The Predictability of Coups d'état: A Model with African Data

This paper specifies and estimates a model of the structural determinants of coups d'état for the new states of black Africa in the years from 1960 through 1975. Results indicate that (1) both social mobilization and the presence of a dominant ethnic group are destabilizing (these effects are additive); (2) multipartyism is destabilizing while electoral turnout in the last election before independence is stabilizing; (3) multipartyism is particularly destabilizing where a dominant ethnic group exists; (4) the presence of such a group reduces (but does not eliminate) the stabilizing effect of turnout; and (5) multipartyism has no pronounced effect on elite instability where turnout is high. Taken together, these patterns account for over four-fifths of the variance in coups d'état in black Africa in the period.