The Varieties of Civilian Praetorianism: Evidence From Sudan’s Coup Politics

Civilian Involvement in Praetorianism

While prominent scholars like Singh (2014) and Luttwak (1979) de-emphasize civilians during the physical conduct of coups, several studies on the broader dynamics of coups reveal civilians’ importance. For instance, Thyne and colleagues (2018) find support that domestic backlash—in the form of protest movements—can shorten a coup leader’s tenure. Similarly, Casper and Tyson (2014) argue that civilian protests can help coupists coordinate their actions to oust the executive. More recently, Dahl and Gleditsch (2023) demonstrate that coups during civilian protests have a higher likelihood of yielding democratization.

Although these studies generally present civilian efforts as distinct from that of coup plotters, a small but growing body of research acknowledges that civilians actively support and promote military coups. One strand of literature uses civilian coup advocacy to examine civilian support for coups, moving beyond portrayals of these actors as “. . . passive, powerless victims of discontented . . . officers” (Kinney, 2021a, p. 15). This framework clarifies civilian agency by investigating the conditions under which they recruit soldiers for conspiracies or overtly participate in a coup’s execution. For instance, Kinney (2019) identifies high levels of political polarization and low levels of electoral competition as key conditions for civilian-backed coups. He later shows that civilians undermine democratic control of the military under high levels of economic and political polarization during regime transitions (Kinney, 2021b).

These findings complement research on civil society coups and civil society support for military interventions (Arugay, 2013; Encarnación, 2002; Lorch, 2017). Studies here similarly center structural-level explanations, highlighting features such as political polarization, democratic backsliding, and income inequality. Encarnación (2002) points to decaying democratic institutions and the rise of anti-establishment sentiment as especially important. Arugay (2013) echoes these findings and stresses the importance of historical legacies of military involvement in politics. Drawing on the experiences of Bangladesh and the Philippines, Lorch (2017) traces civil society coups to state weakness. She argues that a weak central government not only provides few options for meaningful avenues for sociopolitical change but also allows for civil society organizations to become “. . . entangled in alliances with powerful social forces . . .” (p. 187) including politically inclined militaries. Descriptive studies highlight similar conditions. Alexander’s (2011, p. 535) analysis of the Muslim Brotherhood’s support of the Egyptian Free Officers’s 1952 coup suggests that their relationship developed in part due to the state’s reorganization of repression and structural shifts in the ruling establishment. Likewise, scholars attribute the rise of Hugo Chavez’s civil–military Bolivarian Revolutionary Movement, which tried to seize power in 1992, to Venezuela’s rampant levels of economic inequality and corruption in the 1980s (Gott, 2011).

In sum, scholars largely emphasize structural conditions—polarization, regime type, state capacity, and income inequality—as important determinants for the occurrence of civilian praetorianism. However, these conditions are less useful for explaining the varieties of civilian praetorianism. A brief comparison of coup events in Egypt reveals the general distinction in civilian involvement. The Muslim Brotherhood’s support for the Free Officers primarily materialized in the post-coup period, offering different resources and manpower to neutralize opposition to the fledgling junta and help consolidate its grip on power (Alexander, 2011, p. 537). Six decades later, Mubarak-era elites plotted with the armed forces to topple President Mohammed Morsi, using financial resources to fund coup support, while opposition parties organized protests to incite the military’s intervention (Ketchley, 2017; Kinney, 2021b). The coup’s aftermath saw these parties join the interim government and justify the military’s intervention. Put simply, civilians can enable praetorianism—actively pull the military into politics—or they can consolidate praetorianism—assist new military leaders in shoring up their regimes. To make sense of this variation, the next section advances a new theoretical framework based on civilian agency.

Theoretical Framework: the Palace and the Public

Civilians require both the motive and ability to do so to back praetorianism. This assumption builds on the rationalist argument that would-be putschists need the motive and the ability to stage a successful coup (e.g., De Bruin, 2019; Powell, 2012; Singh, 2014; Sudduth, 2017). Although structural conditions like polarization and inequality might account for civilians’ motives to promote praetorianism, this study seeks to explain the variation in civilians’ abilities to do so.

Existing coup literature provides hints into potential explanations. A growing body of research argues that variation in military coup agency explains differences in the ability to seize and hold political power. This scholarship distinguishes between coups led by soldiers from “the top,” “the middle,” and “below” (e.g., Albrecht & Eibl, 2018; Albrecht et al., 2021; De Bruin, 2019; Kandeh, 2004; Singh, 2014). Singh (2014) argues that high-ranking officers are better-situated to project strength during a coup’s execution. Kandeh (2004) argues that coup agents from below typically resort to violence given their desire and need to upend the status quo. Similarly, De Bruin (2019) argues that because higher-ranking officers are better equipped to plan and execute military operations, they are less likely to employ violence in their takeovers.

A similar logic exists among civilian praetorians given that these actors also wield considerable resources in the context of coups. Drawing on Winters’ conceptualization of individual power (Winters, 2011, p. 12), Kinney (2021a, p. 8) notes that civilians carry unique sources of power, ranging from economic endowments to socio-political legitimacy, which fashion them as “. . .powerful allies for the conduct of coups.” Building on this framework, I argue that like military coup agents, civilians vary in their access to distinct sets of resources, facilitating their involvement in praetorianism in different ways. Two features—based on civilian sources of power— explain this variation: their proximity to the political establishment and their level of social capital in the broader population. As the following discussion expands upon, proximity to the establishment best positions civilians to enable praetorianism whereas social capital endows civilians with the ability to consolidate praetorianism.

Proximity to the Public

Civilians with high levels of social capital—socially embedded civilians—wield a distinct set of resources. Social capital here refers to the ability to meaningfully galvanize support from formal and informal networks within broader society—beyond the political establishment and the “elite.” Religious communities, ethnic networks, professional organizations, and social movements are some examples. Access to such networks provides civilians with the backing of relevant social constituencies, ideological platforms, public legitimacy, and the ability to overcome collective action barriers through organizational capacity. I emphasize the importance of galvanizing support for two important reasons. First, while civilian elites may enjoy initially enjoy access to some societal constituency upon taking power, subsequent periods of regime crisis may sap their ability to adequately mobilize their public supporters in a meaningful way. In other words, a loss of popularity among supporters—at the voting polls, among perceptions of public opinion, or amid periods of mass protest—suggests a decrease of an elite’s social capital. Second, simply being a part of a certain societal constituency does not necessarily translate into the ability to galvanize their support. For example, regular citizens enjoy might overlapping access to several constituencies but it is unlikely that they alone can adequately call upon the resources of these networks. Individuals occupying leadership positions in these networks—partisan leaders, labor organizers, religious elites, etc.—are the most capable at actively channeling support from their constituencies and thus are more likely to fall within the scope of high social capital. In short, social capital here refers to the resources and benefits associated with “people power.”

Given the utility of these resources, we should expect that socially embedded civilians are more likely to be associated with consolidating praetorianism. Specifically, civilians can leverage their social capital to provide post-coup support even if they play little to no role in the coup’s plot or execution. This manifests in several ways. Civilians with an ideological following can provide military coupists with their platforms and publicly endorse the fledgling regime, transferring legitimacy to the power-grab. Those wielding support from different social constituencies—ranging from prominent ethnic groups to organized labor groups—can transfer their constituency’s backing to coup leaders to build the appearance of public support. Extensive networks of loyalists or partisans can also guarantee a steady flow of manpower to stack the bureaucracy and government ministries. Such networks can also mobilize on the streets to counteract anti-coup demonstrations and rival opposition forces. For example, Iraq’s February 1963 coup saw the Ba’ath party mobilize its supporters to violently suppress anti-coup protests (Batatu, 1978, pp. 984–985).

We should also expect that would-be military coupists actively seek out the cooperation of socially embedded civilians. This builds on two interrelated themes in existing scholarship. First, politically dominant militaries generally establish ties with social constituencies as a strategy to entrench themselves and safeguard their interests (e.g., Brooks, 2006; O’Donnell, 1973; Self, 2022). Second, coup plotters often consider civilian support for a power grab before deciding to act (e.g., Casper & Tyson, 2014; Geddes, 2009; Kinney, 2019; Powell, 2012). However, rather than assuming that support from any civilian constituency is valuable, we should expect would-be military coupists to consider the relevance and social influence of their potential civilian collaborators. For example, the Free Officers initially cooperated with the Muslim Brotherhood because of the organization’s ability “to act as a counterweight to the other parties and establishment politicians” and “its tested ability to mobilise in the streets and university campuses” (Alexander, 2011, p. 537). For members of post-coup juntas, affiliation with a well-networked civilian organization can also serve to undermine rivals in the arrangement, a strategy often pursued by would-be personalist officers (Geddes et al., 2018).

Social capital is also vital in the face of international actors. During the Cold War, an association with a pre-existing Communist party could have been used to secure external material support from the Soviet Union whereas an association with capitalist forces secured similar support from the United States. As international reactions toward military coups have hardened since the Cold War’s conclusion (e.g., Marinov & Goemans, 2014; Shannon et al., 2015), an alliance with socially embedded civilians can help mitigate backlash. For example, Egypt’s 2013 coup leaders leveraged their alliance with secular opposition leaders and grassroots protestors to present their actions as motivated by civil power (Dorman, 2013; Kinney, 2021b). In response, U.S. Secretary of State John Kerry referred to the coup as “restoring democracy” and dispelled notions of a military takeover by stating that “there’s a civilian government” (Fisher, 2013).

Table 1 summarizes my theoretical expectations. Elite privilege enables military interventions and social capital consolidates them—yet these sources of power are by no means mutually exclusive. Politically privileged civilians can also wield social capital and socially embedded civilians can sometimes reach the apex of political power. In line with the theory’s logic, civilians carrying both political privilege and social capital can work to enable and consolidate praetorianism using distinct resources as the following analysis will show.

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Table 1.

Summary of Theoretical Expectations.

Source of Power	Logic	Available Resources	Involvement in Praetorianism
Proximity to the Palace	Civilian opportunity	Institutional mandates and elite networks	Enablement (e.g., coup initiation, joint plotting)
Proximity to the Public	Civilian opportunity	Public legitimacy and mass-based networks	Consolidation (e.g., post-coup support, legitimation)

Research Design and Methodology

This study uses a Most-Similar Systems research design (MSSD) and within-case process-tracing to build theory. Case studies are useful for theory development as they allow researchers to probe the plausibility of their theoretical intuitions (Seawright & Gerring, 2008; Yin, 2013). MSSDs are well-suited for holding extraneous features constant while focusing on the key differences between cases. Process-tracing helps uncover and assess the mechanisms linking explanatory variables to the dependent variable (Bennett & Checkel, 2015).

This study compares different instances of civilian praetorianism in three coup episodes from Sudan: the November 1958 coup, the May 1969 coup, and the June 1989 coup. Sudan is a theoretically and empirically rich country for students of coup politics. Coup datasets document at least 17 different attempts since independence in 1956, placing it among the world’s most coup-prone states (e.g., Chin et al., 2021; Powell & Thyne, 2011). Scholars of Sudanese politics have routinely referenced the prevalence of civilian involvement in praetorianism (e.g., El-Affendi, 1991; Gallab, 2011; Niblock, 1987). As Abdullahi Gallab describes, “behind every military coup . . . has been a civilian political party . . . while within every military regime were a group of civilians” (2011, p. 193). Using cases from a single country is also an effective way to hold background features constant given the logic of MSSD designs. Fixed country-level features such as ethnic heterogeneity, colonial legacy, and regional location match across all three cases.

Table 2 documents the cases and their relevant values, which are coded qualitatively save for regime age. My criteria for selecting these specific cases are as follows. First, as mentioned, a MSSD requires that the outcome of interest varies across cases. In 1958, civilians enabled praetorianism and instigated a coup d’etat. In 1969, civilians consolidated praetorianism and shored up the post-coup regime with little involvement in facilitating the coup. In 1989, civilians enabled and consolidated praetorianism by instigating a coup and providing the subsequent regime with its ideological framework, structure, and manpower. Second, each case occurred against similar structural conditions that previous scholarship has associated with civilian coup involvement. Each coup occurred against the backdrop of an unconsolidated democracy (<10 years) rife with sociopolitical polarization. Since independence, Sudan’s political experience has been defined by intense polarization over a complex combination of center-periphery divisions, class cleavages, religious sectarianism, and ethnic competition (e.g., Berridge et al., 2022; El-Battahani, 2013). Following Anckar’s (2008, 395) logic that “similarities cannot explain differences,” it is unlikely that these structural explanations account for the variation in civilian praetorianism across the cases.

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Table 2.

Most-Similar Cases of Civilian Praetorianism in Sudan’s Coups.

Structural Features				Civilian Praetorians	Agent-level Features
Cases	Regime Type	Regime Age	Social Polarization		Social Capital	Proximity to the Palace	Involvement in Praetorianism
1958 coup	Democratic	2 years	High	PM Abdalla Khalil and the Umma Party	Low	High	Enable
1969 coup	Democratic	4 years	High	The Communist Party	High	Low	Consolidate
1989 coup	Democratic	4 years	High	The National Islamic Front	High	High	Enable and Consolidate

Finally, each case features civilian praetorians with considerable variation in their access to political power and their degree of social capital—this study’s main explanatory variables. In 1958, the Umma party—led by Prime Minister Abdalla Khalil—represented the apex of Sudan’s political establishment but quickly lost its ties to the public amid a deepening sociopolitical crisis. Conversely, by 1969, the Sudanese Communist Party was outlawed and repressed by the ruling establishment but carried substantial social capital due its ties to and influence over labor organizations, student organizations, and educated class. Finally, by 1989, Hassan al-Turabi’s NIF wielded elite privileges gained through its integration in Jaafar Nimeiri’s dictatorship but also dominated civil society with a loyal following among the country’s professional class.

This study uses qualitative evidence culled from a wide array of relevant source material. These sources include memoirs and available participant testimonies, declassified documents from the Central Intelligence Agency (CIA) and British Foreign Office, historiographies and sociological studies on Sudan, and other forms of secondary academic literature. I use process-tracing to demonstrate the importance of civilian resources toward their method of support for the coup. This means that the case narratives should convincingly communicate how civilians leveraged distinct sets of resources as a function of their proximity to political power or their social capital to enable or consolidate praetorianism.

November 17, 1958: Enabling Praetorianism

On November 17, 1958, General Ibrahim Abboud staged a military coup. His forces secured control of Khartoum, suspended Parliament and the constitution, and outlawed all political parties. Only 2 years after independence, military officers swept away Sudan’s fledgling democracy. However, a closer examination reveals that a civilian laid the groundwork for the coup.

Considerable evidence reveals that Prime Minister ³ Abdalla Khalil of the Umma Party initiated the coup by ordering senior officers—including General Abboud—to seize power and dissolve the government. In a private communique, British diplomat Sir Edwin Chapman-Andrews disclosed that “[Abdalla] himself confessed privately that he was in the plot months ago . . . as Minister of Defence, he ordered the army to plan a takeover . . .” (Chapman-Andrews, 1958, p. 35). U.S. intelligence services similarly highlight Khalil’s role as the coup’s initiator. A CIA brief from late October 1958 disclosed that “. . . Prime Minister Khalil is again considering his plan for an army-supported coup . . . first reported last July” (emphasis added, Central Intelligence Agency [CIA], 1958a, p. 2). Just days before the coup on November 17, a NSC briefing similarly stated that “. . . a Khalil-led coup is an open-secret in Khartoum . . .” (emphasis added, CIA, 1958b, p. 2). General Abboud’s testimony before a committee of inquiry in 1964 stated that “Abdallah Khalil was the mastermind of the coup idea . . . had he asked us to stop staging the coup, we would have done that immediately” (Ministry of Justice, 1964 as cited in Niblock, 1987, p. 215). Although Abboud may have tried to evade accountability, similar characterizations of Khalil’s role by external actors strengthen his credibility.

Khalil’s proximity to the political establishment—serving as Prime Minister and Defense Minister—enabled his ability to initiate a coup plot. Institutional endowments are frequently mentioned in accounts of his involvement in the coup. Chapman-Andrews’s communique highlights that Khalil ordered the armed forces to dissolve the government and take control of the executive by using his state position as the defense minister (Chapman-Andrews, 1958, p. 35). Similarly, Abboud explicitly stated Khalil’s orders were received as “. . .the orders of a superior to his subordinate. I accepted them on that basis” (Ministry of Justice, 1964 as cited in Niblock, 1987, p. 215). Other coup participants’ testimonies—such as Ahmad Abdalla Hamid—also emphasize the coup would not have occurred without Khalil’s orders and that senior officers voiced concerns about the implications of seizing power (Ministry of Justice, 1965 as cited by Abdelrahim, 1978, p. 16). Despite these concerns, Abdelrahim (1978) writes,

. . . that the suggestion . . . made by none other than the Prime Minister who was also the Minister of Defence, [lead] the C-in-C [the Commander in Chief] and his lieutenants . . . to develop a different attitude [regarding the coup]. (emphases added, p. 18)

Although elite privileges allowed Khalil to initiate a coup, the Umma party’s increasing unpopularity among the masses helps explain a) his decision to call upon the military and b) his lack of participation in the subsequent regime. Entrenched sectarian-based parties ⁴ —the Umma party and the National Unionist Party (NUP)—dominated post-independence Sudanese politics with their rivalry (Berridge, 2015, pp. 65–67; Niblock, 1987, pp. 209–211). As Niblock describes (Niblock, 1987, p. 204), “[p]olitical parties achieved. . . power by their alliances to senior establishment figures whose social influence. . .enabled them to sway voting inclinations of the population.” This type of social capital would begin to evaporate amid worsening inequality across political, social, and economic lines all while fierce opposition to the elite class expanded. As a result, “political movements based on . . . [the] regionally and socially disadvantaged. . . grew stronger as the imbalances persisted” (p. 205). These forces included Free Officers cells, secessionist movements in the South, and leftist-oriented trade organizations. Emboldened, the leaders of these opposition forces fomented social unrest against the incumbent elite, sparking mass demonstrations across the country (e.g., Ismael, 2015, p. 28).

Horizontal pressures also threatened the Umma party. The NUP capitalized on the revolutionary fervor and built alliances with several radical movements, including the Communist party. Simultaneously, the Umma party’s major coalition partner—the People’s Democratic Party (PDP)—pushed back against the former’s pursuit of aid from the United States (Ismael, 2015, pp. 27–28). Tensions came to a head after the PDP initiated negotiations with the NUP to form a new government and exclude the Umma party (Beshir, 1974, p. 206). In response to these threats, Khalil and several other Umma partisans “. . . favored reliance on the military . . . as a force which would take over the functions of government” and seek to “maintain the . . . existing socio-economic structure” (Niblock, 1987, p. 205).

Although Khalil “expected to remain the dominant force in the government” (CIA, 1959, p. 1), he was instead “retired on a pension. . . [and] no longer allowed to participate in public affairs” (Be’eri, 1970, p. 213). As one CIA memorandum notes, “the move was welcomed by the public . . . who looked upon it as a deliverance from the corruption and venality of Sudanese politicians . . .and who disliked the Khalil government’s overt pro-Westernism” (CIA, 1959, p. 2). Similar sentiments existed—and persisted—in the army. Junior officers rebelled in March 1959 due to widespread perceptions of Umma influence among certain members of the ruling junta (CIA, 1959, p. 3; Niblock, 1987, pp. 220–221). In turn, Abboud “loosened the links between the regime and the Mahdist establishment” altogether (p. 220).

May 25, 1969: Consolidating Praetorianism

On May 25, 1969, Colonel Jaafar Nimeiri and the Free Officers toppled Prime Minister Ismail al-Azhari in a military coup. This coup “bore little resemblance to the one that had brought General Abboud to power” (Khalid, 1990, p. 241) as it was undertaken by political outsiders. The Nimeiri regime’s initial years were markedly far-left due to its alliance with Sudan’s powerful Communist Party (El-Affendi, 1991). As Gresh describes (Gresh, 1989, p. 395, emphasis added), “the strength of the Communist party was a decisive factor . . . after 25 May.” But rather than enabling praetorianism as Abdalla Khalil did in 1958, the Communists leveraged their social capital to legitimize the coup, shore up the subsequent regime, and consolidate praetorianism.

While the Free Officers led the coup’s plotting and execution, they understood the importance of civilian social capital to secure power (e.g., Ismael, 2015; Massoud, 2014; Niblock, 1987). By the late 1960s, “the officer-politician had become a symbol of instability” in the Arab world, prompting the region’s coup-borne leaders to “give their regimes the appearance of civilian rule” (Be’eri, 1982, p. 75). In line with this approach, the Free Officers set out to secure the cooperation of popular civilian movements in Sudanese society before the power-grab. As Nimeiri’s foreign minister Mansour Khalid describes (Khalid, 1985, p. 13), these efforts helped sell the coup as “a symbiosis of the army and the civilian . . . elements from the Professional Front of October.” Incorporating figures from the October 1964 revolution emphasized the Free Officers’ desire to frame the coup as revolutionary and “not a return to Abboud’s militarism” (p. 13). Such prominent figures included former Chief Justice Babiker Awadalla, known for his affiliation to Communist and Arab nationalist circles. He would later disclose that he “. . . was asked . . . to assist them in their coup” (emphasis added, Massoud, 2014, p. 105) but was “not privy to the details of the military takeover” (Niblock, 1987, p. 239). Major Farooq Hamdallah approached Awallada in December 1968 about “. . . lend[ing] the military-dominated coup an air of respectability and legitimacy” (emphasis added, Massoud, 2014, p. 105). Awadalla addressed the country alongside Nimeiri during the takeover and served as his Prime Minister, charged with putting together a civilian Council of Ministers drawn from movements associated with the October Revolution, including Arab Nationalists and Communists (Niblock, 1987, pp. 241–242).

The Officers primarily sought the Communist party’s support given its reputation as Sudan’s key leftist movement. ⁵ The party challenged the sectarian establishment with appeals to class identity and nationalism, attracting university students, workers, and labor union organizers (Himmat, 2021; Ismael, 2015). Despite being banned following Abboud’s coup, Communist leaders’ “links with the trade unions remained strong” (Ismael, 2015, p. 30), particularly to the powerful Workers Federation. ⁶ The party used these networks to mobilize mass strikes, demonstrations, and protests despite the consistent arrests of party officials and their affiliates in labor unions. As Ismael (2015, p. 30) describes, “repression . . . had the effect of strengthening the party,” expanding from 750 members in 1958 to between 3,000 and 10,000 members by the end of Abboud’s regime. In October 1964, the Communists came to the forefront of the anti-Abboud resistance with organized strikes and anti-government rhetoric via its mouthpieces like Al-Midan and Sawt al-Marah (Berridge, 2015, pp. 74–76; Ismael, 2015, p. 30), securing a dominant role in the subsequent transition. While Communist influence persisted post-transition—securing a sizable share of votes during the 1965 parliamentary elections—the Umma party and the democratic unionist party (DUP) maneuvered to outlaw the party, fearing a leftist rise (Gresh, 1989; Niblock, 1987). These efforts barred the Communists from access to political representation and inspired at least a faction of the party to lend support to Nimeiri and his allies. ⁷

The Communists’ social capital helped consolidate the post-coup regime, a sentiment Awadalla expressed in an October 1969 interview (Ismael, 2015, p. 48; Niblock, 1987, p. 254). The party’s official endorsement of the coup—calling on all revolutionary elements within the military to lend support to the regime—transferred the allegiances of Communist-supporting officers to the coup leaders (Gresh, 1989, p. 396). These soldiers joined the Revolutionary Command Council while Communist civilians stacked the Council of Ministers. The inclusion of such ministers helped break the sectarian elites’ sources of influence, as they crafted wide-reaching policies aimed at the rapid redistribution of wealth and nationalization of elite-held assets. For instance, these policies led to confiscation of oil mills owned by the Madhist and Ansar elite as well as swathes of land held by the Mirghani family and Khatmiyya elite (Niblock, 1987, p. 245). Bastions of sectarian influence—such as the Native Administrations—were similarly disbanded under the Communist-crafted Political, Administrative, and Press Corruption Act of 1969 (p. 245). To ensure dominance in the civil service, the party’s cadre networks thoroughly captured the bureaucracy while purging all anti-leftist elements (Ismael, 2015, p. 44; Qalandar, 2005, pp. 143–144). The alliance also attracted international backing. As a declassified CIA memorandum details (CIA, 1971, p. 3), “the USSR responded favorably and increased its presence. . .appreciably” in the wake of Communist inclusion in the government. Specifically, this meant greater trade relations with Sudan, greater economic assistance, and an increased flow of military aid in the form of arms sales and training (p. 7).

Despite the alliance’s bloody conclusion in 1971 after a failed coup attempt, remnants of the Communist party—specifically its nationalist wing—continued to serve Nimeiri’s personal consolidation of power. The nationalists defected from the party’s leadership and backed Nimeiri’s violent and exhaustive purges of its members. They also provided the institutional framework for the Sudanese Socialist Union (SSU), a mass-based party that would serve as the country’s sole legal political entity (Niblock, 1987, pp. 263–264). Although envisioned as a tool to channel local representation through local councils, the SSU’s centralized authority meant the party amounted to little more than the “arm of the regime” (p. 272). However, its creation strengthened Nimeri’s decision-making powers, allowing him to dissolve the post-coup junta and consolidate his authority.

June 30, 1989: Enabling and Consolidating Praetorianism

On June 30, 1989, mid-ranking officers led by Brigadier Omar al-Bashir toppled the government of Prime Minister Sadiq al-Mahdi. It soon became apparent that “the Islamists were involved in all stages of the coup” (Gallab, 2008, p. 3). Although Bashir would hold the presidency, the NIF’s ⁸ leader Hassan al-Turabi was “the power behind the throne” throughout 1990s (Malik, 2016). Put simply, the NIF, a civilian political party, jointly seized power with sympathetic officers to establish a military-Islamist regime that would rule Sudan for three decades, thus enabling and consolidating praetorianism. To do so, the party leveraged a complex mix of resources gained through its social capital and its access to the political establishment.

The NIF’s social prominence flourished during the 1970s (Gallab, 2008; Medani, 2021). Growing out of student organizations in the late 1940s, the NIF captured important segments of Sudan’s urban middle-class—industrialists and small traders—during the 1973 oil price crisis (Suliman, 2022, p. 270; Medani, 2021, p. 102). In line with Saudi efforts to invest in Islamic banking, the Gulf kingdom poured exorbitant finances into the formation of such financial institutions in Sudan like the notable Faisal Bank, which the Islamist movement exploited. NIF partisans captured the highest echelons of the Faisal Bank and similar entities, gaining the favor of Sudan’s commercial class (Suliman, 2022, p. 271). By the 1980s, the NIF presided over “500 companies with . . . capital of more than USD $500 million inside the country and USD $300 million outside of the country” (Gallab, 2008, p. 92). As Medani writes (Medani, 2021, p. 94) “this financial power vis-a-vis an increasingly bankrupt state enabled the [NIF] to cultivate a constituency far stronger in influence than [its] rivals in civil society.”

The NIF’s social capital played a vital role in consolidating praetorianism. Similar to the Communist role in Nimeiri’s regime, ⁹ the NIF undertook mass purges of the bureaucracy, replacing their political rivals—leftists and traditional sectarians alike—with an extensive network of loyal affiliates cultivated from years of support from the professional and educated class (Jamal, 1991, p. 105). In addition, the party’s penetration of student organizations meant it could draw upon a mass following of loyal cadres “by employing them in its economic and financial institutions. . .and political and security structures” (Ali, 2010, p. 440). These networks served to eliminate opposition forces in civil society, an important task given the role of trade unions in dissolving the previous military regimes. For example, the Workers Federation—the leftist stronghold—was quickly brought into the regime’s orbit through the NIF’s capture of its leadership (Suliman, 2022, p. 272). NIF cadres also buttressed the regime’s coercive power. Loyal partisans assisted with the coup’s execution by dressing in army fatigues seizing the radio station and arresting key officials alongside their military comrades (Abdelwahid, 2008, p. 213; Gallab, 2018, p. 217). Following the coup, they provided the backbone and manpower for the development of the Popular Defense Force (PDF), a centralized party militia which served as a counterweight to the regular armed forces (Abdelwahid, 2008, pp. 212–214; Ali, 1993). In Turabi’s own words, the PDF served to “unify Sudanese society, so it may not be divided into military and civilian” (as cited in Rone, 1996). By 1991, the organization exceeded more than 100,000 militants and had taken on fighting duties in the South while also repressing attempts as public dissent (Burr & Collins, 2003, p. 17).

However, it was the NIF’s access to the political establishment that allowed it to enable praetorianism and instigate the coup. Specifically, the party’s integration into Nimeiri’s regime paved the way for it to “infiltrate the politico-bureaucratic and military institutions of the state,” with recruiting efforts aimed at “senior and mid-ranking officers already in military service” (Medani, 2021, pp. 122–123). By the late 1970s, Sudan faced a crumbling economy given Nimeiri’s early attempts to rapidly nationalize state resources. This led to a significant exodus of traditional business and property owners, and a population increasingly disenchanted with the economic situation and war in the South (Suliman, 2022, p. 271). To maximize on the NIF’s growing influence, Nimeiri co-opted and integrated the party into his government during the 1977 National Reconciliation program (Warburg, 1990). In practice, NIF partisans would gain access to high-ranking posts in the SSU and provided the leader with a legitimacy boost among their social constituency.

Access to the SSU strengthened the NIF’s foothold across different institutions and to observers at the time, allowed it to “maneuver itself into a favorable position if Nimeiri is forced out” (CIA, 1981, p. 3). Turabi himself was appointed Attorney-General in 1979 and used his newfound power to solidify the NIF’s financial monopoly and implement Islamic sharia throughout the country (Noble-Frapin, 2009, p. 76; Warburg, 1990, p. 630). Concurrently, the NIF “by their own admission, began efforts to infiltrate the Sudanese Armed Forces immediately after Nimeiri’s decision to incorporate [them] into the . . . SSU” (Medani, 2021, p. 122). The CIA similarly contended that following the 1977 reconciliation, the NIF “used its position in government to penetrate . . . the Army” (CIA, 1987, p. 12). Specifically, Turabi’s newfound privileges allowed the party to extensively invade and capture the loyalties of senior and mid-ranking officers using da’wa or religious education (Abdelwahid, 2008, pp. 226–227; Medani, 2021, p. 123). Officers recruited during this period with Nimeiri—including Omar al-Bashir—would later go on to execute the NIF-backed takeover in 1989 (p. 123). Two years post-Nimeiri, the CIA correctly assessed that “the NIF’s influence in the military could be used to inspire a coup” (CIA, 1987, p. 13).

The coup was finally authorized when the NIF’s privileges acquired during Nimeiri’s regime were threatened. Specifically, Sadiq al-Mahdi’s government took steps toward a peace agreement with the Southern rebels in mid-1989, ¹⁰ which would have significantly reduced the prevalence of Islamic law and targeted the party’s financial strongholds. Rather than allow these rollbacks to pass, the NIF contacted their loyalists within the army. As Gallab (2018, p. 217) describes, “the Islamists . . . planned, organized, and executed every aspect of the coup,” down to selecting the officer who would lead the post-coup junta. Two weeks before the coup, Ali Osman Taha, a senior member of the NIF, contacted al-Bashir and the Islamist military cell to advance the plot (Burr & Collins, 2003, p. 4; Gallab, 2018, p. 226). As one NIF member allegedly remarked during an internal party meeting, instigating a military coup would provide the party with power “like the key in my car here” (Berridge, 2017, p. 81).

Conclusion

Recent scholarship has demonstrated that civilian involvement in praetorianism is a common part of military coup politics. However, civilian involvement can vary from efforts to enable military intervention into politics to efforts aimed at shoring up the interventions. This article aimed to explain this variation and build theory using three coup episodes in Sudan.

Prime Minister Abdalla Khalil enabled praetorianism in 1958 by initiating a military coup to dissolve his own government amid growing anti-elite sentiment. Conversely, the Communist party used its extensive social networks in civil society to consolidate Jaafar Nimeiri’s post-coup regime in 1969 despite its repression by the sectarian parties. Finally, the NIF used its access to the political establishment—gained during its integration into Nimeiri’s regime—and its monopoly over Sudan’s financial institutions and broader civil society to jointly seize and consolidate power with its military allies in 1989. These findings reveal that just as the rank and identity of military coup agents matter for the conduct of coups (e.g., De Bruin, 2019, 2022; Kandeh, 2004; Singh, 2014), where civilians stand vis-a-vis the state and society matters for their type of coup involvement.

Several avenues for future research exist. First, this study used three cases from a single country, potentially limiting the argument’s generalizability. Researchers could test the propositions developed here with a cross-national sample to address this concern. Second, what are the distinct conditions that push privileged elites vs. non-privileged civilians to engage in praetorianism? While extant research routinely emphasizes polarization as a key explanatory variable, future studies should consider how different triggers produce incentives for distinct sets of actors to promote praetorianism. Scholarship on the distinct motivations between senior and junior officers can provide useful insights.

Third, how might the varieties of civilian praetorianism influence post-coup trajectories? Research on coups and democratization has increased over the last decade (e.g., Dahl & Gleditsch, 2023; Miller, 2012; Thyne & Powell, 2016; Vasquez & Powell, 2021) but notably overlooks civilian coup collaborators. Scholars could use the framework presented here to investigate how distinct types of civilian praetorianism influence post-coup outcomes. Taken together, these different questions suggest that investigating the nuances of civilian praetorianism can enrich our understanding of military coup politics.