Africa has seen a recent spate of military coups—from Mali to Guinea to Burkina Faso to Niger to Gabon. Most Western powers have condemned these coups. But many Africans have rejoiced, or at least have been far less concerned. For example, a survey conducted shortly after the coup in Niger suggests that most people in four other West African countries (Mali, Ghana, Nigeria, and Ivory Coast) believed that the Niger coup was justified. Why the dissonance between Western and African reactions to these coups?

The answer has to do with the dysfunction and corruption of many nominally “democratic” African governments. Endemic corruption has destroyed public trust in African democracy, and coup leaders have made it clear that corruption is one of the core justifications for their takeovers. Whether this is sincere, a pretext, or a combination, it is clear that the coup leaders are tapping into a sense of genuine public grievance, and that many citizens in these countries have become so frustrated with their elected governments that they would willingly trade electoral democracy for a government with the political will to fight corruption and improve living conditions.

For this reason, it would be an error to see African citizens’ support for these coups as evidence of a turn against genuine democracy. But there is an enormous gap between genuine democracy and the reality of electoral democracy as it exists in many African countries. Westerners who are surprised by African citizens’ support for the recent coups have underestimated just how poorly the corruption of the previous regimes had devastated public trust.

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