The recent wave of coups, particularly those occurring in Africa, seemed to have renewed interest in the question of “coup contagion.” As I write with Chris Faulkner and Jaclyn Johnson for the Foreign Policy Research Institute, there is a peculiar disconnect between the frequency with which people invoke the idea of coup contagion and efforts to seriously evaluate the presumed phenomenon. The latter, in short, finds previous little evidence that “coup contagion” is real.

Coup contagion is a subject I’m exploring in depth and will be commenting on in detail in the near future. For now, our FPRI article approaches the idea of coups as an epidemic, distinguishing between epidemics occurring through either communicable or noncommunicable ways. Understanding whether, and how, coups spread will surely be important to efforts to prevent them in the future.

Read the FPRI contribution here: Revisiting Coup Contagion