Beyond coups : terrorism and military involvement in politics

A wealth of research in comparative politics and international relations examines how the military intervenes in politics via coups. We shift attention to broader forms of military involvement in politics (MIP) beyond coups, and claim that terrorist violence and the threat of terror attacks provide a window of opportunity for military intervention, without taking full control of state institutions. We highlight two mechanisms through which terrorism influences MIP: government authorities demand military expertise to fight terrorism and strengthen national security and ‘pull’ the armed forces into politics, and state armed actors exploit their informational advantage over civilian authorities to ‘push’ their way into politics and policy making. A panel data analysis shows that domestic terror attacks and perceived threats from domestic and transnational terrorist organizations increase MIP. We illustrate the theoretical mechanisms with the cases of France (1995-98 and 2015-16) and Algeria (1989-92)