins quietly: a recruiter, a supply route, a financing cell, fighters embedding in border communities long before a shot is fired. That is precisely how the contagion crossed from Mali into Burkina Faso and Niger, and how it has already reached Benin and Togo, with Côte d’Ivoire and northern Ghana plainly exposed. Alongside the fighters’ travels, something almost as corrosive: a flood of assault rifles, explosives and military hardware that does not stop at extremist hands but arms robbers, traffickers and illegal mining syndicates, hollowing out a country’s security long before any jihadist banner appears.
The wider world has its own reasons to watch. Niger holds some of the planet’s richest uranium. A jihadist proto-state straddling West Africa would command migration routes toward the coast and the Mediterranean, strain fragile coastal economies, disrupt trade corridors and rattle investor confidence. At the same time, every successful strike on a capital broadcasts a template to armed groups from Nigeria to Mozambique. What looks today like a regional security crisis could become an international one. A region generating one in five of the world’s militant attacks is not a distant problem. It is a lit fuse.
Africa has paid before for believing that outside powers can guarantee its security. They cannot. Partners can offer intelligence, training and equipment; they cannot substitute for legitimate governance and functioning institutions. This crisis will be settled not only on the battlefield but in courtrooms, classrooms, local councils and marketplaces, where citizens decide whether the state or an armed movement better delivers justice and opportunity. For Ghana, the task is preventive, not reactive: intelligence cooperation, stronger borders, regional collaboration, community resilience and investment in local governance, all of it far cheaper than containment once the violence has taken root. And for the Sahel’s rulers, there is a harder truth.
Sovereignty that trades several partners for total dependence on one distant and overstretched power is not sovereignty; it is a fresh vulnerability dressed in the language of liberation. The question is no longer whether the crisis will spread beyond Mali, Burkina Faso and Niger. It already has. The only question left is whether West Africa acts before the Sahel becomes the world’s next strategic emergency.
Joseph McCarthy is an analyst and researcher specialising in governance, security, and political transitions in the Sahel. He writes on geopolitics, development, and African diplomacy. Email: joecarthy30@gmail.com
Perspectives
From Crossroads to Counter‑Offensive | Colonel Festus Aboagye (Retired) Discusses Ghana’s Anti-Narcotics Posture
Ghana’s 2026 World Drug Day commemoration marks a decisive turning point in the nation’s long struggle against narcotics trafficking, signaling a shift from reactive interdiction to an assertive, intelligence‑led posture that is already yielding tangible results. Yet, as a new policy brief by Colonel Festus Aboagye (Retired) makes clear, the strategic contest over governance integrity remains unresolved.
Twelve months after the Crossroads Republic paper rated Ghana’s narco‑state risk at 2.7 out of 5 — moderate but escalating — the country has made measurable progress. The Narcotics Control Commission (NACOC) has expanded from fewer than 10 district commands to 77 across all 16 regions; arrests, prosecutions and seizures are up sharply; and a special narcotics court and enhanced prosecutorial powers — both recommendations from 2025 — are now in place. But the threat has evolved in parallel: methamphetamine concealed in charcoal shipments, synthetic and new psychoactive substances, cyber‑enabled trafficking, a 7% drug‑test failure rate among security‑service applicants, and localised consumption hotspots (73.5% lifetime use in Madina) all point to a challenge that is far from contained.
The reform most central to averting state capture — political‑party‑campaign‑finance transparency — has gone unaddressed. Though Ghana may be winning tactical battles, the strategic contest over the integrity of governance remains open.
Read the full 20‑page policy brief, “From Crossroads to Counter‑Offensive”, by Colonel Festus Aboagye (Retired):
Share, discuss, and join the conversation on sustaining Ghana’s resilience against the evolving narcotics threat.
#WorldDrugDay #PolicyBrief #Governance #Resilience #Ghana #NarcoTrafficking #StateCapture
Commentary
Reflections on Ghana And the Future it Deserves | By Simone Giger, Swiss Ambassador to Ghana
As her diplomatic tenure in West Africa draws to a close, Swiss Ambassador Simone Giger pens a reflective and heartfelt tribute to Ghana’s enduring national character. Having traveled extensively across the country—from Paga to Keta and Wa to Goaso—she offers an intimate, human-centered assessment of a nation defined by its resilient democratic culture, youthful ambition, and an infectious “vibe” that fosters cohesion. In this candid farewell, Ambassador Giger explores the complex challenges threatening Ghana’s ecological treasures and argues that sustained institutional reform, rather than outside invention, is the key to unlocking the prosperous future the country so clearly deserves.
Travelling through northern Ghana, this author once stopped in a small community after a long journey. Despite the day’s heat and the demands of daily life, residents welcomed visitors with warm smiles, easy laughter and an eagerness to share stories about their hopes for the future.
It was a simple encounter, yet it captured something profoundly Ghanaian: an enduring optimism that persists even in difficult circumstances.
In diplomacy, countries are often assessed through official meetings, economic indicators and policy documents. Yet to truly understand a nation, one must travel through it, listen to its people, appreciate its strengths, observe its contradictions and understand the aspirations that shape everyday life.
As the end of a diplomatic assignment in Ghana approaches, this author finds reason to reflect deeply on a country that has left a lasting impression, not only professionally but personally.
Over the past four years, extensive travels across Ghana—from Paga to Keta, Damongo to Donkokrom, and Wa to Goaso—have revealed a country of extraordinary diversity, complexity, creativity and resilience.
Every journey has unveiled a different dimension of Ghana. Yet one common thread consistently emerges: a nation brimming with potential.
There is something profoundly remarkable about Ghana and its national character, what many Ghanaians simply describe as the country’s “vibe”.
It is evident in the warmth extended to strangers, the humour with which difficulties are confronted and the optimism that endures even during periods of uncertainty.
Even in challenging moments, there is often a joke, a proverb or a story that helps place events in perspective.
In this author’s view, that national character has become one of the essential ingredients behind Ghana’s democratic success.
At a time when democratic systems around the world are facing increasing pressure, polarisation and distrust, Ghana continues to distinguish itself through its commitment to dialogue, constitutional order and peaceful coexistence.
Democracy here is not perfect. No democracy truly is, including Switzerland’s.
What matters is that it remains alive, active and deeply valued by citizens.
Over the years, Ghana has established itself as an important democratic reference point in West Africa.
The country has repeatedly demonstrated that political competition can coexist with stability, that transfers of power can occur peacefully and that national debates can take place within institutional frameworks rather than outside them.
Such achievements should never be taken for granted.
Democracy is not sustained by elections alone.
It requires strong institutions, active citizens, credible public discourse and a continuous willingness to negotiate consensus across political, ethnic, religious and generational lines.
One can observe that Ghana’s diversity presents both opportunities and challenges. Yet this author has often admired the manner in which the country continues to navigate these varied interests while preserving national cohesion.
In many respects, this is where Ghana’s democratic future becomes particularly important.
The country possesses extraordinary human capital.
Wherever this author travelled, young people displayed ambition, intelligence, creativity and determination.
Ghana’s greatest resource is not found beneath the ground.
It resides in its people, their ideas and their aspirations.
Ideas and aspirations, however, require systems that function effectively if they are to translate into meaningful and productive outcomes.
When institutions are transparent, responsive, accountable and trusted, they unlock innovation, investment and opportunity.
When they are weak or inconsistent, they risk frustrating the very energy capable of propelling a nation forward.
This is why governance reforms remain so important to Ghana’s long-term trajectory.
One development that particularly impressed this author during the diplomatic assignment has been Ghana’s constitutional review process.
What stands out is not only the process itself, but also the spirit behind it – a willingness to reflect critically on how democratic governance can evolve to meet contemporary realities and future expectations.
This demonstrates political maturity.
Constitutions should never be viewed as static documents frozen in time.
Strong democracies periodically examine whether their systems remain responsive, inclusive and effective.
Ghana’s consultative approach reflects a country seeking not merely to preserve democracy, but to improve it.
Switzerland is proud to support these home-grown efforts and remains committed to supporting the constitutional reform process until its hoped-for successful conclusion.
History demonstrates that democratic stability does not emerge automatically.
It requires deliberate investment in participation, inclusion and dialogue.
Swiss democracy itself evolved gradually through compromise, negotiation and the understanding that national cohesion is strengthened when citizens feel ownership over public decisions.
One can observe important similarities between Ghana and Switzerland.
Both countries are diverse societies that have chosen coexistence over division.
Both understand that stability is strongest when different voices are heard and accommodated.
Both appreciate the importance of consensus-building in national life.
This shared philosophy has shaped bilateral cooperation over many decades.
Today, the partnership continues to evolve in both breadth and depth.
Switzerland currently supports initiatives focused on democratic governance, parliamentary cooperation, decentralisation, peace and security, cultural exchange, environmental integrity, climate adaptation and economic development.
Switzerland and Ghana may differ in geography, history and scale, yet both countries share a belief in dialogue and cooperation as foundations for national progress.
Despite Ghana’s bright prospects, one cannot ignore the challenges confronting the country.
No nation can fully realise its potential without confronting difficult issues directly.
During the years spent in Ghana, citizens from various walks of life spoke openly about concerns surrounding institutional effectiveness, economic opportunity, environmental degradation and governance accountability.
Such conversations reflected not pessimism, but a desire to see the country fulfil its promise.
Particularly concerning is the destruction caused by illegal mining activities.
Ghana’s rivers, forests and landscapes are among its greatest treasures.
Environmental degradation is not merely an ecological issue.
It is fundamentally a matter of intergenerational responsibility.
Future prosperity depends on preserving the natural foundation upon which communities, livelihoods and national identity are built.
Yet despite these challenges, this author remains deeply optimistic about Ghana’s future.
That optimism stems not from idealism but from observation.
The future of democracy globally will not be shaped only by geopolitical actors or large states.
Medium-sized countries such as Switzerland and Ghana also have important roles to play.
They can demonstrate that democratic resilience, peaceful coexistence and institutional reform remain both possible and necessary.
As this diplomatic assignment draws to a close, there is profound gratitude for the opportunity to have lived and worked in Ghana.
Over the years, this author has come to admire the country not only for its democratic achievements, but also for its humanity – its warmth, creativity, humour and enduring sense of possibility.
The task ahead is not to invent Ghana’s future.
Rather, it is to create the institutional conditions necessary for that future to emerge fully.
From all that has been observed across the country, there is every reason to believe that Ghana can achieve precisely that.
The author, Simone Giger, is the Swiss Ambassador to Ghana, Togo and Benin
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