Power, legitimacy and digital narratives: a comparative analysis of contemporary military coups and peace-building challenges in Sudan, Mali and Burkina Faso

Abstract

Recent military coups in Africa have unfolded amid worsening insecurity, socio-economic frustration, democratic regression, institutional fragility and declining public trust in civilian rule. Existing explanations rightly emphasize structural grievances, military cohesion and institutional weakness, but they often give less attention to how coups are narrated, justified and normalized in the digital public sphere. This article examines how digital narratives mediate legitimacy crises before, during and after military coups, using Sudan, Mali and Burkina Faso as comparative cases. It adopts a qualitative comparative case study design, supported by interpretive digital narrative analysis and thematic coding of secondary documentary and digital materials. Digital narratives are understood as politically meaningful stories, slogans, symbols, images, hashtags, videos and online discourses circulated through digital platforms to frame crises, assign blame, justify intervention and claim authority. The analysis shows that digital narratives amplified grievances over insecurity, corruption, economic hardship and democratic failure before coups; framed military intervention as corrective, patriotic, sovereigntist, anti-corruption or security-restoring during coups; and shaped post-coup struggles over authority, dissent, reconciliation and democratic reconstruction. Sudan illustrates how digital contestation can intensify factional polarization and war propaganda; Mali demonstrates the role of videomen, pan-Africanist and sovereigntist actors in legitimating military rule; and Burkina Faso shows how security failure, anti-imperial discourse and nationalist mobilization can sustain militarized crisis legitimacy. The article contributes to coup and peace-building scholarship by integrating structural explanations with symbolic power and digital-political communication. It concludes that peace-building in coup-affected states must address not only transition timetables and institutional reform, but also the digital narrative environments through which legitimacy is constructed, contested and weaponized.