national community welcomes the coup subject to conditions,
they must decide whether to accept these conditions and pro-
ceed to free and fair elections, or to cling to their new power:
whether to be Colonel Vall of Mauritania, or General Gueï of
Cote d’Ivoire.
Now we solve the game by working through it backward. Start
with step 7: will the coup leaders abide by the conditions set by the
international community? If they do they are heroes and can be
treated accordingly, if not, as you will see, they are living danger-
ously. The coup leaders will have come to power precisely in the
context of a stolen election, and this is surely the rationale that they
will have used to motivate their own soldiers into action. Coup lead-
ers are not inevitably self-serving like General Gueï. Mauritanian
coup leader Colonel Vall promptly arranged free and fair elections
and stood down. But suppose that, having said all these things dur-
ing the coup, the new leaders then became so partial to power that
they refused to hold verified elections. What might happen then?
The answer is that they themselves would face a high risk of a fur-
ther coup. Remember the risk is high because one coup leads to
another. The leaders of a second coup would have a ready-made
Better Dead Than Fed?
207
justification, and the leaders of the first coup would face dire con-
sequences: they would have no protectors. Gueï himself suffered a
countercoup once it was clear that he had reneged. So here is the
punch line: the threat of a further coup enforces the commitment to
the intervention being temporary. Of course, people sometimes make
mistakes or they take big gambles that pay off. But in step 7 the most
probable outcome is for the coup leaders to abide by the conditions
of the international community.
Now we can roll the game up, turning to step 6. Having sorted
out step 7, step 6 is pretty obvious. Why would the donors ignore
the coup or condemn it, when by responding with conditional ac-
ceptance they can pave the way for verified elections?
Now we are ready for step 5. The decision at this step is taken
by the military: should it launch a coup? The circumstances, re-
member, are that the international community has certified that the
government has stolen the election and publicly withdrawn its com-
mitment to intervene to put down a coup. The answer is that we
really cannot tell whether the military will launch a coup in these
circumstances. Perhaps the president has established such an intru-
sive form of repression that even discussion would be too dangerous.
Perhaps the military is entirely dominated by the president’s close
family and they all love him to bits. But quite possibly the bored
general staff decides that this is their moment. Above all, they will
worry that if they don’t take this decision, other more junior officers
will launch a coup instead. In that eventuality the current leader-
ship will be plunged into an ignominious premature retirement. So:
the threat of a rival coup makes a coup more likely. A close parallel to this stage was the coup threat that enforced regime change following the Senegalese elections of 2000. Remember that the threat
was emboldened by the coup in Cote d’Ivoire, which had revealed
that the French security guarantee had been withdrawn across La
Francophonie.
Now for step 4, which is in fact the crucial step: will the inter-
208
WARS, GUNS, AND VOTES
national community have the backbone to stick by its commitment
despite its deserved reputation for being pure jelly? Steps 5 through
7 have provided us with the answer. The international community
gets what it most wants by the strategy of declaring the elections
illegitimate and withdrawing the commitment to suppress a coup.
Indeed, it is actually much stronger than that. Suppose that the in-
ternational community does not withdraw the commitment. Now
what would happen if the military launches a coup on the argument
that the government is illegitimate? The international community
finds itself in the dangerous, damaging, and embarrassing situation
of either breaking its commitment to put down the coup, or inter-
vening militarily to defend a government against domestic forces
for decent governance. No doubt about this one: the international
community withdraws the commitment to put down a coup.
At last we are at the step that cuts the mustard: step 3. The
government realizes it may lose a fair election: should it steal it? We
know what the answer to that is if the government has not signed
up to an international standard: look at Nigeria, look at Kenya. Are
things different if it has committed itself? We now have the answer.
The government thinks through how events would unfold: if you
doubt this, remember that the representatives of the international
community will be explaining in graphic terms how they would
react. More crucially, the presidents of the countries of the bot-
tom billion have all been selected through a Darwinian struggle in
shrewdness: they may not always be the sort of people your mother
would invite for tea, but they would beat you at poker. They think
it through: stealing the election no longer looks such a good idea.
This is, indeed, precisely the calculation that confronted President
Abdou Diouf of Senegal: step down with honor and dignity, or face
a high risk of be ousted by a coup. He stepped down with honor.
And so to the potential killer: step 2. Anticipating all that fol-
lows, would any government sign up? We have seen the downside:
the government loses the scope to steal an election and this is costly.
Better Dead Than Fed?
209
So governments will only sign up if there are gains that more than
offset these losses. We know the promised gain: protection against
coups, but is it credible?
To find out, we have to investigate the related game of whether
the international community would make and then honor its com-
mitment. Fortunately, this game is not so complicated: technically it
is termed a “sub-game.”
S t e p 1 :
The international community decides whether to commit
to put down a coup in return for a commitment to abide by
democratic rules.
S t e p 2 :
There is a coup in a country that has committed, so does
the international community intervene and keep its promise?
Remember: work backward, so step 2 is first. Why should the
international community keep its commitment? After all, this com-
munity can hardly say, “My word is my bond,” at least not with a
straight face. The answer depends as usual upon the costs and the
benefits. There is no doubt that keeping the commitment has seri-
ous costs. This is the situation in which “our boys,” and indeed one
day my own boy, may get sent to somewhere most voters have barely
heard of, to put down a coup. As Daniel’s father, I do not relish such
a prospect. But there are
also benefits, and the benefits are poten-
tially enormous. We have found a way of making democracy work
in environments where otherwise it deepens many of the problems.
Suppose that by the time there is a coup that needs to be put down,
a dozen governments of the bottom billion have already signed up
to democratic standards.
And now put yourself in the shoes of the politician who has
to decide whether to keep the commitment or renege. Am I really
210
WARS, GUNS, AND VOTES
going to be a politician who reneges, wrecking not just this par-
ticular country but tearing up the commitment technology that a
dozen countries are already using? If I do that, not only will I be
vilified, I will have to look at myself each morning knowing what
I did. But, despite my posturing before the voters, I am 99 percent
jelly. I decide to ask my military: can we put down this coup? So
what will the military say? Realize that they will have been training
and equipping and extracting extra budget for just this eventuality.
They have already checked up on the historical record of how the
French and the British military put down coups in little countries
swiftly and with virtually no losses: this is not another Iraq. The
chief of the general staff stares down at the politician: “Piece of cake,
sir!” he replies. The ball is back with the politician: at some point
even jelly solidifies. In fact, the game is more satisfactory than I have
presented. Knowing that the coup is very likely to be put down, only
the drunken potential coup leaders make the attempt in the first
place, and so coups become rare and incompetent.
So much for step 2, how about step 1? If it is worthwhile put-
ting a coup down when it occurs, it is worthwhile making the com-
mitment to put it down. The international community gets many
of the benefits immediately, and any costs are in the future. So we
arrive at the solution that the coup commitment is credible and so
the benefits for signing up to the democracy compact are consider-
able. There is one further reason that the international community
should regard a guarantee against coups as appropriate: think back
to what drives the risk of a coup. Aid significantly increases coup
risk, and so donor governments are inadvertently exposing recipi-
ent governments to a menace. It is a menace they could and should
see off.
It is time to return to the question of whether in these cir-
cumstances any political leaders in the societies of the bottom bil-
lion would sign up to international democratic standards. Not only
would protection from the domestic military be attractive but the
Better Dead Than Fed?
211
government may also value other benefits. It gains legitimacy in the
eyes of donors, which may translate into cash. It may gain legiti-
macy in the eyes of its own citizens, which may translate into greater
power to achieve its objectives. And finally, there is likely to be a
push factor. The political opposition will almost certainly try to gain
electoral advantage by publicly and vociferously undertaking to sign
up to international standards if elected. The opposition will make
this commitment as part of its critique of government unfairness,
and because donor support may reduce the extent of government
cheating.
Indeed, I think it likely that President Kibaki of Kenya would
have committed himself to international standards, had there been
any, on first coming to power in 2002. His prior campaign had been
based around a series of promises to change Kenyan politics: an in-
ternational standard would have suited him well. Similarly, I think
it very likely that Raila Odinga, the Kenyan opposition leader, would
have committed himself to them during the campaign of 2007. Af-
ter all, following the declaration of the doubtful results, he called for
precisely the international intervention that a commitment would
have triggered. If the opposition is gaining political traction by mak-
ing such promises, the government may decide that is it best to neu-
tralize it by making the commitment itself.
Were there to be an international standard, the leaders of the
bottom billion would begin to sort into sheep and goats. And that it-
self would gradually increase the pressure on the goats. But given all
these benefits, would any nation or group of nations with the military
capability be willing to provide a security guarantee against coups?
Only a few nations have the required military logistics for rapid
deployment of sufficient force: America, France, and Britain. Are
they willing? Well, they already have the forces in place. America is
in the process of creating a dedicated military rapid-reaction force
stationed in Africa, rationalizing its existing capabilities around the
region. Appropriately, while the commander of the force will be a
212
WARS, GUNS, AND VOTES
general, the number two will be a development professional. France
still has a chain of military bases in West and Central Africa, and
Britain is already providing a security guarantee to Sierra Leone.
As I write, America is searching for African governments willing to
host the base: South Africa and Nigeria, two obvious locations, have
both declined.
After Iraq, many governments are naturally apprehensive about
the American preemptive use of force and so are wary. South Africa
and Nigeria are probably also concerned that an American capability
in the region might dilute their own regional superpower status. But
the brute fact remains that neither South Africa nor Nigeria is able or
willing to provide the necessary military capability itself. Nor, if either
developed such a capacity, would it be welcomed by neighbors who
are probably more apprehensive of the big brother next door than of
the global superpower. Whereas with America it is its recent military
behavior that raises concerns, with France and Britain it is the colo-
nial record. The world is not ideal: there is no military power that is
untainted in African eyes. But precisely because of these concerns, it
is surely better to have these forces bound by clear rules of use. While
the governments of South Africa and Nigeria might well not wish to
host foreign forces with an unclear mandate, they should welcome
them for the specified purpose of protection from coups against gov-
ernments that have committed themselves to proper standards of
democratic elections. “Keep out of Africa” is irresponsible if it con-
demns the continent to unaccountable government.
Finally, I turn to my most demanding readers: those presidents
who, having read the section that sets out strategies for reducing the
risk of a coup, still could not sleep soundly. Gentlemen, I promised
you that if you read on you would find a fully reliable protection
from your own army. You now have it: you no longer have to trust
your brother-in-law. All you need to do is to lobby at that otherwise
us
eless international jamboree to which you have just been invited,
for a compact on democracy. You make a note of it and fall asleep.
Better Dead Than Fed?
213
Proposal 2: Enforcing Probity in Public Spending
Proposal 1 provides some rules for how a government acquires
power. Proposal 2 shows how the international community
could also feasibly provide some rules for the use of power. At
the heart of the abuse of power is money.
Public revenue, whether from aid or from taxation, is not
a trough for political patronage: it is there to finance the public
goods needed for a society to be decent and prosperous. But, as
scandal upon scandal demonstrates, public money is only put
to these proper uses if politicians and senior civil servants are
shielded from temptation by systems of scrutiny and punish-
ment. In the developed societies in which corruption is now a
rarity we tend to forget that the habit of honesty is built on
the bedrock of fear of detection. In most of the societies of the
bottom billion, systems of public scrutiny were dismantled
from the top. The resulting grand corruption not only wasted
public resources, it empowered the political crooks. Patron-
age financed by embezzlement has been the standard means
of retaining power. How can international action help to put
restraints back in place, given that people who are politically
powerful would stand to lose?
For most countries of the bottom billion the answer is quite
straightforward: much of the money comes from aid. Donors
have both the power and the obligation to ensure that this money
is well spent. For many years donors hid behind the illusion
that their money was financing specific projects to which it was
ostensibly tied. As aid-receiving governments have increasingly
been encouraged to determine the content of aid programs, this
has become even more of a fiction. Quite evidently, if donors fi-
nance the projects that governments want, the chances are that
many of these projects would otherwise have been financed out
of taxation. There is nothing intrinsically wrong about such a
214
WARS, GUNS, AND VOTES
process, but what the aid is actually financing is whatever the
government would otherwise not have done. Knowing that the
Swedish government is willing to finance schools, the govern-
Paul Collier - Wars, Guns, and Votes Page 26
