Talk:Coup d'état

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Large deletion of material[edit]

Today, User:‎Sideswipe9th removed a considerable amount of material from this article without any talk page discussion, here's a diff. The cited source is authored by scholars in the pertinent field, in a peer-reviewed journal. And here's the edit summary: "This seems WP:UNDUE, as it is primary research by two political scientists and does not seem to be widely cited by other sources." Here's the removed material, without the footnotes:


Here's the main source: Marsteintredet, Leiv and Malamud, Andrés. “Coup with Adjectives: Conceptual Stretching or Innovation in Comparative Research”, Political Studies Vol. 68(4) 1014–1035 (2020).

This is scholarly material from a reputable secondary source. Blanking it all is inappropriate. If people would like to find scholars who have a different position, any such scholars can be cited too. The authors of the deleted material are reputable scholars:

  • Leiv Marsteintredet, University of Bergen, Bergen, Norway
  • Andrés Malamud, Institute of Social Sciences, University of Lisbon, Portugal

As for the journal, the lead of its Wikipedia article says this: "Political Studies is a peer-reviewed academic journal covering all areas of political science, established in 1953 and published quarterly by SAGE Publications on behalf of the Political Studies Association." This particular article has already been cited many times by scholars in this field, even though this particular article was published relatively recently (2020), including by the following:

  • "Narratives of Executive Downfall: Recall, Impeachment, or Coup?" by A Pérez-Liñán - The Politics of Recall Elections, 2020 - Springer.
  • "Polêmicas sobre a definição do Impeachment de Dilma Rousseff como Golpe de Estado" by DE Martuscelli - Revista de Estudos e Pesquisas sobre as Americas 2020.
  • "Checks and Balances: The Concept and Its Implications for Corruption" by L Da Ros, MM Taylor - Revista Direito GV, 2021 - SciELO Brasil.
  • "Brazil's Stealth Military Intervention" by K Akkoyunlu, JA Lima - Journal of Politics in Latin America, 2022.
  • "Identity Politics and Libraries in Brazil", MS thesis by G. Kunze. Humboldt-Universität zu Berlin, 2022.
  • "Reinventing our understanding of the Left-Right political dichotomy: the case of Argentina" by S Halle, Honors Thesis, University of Arkansas - 2022.
  • "The new wave of takeovers occurring in democracies" by S Larsson, Master Thesis in Political Science, Umea University, Sweden - 2021
  • "Contested, violated but persistent: presidential term limits in Latin America and sub-saharan Africa" by Charlotte Heyl and Mariana Llanos. Democratization 29.1 (2022): 1-17.
  • "Beyond the Rubber-Stamp: Essays on Parliamentary Bodies Under Authoritarianism" by JG Waller - 2022 (Doctoral dissertation, The George Washington University).
  • "The Will of the People" by Yanina Welp in In The Will of the People: Populism and Citizen Participation in Latin America. De Gruyter, 2022.
  • "Hybrid Warfare: A Dramatic Example of Conceptual Stretching", National Security and the Future by T Solmaz (Volume 23, No. 1, 2022.).
  • "The rise of far-right in Latin America: Argentina, Brazil and Chile in comparative perspective" by R Guerra Molina, R Badillo Sarmiento - Revista republicana, 2021.
  • "The rise of far-right in Latin America: Argentina, Brazil and Chile in comparative perspective" by René GUERRA MOLINA and Reynell BADILLO SARMIENTO, Rev. repub. 2021.
  • "The Trump Self-Coup Attempt: Comparisons and Civil–Military Relations" by D Pion-Berlin, T Bruneau, RB Goetze - Government and Opposition, 2022.
  • "A Coup At the Capitol? Conceptualizing Coups and Other Antidemocratic Actions" by Powell, J. M., Ben Hammou, S., Smith, A. E., Borba, L., Kinney, D. H., Chacha, M., & De Bruin, E. (2022). International Studies Review, 24(1).
  • "El golpe que no fue. La última crisis estatal en Bolivia y los límites del concepto de golpe de Estado." by Franz Xavier Barrios Suvelza, Revista de estudios políticos 191 (2021): 185-214.
  • A raíz de los acontecimientos en Bolivia referidos a la renuncia del Presidente Evo Morales a fines de 2019, se ha desatado una polémica internacional sobre si lo sucedido puede …
  • "Supervivencia de los gobiernos y régimen político en la Argentina" by Abal Medina, J. M., Calvo, E., Ajmechet, S., & Ratto, M. C. (2022), Revista SAAP, 16(1), 13-39.
  • "Crisis político institucional en Brasil: la paradoja entre un modelo de desarrollo pétreo y el ascenso social (2003-2016)" by Natalia Raquel Razovich. Facultad de Ciencia Política y Relaciones Internacionales, 2020 (BS thesis).
  • "ASCENSO DE LA ULTRADERECHA EN LATINOAMÉRICA: ARGENTINA, BRASIL Y CHILE EN PERSPECTIVA COMPARADA" by René Guerra Molina, and Reynell Badillo Sarmiento. Revista republicana 31 (2021): 165-189.
  • "Trump și tentativele anulării alegerilor prezidențiale din 2020" by D. Pavel (2021). . Polis. Journal of Political Science, 9(1 (31)), 87-106.

I will note that I consider the deleted material especially valuable as the main cited scholarly article was published in 2020, before events of 2021 made this whole thing a hot potato. Anythingyouwant (talk) 22:36, 14 August 2022 (UTC)[reply]

The content was UNDUE and you need to gain consensus on talk.. SPECIFICO talk 22:51, 14 August 2022 (UTC)[reply]
I do have consensus because the sole solitary comment at this talk page section other than my own is your weak euphemism for WP:IDONTLIKEIT. If you can’t name a single reliable source that disagrees with what these authors have written, then there cannot be an undue weight issue. Anythingyouwant (talk) 23:05, 14 August 2022 (UTC)[reply]
You quite clearly do not have consensus because two editors, of which I was the second (revert 1, revert 2, revert 3), have reverted this addition.
I think I was pretty clear in my edit summary. The content seems undue as it is primary research, not secondary. The conclusions are drawn based on Google ngrams search, using the English 2012 and Spanish 2012 corpora, which consist of works published between 1800 and 2012 (note 2, page 19 of the PDF), and contrasting those results against the incidence of coup attempts reported by Powell and Thyne.
Accordingly, due to its nature as a primary source, we need secondary coverage of it to assess its weight. Stating that a source is undue is not the same as saying "I don't like it". UNDUE is part of the NPOV policy, and arguments citing UNDUE are policy compliant, as they are formed on the basis of how content is related to other works published in the same area. IDONTLIKEIT meanwhile is largely an opinion of the editor about the content itself, and not the contents relationship to other pieces of work.
The list of 21 citations provided will help with assessing weight and whether or not the work by Marsteintredet and Malamud represents the mainstream view in this area, though it seems odd that the journal itself only lists 6 citations of the by others. That will take time though, and it is wholly inappropriate to restore the content while that takes place. Sideswipe9th (talk) 23:36, 14 August 2022 (UTC)[reply]
Here's an analysis of the six citations listed by the journal:
  • The Trump Self-Coup Attempt: Comparisons and Civil–Military Relations - Cites paper for reasons unrelated to its findings The notion of a self-coup can get quickly lost in an extended family of related concepts, with a classic military coup being the obvious first comparison
  • Brazil's Stealth Military Intervention - Cites paper for reasons unrelated to its findings Because of its incremental nature and the absence of a clear rupture, this kind of intervention does not fit into the existing typology of coups (Marsteintredet and Malamud, 2019)
  • Forum: A Coup At the Capitol? Conceptualizing Coups and Other Antidemocratic Actions - Can't access full text
  • Contested, violated but persistent: presidential term limits in Latin America and sub-saharan Africa - Contests the findings of the paper Complete regime collapse through coups d’état has become a much rarer event than in the pre-third wave decades – even though the latest coups that took place in 2020 and 2021 in Chad, Guinea and Mali call into question whether this trend still holds for West Africa
  • Checks and Balances: The Concept and Its Implications for Corruption - Cites paper for its definitions of "parliamentary coup" and "soft coup" . Of course, these cases demonstrate the fuzziness of the lines between our categories: supporters of impeachment may be heard repeating the mantra that the “law is the law,” offering the possibility that the impeachment should really be a Cell I episode; defenders of the president, meanwhile, will argue that because the punishment far exceeds the crime, formal procedures are not being followed, and the impeachment is really an abusive break with institutional norms, a “parliamentary coup” or a “soft coup,” belonging in Cell IV.
  • Narratives of Executive Downfall: Recall, Impeachment, or Coup? - Has a very brief positive analysis of the paper, a paragraph in length, on page 214
So we have one paper I can't access, one positive analysis of the paper, one analysis that calls its findings into question in relation to West Africa, and three papers that cite it for a definition that is divorced from its findings that were proposed for use here. Sideswipe9th (talk) 00:00, 15 August 2022 (UTC)[reply]
Here is an analysis of the remainder of the citations provided by Anythingyouwant:
Note for this, I removed the six citations from the prior post, as well as several duplicates. The list seems almost identical to the list of citations on Google Scholar, including the presence of duplicated titles due to translations and the same title appearing at multiple URLs. Post filtering for duplicates, the list contained twelve entries; four of which are unreliable per WP:SCHOLARSHIP as they are thesis submissions for masters or lower levels of qualifications, four of which I was unable to assess due to not speaking the language they were written in to a sufficient level, three that cited the paper for reasons other than its findings, and one I was unable to access.
Based on checking all of the English language sources thus far provided, I do not believe the source meets WP:DUE. I'm open to re-evaluating this opinion however if another editor can provide an analysis of the non-English language sources. Sideswipe9th (talk) 00:34, 15 August 2022 (UTC)[reply]
I have started a discussion at Wikipedia:No_original_research/Noticeboard#Is_this_a_primary_source_or_a_secondary_source?. Also, please describe which authors have disagreed with this scholarly article, if there’s no disagreement then it’s hard for me to consider it as a minority view. Anythingyouwant (talk) 05:00, 15 August 2022 (UTC)[reply]
Please identify the editor who questions whether it is is primary source? NewsAndEventsGuy (talk) 07:17, 15 August 2022 (UTC)[reply]
Above, I said “This is scholarly material from a reputable secondary source.” Another editor said, “The content seems undue as it is primary research, not secondary.” Per the Wikipedia article titled secondary source, “Secondary sources in history and humanities are usually books or scholarly journals, from the perspective of a later interpreter, especially by a later scholar. In the humanities, a peer reviewed article is always a secondary source.” Anythingyouwant (talk) 08:15, 15 August 2022 (UTC)[reply]
Ah, now I get it. Sorry, I thought you had held it up as primary also. NewsAndEventsGuy (talk) 11:14, 15 August 2022 (UTC) Oops, I cross posted with the noticeboard without thinking. I didn't mean to visit article talk for awhile, sorry. NewsAndEventsGuy (talk) 11:16, 15 August 2022 (UTC)[reply]
please describe which authors have disagreed with this scholarly article I already have above, however for clarity it is the authors of Contested, violated but persistent: presidential term limits in Latin America and sub-Saharan Africa. The exact quotation for where they question the relevant findings is above. Sideswipe9th (talk) 18:41, 15 August 2022 (UTC)[reply]

Per your quote above, that article by Heyl says, "Complete regime collapse through coups d’état has become a much rarer event than in the pre-third wave decades – even though the latest coups that took place in 2020 and 2021 in Chad, Guinea and Mali call into question whether this trend still holds for West Africa." I have no objection to working that into the material I proposed. But please note that it does not contradict the findings of the paper I cited by Marsteintredet, it explicitly agrees that "[c]omplete regime collapse through coups d’état has become a much rarer event than in the pre-third wave decades" which was what Marsteintredet was saying. Heyl does question whether the trend was continuing in West Africa after Marsteintredet published his paper; the events in 2020 and 2021 in Chad, Guinea and Mali occurred after the Marsteintredet paper was published. I have no objection whatsoever to mentioning the Heyl conclusion in this Wikipedia article alongside the Marsteintredet stuff. That's how Wikipedia operates at its best, by presenting readers with different views. Democraticization is a secondary source because "All research articles in this journal have undergone rigorous peer review, based on initial editor screening and refereeing by anonymous referees. All peer review is double blind and submission is online via ScholarOne Manuscripts." I suggest something like this:

Anythingyouwant (talk) 00:29, 16 August 2022 (UTC)[reply]

Any remaining problems User:Sideswipe9th? Anythingyouwant (talk) 12:44, 17 August 2022 (UTC)[reply]
@Anythingyouwant: I still have the same issues with respect to ascertaining the weight of this research. One positive use, and one negative use of the paper's findings does not extrude confidence that this paper represents the mainstream view. Ideally what we need is a review paper of this entire topic, something that reviews all of the main research on this and summarises the current consensus of this field, if one exists (they usually do). From looking through the citations of the Marsteintredet, it has not been cited in such a review. Is there such a review paper?
There's also textual issues. Leaving aside for the the next few paragraphs the question on whether or not this is the mainstream view, we cannot say As of 2019, coups were occurring less frequently than in previous decades. in Wikivoice. Marsteintredet's paper, while published in late 2019/early 2020, does not support that sentence. Marsteintredet uses four discrete datasets when preforming their correlation; Powell and Thyne which covers the period 1950 to 2010, Przeworski et al which covers the period 1917 to 2008, and the 2012 English and Spanish Google ngram corpora which cover works published between 1800 and 2008 (see note 2, PDF page 19). If the work by Marsteintredet is representative of the mainstream view, then based on the citations provided for the paragraph, at best we can only say As of 2008, coups were occurring less frequently.
This development has been linked to a more general linguistic phenomenon We can't say linked in Wikivoice. Marsteintredet is pretty clear that they have only found a correlation between use of the phrase, and recorded coup attempts.
Political scientists Leiv Marsteintredet and Andrés Malamud, who have studied this general phenomenon as it applies to the particular word “coup”, caution that, [snip] We can't say caution here, as that changes the context of the original quote.
They assert that the constitutive elements of a “coup” are summarized in the definition provided by Powell and Thyne We can't use assert here, see the final paragraph of MOS:SAID for why this is an issue. There's also the issue that Marsteintredet did not state quote Powell and Thyne in relation to the previous quotation. The labeling an event as a coup quotation comes from page 17 of the PDF, the quotation from Powell and Thyne is on page 9.
More recently, scholars Charlotte Heyl and Mariana Llanos have agreed that regime collapse through coups have become much rarer in recent decades. However, they question whether that trend has been continuing in West Africa after 2019. Few issues here. It would be more accurate to say that they question if the trend has been continuing in West Africa after 2008, due to the limitations of Marsteintredet's datasets. Finding the right words for this is complicated, because Heyl and Llanos only cite Marsteintredet for a single sentence, and I'm not sure that this sentence in isolation is reflective of the rest of the Heyl's paper. Sideswipe9th (talk) 20:33, 17 August 2022 (UTC)[reply]
Also, I'd draw your attention to what I've written on the related discussion at NORN, particularly this comment. Sideswipe9th (talk) 20:42, 17 August 2022 (UTC)[reply]
Democraticization is a secondary source because [snip] Nope, that is not the definition of a secondary source. A publication is not secondary because it was published in a reputable journal and subject to peer review. The relevant essay for how to determine whether a source is primary or secondary is WP:IDPRIMARY. Of particular relevance to this discussion is WP:IDPRIMARY#Uses in fields other than history and WP:IDPRIMARY#All sources are primary for something.
The part of Marsteintredet's paper that you're proposing we cite in support of the text is a combination and discussion on four discrete datasets; Powell and Thyne, Przeworski, and the 2012 English and Spanish Google ngram corpora. As far as I can tell, that is the first and so far only time those datasets have been combined. Accordingly, per IDPRIMARY this paper is defined as a primary source because in science, data is primary, and the first publication of any idea or experimental result is always a primary source. These publications, which may be in peer-reviewed journal articles or in some other form, are often called the primary literature to differentiate them from unpublished sources.
When taken as a whole, Marsteintredet's paper does not meet the definitions of a literature review, systematic review, or meta-analysis. While Marsteintredet's paper does contain aspects of a literature review, that is separate from their findings on the analysis of the datasets. It does not meet the definition of a systematic review, as it only uses two datasets from this field; Powell and Przeworski, and then combines them with the unrelated Google ngram corpora. And it does not meet the definition of a meta-analysis, because this paper is not a synthesis of other studies that assess the same question. Sideswipe9th (talk) 21:02, 17 August 2022 (UTC)[reply]
@Sideswipe9th The reason why most of this gaming should be simply tuned out because it is bulverism in the service of POV-pushing and an political agenda-- in this case, to promote Jan 6th denialism. The special threat of 'this fallacy' known as bulverism lies in that it applies equally to the person who errs as to that person's opponent. Which means that these longwinded attempts to reason with the trolls enables them and even normalizes this disruption. Taken to its logical consequence, "bulverism" implies that all arguments are unreliable and hence undermines all rational thought. Until Bulverism is put to a stop, reason can play no effective part in human affairs. Each side snatches it early as a weapon against the other; but between the two reason itself is discredited. The remedy, is to accept that some reasoning is not tainted by the reasoner. Some arguments are valid and some conclusions true, regardless of the identity and motives of the one who argues them, and then tune out the rest. Just tired of seeing these pointless debates which have the end result of watering down what should be simple articles of historic fact. It's no longer about politics vs. politics but reality vs. opinion and facts vs. fallacy. Just putting it out there. Moving forward we should tune out the trolls and if they persist then go the WP:ANI forum since we shouldn't have to be dealing with this. My 2 cents. 75.166.143.100 (talk) 22:42, 20 August 2022 (UTC)[reply]
I wouldn't want to cast aspersions about another editor, WP:AGF and all that. I would say however that in a hypothetical conversation with a bulverist, you're not just talking to the person using that fallacy, you're also talking to the other people in the room. While you almost certainly won't be able to convince the POV-pusher that they are wrong, you can convince everyone else of it.
When looking at this through the lens of Wikipedia's consensus policy, it's important to remember that consensus does not mean unanimity. If you can convince everyone else that the bulverist is wrong, then consensus will form around what is verifiable. Sideswipe9th (talk) 23:00, 20 August 2022 (UTC)[reply]
I do intend to come back to this, just strapped for time recently. I think this pre-2021 secondary source is valid for inclusion in this Wikipedia article. It could not possibly have been written with January 6 in mind. It’s also quite obvious that the first sentence of this Wikipedia article directly contradicts the four footnotes at the end of it. Nothing could be more common at controversial Wikipedia articles than editors like IP100 accusing other editors of what they themselves seek to do. I also object to use of this article talk page contrary to WP:NPA, including for repeatedly calling me a troll (“attempts to reason with the trolls enables them” and “tune out the trolls”). I have left a message at the IP’s user talk. Anythingyouwant (talk) 03:39, 21 August 2022 (UTC)[reply]
Extended reply at ORN, here. Anythingyouwant (talk) 15:07, 26 August 2022 (UTC)[reply]

Current definition is flawed[edit]

There are a number of academic datasets and publications that define coup d'état. None of them define it as being merely "a seizure and removal of a government and its powers", which is so vague and general that it's basically any transfer of government. This edit should be reverted[1]. What most common academic definitions of coup have in common is that it's an "an illegal and overt attempt by the military or other government elites to unseat the incumbent leader." Thenightaway (talk) 13:39, 15 July 2023 (UTC)[reply]

This is how the main coup datasets define a coup:
# Powell and Thyne: "To summarize, our definition of a coup attempt includes illegal and overt attempts by the military or other elites within the state apparatus to unseat the sitting executive."[2]
# Chin, Carter and Wright: "A coup d ́etat occurs whenever the incumbent ruling regime or regime leader is ousted from power (or a presumptive regime leader is prevented from taking power) as a result of concrete, observable, and unconstitutional actions by one or more civilian members of the incumbent ruling regime and/or one or more members of the military or security apparatus."[3]
Why exactly does the lead uses a vastly different definition, which isn't even supported by all the sources in the lead or the article? As far as I can tell, the only citation that supports the flawed definition in the current lead is a generalist dictionary authored by someone who does not study coups (Robertson, David (2004). The Routledge Dictionary of Politics. Routledge). Thenightaway (talk) 18:07, 21 July 2023 (UTC)[reply]
It's because during extensive discussions last year on the List of Coups article Talk, editors were simultaneously changing the definitions in this article (as well as the WP:MOS). The purpose was entirely, by the stated purpose of editors, to ensure that January 6 would be listed as a coup, despite it being included in no academic dataset. SamuelRiv (talk) 00:43, 24 August 2023 (UTC)[reply]
Agreed. After purchasing several first edition books on Napoleon and reaching out to the Morning Chronicle for assistance in locating the specific article referencing January 7th as the “day after” the attempted unseating of Napoleon, I did not find anything in the year cited. I also believe the new and expanded definition was concocted to support a conspiratorial narrative unsupported by historical facts. 2600:8805:4605:1400:A9C8:52C3:10CA:90F4 (talk) 12:52, 19 March 2024 (UTC)[reply]
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