Coup d'état

"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 (Template:PronEng AHD: [ko͞o"dā tä]), and coup, is the sudden, unconstitutional deposition of a legitimate government, by a small group of the State Establishment — usually the military — to replace the deposed government, with another government, 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.

Usage of the phrase

Linguistically, coup d’état denotes a “stroke of state” (French: coup [stroke] d’ [of] État [state]). Analogously, the looser, quotidian usage means “gaining advantage on a rival”, (intelligence coup, boardroom coup). Politically, a coup d’état is (usually) violent political engineering, yet, is different from a revolution that effects radical change to the government (who rules), not to 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.

Etymology

Although the coup d’état features in politics since antiquity, the phrase is of relatively recent coinage; 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; the first English usage dates from 1811, referring to Napoleon Bonaparte’s deposing the Revolutionary Directory in 1799. 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.

Since the unsuccessful coups d’état of Wolfgang Kapp in 1920 (the Kapp Putsch), the Swiss German word Putsch (IPA: [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), yet a putsch is not always a coup d’état, for example, the Beer Hall Putsch was by politicians without paramiltary support.

The 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.

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. Moreover, as a change-of-government method, the incidence of the coup d’état has declined, 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.

Other examples are the coup d’état by mass protest in deposing unpopular leaders, such as in Serbia, in 2000, Argentina (2001), The Philippines in 1986 and 2001, Bolivia (2003), Georgia (2003), Ukraine (2004-2005), Ecuador (2005), and Bolivia (2005), popular uprisings forced the incumbent leader’s resignation, to ensure politico-economic stability, so that an unknown, uncontroversial interim leader can govern until formal elections are held; these changes of government are not coups d’état, because they are not military actions, thus, are considered revolutions. In the Argentine case of 2001, the crisis was resolved constitutionally; like-wise, the Iranian Revolution of 1979, led by the Ayatollah Khomeini, because it sprang from popular opposition to the U.S.-imposed Shah of Iran.

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. 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 which is 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 later 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 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 Hilter 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 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	Burma
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

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

See also

• List of coups d'état and coup attempts
• 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

References

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