coup d'état

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(' dā-tä') pronunciation
n., pl., coups d'état ('), or coup d'états (dā-täz').
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.]



(French: stroke of state) Sudden overthrow, often violent, of an existing government by a group of conspirators. Coups are most common in countries with unstable governments and in countries with little experience of successful democracy. Their success depends on surprise and speed. Coups rarely alter a nation's fundamental social and economic policies or significantly redistribute power. military government, revolution.

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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 dāܒtä]

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.

Etymology: mid 17th cent.: French, literally ‘blow of state.’

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

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.

(kooh day-tah)

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.”

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A coup d'état (English: /ˌkuːdeɪˈtɑː/, French: [ku deta]; plural: coups d'état; translation: strike (against the) state, literally: strike/blow of state)—also known as a coup, putsch, and overthrow—is the sudden, illegal deposition of a government,[1][2][3][4] usually by a small group of the existing state establishment—typically the military—to depose the extant government and replace it with another body, civil or military. A coup d'état is considered successful when the usurpers establish their dominance. When the coup neither fails completely nor succeeds, a civil war is a likely consequence.

A coup d'état typically uses the extant government's power to assume political control of the country. In Coup d'État: A Practical Handbook, military historian Edward Luttwak states that "[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." The armed forces, whether military or paramilitary, are not a defining factor of a coup d'état.

Contents

Etymology

Although the coup d'état has featured in politics since antiquity, the phrase is of relatively recent coinage;[5] the Oxford Dictionary identifies it as a French expression meaning a “stroke of State”. 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. French, German and U.S. history are coloured with such politico-military actions.

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 actions: 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 (the German literal translation of coup d'état), yet a putsch is not always a coup d'état, for example, the Beer Hall Putsch was by politicians without military support.

Usage of the phrase

Linguistically, coup d'état denotes a "stroke of state" (French: coup [stroke] d' [of] État [state]).[6] 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 affects 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.

Pronunciamiento

The Pronunciamiento (Pronouncement) is a Spanish and Latin American type of coup d'état. The coup d'état (called golpe de estado in Spanish) was more common in Spain and South America, while the Pronunciamiento was more common in Central America. The Pronunciamiento is the formal explanation for deposing the regnant government, justifying the installation of the new government that was effected with the golpe de estado. The difference between a coup and a pronunciamento is that 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.[7]

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.[8] 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

The political scientist Samuel P. Huntington identifies three classes 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.

The self-coup denotes an incumbent government – aided and abetted by the military – assuming extra-constitutional powers. A historical example is President, then Emperor, Louis Napoléon Bonaparte. Modern examples include Alberto Fujimori, in Peru, who, although elected, temporarily suspended the legislature and the judiciary in 1992, becoming an authoritarian ruler, and King Gyanendra's assumption of “emergency powers” in Nepal. Another form of self-coup is when a government, having been defeated in an election, refuses to step down.

Resistance to coups d'état

Many coups d'état, even if initially successful in seizing the main centres of state power, are actively opposed by certain segments of society or by the international community. Opposition can take many different forms, including an attempted counter-coup by sections of the armed forces, international isolation of the new regime, and military intervention.

Sometimes opposition takes the form of civil resistance, in which the coup is met with mass demonstrations from the population generally, and disobedience among civil servants and members of the armed forces. Cases in which civil resistance played a significant part in defeating armed coups d'état include: the Kornilov Putsch in Russia in August 1917; the Kapp Putsch in Berlin in March 1920; and the Generals' Revolt in Algiers in April 1961.[9] The coup in the Soviet Union on 19–21 August 1991 is another case in which civil resistance was part of an effective opposition to a coup: Boris Yeltsin, President of the Russian Soviet Federative Socialist Republic, stood on top of a tank in the centre of Moscow and urged people to refuse co-operation with the coup.

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.

Current leaders who assumed power via coups d'état

Title Name Assumed office Country Area of the World
Sultan Qaboos of Oman* 23 July 1970  Oman Middle East
President Teodoro Obiang Nguema Mbasogo 3 August 1979  Equatorial Guinea Sub-Saharan Africa
President Blaise Compaoré 15 October 1987  Burkina Faso Sub-Saharan Africa
President Omar Hasan Ahmad al-Bashir 30 June 1989  Sudan Sub-Saharan Africa
President Idriss Déby[10][11] 2 December 1990  Chad Sub-Saharan Africa
President Yahya Jammeh** 22 July 1994  The Gambia Sub-Saharan Africa
Emir Hamad bin Khalifa Al Thani* 27 June 1995  Qatar Middle East
President François Bozizé** 15 March 2003  Central African Republic Sub-Saharan Africa
Acting Prime Minister Frank Bainimarama 5 December 2006  Fiji South Pacific
President Mohamed Ould Abdel Aziz*** 6 August 2008  Mauritania Saharan Africa
President of the High Transitional Authority Andry Rajoelina 17 March 2009  Madagascar Sub-Saharan Africa
Interim President Dioncounda Traoré**** 11 April 2012  Mali Sub-Saharan Africa
Head of the "military command" Mamadu Ture Kuruma***** 12 April 2012  Guinea-Bissau Sub-Saharan Africa

* Monarchs who overthrew their own fathers.

** Both Jammeh and Bozizé were subsequently confirmed in office by apparently free and fair elections.[12][13] The election confirming Jammeh was marked by repression of the free press and the opposition.[14] An opposition leader described the outcome as a "sham".[14]

*** 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.

****Overseeing new elections after the 2012 Malian coup d'état led by Amadou Sanogo forced the previous president to resign, as per the terms of a brokered reconciliation deal.

*****Promised to form a national unity government within days.

Other uses of the term

The term has also been used in a corporate context more specifically as boardroom coup. CEOs that have been sacked by behind-the-scenes maneuvering include Robert Stempel of General Motors[15][16] and John Akers of IBM, in 1992 and 1993, respectively.[17][18]

Steve Jobs attempted management coups twice at Apple Inc.; first in 1985 when he unsuccessfully tried to oust John Sculley and then again in 1997 which successfully forced Gil Amelio to resign.[19][20]

See also

References

  1. ^ Legal thought in the United States of America under contemporary pressures: Reports from the United States of America on topics of major concern as established for the VIII Congress of the International Academy of Comparative Law Authors: International Academy of Comparative Law, American Association for the Comparative Study of Law Editors John Newbold Hazard, Wenceslas J. Wagner Publisher: Émile Bruylant, 1970 Length 689 pages p. 509 Quote: "But even if the most laudatory of motivations be assumed, the fact remains that the coup d'etat is a deliberately illegal act of the gravest kind and strikes at the highest level of law and order in society..."
  2. ^ Coup d'etat: a practical handbook By Edward Luttwak p. 172 Quote: "Clearly the coup is by definition illegal, "
  3. ^ USAID[dead link]
  4. ^ Coup d'etat Definition from Auburn U. Quote: A quick and decisive extra-legal seizure of governmental power by a relatively small but highly organized group of political or military leaders...
  5. ^ Julius Caesar's civil war, 5 Jan 49 BC.
  6. ^ "In French "État" is capitalised, for denoting "sovereign political entity"". 66.46.185.79. http://66.46.185.79/bdl/gabarit_bdl.asp?t1=1&id=1285&D=%C9tat. Retrieved 30 July 2011. 
  7. ^ Edward Luttwak, Coup d'État: A Practical Handbook, Harvard University Press, 1969, 1980. ISBN 0-674-17547-6.
  8. ^ George Klay Kieh, Jr. and Pita Ogaba Agbese (eds.), The Military and Politics in Africa, Ashgate Publishing, 2004. ISBN 0-7546-1876-5, pp. 44–5.
  9. ^ Adam Roberts, ‘Civil Resistance to Military Coups’, Journal of Peace Research, Oslo, vol. 12, no. 1, 1975, pp. 19–36, covers these and some other cases.
  10. ^ "BBC News – Chad country profile". BBC. 12 May 2011. http://www.bbc.co.uk/2/hi/africa/country_profiles/1068700.stm. Retrieved 30 July 2011. 
  11. ^ "IRIN Africa | CHAD: Idriss Deby, a president under siege | Conflict | Governance". Irinnews.org. http://www.irinnews.org/Report.aspx?ReportId=58775. Retrieved 30 July 2011. 
  12. ^ "Gambia, Country Reports on Human Rights Practices". State.gov. 4 March 2002. http://www.state.gov/g/drl/rls/hrrpt/2001/af/8377.htm. Retrieved 30 July 2011. 
  13. ^ "Central African Republic, 2008". Freedom House. 10 May 2004. http://www.freedomhouse.org/template.cfm?page=22&country=7369&year=2008. Retrieved 30 July 2011. 
  14. ^ a b "The Gambia, 2008". Freedom House. 10 May 2004. http://www.freedomhouse.org/template.cfm?page=363&year=2008&country=7397. Retrieved 30 July 2011. 
  15. ^ Bunkley, Nick (10 May 2011). "Robert C. Stempel Is Dead at 77; Led G.M. During a Troubled Period". The New York Times. http://www.nytimes.com/2011/05/11/business/11stempel.html?_r=1. 
  16. ^ Miller, Stephen (11 May 2011). "Engineer Ran GM in Dark Early '90s". The Wall Street Journal. http://online.wsj.com/article/SB10001424052748704681904576315561118103074.html. 
  17. ^ Black, Larry (27 January 1993). The Independent (London). http://www.independent.co.uk/news/business/ibm-fires-akers-and-slashes-dividend-1481080.html. 
  18. ^ [1]
  19. ^ Seibold, Chris (24 May 2011). "May 24, 1985: Jobs Fails to Oust Sculley". Apple Matters. http://www.applematters.com/article/may-24-1989-jobs-fails-to-oust-sculley. Retrieved 8 October 2011. 
  20. ^ "Apple Formally Names Jobs as Interim Chief". The New York Times (New York). 17 September 1997. http://www.nytimes.com/library/cyber/week/091797apple.html. Retrieved 27 June 2011. 

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