Primus S (2025)
Publication Type: Journal article
Publication year: 2025
DOI: 10.1080/13510347.2025.2571043
This study investigates support for Mali’s military government two years after a coup overthrew the democratic order. It evaluates two common explanations for the popular enthusiasm that accompanied recent coups in West Africa: Deprivation, linking support to economic hardship under democracy, and decolonization, attributing support to concerns over Western influence and national sovereignty. Using Afrobarometer survey data, I identify government core supporters based on consistently positive ratings across various policy fields and analyse the drivers of their enthusiasm using logistic regression. The findings suggest that decolonization concerns are the primary driver of citizen support for Mali’s military junta. Negative views of Western influence and national identification are robust predictors of junta enthusiasm, raising the probability of being a supporter from 12% to 40%. Conversely, deprivation-based explanations are not backed by the data, with poverty and low education markedly reducing the likelihood of being a junta supporter. Accordingly, the junta’s legitimacy rests less on expectations of material improvements than on the promise to counter neocolonial influence. The case suggests that decolonial narratives may constitute an increasingly relevant legitimation strategy in autocratization processes, posing a challenge to democracy advocacy in countries with a colonial past.
APA:
Primus, S. (2025). Who supports the coup? Deprivation, decolonization and junta support in post-coup Mali. Democratization. https://doi.org/10.1080/13510347.2025.2571043
MLA:
Primus, Simon. "Who supports the coup? Deprivation, decolonization and junta support in post-coup Mali." Democratization (2025).
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