http://news.bbc.co.uk/2/hi/africa/8544647.stm
Niger recently had a Coup when former president Mamadou Tandja attempted to change the Constitution in order to extend his second term in office. This move made many of the trading partners for Niger in the area suspend their trade, throwing the country into poverty. After a gun battle in the Capitol, the former president was taken by the Coup military leaders and is believed to be held in a military barracks. The constitution was then suspended and the government temporarily dissolved. Now the governmental power is in the hands of a board headed by 4 generals who have pledged to return the government to democracy but have not specified a date as yet.
I feel like this is an important subject for International studies that we have yet to cover, What do you do when the governmental power changes hands? As it stands now, the government is in military hands, but the militants seem to have a good reason for having interfered with their government. Another question that this situation rises is whether or not you have a right/obligation to interfere with a civil war in a state. Interference could save many lives but at the cost of reducing the states sovereignty and creating a much weaker state that might depend on you after its creation. Im sure that we will cover this area later in the course, but it is an interesting subject as of now, and i thought that this particular story was a good example.
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This is an interesting case to consider. More and more we are seeing that coups are intervening when there is political strife instead of an outside state intervening. Is this perhaps a new social norm? Constructivists might say so. Then again... realists might argue that no outside state is intervening because they have no interest in Niger.
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