The East African region has been left nursing a security and stability headache following the recent coup attempts in South Sudan and DR Congo, symptomatic of the re-emerging pattern of coups d’état that have hit Africa in recent years.

First was Central African Republic, where ex-rebel leader Michel Djotodia seized power in March and forced president Francois Bozize to flee into exile.

READ: Chaos in the CAR a threat to neighbouring states

In mid-December, South Sudanese rebel fighters allied to ex-vice president Riek Machar attempted to take over the government; the fighting continues with more than 1,000 dead so far.

READ: Anxiety engulfs EA: Will South Sudan hold?

And as the year came to a close, DR Congo’s army repulsed several attacks on December 30, in the capital Kinshasa, by a “terrorist group,” according to the government.

The state TV headquarters, the international airport and a military base in the city were all targeted, but religious leader Paul Joseph Mukungubila, who claimed responsibility for the attacks, denied it was an attempted coup.

All this unrest should make the East African Community nervous, as being surrounded by unstable countries has the risk of spreading the “coup contagion,” says a brief by the African Development Bank — the success of a coup in one country increases the likelihood of a neighbouring country suffering the same fate.

Military coups were widespread and frequent in much of Africa during the 1970s and 1980s, but they faded considerably between the mid-1990s and 2000s, as progress was made by many countries in improving governance and reforming their economies.

According to a recent McKinsey report, Africa’s real GDP rose by 4.9 per cent a year from 2000 through to 2008, more than twice the rate of growth in the 1980s and 1990s.

Today, many African countries are democracies; and their vibrant economies make them the fastest-growing in the world. Yet, some have fallen back into the trap of political instability characterised by the re-emergence of military coups. Why?

READ: Fragility of ‘democratic’ states underlined

The AfDB paper highlights two factors that make a country vulnerable to military uprisings — a fall in the quality of governance, accompanied poor economic performance, particularly if the economy relies on a single agricultural or mineral export.

The paper measures quality of governance by the latest Ibrahim Index on African Governance, and states that although one cannot “unequivocally” claim that a country’s declining quality of governance is a decisive factor leading to a coup, it is “possible” to discern a correlation.

In Chad (2006), Guinea-Bissau (2003), Madagascar (2009), and Mauritania (2008), the occurrence of military coups coincides with an overall decline in governance performance.

Two scores in the Ibrahim Index are of particular note; the first is Safety and the Rule of Law, which assesses a state’s ability to provide its citizens with an effective judicial system, the right to safety — and not only the mere presence of safety — accountability of public officials, and prevention, control and elimination of corruption in the country.

The second score of note is Participation and Human Rights, which looks at the right to vote, the right to a fair election, and freedom to express views on political issues and to hold government accountable for commitments made under national and international law.

In all these countries, military coups or coup attempts took place in the year during which their respective scores for Safety and Rule of Law and/or Participation and Human Rights decreased significantly.

Interestingly, all the East African countries, with the exception of Uganda, have recorded declining scores in one or both of these measures over the past few years.

Burundi recorded the steepest decline in Safety and the Rule of Law, plunging 8.1 percentage points between 2007 and 2012. Rwanda has fallen 5.6 points over the same period; Kenya similarly dropped 3.4 points, while Tanzania fell 2.9 points.

The steepest decline in Participation and Human Rights is seen in Kenya, which dropped five points over the five-year period; Burundi fell 4.5 points, while Tanzania fell 3.1 points. Rwanda recorded a modest increase of 2.2 points in this measure during the same period, but it is only Uganda that improved in both measures, gaining 2.4 points in its measure of Safety and the Rule of Law, and a handsome 4.6 points in Participation and Human Rights.

So, should East Africa be worried that it could be next — considering the instability in the neighbourhood?

“It’s all about the political process,” said security analyst Charles Otieno. “When people don’t trust the democratic process, or have avenues for expressing discontent, then there is definitely a likelihood that armed groups could try and gain power by force.”

Although there has been some macro-political reform in the region over the past few years — Kenya ushered in a new Constitution in 2010, Tanzania is currently reviewing its Constitution, Somalia is becoming somewhat stable and South Sudan gained Independence in 2011 — the AfDB paper notes that the “democratic experiments” in much of Africa remain “extremely fragile”; the institutionalisation of state structures that respect citizens’ social and political rights, and that foster political and economic transparency and accountability, have “yet to take root” in many African countries.

“The political and democratic space is still not robust in East Africa; the key political institutions are firmly in place, even with surface-level changes at every election,” said Mr Otieno.

“What we have is really a manufactured democracy; it has no depth and often little credibility to deliver hope to the people that things will work out in the long run.”

Undiversified economies

Poor economic performance is another factor that predisposes a country to military intervention, according to the AfDB paper. This is particularly intense in undiversified economies as the heavy dependence on primary commodity exports (agriculture, mineral and petroleum exports) heightens the hazard of economic vulnerability and significantly reduces the potential for democratic consolidation.

For instance, in Guinea-Bissau, a successful military coup took place in 2003, a year after the country experienced a recession with a GDP rate of -7.1 per cent in 2002.

Similarly, in Chad, Mauritania, and Niger, military coups succeeded respectively in 2006, 2008, and 2010, following a year of declining GDP growth rate and very poor economic performance.

But fortunately for East Africa, its regional economies are projected to keep on the upward growth trajectory and are slowly becoming increasingly diversified, though exports are still based considerably on one or two primary commodities. The region’s growth is expected to continue its robust trend of six per cent next year.

READ: East Africa to rebound, grow by 6pc in 2014

According to the recently launched State of East Africa Report published by the Society for International Development (SID), the share of agriculture in regional economies has stagnated or contracted considerably, and today all the EAC countries have a services sector that is larger than agriculture.

A fall in the share of agriculture in an economy is not necessarily a bad thing, the researchers say; maturing economies are characterised by a falling share in agriculture’s contribution to the economy, and a rise in the services, industry and manufacturing sectors.