Toward Stable Civil-Military Relations in Sudan

Abstract

The most dramatic of military interventions is the coup d’état, and the cyclical melodrama of putsches in Sudan has placed the country on a violent path. Perhaps a major reason for an irascible officer corps to plot coups is the lack of an effective contract binding the armed forces and society. This is keeping a chokehold on the country's progress, limiting its potential. In search of a better answer, revisiting the past cycle of military interventions is critically important. The recurrent mass actions and fleeting democratic transitions have exposed the bungling civilian leadership and defined the sociology in which Sudan's civil-military alchemy has fermented or gone bust. However, if the country had any concord among the military, the political leadership, and society, the risk of domestic military interventions would have been reduced, limiting the scourge of the power grab.