Civil-Military Imbalance in the Sahel. Egmont Commentary 27 May 2021.

Wilén, Nina (2021) Civil-Military Imbalance in the Sahel. Egmont Commentary 27 May 2021. [Policy Paper]

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Abstract

In less than a year, the Sahel region has experienced two coups, one coup attempt and something that now looks like a ‘coup within a coup’, firmly putting civil-military relations at the top of the agenda for understanding the current context of power competition between political and military elites. In democratic states, the imperative to ‘guard the guardians’ is the basis for civil-military relations. Civilian decision-makers are accountable to the people while military officers have a responsibility to abide by the civilians, and to advise, yet not impose, their views on those civilians. That is the basis of democratic theory, which has been institutionalized and taught to militaries across the world. A theory which nonetheless increasingly has been put to test in industrialized democracies over the past few years.

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