DO GENERAL MARCH TO BARRACKS OR TO POLLS? ANALYZING THE CHOICE OF MILITARY LEADERS TO PARTAKE IN ELECTIONS AFTER A COUP.

Abstract

After the Cold War, there is an increasing wave of optimism that coups can create democratic outcomes, primarily through organizing elections. However, little attention has been paid to the involvement of the military in these elections, even though military involvement at the polls would severely inhibit democratization. This thesis offers a novel perspective on post-coup elections by scrutinizing why some military leaders would choose to run for these elections, while others expediently return back to the barracks. To study this variation, this thesis complements a rational choice approach with a mixed-method comparative research design to argue that military factionalism and dependence on aid from democracies are factors which constrains military leaders from further intervention in the post-coup elections. These factors are tested in a large-n analysis of coups spanning from 1991 onwards using an original data that inspects the degree of post-coup electoral intervention of the military. Following which, this thesis employs an in-depth examination of the cases of Bangladesh’s 2007 coup and Egypt’s 2013 coup to investigate the processes and causal mechanisms behind these factors. As validated by both the large-n analysis and case studies, this thesis demonstrates that military factionalism and dependence on aid from democracies are constraining factors that induces the military to not intervene in post-coup elections.