Abstract
This thesis seeks to understand the incidence of coups d’état in Africa during the third wave of democratisation with a focus on the Central African Republic (CAR). It seeks to understand what factors drive the preferences of political actors in their methods to obtain state power, that is, when do they choose violence and when do they opt for elections. The guiding research question is: what factors explain non-compliance with elections as the mode of political transition in CAR since 1991? The specific objectives of the research are to further examine the conflict dynamics in CAR; ascertain what motivated political elites to choose the violent option; determine the conditions that made this choice a viable strategy; examine alternative forms for conflict management, and; identify possible challenges of conflict management. The thesis argues that coups continued to occur in CAR, despite the option for elections, after the return of democracy in 1991 because the factors that perpetuate their viability have not been displaced. The opportunity structure that creates an environment in which elections can successfully be substituted by violence as a mode for political transition in CAR is characterised by the limited chance of alteration of power through elections; access to the state as the primary means of accumulation; access to the means of violence; the absence of co-ordination against subversion and the failure of political pacts. The thesis uses a qualitative single-case research methodology with secondary and primary sources and thematic analysis. It makes a conceptual contribution to our understanding of coups by resituating the analysis of the state and society at the centre of accounts for violent conflict, grounding its explanation at the confluence of the institutional, political, social, and economic circumstances that have created the conditions for non-compliance with elections as the mode for political transition. The thesis is also significant because it contributes to those scholarly attempts at bridging the gap between research on the sources of democratic consolidation and the causes and consequences of violent conflict that tend to evolve in silos.