coup d'état

The sudden overthrow of a government by a usually small group of persons in or previously in positions of authority.

[French : coup, blow, stroke + de, of + état, state.]

Coup d'état (Fr., stroke of state), an attempt to change a government by the threat or use of force, usually but not always associated with the military, although the willingness and ability or lack of it on the part of the armed forces to defend a government can be decisive in a coup d'état by others. Although the popular image is of tanks surrounding the presidential palace as in Chile in 1973, this was in fact only the second successful coup in Chilean history (there was also a civil war) and the preferred method in Hispanic countries has been the cuartelazo, the ominous confining of itself to barracks by the garrison of the capital, usually enough to achieve the objectives of the military leaders. The so-called Curragh mutiny, for example, was a threatened British cuartelazo, and a threat of refusal to act in support of the civil power took place as recently as 1968 in France.

This is not to deny that Latin America has seen more military coups than any other continent: until the 1980s, Bolivia had had more governments than it had years of independent life, and the record of the armed forces elsewhere in the continent has been shameful, exacerbated until relatively recently by US influence. As Franklin D. Roosevelt said of the deplorable dictator Somoza, installed in Nicaragua by US arms, ‘he may be a son of a bitch, but he's our son of a bitch’. The same thought no doubt crossed the mind of Churchill when he supported pro-British but unsavoury military leaders in the Middle East between the wars.

In general, those military coups that are not an outright grab for power and money stem from an intense dislike of the corruption and disorder of civilian politics, coupled with a belief that the armed forces represent the distillation of patriotism. The latter argument, of course, has commonly been used to justify the former and it is a rare military regime that does not promptly sink into the most appalling corruption itself. Two glowing exceptions were Atatürk, who reached power in a coup but erected a rigid barrier between the military and politics that lasted for 50 years, and ‘Pepe’ Figueres in Costa Rica, who in 1948 abolished the very armed forces that originally brought him to power. Armed forces chronically involved in politics also notoriously lose sight of their primary function, as seen in the lamentable performance of the Argentine army in the Falklands.

In most cases the coup is undertaken to displace one set of rulers, typically the civilian leadership, and establish the power of an alternative group, which is often, but not necessarily, the military. What distinguishes a coup from revolutions is that they are typically carried by relatively small groups and do not involve mass political action. The second key difference is that while those who carry out the coup are seeking to change the government or ruling group, they are not usually trying to change the regime or bring about broader social change. The coup is often an attempt to remedy a specific or immediate grievance and is very unlikely to involve any widescale change in the social order. Often the coup is undertaken to pre-empt revolutionary change from below and impose a measure of reform from above. The new government installed by the coup usually relies on some degree of civilian collaboration, particularly from the civil service, but rarely provides any useful solution to long-term social and economic problems.

Military coups occurred regularly in 19th-century Spain and the Balkans, but during the 20th century they have been largely confined to developing states in Africa, Latin America, and Asia. Coups have been less prevalent, although not unknown, in developed industrialized counties, where governments have a large degree of legitimacy and where accepted procedures for the orderly change of administration are in place. In post-WW II Europe, military intervention in civilian politics has been provoked by failures in the process of decolonization such as in France in 1958, when the revolt of the French army during the Algerian independence war led to the return to power of de Gaulle; the army then revolted against him in turn, which de Gaulle overcame by appealing to the troops over their officers' heads.

Other causes have been rapid economic change and political polarization as in Greece in 1967, and these factors as well as post-colonial trauma contributed to the 1974 military coup in Portugal. The farcical failure of the attempted coup of 23 February 1981 in Spain by reactionary elements within the army and Guardia Civil yearning for a return to authoritarian government demonstrated the vital role of legitimacy, in the person of King Juan Carlos if not in a brawling and intemperate parliament. Here the dreadful cost of the Spanish civil war and the 40-year dictatorship by Franco that followed the last coup d'état undoubtedly also served to render the coup a complete non-starter.

Another factor is what we might call ‘trade union’ disputes between the military and governments. If the military has means available to it for advancing its corporate and professional interests then the danger of direct action over differences with the government is dissipated. Furthermore many armies have a long and determined tradition of non-intervention in civil affairs. For example, despite endemic political corruption and mismanagement, as well as acute religious and regional divisions, the Indian army has resolutely stayed out of politics, whereas in Pakistan the military appointed itself the overseer of the national interest and has on occasion seized power to ‘save’ the nation, seeing itself as an Atatürk-like modernizing force confronting a traditionally kleptomaniac, divisive civilian political élite.

On many occasions great powers have either intervened directly or used local surrogates to overthrow regimes that threatened their interests. The entire British conquest of India hinged on this technique, finally coming unstuck in Afghanistan where, over a century later, the Soviets also thought they could depose rulers at will, to their ultimate sorrow. The US-sponsored overthrow of Diem in Vietnam was likewise something akin to getting their tie caught in a mangle, as the very human tendency to reinforce error took over. A move originally intended to revitalize South Vietnam and make it better capable of defending itself ended with the commitment of a previously unimaginable level of US resources. Even the Anglo-American overthrow of Mossadegh in Iran, once considered a highly successful piece of rascality, does not today find many defenders as the West gloomily contemplates the jinnee of outraged nationalism allied with religious revivalism that emerged once their stopper the shah blew out of the Middle Eastern bottle.

— Hugh Bicheno

ܖkōō dāˈtä pl. coups d'état -ˈtä (z) pronunc. same a sudden, violent, and illegal seizure of power from a government: he was overthrown in an army coup d'état.

See the Introduction, Abbreviations and Pronunciation for further details.

The sudden, forcible, and illegal removal of a government, usually by the military or some part thereof, often precipitated by more immediate grievances bearing directly on the military. The coup may be the prelude to some form of military rule, with a greater or lesser degree of civilian collaboration, perhaps requiring the collaboration of the civil service and members of the professional and middle classes, or involving the co-optation of sympathetic politicians and parties and of occupational groups, such as peasant and union leaders. While the focus of the coup is on the remedy of specific or immediate grievances, the outcome is unlikely to involve wide-ranging changes in the social order. More often a coup is seen as an effective means of pre-empting revolutionary change from below by imposing some measure of ‘reform’ from above. However, repeated military intervention has seldom contributed to a resolution of long-term social and economic problems.

Although not unknown in developed industrial societies, coups have been exceptional wherever governments, popular or not, are accorded a large degree of legitimacy and where there are widely accepted procedures for effecting a regular and orderly change of administration. In Europe the most recent cases of military intervention have been precipitated either by failures of decolonization (France 1958, Portugal 1974), or by rapid economic change and political polarization (Greece 1967), or have been linked to the crisis of communism in Eastern Europe (Poland 1981). The strengthening of the European Union, with democracy as a condition of membership, has also been seen as a stabilizing factor. Moreover here the military has available to it constitutional means for advancing its corporate and professional interests. In developing and underdeveloped countries, however, military intervention was commonplace until the 1980s; in much of Africa it remains so. The nature and frequency of coups has varied both by country and by context. Latin America has the longest experience of military involvement and intervention, dating almost from the inception of the republics, and even affecting relatively advanced states like Brazil, Chile, and Argentina. With independence in Africa coups quickly became the accepted means of changing governments in the absence of free and regular elections, and in circumstances where governments are highly personalized, have little authority, and command almost no legitimacy.

There are several distinct but related schools of thought about coups and their causes. Some seek to explain them largely as a response to social upheaval, economic collapse, and political and institutional failure. On that view intervention is a military response to acute social and political unrest in societies where the level of political culture is low or minimal. The military acts, almost by default, to fill a power vacuum at the centre. Others have looked instead for specifically ‘military’ explanations for intervention, focusing on the organizational strengths of the armed forces (e.g. discipline, centralized command structure, cohesion), compared with civilian institutions in underdeveloped countries. Intervention, according to this view, is likely to be the result of acute frustration with civilian incompetence and corruption. Others again have focused on the internal politics of the armed forces, insisting that coups are more or less random phenomena, arising from and inspired by a mix of personal ambitions, corporate interests, constituency rivalries, and often intense manifestations of ethnic and sectional loyalty. The appearance in Latin America of authoritarian military regimes, from the 1960s through to the 1980s, has been attributed to the failure of one particular model of economic development, based on import substitution, and the need to attract substantial foreign investment to promote export-based recovery and sustained industrial growth. The military was determined to stay in power to restructure society and create a climate more appropriate to such investment.

It is doubtful whether such a complex and variable phenomenon can be explained in terms of one or a small number of variables. Meanwhile military regimes have been increasingly concerned with the problems of withdrawal: how to extricate themselves from government without at the same time creating the conditions for renewed intervention. Since the 1980s there have been additional pressures arising from the debt crisis, and growing demands from creditor states for good governance. International monetary bodies have also begun to insist on multiparty democracy as a condition for further aid. Consequently, there has been a sharp decline in military intervention in the Third World, measured in terms of the incidence of coups.

— Ian Campbell

For more information on coup d'état, visit Britannica.com.

The two most celebrated coups in French history are those of 18 Brumaire 1799 [see Napoleon, I] and of 2 December 1851 [see Napoleon III]. The latter was mockingly compared by Marx to the former.

A quick and decisive seizure of governmental power by a strong military or political group. In contrast to a revolution, a coup d'état, or coup, does not involve a mass uprising. Rather, in the typical coup, a small group of politicians or generals arrests the incumbent leaders, seizes the national radio and television services, and proclaims itself in power. Coup d'état is French for “stroke of the state” or “blow to the government.”

"Putsch" redirects here. For Hitler’s Beer Hall Putsch, see Beer Hall Putsch.

"Coup" redirects here. For other uses, see Coup (disambiguation).

A coup d'état (pronounced /ˌkuːdeɪˈtɑː/, us dict: kōō′·dā·tâ′), (plural: coups d'état) or coup for short, is the sudden unconstitutional deposition of a government, usually by a small group of the existing state establishment—typically the military—to replace the deposed government with another, either civil or military. A coup d’état succeeds when the usurpers establish their legitimacy if the attacked government fail to thwart them, by allowing their (strategic, tactical, political) consolidation and then receiving the deposed government’s surrender; or the acquiescence of the populace and the non-participant military forces.

Typically, a coup d’état uses the extant government’s power to assume political control of the country. In Coup d'État: A Practical Handbook, military historian Edward Luttwak says: “A coup consists of the infiltration of a small, but critical, segment of the state apparatus, which is then used to displace the government from its control of the remainder”, thus, armed force (either military or paramilitary) is not a defining feature of a coup d’État.

Contents 1 Etymology 2 Usage of the phrase 3 Pronunciamento 4 History 5 Types of coup d’état 6 Post-military-coup governments 7 Incumbent leaders of current regimes who assumed power via a coup d’état 8 See also 9 References 9.1 Bibliography

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Although the coup d’état features in politics since antiquity, the phrase is of relatively recent coinage;^[1] the Oxford Dictionary identifies it is a French expression meaning a “stroke of State”. In 1646, James Howell used the phrase in the book Louis XIII;^{[citation needed]} the first English usage dates from 1811, referring to Napoleon Bonaparte’s deposing the Revolutionary Directory in 1799.^{[citation needed]} Prof. Thomas Childers, of the University of Pennsylvania, indicates that the English language’s lacking a word denoting the sudden, violent change of government derives from England’s stable political traditions and institutions. Although French and German history are coloured with such politico-military actions, English history is not; to wit, the Glorious Revolution was the last coup d’état in England, effected to establish parliamentary democracy, whereby William of Orange deposed King James II, the last Roman Catholic English monarch, in 1688.^{[dubious – discuss]}

Since the unsuccessful coups d’état of Wolfgang Kapp in 1920 (the Kapp Putsch), the Swiss German word Putsch (pronounced [ˈpʊtʃ]; coined for the Züriputsch of 1839) also denotes the same politico-military actionis: in Metropolitan France, putsch denoted the 1942 and 1961 anti-government attacks in Algiers, and the 1991 August Putsch in the USSR; the German equivalent is Staatsstreich (state's blow),^[2] yet a putsch is not always a coup d’état, for example, the Beer Hall Putsch was by politicians without paramiltary support.

Usage of the phrase

Linguistically, coup d’état denotes a "stroke of state" (French: coup [stroke] d’ [of] État [state]).^[3] Analogously, the looser, quotidian usage means “gaining advantage on a rival”, (intelligence coup, boardroom coup). Politically, a coup d’état is a usually violent political engineering, which effects who rules in the government, without radical changes in the form of the government, the political system. Tactically, a coup d’état involves control, by an active minority of military usurpers, who block the remaining (non-participant) military’s possible defence of the attacked government, by either capturing or expelling the politico-military leaders, and seizing physical control of the country’s key government offices, communications media, and infrastructure. It is to be noted that in the latest years there has been a broad use of the phrase in mass media, which may contradict the legal definition of coup d’état.

Pronunciamento

Main article: Pronunciamento

The Pronunciamento (Pronouncement) is the Spanish and Hispano American analogue of coup d’état; golpe de estado (coup d’état) is the usual, Spanish phrase. The Pronunciamento is the formal explanation for deposing the regnant government, justifying the installation of the new government that was effected with the golpe de estado. Edward Luttwak explains how a coup d’état and a pronunciamento are different; in the former, a military faction deposes the civilian government and assumes power, in the latter, the military depose the civil government and install another civil government.^[4]

History

Coups d’état are common in Africa; between 1952 and 2000, thirty-three countries experienced 85 such depositions. Western Africa had most of them, 42; most were against civil regimes; 27 were against military regimes; and only in five were the deposed incumbents killed. ^[5] Moreover, as a change-of-government method, the incidence of the coup d’état has declined worldwide, because usually, the threat of one suffices to effect the change of government; the military do not usually assume power, but install a civil leader acceptable to them. The political advantage is the appearance of legitimacy, examples are the collapse of the French Fourth Republic, and the change of government effected in Mauritania, on 3 August 2005, while the president was in Saudi Arabia.

Types of coup d’état

A coup d’état is typed according to the military rank of the lead usurper. The Veto coup d’état and the Guardian coup d’état are effected by the army’s commanding officers. The Breakthrough coup d’état is effected by junior officers (colonels or lower rank) or non-commissioned officers (sergeants). When junior officers or enlisted men so seize power, the coup d’état is a mutiny with grave implications for the organizational and professional integrity of the military. In a bloodless coup d’état, the threat of violence suffices to depose the incumbent. In 1889, Brazil became a republic via bloodless coup; in 1999, Pervez Musharraf assumed power in Pakistan via a bloodless coup; and, in 2006, Sonthi Boonyaratglin assumed power in Thailand as the leader of the Council for Democratic Reform under Constitutional Monarchy. See nonviolent revolution.

The self-coup denotes an incumbent government—aided and abetted by the military—assuming extra-constitutional powers: the historical example is President, then Emperor, Louis Napoléon Bonaparte, Alberto Fujimori, in Peru, is the modern example who, although elected, assumed control of legislature and the judiciary in 1992, becoming an authoritarian ruler, and King Gyanendra’s assumption of “emergency powers” in Nepal.

The political scientist Samuel P. Huntington identifies three classes of coup d’état:

• Breakthrough coup d’état: a revolutionary army overthrows a traditional government and creates a new bureaucratic élite. Generally led by non-commissioned officers (NCOs) or junior officers. Examples are China in 1911, Bulgaria in 1944, Egypt in 1952, Greece in 1967, Libya in 1969 and Liberia in 1980.

• Guardian coup d’état: the "musical chairs" coup d’état. The stated aim of such a coup is usually improving public order, efficiency, and ending corruption. There usually is no fundamental change to the power structure. Generally, the leaders portray their actions as a temporary and unfortunate necessity. An early example is the coup d’état by consul Sulla, in 88 B.C., against supporters of Marius in Rome, after the latter attempted to strip him of a military command. A contemporary instance is the civilian Prime Minister of Pakistan Zulfikar Ali Bhutto's overthrow by Chief of Army Staff General Muhammad Zia-ul-Haq in 1977, who cited widespread civil disorder and impending civil war as his justification. In 1999, General Pervez Musharraf overthrew Pakistani Prime Minister Nawaz Sharif on the same grounds. Nations with guardian coups can frequently shift back and forth between civilian and military governments. Example countries include Argentina (1930 to 1983), Pakistan, Turkey, and Thailand. A “bloodless coup” usually arises from the Guardian coup d’état.

• Veto coup d’état: occurs when the army vetoes the people's mass participation and social mobilisation in governing themselves. In such a case, the army confronts and suppresses large-scale, broad-based civil opposition, tending to repression and killing, the prime example in Marxist historiography is the coup d’état in Chile in 1973 against the elected Socialist President Salvador Allende Gossens by the Chilean military. The 20 July 1944 plot by parts of the German military to overthrow the elected National Socialist government of Adolf Hitler in Germany is an example of a failed veto coup d’état.

Post-military-coup governments

After the coup d’état, the military face the matter of what type of government to establish. In Latin America, it was common for the post-coup government to be led by a junta, a committee of the chiefs of staff of the armed forces. A common form of African post-coup government is the revolutionary assembly, a quasi-legislative body elected by the army. In Pakistan, the military leader typically assumes the title of chief martial law administrator.

According to Huntington, most leaders of a coup d’état act under the concept of right orders: they believe that the best resolution of the country's problems is merely to issue correct orders. This view of government underestimates the difficulty of implementing government policy, and the degree of political resistance to certain correct orders. It presupposes that everyone who matters in the country shares a single, common interest, and that the only question is how to pursue that single, common interest.

Incumbent leaders of current regimes who assumed power via a coup d’état

Title	Name	Assumed office	Country
Leader and Guide of the Revolution	Muammar al-Gaddafi	1 September 1969	Libya
Sultan	Qaboos of Oman	23 July 1970	Oman
President	Teodoro Obiang Nguema Mbasogo	3 August 1979	Equatorial Guinea
President	Blaise Compaoré	15 October 1987	Burkina Faso
President	Zine El Abidine Ben Ali	7 November 1987	Tunisia
President	Omar Hasan Ahmad al-Bashir	30 June 1989	Sudan
Chairman of the State Peace and Development Council	Than Shwe	23 April 1992	Myanmar
President	Yahya Jammeh*	22 July 1994	The Gambia
Emir	Hamad bin Khalifa	27 June 1995	Qatar
President	François Bozizé*	15 March 2003	Central African Republic
Acting Prime Minister	Frank Bainimarama	5 December 2006	Fiji
President of the High Council of State	Mohamed Ould Abdel Aziz**	6 August 2008	Mauritania
President of the National Council for Democracy and Development	Moussa Dadis Camara	24 December 2008	Guinea
President of the High Transitional Authority	Andry Rajoelina	17 March 2009	Madagascar
President	Roberto Micheletti***	28 June 2009	Honduras

* Both Jammeh and Bozizé were subsequently confirmed in office by apparently free and fair elections.^[6][7] The election confirming Jammeh was marked by repression of the free press and the opposition.^[8] An opposition leader described the outcome as a "sham".^[8]

** Mohamed Ould Abdel Aziz was subsequently confirmed by a narrow margin in the Mauritanian presidential election, 2009, which were regarded as "satisfactory" by international observers.

*** Roberto Micheletti was appointed by the National Congress after the Supreme Court and military exiled President Manuel Zelaya on the grounds that he had violated the Honduran Constitution (Article 239). Opinion is divided as to whether Zelaya's removal was a coup or a Constitutional act.

See also

Look up coup d'état in Wiktionary, the free dictionary.

• List of coups d'état and coup attempts – Chronological listing
• List of successful coups d'état – Alphabetical listing
• Contrast with civilian control of the military
• List of protective service agencies
• List of fictional revolutions and coups
• Dictatorship
• Kleptocracy
• Political corruption
• Assassination
• Military dictatorship
• Coup de main
• Mutiny

References

This article includes a list of references or external links, but its sources remain unclear because it has insufficient inline citations. Please help to improve this article by introducing more precise citations where appropriate. (August 2008)

1. ^ Julius Caesar's civil war, 5 Jan 49 BC.
2. ^ Staats = state.
   Streich = (noun) 1. prank, 2. caper, 3. frolic, 4. trick, 5. joke, 6. jape, 7. hoax. 8. sweep, 9. slash, 10. stroke, 11. blow.
   Streich = (verb) 1. stroked.
3. ^ In French “État” is capitalised, for denoting “sovereign political entity”.
4. ^ Edward Luttwak, Coup d’État: A Practical Handbook, Harvard University Press, 1969, 1980. ISBN 06-741-75476.
5. ^ George Klay Kieh, Jr. and Pita Ogaba Agbese (eds.), The Military and Politics in Africa, Ashgate Publishing, 2004. ISBN 0 7546 18765, pp. 44–5.
6. ^ Gambia, Country Reports on Human Rights Practices.
7. ^ Freedom House: Central African Republic, 2008.
8. ^ ^{a b} Freedom House: The Gambia, 2008.

Bibliography

• Curzio Malaparte, Technique du Coup d'État (Published in French), Paris, 1931
• D. J. Goodspeed, Six Coups d'État, Viking Press inc., New-York, 1962
• Edward Luttwak, Coup d'état: A practical handbook, Harvard University Press, 1969, 1980. ISBN 06-741-75476
• Ken Connor and David Hebditch, How to Stage a Military Coup: From Planning to Execution, Pen and Sword Books Ltd, 2008, ISBN 9781848325036
• McGowan, Patrick. 2005. “Coups and Conflict in West Africa, 1955-2004: Part I, Theoretical Perspectives.” Armed Forces & Society, vol. 32: pp. 5–23.
• McGowan, Patrick. 2006. “Coups and Conflict in West Africa, 1955-2004: Part II, Empirical Findings.” Armed Forces & Society, vol. 32: pp. 234–253.
• Beeson, Mark. 2008. “Civil-Military Relations in Indonesia and the Philippines: Will the Thai Coup Prove Contagious?” Armed Forces & Society, vol. 34: pp. 474–490.
• N'Diaye, Boubacar. 2002. “How Not to Institutionalize Civilian Control: Kenya’s Coup Prevention Strategies, 1964-1997.” Armed Forces & Society, vol. 28: pp. 619–640

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