Omnibalancing and international interventions: How Chad’s president Déby benefitted from troop deployment

Abstract

ABSTRACT This article studies why authoritarian states participate in international interventions. Troop contributions of such states indicate the support of authoritarian leaders for a liberal-cosmopolitan order that entails the protection of human rights internationally, while they deny such rights to their own citizens. I focus on the decisions of Chad’s long-term president Idriss Déby Itno to take an active stance in various international interventions. The analysis builds on the theory of omnibalancing, which holds that authoritarian leaders balance external and internal threats to ensure their survival. I demonstrate how Déby used troop deployment as part of his omnibalancing strategy. It allowed him to stay in power until his death in 2021 and made Chad’s democratization unlikely. For Déby’s omnibalancing not only quelled the domestic opposition and silenced international critique against the authoritarian rule, but also contributed to the securitization of the state.