Saturday, January 26, 2013

Predicting Future Coups?

Countries at 'highest' risk of a coup are red, 'high' risk are orange and 'risk' are yellow. Graphic: Tom Murphy/Jay Ulfelder

How To Predict A Coup -- The Guardian

After successfully anticipating events in Mali and Guinea-Bissau last year, what does the scientific crystal ball have in store next?

Which countries are most likely to see a coup this year? Political scientist Jay Ulfelder (if you are not already regularly reading his blog, go there now and subscribe) unveiled an index that attempts to answer that question early last year. With the mixed reports about a possible coup attempt in Eritrea recently, Max Fisher penned a post (worth reading in full) that uses Ulfelder's data on which countries are at the greatest coup risk.

What stands out is the visualisation of the data on a map done by Fisher. Africa lights up the globe with quite a few countries that make it into the top portion of the list. Ulfelder explained his index in Foreign Policy after successful coups in Guinea-Bissau and Mali last year.

Read more ....

My Comment: How Jay Ulfelder makes his predictions is explained here .... and it is a fascinating read.

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