MILITARY COUPS AS RENT-SEEKING BEHAVIOR

Military coups d'etat have emerged as the most important method of regime change in sub-Saharan Africa. As a result of policies adopted shortly after independence, most economies in this region are heavily regulated. State intervention in the sub-Saharan African economies has created opportunities for rent seeking. The level and extent of government control is so pervasive that the traditional methods of participating in either political or economic markets are foreclosed to most citizens. Since members of excluded groups are unable to gain access to government controlled markets and cannot complete for rents because of their exclusion from institutionalized political processes, they must resort to the capture of the rent-creating apparatus of government. Capture of the apparatus of government is usually by extra-constitutional or violent means because constitutional methods of regime change do not function properly. The emergence of violence as the preferred method of regime change has propelled the military, which possesses a comparative advantage in the use of coercion, into the forefront of the political competition for resources. The military coup d'etat has emerged as the principal tool used by military elites to capture the apparatus of government. Military coups, at least in post-independence sub-Saharan Africa, are rent-seeking behavior, and are related to the government control of economic and political activities and the army's desire to preside over the allocation of resources. This paper uses evidence from Nigeria to show that military coups in sub-Saharan Africa are a rent-seeking behavior.