>>Good morning and welcome to Global Perspectives.

I'm David Dumke.

Today we are joined by Dr. Mwita Chaca, who comes to us from the University of Birmingham in England.

Welcome to the show.

>>Thank you very much.

>>So, Dr. Chaca, you have studied regional integration, you've studied coups, you've studied a lot of things about political stability.

So I want to get a sense from you in 2023, coming out of a global pandemic, when you have a invasion of Russia that has contributed to inflation, in food prices and in fuel prices and other items of daily life.

How is this contribute to the situation of political stability and into your work?

>>I would say that at the moment, the situation in Ukraine, the war in Ukraine is affecting food prices all over the world, particularly in the developing world.

And this, I think, may trigger episodes of political instability, political violence.

In fact, in the period during the pandemic, when when when we began to see food prices actually going up, it being difficult for you to get food from one country to another, that we saw several episodes of not just political violence, but also coups happening.

These are particularly in West Africa.

So to say that this situation may have that particular effect, not not necessarily trying to say that the war is going to lead to more coups, but the war may lead to some level of instability happening elsewhere because Ukraine and Russia are major producers of of cereals, particularly wheat, which many countries all over the world and many in the developing world like to rely on.

And so the war may be interfering in the flow of those particular foodstuff.

And if that's the case, people may be motivated to do something about it, challenge the governments, which can lead to to instability.

>>So when you when we talk about coups and I've I've reviewed some of your some of your past writings and you had to you had written before about particularly in Africa, you had a period of relative stability for about 20 years.

But it seems about like the last five years or so, you've had an uptick in political violence and coups of one kind or another.

Why is that the case?

>>So this has something to do with the pandemic.

It also has something to do with the fact that the incumbents, the incumbent governments, were not doing enough to address some of the security challenges the are facing in those regions.

And so the coups in, say, Burkina Faso or Mali or Guinea, which happened during the pandemic, had something to do with insurgencies that the incumbents were not able to address.

And so the armed forces took over power, or the armed forces, along with citizens, essentially rallied around each other and challenged the incumbent, leading to these coups.

And so I would link it more to not necessarily the pandemic itself, but also the incumbents inability to address a pressing issue that people felt had to be addressed to ensure their own security.

>>Are these you had mentioned, obviously in the first question we were discussing how the effect on food prices and fuel prices, which are two very key ingredients in people's day to day lives.

What are some of the other ingredients of these coups?

>>Mostly that some of these coups, maybe you could say a country that has had a history of coups is likely to have more coups in the future.

One one reason for this is perhaps those in the armed forces see this as a way in which to advance their own interests or the way to correct past mistakes that see the incumbent is is making.

Another, you could say motivation for coups happening, particularly in many parts of the developing world, would have to do with the regional mechanisms that have been set up.

For example, in Africa, you have certain mechanisms set up by the African Union, along with regional organizations like the Economic Community of West African States.

And these mechanisms not doing enough to preempt coup attempts.

By this I mean, for example, if the incumbent is going about oppressing their own citizens, the incumbent is suppressing the opposition.

The incumbent is sending the police against civilians.

Then all of these are threats to democracy, threats to democratization.

And if this - if these organizations that have this mandate to promote democracy, do not step in at that time, then this opens the possibility that the armed forces may rally with the people to to oppose the government that's doing this.

And so in some of these cases, you see what we would call popular coups, coups that have popular support.

>>Right.

>>And part of that has to do with some external mechanisms not doing enough to challenge this incumbent that's that's going against democratic norms and people being willing to see this as an option for them to get rid of this leader, that that is not doing enough to protect the human rights.

>>Well, I was myself I've witnessed some instability in government changes in unconstitutional ways.

But your point on on what makes a coup, a popular coup and how you legitimize that change.

I just want to have some hear some of your thoughts on that.

What makes it popular and then how do you regain legitimacy once you have removed a government in an unconstitutional method?

>>Let's say what makes coups popular would be, you know, the political situation where where the people see no other way out.

And, you know, and one reason I was pointing out is if external actors, such as those in the African Union or these other regional organizations in Africa have not sent a strong signal that they are actually committed to democracy.

They are actually committed to promoting democracy, then the people are observing these things.

And for them, if if if these organizations are not stepping in, then what choices are left for them?

Right.

And so the armed forces may take advantage of that situation.

I'm not saying that it's just the people that are stepping in on their own, but the armed forces may be taking advantage of this.

This particular situation where they see no one stepping in.

They see the oppression continuing and they see people being fed up with the incumbent.

So the armed forces comes together with the public and we see coups happening and people going out in the streets welcoming, welcoming these these overthrows.

So to say that is what turns these particular events into being popular in terms of how they gain legitimacy, that is where you have certain challenges.

And so in these recent coups in West Africa, for instance, all of them had popular support.

And those that have come to power seem to be reluctant to relinquish it.

And so they have negotiated transition transitional agreements with with the external actors like the African Union and the Economic Community of West African States.

But they seem to not be, what you might say, willing to go through with those with those agreements.

And so this is where you find it quite tricky that they are trying to legitimize the takeover in the name of trying to get rid of this oppressor.

But then they're not willing to give room to the return to civilian rule.

And so as much as they're popular, as much as these coups were popular, I wouldn't say that those who are orchestrating them end up being legitimate leaders.

And they actually struggle with trying to demonstrate their legitimacy.

And this is why the transitions are not working through.

>>Couple of questions along the lines of our answers.

First of all, and I'll get into the legitimacy question in a second, but what makes a political event where you have a government change a revolution as opposed to a coup?

>>That's a tough question.

>>This is a question I like to ask and try to have them explain this.

>>I mean.

Okay.

Okay.

That's a good question.

I mean, for me, a revolution would be one that seems to be building up involving various segments of society.

And it's not just this one off event.

We see it building up where it may involve those who are trying to take over.

Rallying the public openly doing this.

And so that results in this change in power that we've seen coming, for example, in Iran in 78.

I mean, you could you could sort of see the writing on the wall that something is going to happen and Bashar will be taken out.

>>Sure.

>>But then coups usually are just instantaneous events.

They are planned in secret.

You just end up finding out in the news or in some media circles that this has happened.

And so I would say that coups are more of a one short event, whereas revolutions somehow build up and we are able to observe that that building process.

>>You were saying with the popular coup, you know, that would seem to even be a blurry or blurry.

>>Exactly.

>>Line to revolution.

And I was I was thinking a particular situation with with Egypt where you had you did have a build up, you did have a change of power.

You did have military involvement.

And then you had the Obama administration for at the time.

Of course, there are laws in place on governing aid in the U.S. where they can give aid to a country that has had a government turnover and unconstitutional grounds.

And there is a real contortion to not describe it as a coup.

Yes.

So there's a lot of this just semantics that we're really talking about, the win.

Whoever wins gets to define some of this or ever... >>Not decide really.

I mean, if if you take the example of Egypt, I wouldn't say that.

I would say that there was an element of revolution, but I wouldn't say that we knew that those who are you know, those in the armed forces who ended up taking over were actually open about it prior to that event.

If you go back to to say Fidel Castro in Cuba, people could see that these are the ones who are trying to take over power in Cuba.

Right.

But in the case of Egypt, we didn't we didn't we couldn't identify these generals or these high ranking officials in the military as the ones who are aiming at doing that.

At least this was made obvious to the public.

So I wouldn't say it's a semantic issue.

I would say is actually one that we can observe where for coups they end up being deciding events and the armed forces stepped in.

Whereas for these revolutions we are seeing that these are a group of actors that have been fed up with the system, that they are communicating with other actors in society, and we end up having them taking over power.

>>Well, we will go with that.

I think there is some discretion, obviously, in how we define this, but get to get back to the stability question.

So we get to a situation where government has been removed from power, step down, whether voluntary, involuntary.

You have a vacuum and so you want to put a democratic process in place.

Of course, in the past you've had, whether they're military or other actors, trying to curry favor with the international community for reasons of assistance to get recognition, etc., to get access to credit for a number of other reasons.

They want to take steps, whether they really believe in democracy or not.

They want to take steps to get legitimacy.

So what is needed to regain legitimacy and what what are authentic steps supposed to.

You've studied coups for for some time, as opposed to steps that are really done just to put a facade on the situation.

>>You know, the word usually we do see the facade happening and usually the expectation by the international community whether its the European Union, the African Union has usually been is the transition that results in elections.

And once elections happen, then great, you regain legitimacy.

But I would say that that that relies on only elections doesn't go far enough, particularly for for the growth of civilian rule or democracy in a given country.

Because if we take the case of Egypt following following Morsi's sorry, following Sisis take over, the armed forces stepped in.

They overthrew Morsi and the African Union, among other international actors, condemned that event.

They they the African Union suspends Egypt's participation in the African Union.

And they say that unless you hold elections within this particular period of time, you won't be brought back into the this organization.

And so what does what is the general do?

The general decides to organize elections, you know, contest those elections is elected, and then hes welcome back as the democratically elected leader of Egypt, despite the fact that this is the person and others in the armed forces who actually staged that coup.

So the the the the only expectation that elections are held doesn't go far enough in terms of, I would say, legitimizing these persons rule.

The international community has accepted this as the outcome.

And I would I wouldn't say that for the people in in Egypt or any other country.

I wouldn't say that that is is is enough in terms of building a more civilian rule or a tradition of civilian rule.

And this, I think, will be the challenge for for for for the international committee when they rely on only this threshold of elections.

For for me, I would say that if we are truly aiming at our ensuring a proper transition and the institutionalization of democratic norms, then we need to check on how that particular country not only allows or denies those who stage coups to compete in elections, but also how do we observe later elections following the transitional elections.

And so you may have a transition this year, but then when you hold your elections, say, four or five, six years later, do we see would we still see you holding up to what you had committed to those previous years during the transition?

Have you improved on the practices that you had started implementing when you transition?

And if that's the case, then you can see that we're actually seeing something that is building on the successes of a transition, and theyre actually trying to legitimize the processes of democracy and and civilian rule.

>>By that explanation you just gave, you get through an election after a cycle and your state and a government is taking steps to stabilize the situation.

What is the what are some of the constructive ways the international community has been involved in in emerging democracies in strengthening the process so you don't have a slide back to these?

I mean, we're looking at our hemisphere and our neighbor, for example, in Haiti that has had a tradition of coups.

And even if you go back to like the Duvalier regime, he was actually elected at first.

Now, whether it was a free or fair election is a whole nother story.

But there's a tradition of coups and takeovers.

There's been outside intervention directly, militarily.

There's been intervention in terms of foreign assistance and other kinds of aid packages.

Nothing has seemed to settle the situation.

So what has been successful in other parts of the world?

>>Okay.

>>I threw a lot at you.

>>No, no, no.

I see that.

I see that.

But again, it's it's a tricky situation because do we expect only external actors here to be involved in in institutionalizing democratic norms?

I mean, I believe that the international community has a role to play.

You know, they can be this is supplementary pressure point that motivates those who are in charge to go through with democratic norms, practice them regularly, etc..

But ultimately, democracy really is coming from the people.

>>Whether they accept it or not.

>>And so, you know, we may we may see bodies like the United Nations or the European Union putting pressure on those who are in power, which which rightly can influence these leaders to stick to to democratic norms.

But also we would want to see a strengthening of civil society.

And perhaps this is an area that the international community can help to foster.

But we also want people to want these sort of, you know, this kind of government where they are able to help to hold their leaders accountable.

And if those two can come together, then we can see that we will be able to see that demo parts of the world.

But but if we're only expecting the UN or the European Union to step in and be the ones that guarantee democracy, I don't think that's going to work.

I don't think that's even enough because there's no ownership, right?

It's all about these external actors who are pressuring the incumbent and their government.

But then is that really enough to get people to actually say that this is our government?

And I don't think that's the sufficient.

>>We're talking about outside actors and kind of how the international community affects these situations.

You mentioned the the AU in the context of Egypt, but the AU and other regional organizations, you've worked on a lot of political integration, looked at that.

How can political integration, working with neighbors, particularly on a regional level, help stabilize governments, or does it help stabilize governments?

What is the effect of organizations like that?

>>I mean, I would say that the results are mixed.

So if we take the European Union, we see that it has had such tremendous effect on its member states, a positive effect on countries that have aspired to join the European Union.

Whether these conditions that you have to meet before you join the European Union, you have to be certain thresholds about your economic policy making.

Your democracy has to meet a particular level of standard that that is acceptable to the other member states.

But for other parts of the world, you don't see that or you don't see that to the same extent as the European Union.

And granted, it may not be fair to compare the EU with these other organizations, but one can see that in places such as South East Southeast Asia, where we have the Association of Southeast Asian Nations, what that organization has done when it comes to the situation in Myanmar, whether it's the coup or what has happened to the to the Rohingya minority, hasn't been really enough to motivate the Myanmar authorities to change their behavior, their reaction to the coup in Myanmar, a few years ago was relatively mute.

I mean, and this may have to do with ASEAN's tradition in ASEAN's approach to to noninterference in the affairs of of of its member states.

We've seen major changes when it comes to what the African Union and the Economic Community of West African States has been able to do, particularly when they're facing coups, but not in other parts of Africa.

So, for example, in Central Africa, we don't have a similar organization like what we have in ECOWAS that actually tries to address these threats to to democracy in the same way that the African Union or the ECOWAS has been able to do.

So I would say that the record has been mixed.

What the African Union does, which may send signals to other regional organizations in Africa and outside Africa, is having a set of procedures on what will be done when coups happen.

And the aim here being that if these steps are taken, we can deter coups going forward.

And there's research that has found that in some extent the African Union actually has had this effect on deterring coups, particularly since the 2000s.

Of course, the African Union doesn't go far enough, right?

The African Union doesn't implement its own policy to the letter.

So that's where we see that the record remains mixed.

They're doing something, but they're not doing all of it.

>>But it's it is a source of more stability as opposed to what's on the balance.

>>I would say.

So I would say I would say that because they have a clear framework on what ought to be done when coups happen on or on what ought to be done, when there are threats to democracy, then we could see that that has had a stabilizing effect because other member states in the African Union look to these rules and that may be sending a signal that perhaps you don't need to or you should not take actions that are undermining this commitment to democracy the African Union has now.

>>How does trade work in this this kind, the context of political stability?

>>We - for, for trade here, you would say that it works in fostering development, in increasing people's or improving people's welfare.

And so economic ties and this is where we see the reason why whether its European Union or the US usually rely on on aid as a as a as a carrot to motivate reforms, to motivate comments, to commit to democracy.

Intra-African trade hasn't grown to that degree.

We don't see countries in Africa trading with each other to the same extent as how much they do trade with, say, the European Union, the US or countries in East Asia.

But trade can be an important force in terms of-- >>Why - why is that?

Because I know it's not just this is not just a phenomenon in Africa.

It's also, for example, if you look at the Arab world, inter Arab trade is is is very small.

It's grown more in recent years, but it's always been traditionally very small.

Why is that?

>>Ah, we-- >>Is it a vestige of colonialism or is it all-- >>There are those who would make that argument that this has to do with what these countries in the global South produce and how the production structures during the the colonial period were mainly to move goods, raw raw materials, primary goods from these parts of the world to Europe, where they manufacture into finished products that are then sold internationally, including back to these these parts of the world.

So that has something to do with it.

It also has more to do with the fact that many of these countries produce the same things.

I'm not talking about countries in the middle East, but many countries in Africa producing similar goods.

So if you are producing similar goods, to what extent are you going to be able to trade those goods with each other?

So you end up with the situation where trade between these countries is low, but they're trading with Europe, they're trading with with America.

In fact, they are more lucrative when it comes to trade levels.

They are more lucrative.

Trade agreements are those with countries in in in North America, countries in Europe, countries in East Asia, as opposed to trade with each other.

But that doesn't mean that thier trade agreements - because these regional organizations completed agreements.

That doesn't mean that these trade agreements are are pointless because they have a purpose.

Not only the purpose is, this is what we see in research, is to establish these blocs that can begin with other countries, including the European Union, for better trade terms.

They create these blocs that can be able to attract investors because investors want larger markets.

So you have that effect.

It's not directly linked to trade the movement of goods, but it has something to do with getting investors who can then help to generate commerce, help to to to foster business.

And these countries benefit from that as as much as they are not benefiting from increased trade with each other.

>>The Chinese model and we only have a couple of minutes left so so but I do want to ask this.

We're talking about a new a different model of trade with the Belt and Road initiatives.

And there's been criticism of China and especially in the Western press, that it's been more exploitive of African nations in developing nations in Asia as well, where it's, again, more of a traditional, almost neo colonialism in terms of taking raw materials out and not leaving much in return or building infrastructure that serves its purpose.

How is that plan?

Is that an accurate read or is this how is this fair?

>>I mean, I wouldnt say its accurate.

I mean, what I would say is that I think part of the issue here is the kind of press China gets.

And I think part of that is painted as being only interested in in in what China wants, which granted any country is only interested mainly interested in what it wants.

And I would say that also makes it difficult for China is that when it's either providing assistance or going in to to build infrastructure, it doesn't have conditions.

And so that for many, I think for many countries in the global South is more attractive compared to the model where there's this expectation that you embark on either market reforms or political reforms for you receive assistance from these countries.

I mean, there are challenges to assistance coming from China, for instance, some of these agreements that countries in Africa have made with the Chinese government are not transparent.

People don't know about them.

And so I think that also builds or adds into to this.

You could see a negative view we have of of assistance from China.

If those agreements are transparent, then people perhaps would know that maybe it's not as as different as, say, deals they've made with France or the UK, but people don't know.

And if you don't know, then you're likely to assume the worst.

And these reports that the deals China made with countries like Kenya to build its new railway had this clause that they would take over the railway.

If this country didn't pay back its debts.

But this was never made public.

And so this comes out and it adds in to this negative view that people have of aid from from China.

>>Well, Dr. Chacha, it's great to have you on the show.

Really appreciate your thoughts on this.

I would take something out of this in terms of development being a key to how actually making the political climate more stable as a whole.

We appreciate your comments.

>>Thank you.

>>Thank you for joining us.

>>Thank you.

Thank you.

>>And thank you for joining us.

We'll see you again next week on another episode of Global Perspectives.