A coup d'état (; ; ), or simply a coup, is typically an illegal and overt attempt by a military organization or other government elites to unseat an incumbent person or leadership. A self-coup is said to take place when a leader, having come to power through legal means, tries to stay in power through illegal means.
By one estimate, there were 457 coup attempts from 1950 to 2010, half of which were successful. Most coup attempts occurred in the mid-1960s, but there were also large numbers of coup attempts in the mid-1970s and the early 1990s. Coups occurring in the post-Cold War period have been more likely to result in democratic systems than Cold War coups, though coups still mostly perpetuate authoritarianism.
Many factors may lead to the occurrence of a coup, as well as determine the success or failure of a coup. Once a coup is underway, coup success is driven by coup-makers' ability to get others to believe that the coup attempt will be successful. The number of successful coups has decreased over time. Failed coups in authoritarian systems are likely to strengthen the power of the authoritarian ruler. The cumulative number of coups is a strong predictor of future coups, a phenomenon referred to as the "coup trap".
In what is referred to as "coup-proofing", regimes create structures that make it hard for any small group to seize power. These coup-proofing strategies may include the strategic placing of family, ethnic, and religious groups in the military and the fragmenting of military and security agencies. However, coup-proofing reduces military effectiveness as loyalty is prioritized over experience when filling key positions within the military.
Etymology The term comes from French , literally meaning a 'stroke of state' or 'blow of state'. In French, the word () is capitalized when it denotes a sovereign political entity.
One early use within text translated from French was in 1785 in a printed translation of a letter from a French merchant, commenting on an arbitrary decree, or , issued by the French king restricting the import of British wool.Norfolk Chronicle, 13 August 1785: "It is thought here by some, that it is a Coup d'Etat played off as a prelude to a disagreeable after-piece. But I can confidently assure you, that the above-mentioned was promulgated in consequence of innumerable complaints and murmurs which have found their way to the ears of the Sovereign. Our merchants contend, that they experience the greatest difficulties in trading with the English".
In the British press, the phrase came to be used to describe the various murders by Napoleon's alleged secret police, the , who executed the Duke of Enghien: "the actors in torture, the distributors of the poisoning draughts, and the secret executioners of those unfortunate individuals or families, whom Bonaparte's measures of safety require to remove. In what revolutionary tyrants call grand[s] coups d'état, as butchering, or poisoning, or drowning, en masse, they are exclusively employed."
Related terms Self-coup
Soft coup
A soft coup, sometimes referred to as a silent coup or a bloodless coup, is an illegal overthrow of a government that unlike a regular coup d'état is achieved without the use of force or violence.
Palace coup A palace coup or palace revolution is a coup in which one faction within the ruling group displaces another faction within a ruling group. Along with popular protests, palace coups are a major threat to dictators. The Harem conspiracy of the 12th century BC was one of the earliest attempts. Palace coups were common in Imperial China.Anita M. Andrew & John A. Rapp, Autocracy and China's Rebel Founding Emperors: Comparing Chairman Mao and Ming Taizu (Rowman & Littlefield, 2000), p. 324; Charles O. Hucker, China's Imperial Past: An Introduction to Chinese History and Culture (Stanford University Press: 1975), p. 304. They have also occurred among the Habsburg dynasty in Austria, the Al-Thani dynasty in Qatar,Patrick Milton, Michael Axworthy & Brendan Simms, Towards A Westphalia for the Middle East (Oxford University Press, 2019), p. 104. and in Haiti in the 19th to early 20th centuries.Mats Lundahl, Politics Or Markets? Essays on Haitian Underdevelopment (Routledge, 2002), p. 321. The majority of Russian tsars between 1725 and 1801 were either overthrown or usurped power in palace coups.
Putsch The term putsch ([pʊtʃ], from Swiss German for 'knock') denotes the political-military actions of a minority reactionary coup. The term was initially coined for the of 6 September 1839 in Switzerland. It was also used for attempted coups in Weimar Germany, such as the 1920 Kapp Putsch, Küstrin Putsch, and Adolf Hitler's 1923 Beer Hall Putsch.
The 1934 Night of the Long Knives was Hitler's purge to eliminate opponents, particularly the paramilitary faction led by Ernst Röhm, but Nazi propaganda justified it as preventing a supposed putsch planned or attempted by Röhm. The Nazi term is still used by Germans to describe the event, often with quotation marks as the 'so-called Röhm Putsch'.
The 1961 Algiers putsch and the 1991 August Putsch also use the term.
The 2023 Wagner Group rebellion has also been described as a putsch.
and
() is a term of Spanish origin for a type of . Specifically the is the formal declaration deposing the previous government and justifying the installation of the new government by the . Edward Luttwak distinguishes a coup, in which a military or political faction takes power for itself, from a , in which the military deposes the existing government and hands over power to a new, ostensibly civilian government.
A "barracks revolt" or is another type of military revolt, from the Spanish term ('quarter' or 'barracks'), in which the mutiny of specific military garrisons sparks a larger military revolt against the government.Little-Siebold, Todd. "Cuartelazo" in Encyclopedia of Latin American History and Culture, vol. 2, p. 305. New York: Charles Scribner's Sons 1996.
Other Other types of actual or attempted seizures of power are sometimes called "coups with adjectives". The appropriate term can be subjective and carries normative, analytical, and political implications.
Civil society coup Constitutional coup, consistent with the constitution, often by exploiting loopholes or ambiguities Counter-coup, a coup to repeal the result of a previous coup Democratic coup Dissident coup, in which the culprits are nominally protestors without backing from any military or police units (e.g. sometimes used to describe the January 6 United States Capitol attack) Electoral coup Judicial coup, a "legal" coup, utilizing the judiciary as the main instrument. Market coup Medical coup, having a leader declared incapacitated by doctors, such as in Tunisia in 1987 Military coup Parliamentary coup Presidential coup Royal coup, in which a monarch dismisses democratically elected leaders and seizes all power (e.g. the 6 January Dictatorship by Alexander I of Yugoslavia) Slow-motion (or slow-moving or slow-rolling) coup
Revolution, rebellion While a coup is usually a conspiracy of a small group, a revolution or rebellion is usually started spontaneously by larger groups of uncoordinated people. The distinction between a revolution and a coup is not always clear. Sometimes, a coup is labelled as a revolution by its plotters to feign democratic legitimacy.
Prevalence and history
According to Clayton Thyne and Jonathan Powell's coup data set, there were 457 coup attempts from 1950 to 2010, of which 227 (49.7%) were successful and 230 (50.3%) were unsuccessful. They find that coups have "been most common in Africa and the Americas (36.5% and 31.9%, respectively). Asia and the Middle East have experienced 13.1% and 15.8% of total global coups, respectively. Europe has experienced by far the fewest coup attempts: 2.6%." Most coup attempts occurred in the mid-1960s, but there were also large numbers of coup attempts in the mid-1970s and the early 1990s. From 1950 to 2010, a majority of coups failed in the Middle East and Latin America. They had a somewhat higher chance of success in Africa and Asia. Numbers of successful coups have decreased over time.
A number of political science datasets document coup attempts around the world and over time, generally starting in the post-World War II period. Major examples include the Global Instances of Coups dataset, the Coups & Political Instability dataset by the Center of Systemic Peace, the Coup d'état Project by the Cline Center, the Colpus coup dataset, and the Coups and Agency Mechanism dataset. A 2023 study argued that major coup datasets tend to over-rely on international news sources to gather their information, potentially biasing the types of events included. Its findings show that while such a strategy is sufficient for gathering information on successful and failed coups, attempts to gather data on coup plots and rumors require a greater consultation of regional and local-specific sources.
Predictors A 2003 review of the academic literature found that the following factors influenced coups:
officers' personal grievances military organizational grievances military popularity military attitudinal cohesiveness economic decline domestic political crisis contagion from other regional coups external threat participation in war collusion with a foreign military power military's national security doctrine officers' political culture noninclusive institutions colonial legacy economic development undiversified exports officers' class composition military size strength of civil society regime legitimacy and past coups
The literature review in a 2016 study includes mentions of ethnic factionalism, supportive foreign governments, leader inexperience, slow growth, commodity price shocks, and poverty.
Coups have been found to appear in environments that are heavily influenced by military powers. Multiple of the above factors are connected to military culture and power dynamics. These factors can be divided into multiple categories, with two of these categories being a threat to military interests and support for military interests. If interests go in either direction, the military will find itself either capitalizing off that power or attempting to gain it back.
Oftentimes, military spending is an indicator of the likelihood of a coup taking place. Nordvik found that about 75% of coups that took place in many different countries rooted from military spending and oil windfalls.
Coup trap The accumulation of previous coups is a strong predictor of future coups, a phenomenon called the coup trap. A 2014 study of 18 Latin American countries found that the establishment of open political competition helps bring countries out of the coup trap and reduces cycles of political instability.
Regime type and polarization