Using a mixed methods approach, this book examines the role played by regional organisations (ROs) following the occurrence of a coup d'état. It analyses which factors influence the strength of reactions demonstrated by ROs and explores which different post-coup solutions ROs pursue.

Coups d’état continue to present one of the most extreme risks to democracy and stable governance worldwide. This book examines the unique role played by regional organizations (ROs) following the occurrence of a coup d’état. The book analyses the factors that influence the strength of reactions demonstrated by ROs and explores the different post-coup solutions ROs pursue. It argues that, when confronted with a coup, ROs take both basic democratic standards and regional stability into account before forming their responses. Using a mixed-methods approach, the book concludes that ROs’ response to a coup depends on how detrimental it will be for the state of democracy in a country and how far it risks destabilizing the region.

Abstract: Coup attempts, as the recent ones in Turkey (2016), Sudan (2019) or Mali (2020) constitute one of the biggest risks to democracy and regional stability. In the past decades, many ROs including the EU, AU or OAS have taken a strong position against coups, establishing a global anti-coup norm in ROs. Yet the responses of ROs to coups are diverse and apparently contradictory. The thesis examines which role ROs play after coups. For doing so, it is analysed when and how ROs respond to coups (research question 1), which factors influence the strength of their responses (research question 2) and under which conditions ROs strive for different post-coup solutions, e.g. the reinstatement of the ousted government or new elections (research question 3). Coups violate basic democratic standards in ROs, but they also constitute a risk to regional stability. It is argued that when confronted with a coup, ROs take both aspects into account and adjust their responses accordingly. Using a mixed-methods approach, which combines quantitative and qualitative techniques, the plausibility of the argument is tested. The results confirm the initial expectation: The more detrimental a coup is for the state of democracy in a country and the higher its risk of destabilizing the region, the more decisively ROs will respond to the event.

This book provides a comprehensive overview of the evolution and particularities of regional organizations across Africa, the Americas, Asia and Europe since 1945. The authors analyze the membership dynamics and policy scopes of 76 organizations, and compare their opportunities and challenges in regional governance. They consider organizations’ competencies in eleven different policy areas, including trade, security and environment, and trace patterns in their development. For those with interests in comparative regionalism, international relations, political science and international law, this is an essential companion to some of the world’s most significant organizations.

There is growing recognition that many illiberal leaders cooperate as readily through regional organizations as their liberal counterparts. Particularly in Africa, illiberal heads of state cooperate through regional integration organizations to address coups d'etat, insurgencies, and other threats to regional stability. What sustains their collaboration? I present a theory of regional cooperation driven by mutual interest in regional stability and protection for heads of state. RIOs rely on member contributions to address threats to leaders, and they elicit contributions with a combination of inducements and punishments. Repressive leaders contribute to regional security initiatives to receive protection and avoid punishment. Using original security personnel deployment data for 54 member states from Africa-based RIOs, I present results of two statistical tests. First, I find that repressive leaders who are likely to need security assistance were more likely to deploy personnel to support co-members between 1990 and 2015. In a second test at the directed dyad-RIO-year level, I find evidence for the underlying mechanism that leaders contribute because they expect to receive security assistance from RIO members if they do so. Leaders who previously contributed personnel to co-members were more likely to receive military support from co-members in the future. Non-contributors were significantly more likely to be targeted by co-members for anti-government military interventions. Turning to qualitative evidence, including under-utilized Nigerian archival documents, I assess whether theorized causal mechanisms were operative in the Economic Community of West African States' responses to 17 political and security crises. I find that in the preponderance of crises, whether a leader was in good standing with co-members weighed heavily on ECOWAS co-members' deliberations about whether to initiate pro-government or anti-government interventions. These findings shed light on dynamics sustaining illiberal international cooperation.

Over the past several decades, democracy has taken root or been re-established in a number of countries with support from other democratic states and private groups. While the increase in the number of democracies worldwide has been widely heralded, very little has been written on how democracy can be protected and sustained where it has been chosen by the people of a state. In this first comprehensive guide to preventing and responding to threats to coups and erosions in democracies. Through case studies and in-depth analyses, this book provides legal and policy justification for these processes and discusses how they can be made more effective, combining the findings of an international task force on threats to democracy with contributions from leading scholars and policymakers.