Resurgent Coup d’États, Democratic Reversals, and Geopolitical Shifts in Africa

Abstract Transitions between “military” and “democratic” rule significantly impact the political stability of African states and challenge the legitimacy of “global governance” mechanisms promoted by regional and international organizations. Development and growth theories have long explored the durable implications of military coups d’état for social, political, and economic outcomes in Africa. An emerging body of critical scholarship has examined the resurgent coups d’état in Africa and their implications for the continent’s geopolitics. Concerned with the historical shortcomings of the imposition of global governance mechanisms onto African states, this article raises several questions about the tenets of global governance; the extent to which systems conceptually and empirically limited to particular temporal, spatial, and historical junctures “become global”; and how the strains and stresses that the African Union and the Economic Community of West African States continue to grapple with constitute a drive toward a new governance system that is reconfiguring geopolitical alliances.