troops invited in by the civilian government will deter interventions by the
local military. The absence of these three conditions removes the obstacles to
military supplantment and increases the probability of a coup(O’Kane, 1981).
A methodological problem here is to know how recent is ‘recent’. Nigeria
had five years of civilian government before it succumbed to its first mili-
tarycoup. It did not appear to need a long time for government to reveal its
inability to cope with the tensions and conflicts of an underdeveloped econ-
omy and an ethnically divided society.
The political culture
The most influential political explanation of military intervention relates it
to the level of the political culture. Finer (1962) classified political cultures
as mature, developed, low and minimal in a descending scale of modernity.
Each level is related to the propensity of the military to intervene, and to dif-
ferent kinds of military intervention. A mature political culture is one in
which the military are an important force in defence policy-making, but
have no wider role ascribed to them by social values, attitudes and expecta-
tions. A sense of legitimacy supporting the civilian regime is widespread. At
the other end of the scale are found countries with ‘minimal’ political cul-
tures, where the legitimacy of civilian government is almost totally lacking.
Such countries are likely to experience the most extreme form of military
intervention, the coup d’état.
Low levels of political culture and a weak sense of political obligation are
found predominantly in the Third World. Here there is a lack of confidence
that political demands will be heard, and a lack of trust in other groups
which might gain power. Because political values and beliefs do not coin-
cide with the presuppositions upon which the regime is built, there may well
be widespread popular support for direct military intervention. The destruc-
tion of democracy and the rise of authoritarianism may be tolerable in soci-
eties that do not feel that the form of civilian government which they have
is the best that could have been devised:
Where public attachment to civilian institutions is strong, military inter-
vention in politics will be weak. It will take the form, if it occurs at all,
of working upon or from behind these institutions – be they throne or
parliament – according to the political formula current. By the same
token, where public attachment to civilian institutions is weak or non-
existent, military intervention in politics will find wide scope – both in
manner and substance. (Finer, 1962, p. 21)Military Intervention in Politics 185