This Is What a Coup Looks Like

Why is it so hard to build a democracy? James A. Robinson on the coup in Sudan and the challenge of making inclusive institutions from the debris of tyranny. “Trump didn’t have the military on his side. It’s a good example of how you need the military on your side if you’re going to overthrow the state.” Generals and Rebels Why is it so hard to build a democracy? James A. Robinson on the coup in Sudan and the challenge of making inclusive institutions from the debris of tyranny. Sudan’s military seized power in a [coup]( on October 24, arresting the prime minister, dissolving the government, declaring a state of emergency, and ultimately throwing the country’s democratic transition into chaos. Widespread demonstrations against the takeover [continue]( as organizations representing teachers, bankers, and other professionals call for strikes, with the military jailing dozens of protesters. This coup comes two years after a mass uprising toppled Sudan’s longtime dictator Omar al-Bashir, who’d been indicted by the International Criminal Court for genocide and crimes against humanity. A military-civilian council replaced Bashir in 2019, and elections were planned for 2022. The turmoil in Sudan is only the latest dispiriting example of an unsuccessful transition following an Arab Spring revolution and regime change. Even countries that appeared to have created democratic systems after revolutions decades ago, such as Hungary and Poland, are sliding back into authoritarian rule. Why aren’t popular revolutions producing democratic governments? James A. Robinson is the director of the Pearson Institute for the Study and Resolution of Global Conflicts at the University of Chicago and a co-author of Why Nations Fail and The Narrow Corridor, two best-selling books about the historical paths to political and economic success. As Robinson sees it, the problem in Sudan is that the military controlled large parts of the economy under Bashir, so sweeping changes to the system would threaten military leaders’ financial interests. They don’t want a more inclusive economy, Robinson says, and the groups that led the revolution failed to give the military incentives to accept change. In his view, the broad coalition that overthrew Bashir couldn’t translate popular support into new institutions. The problems and the solutions for nurturing democracy vary from country to country, but the key after any democratic revolution, Robinson says, is sustaining popular pressure and a broad alliance for change—and converting that energy into an inclusive political system and economy. ——— Michael Bluhm: What’s happening in Sudan? James A. Robinson: It’s a battle between people who have a vested interest in what we call extractive institutions and people who are trying to force the system to become more inclusive. Sudan has a famously extractive political economy. There’s a wonderful article published anonymously by Sudanese intellectuals about 20 years ago called “The Black Book,” which is a very clever political-economy analysis of the conflict between the core of the state, based around Khartoum and the Nile Valley, and the periphery—the South, Kordofan, Darfur—with a very extractive organization of institutions. There was a massive collective uprising against this in 2019. The people managed to get rid of [former President Omar] al-Bashir and force the military to agree to a transitional government. But now, the battle to create more inclusive institutions seems to be failing. The army has reorganized, and new people have come to the top. Bluhm: What do you mean by extractive institutions? Robinson: I mean the institutions are designed to block most people’s opportunities and create wealth and opportunities for a very small number of people, through monopolies, preferential access to foreign exchange, control of imports, control of the agricultural economy, lots of labor oppression, violence. Extractive institutions are institutions that concentrate opportunities, incentives, and power in very few hands, at the expense of the vast majority. More from James A. Robinson at The Signal: “There are different elites in Sudan, but the military is autonomous. The fact that it has extensive economic interests is a disaster. It means a transition to democracy—to a more inclusive political regime—is much more threatening to the military’s interests. It means they have much more of an incentive to stop it.” “The Sudanese military benefits directly from its control of extractive institutions. You have to make things non-threatening to them. Civilian leaders were trying to navigate this. They understood that there was a real chance of a coup, so you had to keep the military in the game and find a transition from there—and that’s something the civilian leaders failed to do.” “They had to institutionalize the pressure for democracy, and they had this very complicated political coalition—with communists, nationalists, Baathists, and Islamists—and somehow, they had to keep that coalition on track, which they didn’t succeed in doing. The coalition fell apart because they had nothing in common, other than that they wanted to get rid of Bashir. They didn’t institutionalize this pressure from the streets or find a way of keeping it focused on the military, so they created this space for the military to take over again.” ——— Meanwhile: Is polarization easing up in America? A “once-in-a-generation investment”: That’s how U.S. President Joe Biden describes the infrastructure bill that Congress passed over the weekend, putting $1.2 trillion into America’s roads, bridges, and broadband; creating millions of jobs; and seizing the moment to, in Biden’s words, “turn the climate crisis into an opportunity.” Despite the intense political polarization of contemporary U.S. politics, the legislation won bipartisan support on Capitol Hill, with a critical number of Republicans joining Biden’s Democratic Party to advance this key element of his agenda. What does that mean for bipartisanship in American politics in the months and years ahead? I put the question to Bill Scher, a U.S. political analyst who [spoke with us]( about the future of political compromise in America back in May. —Graham Vyse Scher: The passage of this bill shows that the system can still work. We’re not so polarized that common ground is fundamentally gone. This legislation isn’t just nominally bipartisan either. As a result of the Senate filibuster rule and some House Democratic holdouts, you truly needed Republican votes to pass the bill in both chambers. A number of skeptics didn’t believe that Republicans would vote for the bill at all, let alone to be the margin of victory for it. If you have a negotiation process in good faith, incorporating ideas from both sides, this type of thing is still possible. There’s more common ground to be found—on voting rights, climate change, and immigration. But it would all require lowering the political temperature and abandoning self-serving narratives designed to make the other party seem monstrous. For example, Republicans just had a fantastic election in Virginia after Democrats passed a host of very progressive voting-rights laws allowing very easy voting access, so it’s ludicrous to argue that expanding voting access is somehow tipping the scales to the Democrats. It’s not. If both parties understood that, it’d be a whole lot easier to come up with voting-rights legislation that’s palatable to both sides. But someone has to step up and take some leadership. Even [the moderate Democratic Senator] Joe Manchin, who did a good job with infrastructure, hasn’t done a good job on voting-rights legislation as far as I’ve seen. He hasn’t included Republicans in the drafting process, as he did with infrastructure. We don’t see other ideas being pursued in a bipartisan way at this moment. I don’t know how Republicans will react to recent events, but a potential silver lining of Glenn Youngkin’s victory [in the recent election for governor] in Virginia is that he didn’t win the race the Donald Trump way. There was coded language, and it wasn’t the most laudable campaign ever run, but it was still different than Trump-style bombast with overt racism and division. Youngkin ran a happy, smiley, let’s-all-get-together campaign. If other Republicans can follow his lead and further distance themselves from Trump and get back to normal politics, it doesn’t mean everything’s going to be solved overnight, but you certainly could get a lot more done—with more rational conversation and cooperation—than you can with maximum polarization. For more from Bill Scher on the future of political compromise in America … ——— ——— [The Signal]( is a new digital publication exploring urgent questions in democratic life and the human world—sustained entirely by readers like you. To support The Signal and for full access: © 2021 The Signal The Signal | 717 N St. NW, Ste. One, Washington, DC 20011 [Unsubscribe {EMAIL}]( [Constant Contact Data Notice]( Sent by newsletters@thesgnl.email