Here Are The Countries Most Likely To Have A Coup In 2014

Click to enlarge. Data source: Jay Ulfelder coup forecasts for 2014. (Max Fisher/Washington Post)

A Worrying Map Of The Countries Most Likely To Have A Coup In 2014 -- Max Fisher, Washington Post

Coups are bad news for any country. They weaken the rule of law, throw governments into chaos, undermine or outright jettison democratic norms and institutions, and can lead to violence, oppression or worse. They can also be tough to see coming, particularly since the people looking for them tend to focus on a single country, which can lead them to overemphasize local events and understate the broader dynamics that make coups happen, or not.

That's a big part of why political scientist Jay Ulfelder has, for the past three years, maintained a mathematical model to predict the likelihood of coups in almost every country around the world. By tracking over a dozen variables – from political system to years of independence the presence of absence of an "elite" ethnic group – Ulfelder's model roughly estimates the likelihood that each country will experience a coup this year. He "trained" the model by applying it over the years 1960 to 2010, further developing its ability to predict future coups by looking at past ones.

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My Comment: I concur with these predictions .... with Madagascar and Mali on the top of my list.