Mutinies, coups and military interventionism: Papua New Guinea and South-East Asia in comparison

Scholars of civil–military relations have long been puzzled by the fact that despite a series of mutinies, Papua New Guinea (PNG) has never seen a full-blown military takeover. Indeed, when PNG became independent in the early 1970s, some veteran PNG watchers had predicted that the country was likely to follow in the footsteps of many coup-prone African countries. In this article, the authors highlight the reasons for the surprising absence of coups in PNG by comparing the country to three South-East Asian nations that have experienced coups. By contrasting PNG with Indonesia, Burma and Thailand, the authors identify five key factors that have prevented coups in the former and facilitated them in the latter: first, the role that the military played in the struggle for independence or modern statehood; second, the size of the armed forces; third, the military's organisational capacity; fourth, geographical conditions and the military's command structure; and finally, the general relationship between civilian and military elites.