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

1 Introduction

The resurgence of military coups in Africa since 2020 has renewed scholarly and policy concern about democratic fragility, military intervention, institutional legitimacy and peace-building. Coups are among the most disruptive forms of unconstitutional political change because they interrupt constitutional rule, weaken democratic accountability and create uncertainty over political authority. Powell and Thyne (2011) define a coup d’etat as an overt attempt by the military or other elites within the state apparatus to remove a sitting executive through unconstitutional means. Thompson (1973) similarly conceptualizes coups as forceful attempts by regular armed forces to remove or replace executive authority. Yet coups should not be treated as sudden elite events alone. They usually emerge from cumulative institutional weaknesses, legitimacy deficits, military opportunity structures and proximate political triggers (Huntington, 1968; Singh, 2014).

Since 2020, successful or attempted coups have occurred in Mali, Guinea, Sudan, Burkina Faso, Chad, Niger and Gabon. The United Nations Development Programme links this renewed coup wave to poor governance, corruption, insecurity, failure to deliver inclusive development and citizens’ desire for political change where democratic institutions are perceived as ineffective (United Nations Development Programme, 2023). The Mo Ibrahim Foundation also identifies deteriorating security, weak accountability, declining democratic participation and poor governance performance as warning signs in recent coups in West Africa (Mo Ibrahim Foundation, 2023). Akinola (2024) similarly situates the resurgence of coups within a wider pattern of democratic relapse, political-economic crisis and regional institutional weakness.

This article argues that contemporary African coups are not merely coercive seizures of state power. They are also struggles over meaning, legitimacy and public perception. Military actors need coercive capacity to capture institutions, but they also require justificatory narratives that portray intervention as necessary, corrective, patriotic, anti-corruption, anti-imperial or protective of national sovereignty. These narratives circulate through public speeches, official statements, online news platforms, WhatsApp and Telegram networks, Facebook pages, X posts, YouTube videos, TikTok clips, memes, hashtags, visual propaganda and influencer commentary. Digital platforms therefore matter because they provide spaces in which citizens, military actors, activists, diaspora commentators and foreign-linked networks interpret political failure, military intervention and post-coup authority (Castells, 2012; Rogers, 2013; Tufekci, 2017).

The central research question is: how do digital narratives mediate the relationship between legitimacy crises, military coups and peace-building challenges in coup-affected African states? The article advances three claims. First, structural grievances such as insecurity, corruption, poverty, youth frustration and democratic regression create conditions for legitimacy erosion, but they do not automatically produce public acceptance of military rule (Johnson et al., 1984; Kim, 2016; O'Kane, 1981). Second, digital narratives help translate grievances into politically resonant frames of betrayal, national rescue, sovereignty and urgent intervention (Cold-Ravnkilde and Sylla, 2024; Engels, 2023; Simura, 2024). Third, post-coup peace-building is weakened when those narratives continue to polarize society, glorify militarized authority, delegitimize dissent or reproduce disinformation (Africa Center for Strategic Studies, 2024; Ibrahim, 2025; Lederach, 1997).

Sudan, Mali and Burkina Faso are selected because each has experienced recent military intervention, acute legitimacy crisis and visible digital-political contestation, while also revealing different political trajectories. Sudan shows how civilian-military tension and intra-security rivalry can generate digital propaganda and factional polarization that collapse into war (Attia et al., 2020; Hamad, 2026; Ibrahim, 2025). Mali shows how anti-elite, anti-French, sovereigntist and pro-junta digital actors contributed to the normalization of military rule (Cold-Ravnkilde and Sylla, 2024; De Bruijn, 2025; Stambøl et al., 2025). Burkina Faso shows how repeated coups were justified through security failure and national mobilization narratives, while persistent insecurity and shrinking civic space complicated peace-building (Saidou and Honig, 2024; Thurston, 2024). These cases are therefore not treated as identical examples, but as analytically varied cases for examining how digital narratives interact with power, legitimacy and post-coup governance.

The article is organized around a direct analytical sequence. It first reviews scholarship on coups, legitimacy, symbolic power, digital politics and peace-building. It then explains the methodology, including research design, purposeful case selection, data sources, interpretive digital narrative analysis, thematic coding and limitations. The empirical sections examine Sudan, Mali and Burkina Faso using the same comparative questions: what grievances preceded military intervention; which actors circulated digital narratives; what legitimacy frames were constructed; and how did those narratives shape post-coup peace-building? The final sections compare the cases and discuss implications for democratic reconstruction and peace-building.

2 Literature review and conceptual framework

2.1 Structural explanations of coups

Classical and contemporary coup scholarship identifies institutional fragility, weak civilian control, economic crisis, elite conflict and military grievance as major drivers of military intervention. Huntington (1968) argues that political instability often emerges when political participation, social mobilization and demands for change outpace institutional capacity. In such conditions, militaries may present themselves as disciplined institutions capable of restoring order. Earlier comparative work also linked coups to political fragility, economic shocks and regime vulnerability (Johnson et al., 1984; O'Kane, 1981). More recent scholarship emphasizes strategic coordination: coup actors assess whether seizure of power is feasible and whether resistance is likely to be limited (Singh, 2014).

These structural explanations remain indispensable for the three cases examined here. Sudan, Mali and Burkina Faso all experienced combinations of insecurity, contested governance, economic strain, democratic erosion and declining public trust before military intervention (Mo Ibrahim Foundation, 2023; United Nations Development Programme, 2023). However, structural conditions alone do not explain why some citizens accept coups, why others resist them, or why military rulers can sometimes convert unconstitutional intervention into a claim of popular legitimacy. To understand this symbolic transformation, it is necessary to examine how coups are narrated, justified and contested in public discourse and digital communication spaces (Bourdieu, 1991; Castells, 2012).

2.2 Legitimacy, symbolic power and crisis authority

Legitimacy refers to the perceived rightfulness, acceptability or justification of political authority. Weber (1978) classically distinguishes legal-rational, traditional and charismatic sources of legitimacy, while contemporary democratic theory associates legitimacy with constitutional rule, elections, accountability, inclusion and consent. In coup contexts, military actors usually lack constitutional legitimacy. They therefore attempt to construct what this article calls crisis legitimacy: the claim that exceptional military intervention is justified because civilian institutions have failed to provide security, order, dignity or national sovereignty (De Wet, 2019; Weber, 1978).

Bourdieu’s concept of symbolic power is useful because it shows that power operates not only through physical force, but also through the authority to name reality, classify problems and impose meanings that appear legitimate (Bourdieu, 1991). In coup settings, military actors do not merely seize the state; they seek to define what the crisis is, who caused it and why military rule is the necessary remedy. A coup therefore involves both coercive power and symbolic power. It captures institutions while also attempting to capture the meaning of national crisis.

De Wet (2019) shows that African regional reforms against unconstitutional changes of government have elevated democratic legitimacy as a criterion for governmental recognition. Yet domestic legitimacy crises create openings for coup-makers to contest the moral authority of constitutionalism by claiming that elections, civilian rule or regional norms have failed to respond to insecurity and popular suffering. The post-2020 coup wave is therefore shaped by tension between constitutional legitimacy and crisis legitimacy: the former is grounded in rules and democratic procedure, while the latter is grounded in claims of emergency, rescue and national survival (De Wet, 2019; United Nations Development Programme, 2023).

2.3 Digital narratives and networked legitimacy

Digital politics scholarship demonstrates that networked communication can transform dispersed grievances into collective narratives and mobilizing energy. Castells (2012) argues that networked communication can convert anger into collective action by connecting individual experiences of injustice to wider movements. Tufekci (2017) similarly shows that digital networks can rapidly mobilize protest, although such mobilization may be organizationally fragile. In coup-affected states, digital communication is neither inherently democratic nor inherently authoritarian. Its political effect depends on actors, platforms, institutional context and the narratives through which power is justified or contested (Castells, 2012; Rogers, 2013; Tufekci, 2017).

The digital narrative dimension is especially important in Mali and Burkina Faso, which belong to the Central Sahel, and in Sudan, where digital communication has been deeply intertwined with revolutionary mobilization and wartime propaganda. Cold-Ravnkilde and Sylla (2024) show that Mali’s new videomen became cybercombatants by producing and disseminating pro-junta, anti-French and pro-Russian audiovisual content associated with political movements such as Yerewolo. Their analysis challenges interpretations that attribute Mali’s post-coup digital politics only to external manipulation, emphasizing instead the agency of local actors and smartphone-enabled political performance. Stambøl et al. (2025) further situate Malian anticolonial imaginaries within a longer history of sovereigntist politics, showing that contemporary military rulers draw on pre-existing ideological repertoires rather than inventing anti-imperial discourse from nothing.

Digital communication also shapes conflict in Sudan. Ibrahim (2025) finds that social media in Sudan operates as a double-edged instrument: it facilitates hate speech, misinformation and polarization, while also enabling counter-speech and peace-oriented initiatives. Recent analysis of Sudan’s wartime propaganda identifies Facebook and X as central arenas where Sudanese Armed Forces and Rapid Support Forces supporters, live streamers, YouTubers and political actors compete to shape narratives of legitimacy, blame and victimhood (El Obeid, 2026; Hamad, 2026). These studies illustrate that digital narratives influence not only perceptions of coups, but also the conduct and prolongation of conflict.

2.4 Peace-building beyond transition timetables

Peace-building refers to long-term efforts to address root causes of conflict, rebuild trust, strengthen institutions, promote inclusive dialogue and prevent relapse into violence. Lederach (1997) emphasizes that sustainable peace requires relationship-building and the transformation of social conflict, not merely formal agreements. In post-coup contexts, peace-building cannot therefore be reduced to transition timetables, election dates or negotiated elite settlements. It also requires rebuilding institutional legitimacy, repairing civilian-military relations, protecting civic space, countering polarizing narratives and restoring a shared basis for political disagreement (Lederach, 1997).

The link between coups and peace-building is particularly important in the Central Sahel, especially Mali and Burkina Faso, where military rule has interacted with jihadist violence, self-defense groups and contested external security partnerships. Thurston (2024) argues that coups in Mali, Burkina Faso and Niger have interacted with jihadist insecurity in complex ways and that certain coup-maker policy choices have accelerated violence beyond pre-coup trends, especially where new armed actors are authorized to commit violence. Saidou and Honig (2024) show how Burkina Faso’s Volunteers for the Defense of the Homeland were legalized and used not only as a security instrument but also as a regime-legitimation device. These insights point to a central problem: narratives that legitimate militarized crisis responses can make inclusive peace-building more difficult.

2.5 Integrated conceptual model

The article integrates the above literature through a simple but analytically useful sequence. Structural grievances produce legitimacy erosion; digital narratives interpret and amplify those grievances; military actors and allied civilian networks use these narratives to justify intervention; post-coup rulers then attempt to convert crisis legitimacy into governing authority; and peace-building becomes difficult when digital spaces continue to polarize society, delegitimize dissent or normalize coercion. The conceptual model therefore links structural conditions to symbolic mediation rather than treating digital narratives as independent causes of coups (Bourdieu, 1991; Castells, 2012; Lederach, 1997) (Table 1).

Table 1. Conceptual framework linking structural grievances, legitimacy erosion, digital narratives, military intervention, and peace-building challenges.

3 Methodology

3.1 Research design

This article adopts a qualitative comparative case study design using interpretive digital narrative analysis and thematic analysis of secondary and digital materials. A comparative case study design is appropriate because the article examines a complex contemporary political phenomenon - military coups and post-coup legitimacy struggles, within historically specific national contexts. The aim is analytical explanation rather than statistical generalization, which is consistent with qualitative case study logic and structured, focused comparison (Flyvbjerg, 2006; George and Bennett, 2005; Gerring, 2017; Yin, 2018; Braun and Clarke, 2006).

The study is interpretive because it focuses on how political meanings are constructed, circulated and contested. It is also a digital narrative analysis because the unit of analysis is not only the coup event, but the narratives through which coups are framed before, during and after military intervention. Narrative analysis is appropriate for examining how political actors construct stories of crisis, blame, rescue and legitimacy, while digital methods support analysis of platform-based communicative objects such as hashtags, posts, videos, links and online campaigns (Riessman, 2008; Rogers, 2013).

The article does not claim to conduct automated big-data social media scraping, sentiment analysis or a nationally representative public opinion study. Instead, it uses publicly available secondary evidence, peer-reviewed scholarship, policy reports, conflict analyses, documented online campaigns, official statements, military communiques, digital media reports and existing studies of platform-based communication. This design is suitable because the objective is to theorize and compare the political work of digital narratives across cases rather than to estimate the volume, frequency or sentiment of particular posts.

3.2 Purposeful comparative case selection

Sudan, Mali and Burkina Faso were selected through purposeful comparative logic. Purposeful case selection is appropriate where cases are chosen for their analytical relevance rather than statistical representativeness (Flyvbjerg, 2006; Gerring, 2017). These three cases are information-rich because all experienced recent military intervention amid legitimacy crisis; all contain visible digital-political contestation surrounding military authority; and all raise significant peace-building concerns (Mo Ibrahim Foundation, 2023; United Nations Development Programme, 2023).

The cases also vary in ways that strengthen comparison. Sudan involves post-revolution civilian-military conflict, security-sector fragmentation and later intra-security war. Mali involves anti-French sovereigntist mobilization, cybercombatants and geopolitical realignment. Burkina Faso involves repeated coups justified by security failure and mass national mobilization against insurgency. This variation allows the study to compare how similar mechanisms - grievance amplification, crisis legitimacy and digital narrative contestation - operate through different political pathways. Niger, Guinea, Chad and Gabon are not excluded because they are unimportant, but because this article prioritizes depth across three analytically rich cases rather than broad descriptive coverage of all recent African coups (George and Bennett, 2005; Yin, 2018).

3.3 Data sources and digital material

The study draws on four categories of material. First, it uses peer-reviewed academic literature on coups, legitimacy, digital politics, Sahelian geopolitics and peace-building. Second, it uses policy and institutional reports from organizations cited in the reference list, including UNDP, the Mo Ibrahim Foundation, the Africa Center for Strategic Studies, OECD and Freedom House. Third, it uses public documentation of digital-political communication, including analyses of Facebook, X, YouTube, TikTok, Telegram, WhatsApp and online news where these platforms are discussed in credible secondary sources. Fourth, it considers official and quasi-official narratives, including military communiques, public speeches, sovereignty statements, anti-corruption claims and security-restoration discourse (Africa Center for Strategic Studies, 2024; De Bruijn, 2025; Freedom House, 2024; Hamad, 2026; Ibrahim, 2025; Mo Ibrahim Foundation, 2023; United Nations Development Programme, 2023) (Table 2).

Table 2. Temporal focus, digital platforms, and narrative markers examined across Sudan, Mali, and Burkina Faso.

3.4 Analytical strategy: thematic and narrative coding

The analysis proceeded in four steps. First, the article identified structural grievances in each case: insecurity, corruption, economic hardship, electoral disputes, democratic erosion and external intervention. Second, it identified legitimacy frames: claims that civilian authority had failed and that military intervention was necessary, patriotic, corrective or sovereigntist. Third, it traced digital narrative moments across three phases: before the coup, during the coup and after the coup. Fourth, it compared the cases using a common matrix of grievances, actors, platforms, dominant narratives, post-coup legitimacy claims and peace-building consequences (George and Bennett, 2005; Riessman, 2008).

The study used thematic coding informed by Braun and Clarke’s approach to thematic analysis. Coding was used as a procedure for organizing evidence, while thematic analysis provided the broader method for identifying and interpreting recurring patterns in the material. The main thematic categories were grievance amplification; anti-elite framing; security-restoration framing; sovereignty and anti-imperial framing; digital actor agency; disinformation and propaganda; delegitimation of dissent; and peace-building implications (Braun and Clarke, 2006).

4 Operationalizing digital narratives and legitimacy

For analytical precision, digital narratives are defined here as politically meaningful stories, frames, slogans, hashtags, images, videos, speeches, memes and online discourses circulated through digital platforms to interpret crises, assign blame, justify authority and mobilize support or resistance. This definition includes social media posts and hashtags, but it is not limited to them. It also includes platform-circulated speeches, visual propaganda, online news, digital influencer commentary, video performances and messaging-network content where these are used to construct political meaning (Riessman, 2008; Rogers, 2013).

These narratives are treated as public narrative markers rather than private account-level data. Examples include hashtags such as #TasgutBas, #SudanUprising, #BlueForSudan and #KeepEyesOnSudan in Sudan; civic transition hashtags such as #MaTransition and #Wuli in Mali; and symbolic or media-centered markers in Burkina Faso, including Radio Television du Burkina (RTB), internet shutdown and restoration practices, Sankarist imagery, Faso Mebo and pro-Russia or anti-Western digital messaging. These examples are used to show how voices, symbols and platform practices function as evidence of narrative construction (Khalafallah et al., 2025; NIMD, 2021; Onyango, 2021; Heywood et al., 2022; Africa Center for Strategic Studies, 2025).

Digital narratives are operationalized through three dimensions. The first is content: what story is told about the crisis, who is blamed and what solution is proposed. The second is actor: who circulates the narrative, including military institutions, civilian supporters, activists, cybercombatants, diaspora influencers, journalists, foreign-linked networks and ordinary users. The third is political function: whether the narrative amplifies grievances, delegitimizes civilian authority, legitimates military intervention, silences dissent, mobilizes peace advocacy or polarizes society (Castells, 2012; Cold-Ravnkilde and Sylla, 2024; Tufekci, 2017).

Legitimacy is defined as the perceived rightfulness, acceptability or justification of authority. Because this article does not use survey data, it does not claim to measure legitimacy statistically. Instead, it examines legitimacy claims and legitimacy frames. These include claims that the military is rescuing the nation, restoring security, defending sovereignty, fighting corruption, correcting democratic failure or protecting citizens from external domination. Legitimacy is therefore identified through discourse, symbolic claims and narrative positioning rather than numerical indicators of public support (Bourdieu, 1991; De Wet, 2019; Weber, 1978).

This operationalization addresses two risks. First, it prevents the concept of digital narratives from becoming too broad by specifying its content, actors and political functions. Second, it avoids treating online enthusiasm as evidence of national consensus. Digital narratives matter because they shape the symbolic environment in which coups are interpreted, not because all citizens necessarily accept them (Rogers, 2013; Tufekci, 2017).

5 Sudan: digital polarization, civil-military rupture and war propaganda

5.1 Structural grievances and pre-coup legitimacy erosion

Sudan’s recent coup politics emerged from the long crisis of authoritarian rule under Omar al-Bashir, economic hardship, political exclusion, security-sector fragmentation and public demand for civilian transformation. The 2018–2019 uprising expressed widespread frustration with authoritarianism, austerity and repression, while digital platforms helped circulate protest slogans, images of resistance, documentation of violence and demands for civilian rule (Attia et al., 2020; Mo Ibrahim Foundation, 2023). In this phase, digital narratives were strongly associated with civic mobilization because they connected local grievances to a broader revolutionary claim that the existing order had lost moral and political legitimacy.

The Sudanese case offers concrete examples of public digital voices and symbolic narratives. Hashtags such as #TasgutBas or #JustFall, #SudanUprising, #BlueForSudan and #KeepEyesOnSudan connected street protest to diaspora and international audiences, while Alaa Salah’s viral image as the so-called Nubian Queen became a visual symbol of women’s participation and revolutionary defiance. Protest chants such as Thawra and the circulation of Ayman Mao’s song Dum, or Blood, further show that digital narratives were not limited to written posts; they also included music, images, videos and performative repertoires that framed the uprising as a struggle for dignity, justice and civilian rule (Kushkush, 2019; Onyango, 2021; Khalafallah et al., 2025).

The fall of al-Bashir did not resolve Sudan’s central legitimacy problem. Civilian actors, the Sudanese Armed Forces and the Rapid Support Forces entered a fragile transition in which formal institutions remained vulnerable to coercive actors. The October 2021 coup disrupted the transition and reframed the question of legitimacy: was the military protecting the transition from disorder, as military actors claimed, or destroying the possibility of democratic transformation, as civilian groups argued? Digital narratives became a site where these competing interpretations were circulated and contested (Attia et al., 2020; Hamad, 2026; Ibrahim, 2025).

5.2 Digital narratives during and after the coup

During and after the 2021 coup, digital narratives in Sudan revolved around betrayal, revolution, order, civilian legitimacy and military guardianship. Pro-democracy networks used digital spaces to sustain resistance, document repression and frame military intervention as a betrayal of the revolution. Military-aligned narratives framed intervention as necessary to restore stability and prevent political chaos. Sudan therefore differs from Mali and Burkina Faso because digital space remained strongly associated with both anti-coup mobilization and militarized counter-narratives (Attia et al., 2020; Ibrahim, 2025).

The April 2023 war between the SAF and RSF transformed Sudan’s digital environment into a propaganda battlefield. Ibrahim (2025) finds that social media in Sudan after April 2023 facilitated hate speech and divisive rhetoric while also allowing counter-speech initiatives. The study identifies Facebook, X, WhatsApp, Telegram, TikTok and YouTube as platforms used by SAF, RSF, political actors and foreign-linked networks to manipulate narratives, mobilize support and circulate misinformation. El Obeid (2026) similarly describes Sudan’s wartime online propaganda as a contest involving SAF supporters, RSF supporters, live streamers, YouTubers, political actors and anti-war groups. Hamad (2026) emphasizes the role of diaspora influencers in shaping narratives, legitimizing violence and deepening polarization.

During the war, competing digital narratives portrayed the SAF as defenders of the Sudanese state and national unity, while RSF-aligned content emphasized claims of political exclusion, military reform or resistance to SAF dominance. Hashtags, short-form videos, livestream commentary and platform-based propaganda were used to assign blame for violence, contest casualty narratives and construct competing claims to legitimacy. These digital repertoires transformed online platforms into extensions of the broader conflict environment (El Obeid, 2026; Hamad, 2026; Ibrahim, 2025).

5.3 Actor agency and peace-building consequences

Sudan’s case reveals multiple digital actors: civilian activists, resistance committees, diaspora influencers, SAF-aligned voices, RSF-aligned networks, journalists, live streamers, YouTubers, anti-war groups and ordinary users. Their agency matters because digital narratives are not produced only by formal military institutions. Civilian and diaspora actors also translate conflict into stories of victimhood, betrayal, patriotism, ethnic grievance, humanitarian solidarity or revenge (El Obeid, 2026; Hamad, 2026; Ibrahim, 2025).

The peace-building consequences are severe. When online narratives frame opponents as existential enemies, traitors or ethnic threats, they reduce the space for negotiated compromise. Digital documentation of abuses can support accountability, but propaganda and hate speech can also normalize violence and make civilian protection more difficult. Sudan therefore demonstrates the destructive potential of digital narratives when military legitimacy struggles become embedded in armed conflict. Peace-building in Sudan requires ceasefire and institutional negotiation, but it also requires digital de-escalation, counter-hate initiatives, protection of independent journalism and narrative spaces that support civilian trust (Ibrahim, 2025; Lederach, 1997).

6 Mali: Videomen, sovereigntist digital politics and post-coup legitimacy

6.1 Structural grievances and the 2020–2021 coups

Mali’s coup trajectory emerged from long-standing insecurity, corruption allegations, elite distrust, disputed elections and frustration with the state’s inability to manage jihadist violence. The August 2020 coup that removed President Ibrahim Boubacar Keita followed mass mobilization associated with the M5-RFP movement and public anger over governance failure. The May 2021 coup consolidated military power further. These events occurred in a context where citizens increasingly questioned whether civilian institutions, international security partnerships and regional diplomatic arrangements could deliver security and dignity (Mo Ibrahim Foundation, 2023; Thurston, 2024; United Nations Development Programme, 2023).

Mali illustrates how structural grievances became linked to geopolitical narratives. Public dissatisfaction was not framed only as anger at domestic elites. It was also narrated through anti-French, anti-ECOWAS, anti-neocolonial and sovereigntist frames. Engels (2023) argues that recent coups in parts of West and Central Africa cannot be separated from debates over neocolonialism. Simura (2024) similarly reads West Africa’s post-2020 coups through decolonial framings. These analyses help explain why military rule could be represented not only as unconstitutional intervention, but also as national restoration.

6.2 Digital narratives, videomen and cybercombatants

Mali provides the clearest example of actor agency in post-coup digital politics. Cold-Ravnkilde and Sylla (2024) show that Mali’s new videomen function as cybercombatants in a global crisis ecology. These smartphone-enabled producers and circulators of audiovisual political content disseminate pro-junta, anti-French and pro-Russian narratives, especially around movements such as #Yerewolo. Their work is not merely passive sharing; it is performative political production. They reconstruct past events, reclaim patriotism, challenge traditional media professionals and shape public perceptions of military leaders and international partners.

This actor-centered analysis is important because it avoids reducing Mali’s digital politics to external disinformation. Foreign influence and information manipulation matter, but Cold-Ravnkilde and Sylla (2024) emphasize local agency, smartphone affordances and the political creativity of Malian actors. Stambøl et al. (2025) further show that anticolonial imaginaries in Mali have a longue duree. Contemporary sovereigntist discourse draws on longer histories of anti-imperial politics, pan-Africanism and critique of foreign domination. Digital platforms amplify these repertoires, but they do not create them from nothing.

Key Malian digital narratives include #Mali Koura, or the idea of a new Mali; sovereignty against foreign domination; critique of France and Operation Barkhane; rejection of ECOWAS sanctions; celebration of military leaders as defenders of dignity; and support for new international partnerships, including Russia. These narratives shift attention from the illegality of military intervention to the claim that military rule embodies national self-determination. The coup is therefore narratively transformed from a rupture of constitutionalism into a performance of sovereign recovery (Cold-Ravnkilde and Sylla, 2024; Engels, 2023; Simura, 2024; Stambøl et al., 2025).

Illustrative examples of these narratives include slogans such as Mali Koura, calls for souverainete, anti-French messaging linked to the withdrawal of Operation Barkhane, and online campaigns portraying ECOWAS sanctions as attacks on Malian dignity and self-determination. Visual content frequently depicts military leaders alongside national symbols, Russian flags or pan-African imagery, framing the junta as the embodiment of national renewal and geopolitical emancipation. Although the forms and circulation of these narratives vary across platforms, they consistently link military authority with claims of restored sovereignty and resistance to external domination (Cold-Ravnkilde and Sylla, 2024; Stambøl et al., 2025).

Other public voices in Mali complicate any simple reading of the digital sphere as uniformly pro-junta. The #MaTransition campaign was launched to broaden citizen participation in discussions on governance, constitutional reform, elections and democratic values, while #Wuli, meaning Stand up, appeared after the May 2021 coup as a marker of frustration with renewed military intervention and transition failure. At the same time, pro-army narratives circulated through official and quasi-official channels, including DIRPA messaging, TikTok and X videos, WhatsApp broadcasts, Facebook debates and Telegram-linked armed-group communication. These examples show that Malian digital politics combined civic demands for ownership of the transition, anti-elite frustration, military legitimacy claims and geopolitical information struggles (De Bruijn, 2025; NIMD, 2021; Siegle and Eizenga, 2020; Mann, 2021).

6.3 Post-coup legitimacy and peace-building challenges

Post-coup Mali shows the limits of sovereigntist crisis legitimacy. Military rulers can gain symbolic support by promising security, dignity and liberation from external dependency, but these claims become fragile when violence persists and civic space contracts. Thurston (2024) notes that coups in the Central Sahel have interacted with jihadist insecurity in complex ways and that some coup-maker policy choices have accelerated violence. Digital narratives that initially legitimate military intervention may later be used to delegitimize critics as foreign-aligned, unpatriotic or hostile to national renewal (De Bruijn, 2025; Thurston, 2024).

The peace-building challenge in Mali is therefore not only armed insecurity. It is also narrative polarization. If criticism of the junta is framed as betrayal, dialogue becomes more difficult. If anti-French or anti-ECOWAS narratives are used to silence domestic accountability claims, political pluralism weakens. Yet digital space also contains potential for accountability, civic debate and alternative peace narratives. The central issue is whether digital communication can support inclusive national dialogue or whether it continues to function as a weapon for consolidating militarized authority (De Bruijn, 2025; Lederach, 1997).

7 Burkina Faso: security failure, National Mobilization and militarized crisis legitimacy

7.1 Structural grievances and repeated coups

Burkina Faso experienced two coups in 2022. The January coup removed President Roch Marc Christian Kabore amid public anger over the government’s inability to address jihadist violence. The September coup removed Lt. Col. Paul-Henri Damiba, again justified by claims of security failure. These repeated coups show how insecurity can become a recurring narrative resource: each military intervention claims to correct the previous authority’s failure to protect the nation (Mo Ibrahim Foundation, 2023; Thurston, 2024; United Nations Development Programme, 2023).

The Burkinabe case is shaped by battlefield frustration, displacement, civilian suffering, weak state presence and distrust of political elites. The military’s claim to legitimacy is built primarily around security restoration, patriotic sacrifice and national survival. Unlike Mali, where sovereigntist and anti-French narratives are strongly linked to the politics of foreign intervention, Burkina Faso’s legitimacy narratives are especially anchored in the existential language of defending the homeland against insurgency. Nevertheless, anti-French, anti-Western, Sankarist and sovereigntist symbols have also shaped the digital-political environment (Africa Center for Strategic Studies, 2025; Saidou and Honig, 2024).

7.2 Digital narratives and actor agency

Digital narratives in Burkina Faso framed military rule through security, sacrifice, youth leadership, revolutionary symbolism and national dignity. Supporters of Capt. Ibrahim Traore circulated images and messages presenting him as a young, disciplined and patriotic leader capable of breaking with ineffective politics. Online narratives drew selectively on the memory of Thomas Sankara, anti-imperial resistance and popular mobilization. They also circulated anti-French and anti-Western frames that positioned external actors as obstacles to sovereignty (Africa Center for Strategic Studies, 2025; Simura, 2024).

Burkina Faso also demonstrates that digital voices may appear through media events, symbols and communication infrastructure rather than stable hashtags alone. During the January 2022 coup, the government used Twitter to deny a takeover, the ruling party circulated a call to arms through social media, and the military seized RTB before using both mainstream and social media to announce and legitimate the change of regime. Under Traore, symbolic narratives have further portrayed him as a Sankara-like Pan-African figure through murals, T-shirts, billboards, viral videos, influencer content and initiatives such as Faso Mebo, roughly translated as Build Your Homeland. These narratives have been reinforced by anti-Western and anti-ECOWAS frames, pro-Russia messaging, AI-generated or fabricated endorsement claims and coordinated amplification across regional and diaspora networks (Heywood et al., 2022; Africa Center for Strategic Studies, 2025; Chason, 2025; Pathé Duarte, 2024).

Actor agency in Burkina Faso includes military communicators, pro-regime influencers, youth supporters, online nationalist networks, diaspora commentators, civil society critics, journalists and state-controlled information channels. The legalization and mobilization of Volunteers for the Defense of the Homeland generated a narrative of citizen sacrifice and collective defense. Saidou and Honig (2024) argue that the VDPs function as both a security strategy and a legitimacy-building tool. This matters because post-coup legitimacy is constructed not only through speeches or hashtags, but also through institutionalized mobilization of civilian defense actors.

Burkina Faso’s information environment also illustrates the risks of narrowing civic space. Media restrictions and pressure on critical reporting can convert official narratives into dominant public frames while pushing dissent into more precarious spaces. The Africa Center for Strategic Studies (2025) describes a divergence between deteriorating security conditions and high-volume information campaigns by the junta. This divergence matters analytically because it shows how digital narratives can sustain legitimacy even when material security outcomes remain uncertain or worsening.

7.3 Peace-building implications

The Burkinabe case shows that crisis legitimacy can be renewed through repeated claims of urgent security necessity. However, militarized national mobilization may complicate peace-building if it normalizes armed solutions, weakens accountability and frames dissent as betrayal. Thurston (2024) cautions that the authorization of new armed actors can worsen violence beyond pre-coup trends. This risk is especially relevant where civilian defense groups operate in deeply fractured local conflict environments (Saidou and Honig, 2024; Thurston, 2024).

Peace-building in Burkina Faso therefore requires more than battlefield strategy. It requires inclusive dialogue, protection of civic space, accountability for abuses, community-level reconciliation and digital narratives that do not reduce political disagreement to disloyalty. If national survival narratives become the only legitimate language of politics, pluralism and reconciliation become difficult. Burkina Faso demonstrates how digital narratives can provide short-term symbolic support for military rule while leaving the deeper conditions of peace unresolved (Lederach, 1997; Saidou and Honig, 2024).

8 Comparative analysis

The three cases confirm the article’s central argument: digital narratives do not cause coups by themselves, but they mediate how structural grievances become politically intelligible, how military intervention is justified and how post-coup authority is contested. Each case follows the broad sequence of grievance, legitimacy erosion, digital amplification, coup legitimation and post-coup narrative struggle. However, the form of this sequence differs across the cases because Sudan, Mali and Burkina Faso occupy different political histories, conflict trajectories and digital communication ecologies (Bourdieu, 1991; Castells, 2012; George and Bennett, 2005).

The public voices identified across the cases strengthen this argument empirically. Sudan shows the use of protest hashtags, songs, chants, resistance committees and diaspora solidarity; Mali shows the coexistence of civic transition campaigns, anti-elite frustration, videomen and pro-army messaging; and Burkina Faso shows how media seizure, internet control, Sankarist symbolism, influencer amplification and pro-Russia narratives can serve as instruments of post-coup legitimation. These examples make visible the actors and symbolic repertoires through which digital narratives operate as evidence within the analysis rather than as abstract claims (Table 3).

Table 3. Comparative synthesis of structural grievances, digital narratives, legitimacy claims, and peace-building implications across Sudan, Mali, and Burkina Faso.

Sudan differs from Mali and Burkina Faso because digital narratives did not primarily consolidate one pro-junta legitimacy frame. Instead, they became part of a fragmented conflict ecology involving civilian resistance, military justification, RSF and SAF propaganda, anti-war messaging and hate speech (El Obeid, 2026; Hamad, 2026; Ibrahim, 2025). Mali differs because actor agency is especially visible through videomen, Yerewolo-linked networks and sovereigntist political entrepreneurs (Cold-Ravnkilde and Sylla, 2024; Stambøl et al., 2025). Burkina Faso differs because the central legitimacy frame is security restoration and national mobilization rather than post-revolution transition or explicit geopolitical realignment alone (Africa Center for Strategic Studies, 2025; Saidou and Honig, 2024).

Despite these differences, the cases share three common patterns. First, military actors benefit when digital narratives frame civilian institutions as exhausted, corrupt, foreign-controlled or incapable of protecting citizens. Second, post-coup rulers use digital narratives to transform unconstitutional seizure of power into crisis legitimacy. Third, peace-building becomes difficult when digital narratives continue to polarize society, discredit dissent or equate military loyalty with patriotism. These patterns demonstrate why peace-building must pay attention to symbolic and digital struggles as much as formal institutional arrangements (Bourdieu, 1991; Lederach, 1997).

9 Implications for policy and peace-building practice

First, digital narratives should be treated as early-warning indicators of legitimacy crisis. Rapid growth of online narratives portraying military takeover as national rescue, anti-corruption salvation or sovereign liberation may signal declining trust in civilian institutions (Africa Center for Strategic Studies, 2024; United Nations Development Programme, 2023).

Second, grievances should be addressed before militarized actors capitalize on them. Citizens’ demands for security, employment, dignity, accountability and inclusion require credible civilian institutions, not only crisis communication or temporary political settlements (Mo Ibrahim Foundation, 2023; United Nations Development Programme, 2023).

Third, peace-building should include narrative reconciliation. Post-coup dialogue should create spaces where competing interpretations of the coup, state failure, foreign influence, national identity and political authority can be discussed without repression. This is consistent with Lederach’s view that sustainable peace requires rebuilding relationships and transforming conflict, not only signing agreements or announcing elections (Lederach, 1997).

Fourth, digital peace-building should be strengthened. Civil society, journalists, youth networks, religious leaders, community organizations and regional bodies can use digital platforms to counter hate speech, misinformation and militarized propaganda while protecting free expression. Such efforts are especially important where digital spaces have become arenas of polarization, disinformation and identity-based hostility (Africa Center for Strategic Studies, 2024; Ibrahim, 2025; Okolo, 2024).

Fifth, civic space and independent media must be protected. Peace-building is weakened where post-coup regimes suppress journalists, civil society and opposition voices while presenting official narratives as the only patriotic discourse. Sixth, civilian oversight of the military must be rebuilt through security-sector reform, constitutional accountability and mechanisms that prevent military institutions from becoming permanent political authorities (De Wet, 2019; Thurston, 2024).

Finally, digital governance frameworks should counter coordinated disinformation, hate speech and AI-generated propaganda without becoming instruments of censorship. Okolo (2024) warns that generative disinformation may intensify democratic vulnerabilities in Africa, making media literacy, fact-checking and accountable platform governance central to peace-building and democratic resilience.

10 Limitations and future research directions

This article relies on secondary documentary and digital materials and does not conduct primary interviews, large-scale platform scraping, computational sentiment analysis or nationally representative public opinion measurement. Online narratives are therefore treated as public legitimacy claims and symbolic evidence, not as direct indicators of population-wide support for military rule. Future research could extend the analysis through digital ethnography, social network analysis, interviews with activists, journalists, military communicators and diaspora actors, and comparison with other coup-affected cases such as Niger, Guinea, Chad and Gabon. Further work should also examine how gender, youth, civil society, religious actors and foreign-linked information operations shape the production, circulation and contestation of coup legitimacy narratives.

11 Conclusion

This article has examined how digital narratives mediate legitimacy crises, military coups and post-coup peace-building challenges in Sudan, Mali and Burkina Faso. It has argued that structural grievances such as insecurity, corruption, democratic erosion, economic hardship and weak institutions remain central to coup analysis, but they do not fully explain how military intervention becomes publicly intelligible, accepted, resisted or normalized. Digital narratives perform this mediating role by amplifying grievances, assigning blame, constructing claims of national rescue and shaping the symbolic legitimacy of military rule.

The comparative analysis shows a shared pattern of legitimacy erosion and military political opportunity, but with distinct narrative pathways. Sudan illustrates how digital mobilization shifted from revolutionary resistance to factional propaganda and anti-war advocacy. Mali shows how videomen, sovereigntist actors, civic platforms and pan-Africanist networks shaped narratives of transition, sovereignty and national recovery. Burkina Faso demonstrates how military authorities, youth supporters, influencers, civil society actors, diaspora sympathizers and foreign-linked information networks constructed or contested Traoré’s Sankara-like anti-imperial image. Across the three cases, local and national actors were not passive subjects of insecurity, institutional failure or external influence; they actively framed grievances, mobilized support, contested legitimacy and shaped how coups were understood in digital public spheres.

The article contributes by linking structural coup explanations with symbolic power, legitimacy framing and digital-political communication. Sustainable peace requires institutional reform, civic trust, plural debate, counter-disinformation measures and digital spaces where disagreement does not become dehumanization.

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Footnotes

Edited by: Tim Glawion, University of Freiburg, Germany

Reviewed by: Almamy Sylla, International Crops Research Institute for the Semi-Arid Tropics, Mali

Gilbert T. Zvaita, University of KwaZulu-Natal, South Africa