“In Africa, whoever gets up early can successfully stage a coup.” This saying was among the most important things I learnt well while studying social sciences (covering history and geography) when I was in secondary education. Perhaps the recurrent coups in some African countries, and the ease of their execution, is the main reason why these words remain etched in mind to this very day. This begs an important question: are military coups a purely African phenomenon?
Most people, including political observers, understand that a coup represents a forcible takeover of power. This is what we learn in classrooms. This word is heard when news breaks out about a power grab in a certain country. But can power be obtained without a dispute or the use of force? Are not the rules applied in the political sphere reflective of the concept that the upper hand always goes to those who possess power?
Most of the time, we lose sight of the concept of power and its reality, particularly when we reduce politics to laws, institutions, elections and the outcome of electoral processes. We lose sight of much of its true essence when we just reduce its reality to things like hierarchy or the structure in which those who yield power are organized depending on the extent of power that they possess or their official rank. If we choose to limit power to the mentioned factors and parameters, the history of power will be shorter than the history of social contract theory. However, we know that power predates any contract, and social contract theory is simply a justification for a standing authority to wield power.
The idea of a social contract only appeared in the political sphere in the 17th century. Shortly before this, political pundits had no qualms about linking power to force. And no one blamed politicians for taking power by force. Many books regarding the art of politics and government were authored. These were manuals from which politicians could learn the best ways to ascend to power and maintain it. This has recurrently been indicated in the forewords of these books, as is the case in Niccolo Machiavelli’s famous political treatise titled The Prince, in which he countered prevailing political ideas, and he criticized the Italian thinker Giovanni Botero (1544-1617) who authored De la Raison d’État. In defining this title, he said that that the state represents power that is seized through suppressing the people and its rationale is based on establishing, maintaining and developing power through the use of force. This is apparent in the opening chapter of the book.
In fact, there is no major difference between how Machiavelli and Botero view the concept of power. According to them, power depends on the establishment and maintenance of it (ascension to power and survival ). However, Botero is distinct from his predecessors in that he adds the development of the state as one of the requirements for ascending to power. And this is mainly linked to the government’s inclination toward stability, institutions and economic openness. What concerns us about the definition coined by him, however, is the first part of it, in which he defines the state, as it could help us a lot to understand the reality of power and the meaning of a coup. But before going into the details of this matter, we must revert back to the concept of raison d’état; the reason for the state.
Botero authored his masterpiece De la Raison d’État since there had been a huge misunderstanding of the concept — despite the fact that the concept had been used by nearly everybody at that time — both the masses and the elite. He himself mentions this in the book’s introduction. Botero mentions that raison d’état, concerns the awareness, establishment, protection and development of a state. In other words, in the context of the Renaissance, the onus of reaching and understanding the concept of a state is on politicians in the first place. Thus, how would princes hold onto power/authority?
By returning to Machiavelli, the answer to this question is quite simple. According to this wise thinker, whoever uses extraordinary means to restore monarchy or establish a republic. This position was cited in a book authored by Hélène Vedrine (1926-2019) about Machiavelli. But even Botero himself, who authored his book to refute Machiavelli’s views, did not separate between power and the right to resort to force. According to his own calculus, power is nothing more than unleashing force against powerless people. And when we link this to a state applying illegal means to ascend to power, then force against the people is not unexpected.
Nonetheless, this concomitance between power and the right to use force does not mean that power is an absolute right. Until the Renaissance, no political leader had the right to legislate, since this right was monopolized by the community alone. Then, how could it be said that power is a means to suppress the people by force while at the same time it lacks the right to legislate? Perhaps without answering this question it would be difficult to understand the real essence of a state and the rest of the concepts coined during the Renaissance, perhaps foremost among these is the coup d’état concept.
Before the emergence of raison d’état, there had been a general rule that the men in power had the right to suspend the implementation of laws when they deemed it necessary. However, after devising the concept of raison d’état, the scope of interpreting necessity became much broader. It became no longer confined to times of war and crises that could affect a given community. But its scope expanded to include the interests of rulers and their personal security. And when the matter is related to a ruler’s security, it is difficult to distinguish between the security of a political leader and the security of the entire state (similarly to the difficulty that relates to determining the real meaning of national security in our time). Therefore, theoreticians found that the concept faced huge challenges and it could be exploited by rulers for the sake of their interests and holding onto power.
As a result, raison d’état in general requires the suspension of law wherever required in the interests of the community or the security of the entire state. At the same time, it allows measures to be taken against the community or one of its members illegitimately. This is what Botero attempted to bring out in his aforesaid book. Though this concept did not give much room for a political leader to act, he would ultimately achieve his aim via engaging in a coup d’état. It was defined as, according to Professor of Philosophy at the Ecole Normale Supérieure, Lyon, France Michel Similar in his book titled Machiavelisme et raison d’état bypassing the general right for the general good. However, this concept was rarely invoked during the Renaissance. And if this is the original meaning of the concept, how far does it relate to coups in the context of constitutional governments? And is it true that military coups are an exclusively African phenomenon?
The aforesaid concepts had been common at the level of political dialectics during the Renaissance. But their relationship to political thought began to significantly decline with the emergence of J. Bodin (1529-1596) known for his Six Books of the Commonwealth. What is the relationship between this book with the disappearance of the concepts related to suspending the application of the law?
If we do not rush to answer this question and instead return to what Machiavelli said, it might be unfair as we would dismiss its importance in the development of modern political theory. However, we may exaggerate if we ascribe to it the establishment of the modern state; the political structure based on sovereignty (unity of sovereignty). It is well known that Bodin is the one who coined this theory. When the author speaks about sovereignty, he does not refer to the system of government or the manner in which the monarch governs his subjects. This matter could be assigned to any entity whatsoever. The authority to make political decisions, on the other hand, cannot be granted or delegated to any entity because this prerogative belongs alone to the sovereign entity (the king). Thus, it is not surprising that Bodin defines sovereignty in the eighth chapter of his aforementioned book as the republic’s ultimate and permanent force. What exactly does Bodin intend by this?
It has been indicated that the rulers in the Renaissance did not have the right to exclusively issue laws. This right was assigned to the community and it could not be overlooked when the matter was related to its presence and fate. Conversely, those rulers, due to the concepts of necessity, raison d’état and coup d’état were able to temporarily suspend the implementation of the general right principle to breach the laws of the community. In contemporary language, it could be said that the aforesaid concepts are reflective of a state of emergency. At that time, such acts were temporary and driven by certain circumstances. But with the emergence of the concepts of one unity, the exception became the rule and the temporary circumstances became permanent. Thus, it became a right for rulers, particularly after the Treaty of Westphalia (1648) to make political decisions on their own permanently in all that is related to sovereignty, particularly issues regarding war, peace, taxation, legislation and penalties.
After the concept of one sovereignty gained legitimacy by virtue of the Treaty of Westphalia, it became difficult to take a step back in the political sphere. Thinkers and philosophers had no choice but to theoretically justify this new development. From this point, social contract theory emerged, which turned the constitutional state – metaphorically speaking — into a permanent and eternal coup, particularly after invoking the majority-minority principle as the indispensable law when the concept of constitutions had been consolidated in the political discourse.
Therefore, one may argue that the Niger coup, as well as the preceding and subsequent coups, are simply reenactments of the first coup, which began with the concept of emergency (suspending the principle of implementing the public right). The latter principle was irreversibly established when the principle of unity of sovereignty was adopted and enshrined in modern constitutions. Thus, coups are not confined to African countries, but they have evolved from an exception into a rule, an indispensable rule, in the political management of state systems. And if there is a difference between what is occurring in Africa and what is happening elsewhere, it is just a difference in how we justify making this emergency permanent. Whether the appeal for this excuse (coup) comes from a military officer aboard a tank or from the ballot box, the end result is the same which politicians constantly repeat, “There’s no alternative to power but chaos.” It is as if they are declaring, “It is we, or the deluge.”
Opinions in this article reflect the writer’s point of view, not necessarily the view of Rasanah
