Democracy in Africa is facing challenging times. One of the most prominent indicators of this trend is the reappearance of military rule on the continent. Between 2020 and 2023, seven countries – Mali, Chad, Guinea, Sudan, Burkina Faso, Niger, and Gabon – experienced military coups. Coup leaders justified their actions by citing the civilian government’s failure to improve the security situation. These military takeovers were met with large demonstrations of public support in Burkina Faso, Mali, and Niger, all of which have seen extended periods of conflict and insecurity since 2012.
These events raise critical questions on the relationship between insecurity, government performance, and popular attitudes toward democracy in the region. This analysis examines this question using public opinion data from Afrobarometer, a pan-African, non-partisan survey research network. Afrobarometer’s ninth round of surveys included six of the seven coup-affected countries (Table 1). Data collection took place before these events in two countries (Gabon, Niger) and during the post-coup period in Guinea, Mali, and Sudan, while Burkina Faso’s second 2022 coup took place during fieldwork. Afrobarometer data gives unique insight into citizens’ priorities, perceptions, and experiences on security and democratic governance during these critical periods.
TABLE 1: Military coups in Africa, 2020-2023
The following sections present these insights from across the continent, highlighting insights from countries with recent coup experience, particularly the three central Sahelian case studies noted above. The results show that physical security is a growing policy concern on the continent. Furthermore, recent trends in popular attitudes toward democracy and military rule suggest that governments’ failure to address prolonged insecurity is corrosive to the democratic project in Africa.
The emergence of the human security paradigm since the 1990s has broadened conceptualisations of security beyond traditional state-centric approaches to recognise that threats to human wellbeing extend far beyond physical violence. However, this article focuses specifically on physical security.
While economic issues typically rank highest among Africans’ policy priorities, the region has seen an increase in the share of citizens who cite security-related issues among the top three problems facing their country. Among the 30 countries Afrobarmoeter continuously surveyed between 2011/2013 and 2021/2023, this rate increased from around one in five (20%) to one in four (25%) respondents (Figure 1). Growing public concern coincides with a sharp increase in the annual conflicts on the continent.
However, as Figure 2 shows, there is considerable variation in the levels of citizen concern in each country. Among the nations who recently experienced a coup, security issues had the highest priority in Burkina Faso (83%), followed by Mali (57%), Sudan (38%), Niger (33%). In contrast, citizens in Gabon and Guinea registered below-average rates, at 20% and 14%, respectively. They were also well above the regional average in countries that have experienced various types of armed conflict, such as Nigeria (42%), Cameroon (40%), and Ethiopia (46%), Nigeria (42%), and Senegal (41%).
Narrowing in on our central Sahelian case studies, all three experienced significant increases in security-related concerns between 2016/2018 and 2021/2023 (Figure 3). These rates soared in Burkina Faso, from only 15% of citizens in 2017 to 84% in 2022. The latter result reflects the heightened tensions caused by civilian governments failure to address the country’s ongoing extremist activity. Niger experienced the second-largest increase, from 11% to 33% of citizens. Although these levels saw a more modest rise in Mali, this is at least partly the result of the country’s much higher concern rate at baseline.
These trends reflect the sharp deterioration in the regional security environment during this period, as the conflict spread from Mali into Burkina Faso and Niger.
Violent crime typically escalates in regions experiencing heightened conflict, as weakened government institutions and social instability create conditions conducive to criminal activity. Figure 4 focuses on respondents’ perceptions of personal safety by tracking the extent to which citizens frequently (“many times” or “always”) feared being a victim of crime in their home or neighbourhood. Each line represents our three cases or the regional average for the 32 countries surveyed continuously by Afrobarometer during the same period (grey line).
On average, these levels started relatively low in 2016/2018 before increasing by three percentage points and five percentage points, respectively, in 2021/2023. However, we see contrasting patterns over time in the three case countries. While perceptions of personal insecurity increased throughout this period in Burkina Faso and Niger, citizens in Mali reported sharp declines between the country’s pre- and post-coup surveys in 2020 and 2022.
Mali’s most recent Afrobarometer survey, held in December 2024, found that these rates have continued to decline: 25% of citizens reported that they frequently “felt unsafe in [their] home or neighbourhood” (not shown).
Security is a fundamental state function. Ensuring its citizens’ physical safety is critical to a state’s stability, day-to-day functioning, and legitimacy. The central Sahel’s ongoing crisis illustrates many African governments’ challenges in overcoming shortcomings in early warning and response mechanisms, institutional capacity, and conflict resolution frameworks.
When civilian governments fail to address insecurity, this may promote perceptions that military leaders would be better placed to deliver this basic governance outcome. When elected governments, in particular, fail to do so, citizens may view this as evidence that democratic institutions are inherently ineffective, making authoritarian alternatives, including military dictatorships, appear more attractive.
This section examines these questions by presenting trends in citizens’ evaluations of government performance and their attitudes toward democracy and military rule between 2016/2018 and 2021/2023.
Figure 5 first shows the trends in negative evaluations of governments’ performance on crime reduction and preventing or resolving violent conflict. Specifically, it reports the share of citizens who say that their government was doing “fairly badly” or “very badly”. On average, just under half of citizens reported deficits in these areas in our baseline year, and both rates increased over time.
We also see varying patterns among the three central Sahelian countries. Unfavourable evaluations on crime reduction were initially lowest in Niger (28%), followed by Burkina Faso (44%) and were highest in Mali (63%). While they continuously increased over time in Burkina Faso, they declined by a modest amount in Niger (-5 percentage points) and a substantial one in Mali (-35 percentage points) between 2019/2021 and 2021/2023.
Turning to citizen dissatisfaction with countering violent conflict, Mali saw an initial surge in these levels between 2017 and 2020, before they plummeted in the post-coup period, to 40% in 2022 and 25% in 2024 (not shown).
Afrobarometer has tracked popular attitudes toward democracy and various forms of authoritarian rule in Africa since 1999. Figure 6 presents country-level changes in these attitudes between 2016/2018 (yellow circles) and 2021/2023 (green diamonds). On average, support for democracy and disapproval of military rule decreased by three and four percentage points across the 32 countries surveyed continuously during this time. An even sharper deterioration (-11 points) in rejection of military rule was seen between 2019/2021 and 2021/2023 (not shown).
Among the six countries that experienced a recent coup, citizens in Mali expressed the most significant decline in preference for democracy, which went from a majority view in 2017 (67%) to a minority one in 2022 (39%). Guinea experienced the second-largest reduction (-10 percentage points), followed by Niger, Burkina Faso, and Sudan (all -8 points). Support levels remained stable in Gabon.
Similarly, four countries (Mali, Burkina Faso, Niger, and Guinea) saw sharp reductions in the share of citizens who disapproved of military rule. At the same time, these levels remained stable in Sudan and pre-coup Gabon. However, Gabon’s most recent survey finds that disapproval levels have since collapsed, dropping from 71% in 2021 to only 21% in 2024 (not shown).
The attractiveness of military rule to Africa’s growing population of young people is particularly concerning to advocates of democracy on the continent. In 2021/2023, two-thirds (66%) of Africans disapproved of military rule, with minimal differences across age groups. Narrowing in on citizen attitudes in the central Sahel, we see varying patterns by country in their relationship with various demographic factors, including age (Figure 7).
Mali’s youth (aged 18-35) had similar rejection rates to their older counterparts, while Burkinabé youth were slightly more likely to disapprove of military rule. While substantially higher shares of Nigerien citizens of all ages expressed these views compared to those in Burkina Faso and Mali, these rates were lower among the country’s youth.
Is there a relationship between national governments’ performance in addressing security concerns and African citizens’ views of democracy? Figure 8 examines this question by comparing the percentage of the population that gave negative evaluations of performance on preventing or resolving violent conflict (horizontal axis) against support for democracy (vertical axis) in each of the 39 countries surveyed by Afrobarometer in 2021/2023. The findings in Burkina Faso, Mali, and Niger are highlighted using red triangles.
The downward trajectory of the dashed trend line indicates a negative association between the two factors: high levels of dissatisfaction with the government’s performance tend to correspond to lower levels of preference for democracy over alternative systems of government. This suggests that insecurity is corrosive to grassroots support for democratic governance.
Security is a core responsibility of the state and a fundamental expectation of its citizens. When popularly elected civilian governments fail to ensure basic safety and order, it can undermine public confidence in democratic institutions. This perceived failure may lead citizens to view democracy as ineffective, making authoritarian alternatives seem more capable and appealing.
While strengthening democratic oversight of security forces is essential for maintaining civilian control during crises, recent insights from Afrobarometer surveys suggest that traditional security sector reform (SSR) programmes should also integrate public opinion metrics alongside technical capacity-building efforts. Incorporating citizens’ perceptions can help ensure that reforms not only enhance operational effectiveness but also boost public trust. Popular evaluations of security sector performance could serve as valuable indicators in early warning systems, helping to identify countries at risk of democratic erosion.
