Coup d'état

Etymology

The term comes from French coup d'État, literally meaning a 'stroke of state' or 'blow of state'. In French, the word État () is capitalized when it denotes a sovereign political entity. Although the concept of a coup d'état has featured in politics since antiquity, the phrase is of relatively recent coinage. It did not appear within an English text before the 19th century except when used in the translation of a French source, there being no simple phrase in English to convey the contextualized idea of a 'knockout blow to the existing administration within a state'.

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 arrêt, issued by the French king restricting the import of British wool. What may be its first published use within a text composed in English is an editor's note in the London Morning Chronicle, 1804, reporting the arrest by Napoleon in France, of Moreau, Berthier, Masséna, and Bernadotte: "There was a report in circulation yesterday of a sort of coup d'état having taken place in France, in consequence of some formidable conspiracy against the existing government."

In the British press, the phrase came to be used to describe the various murders by Napoleon's alleged secret police, the Gens d'Armes d'Elite, 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

Main article: Soft coup, Nonviolent revolution

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. They have also occurred among the Habsburg dynasty in Austria, the Al-Thani dynasty in Qatar, and in Haiti in the 19th to early 20th centuries. The majority of Russian tsars between 1725 and 1801 either usurped power or were overthrown 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 Züriputsch 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 Röhm-Putsch 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.

{{lang|es|Pronunciamiento}} and {{lang|es|cuartelazo}}

Main article: Pronunciamiento{{!}}''Pronunciamiento''

Pronunciamiento () is a term of Spanish origin for a type of coup d'état. Specifically the pronunciamiento is the formal declaration deposing the previous government and justifying the installation of the new government by the golpe de estado. Edward Luttwak distinguishes a coup, in which a military or political faction takes power for itself, from a pronunciamiento, in which the military deposes the existing government and hands over power to a new, ostensibly civilian government.

A "barracks revolt" or cuartelazo is another type of military revolt, from the Spanish term cuartel ('quarter' or 'barracks'), in which the mutiny of specific military garrisons sparks a larger military revolt against the government.

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.David Lane: 'The Orange Revolution: 'People's Revolution' or Revolutionary Coup?', The British Journal of Politics and International Relations (BJPIR): 2008 Vol. 10, 525–549 https://commonweb.unifr.ch/artsdean/pub/gestens/f/as/files/4760/39746_174023.pdf

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.

Another 2016 paper finds that government crises, political stability and absence of violence, purges, the level of political terror, general strikes, population growth, legal structure and security of property rights, and the share of democratic countries in the same region, predict the occurrence of a coup.

Harkness (2016) finds find that concentration of force in a small number of units near the capital and ethnic or factional imbalance inside the army increase the likelihood of a coup.

Several papers suggest that economic crises are associated with regime upheavals. Djuve et al. (2020) report robust evidence that low income, slow or negative growth, predict a higher likelihood of regime breakdown. Moreover, they find that intermediate democracy levels clearly predict coup-induced breakdowns and incumbent-guided transitions.

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.

A 2024 IMF paper find that the probability of a coup d'état is immediately elevated by acute exogenous shocks (stressors). The stressors include compromised economic growth, deterioration of the external financial position, and elevated levels of generalized and food price inflation. Also, a destabilized political and internal security environment serves as a potent proximal trigger for coup attempts.

The study pinpoints that a disproportionately young population structure, weak structural fundamentals characterized by widespread poverty, high income inequality, low literacy rates, and significant ethnic fractionalization are long-term endogenous factors that predispose a state to instability, as are also low governance quality, limited democratization, a high historical incidence and recent prevalence of coups (the "coup trap").

The paper establishes that structural fragility is not merely an additive risk factor, but an amplifier that dictates the system's responsiveness to shocks:

1. Structural fragility intensifies the likelihood of a coup when stressors are present.
2. Conversely, the rate at which coup probability subsides when stressors recede is also accelerated in structurally weak states.
3. Weaknesses across multiple structural dimensions (e.g., combining high inequality with poor governance) exhibit a synergistic effect, exponentially increasing a country's susceptibility to political system fragilization. Furthermore, the co-occurrence of multiple stressors (overlapping crises, 2020–2023) similarly compounds the overall risk profile.

Coup trap and coup contagion

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.

Researchers have long debated over whether coups are contagious - that is, whether one coup increases the likelihood of others in the region. A 2018 study found no evidence of regional contagion: one coup does not make subsequent coups more likely. A 2025 study challenges earlier findings by showing that coup dynamics can be contagious, but primarily through post-coup trajectories that reshape the abilities and incentives of would-be plotters.

Regime type and polarization

Hybrid regimes are more vulnerable to coups than very authoritarian states or democratic states. A 2021 study found that democratic regimes were not substantially more likely to experience coups. A 2015 study finds that terrorism is strongly associated with re-shuffling coups. A 2016 study finds that there is an ethnic component to coups: "When leaders attempt to build ethnic armies, or dismantle those created by their predecessors, they provoke violent resistance from military officers." Another 2016 study shows that protests increase the risk of coups, presumably because they ease coordination obstacles among coup plotters and make international actors less likely to punish coup leaders. A third 2016 study finds that coups become more likely in the wake of elections in autocracies when the results reveal electoral weakness for the incumbent autocrat. A fourth 2016 study finds that inequality between social classes increases the likelihood of coups.One study found that coups are more likely to occur in states with small populations, as there are smaller coordination problems for coup-plotters.

In autocracies, the frequency of coups seems to be affected by the succession rules in place, with monarchies with a fixed succession rule being much less plagued by instability than less institutionalized autocracies.

A 2014 study of 18 Latin American countries in the 20th-century study found the legislative powers of the presidency does not influence coup frequency.

A 2019 study found that when a country's politics is polarized and electoral competition is low, civilian-recruited coups become more likely.

A 2024 study found that civilian elites are more likely to be associated with instigating military coups while civilians embedded in social networks are more likely to be associated with consolidating military coups.

Territorial disputes, internal conflicts, and armed conflicts

A 2017 study found that autocratic leaders whose states were involved in international rivalries over disputed territory were more likely to be overthrown in a coup. The authors of the study provide the following logic for why this is:However, two 2016 studies found that leaders who were involved in militarized confrontations and conflicts were less likely to face a coup.

A 2019 study found that states that had recently signed civil war peace agreements were much more likely to experience coups, in particular when those agreements contained provisions that jeopardized the interests of the military.

Popular opposition and regional rebellions

Research suggests that protests spur coups, as they help elites within the state apparatus to coordinate coups.

A 2019 study found that regional rebellions made coups by the military more likely.

Economy, development, and resource factors

A 2018 study found that "oil price shocks are seen to promote coups in onshore-intensive oil countries, while preventing them in offshore-intensive oil countries". The study argues that states which have onshore oil wealth tend to build up their military to protect the oil, whereas states do not do that for offshore oil wealth.

A 2020 study found that elections had a two-sided impact on coup attempts, depending on the state of the economy. During periods of economic expansion, elections reduced the likelihood of coup attempts, whereas elections during economic crises increased the likelihood of coup attempts.

A 2021 study found that oil wealthy nations see a pronounced risk of coup attempts but these coups are unlikely to succeed.

On the contrary, a 2014 study of 18 Latin American countries in the 20th century found that coup frequency does not vary with development levels, economic inequality, or the rate of economic growth.

Coup-proofing

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; creation of an armed force parallel to the regular military; and development of multiple internal security agencies with overlapping jurisdiction that constantly monitor one another. It may also involve frequent salary hikes and promotions for members of the military, and the deliberate use of diverse bureaucrats. Research shows that some coup-proofing strategies reduce the risk of coups occurring. However, coup-proofing reduces military effectiveness, and limits the rents that an incumbent can extract. One reason why authoritarian governments tend to have incompetent militaries is that authoritarian regimes fear that their military will stage a coup or allow a domestic uprising to proceed uninterrupted – as a consequence, authoritarian rulers have incentives to place incompetent loyalists in key positions in the military.

A 2016 study shows that the implementation of succession rules reduce the occurrence of coup attempts. Succession rules are believed to hamper coordination efforts among coup plotters by assuaging elites who have more to gain by patience than by plotting.

According to political scientists Curtis Bell and Jonathan Powell, coup attempts in neighbouring countries lead to greater coup-proofing and coup-related repression in a region. A 2017 study finds that countries' coup-proofing strategies are heavily influenced by other countries with similar histories. Coup-proofing is more likely in former French colonies.

A 2018 study in the Journal of Peace Research found that leaders who survive coup attempts and respond by purging known and potential rivals are likely to have longer tenures as leaders. A 2019 study in Conflict Management and Peace Science found that personalist dictatorships are more likely to take coup-proofing measures than other authoritarian regimes; the authors argue that this is because "personalists are characterized by weak institutions and narrow support bases, a lack of unifying ideologies and informal links to the ruler".

In their 2022 book Revolution and Dictatorship: The Violent Origins of Durable Authoritarianism, political scientists Steven Levitsky and Lucan Way found that political-military fusion, where the ruling party is highly interlinked with the military and created the administrative structures of the military from its inception, is extremely effective at preventing military coups. For example, the People's Liberation Army was created by the Chinese Communist Party during the Chinese Civil War, and never instigated a military coup even after large-scale policy failures (i.e. the Great Leap Forward) or the extreme political instability of the Cultural Revolution.

Some scholars have posited that the recruitment of foreign legionnaires into national armies can reduce the probability of military coups.

The mechanics of coups

According to Dirsus, coups become possible when enough insiders decide the leader is a liability rather than an asset.

Luttwak points out that a coup requires

1. A reasonably developed, centralized state**:** A bureaucratic machine with ministries, command hierarchies, and national communications that can be captured and then used as‑is.
2. Concentrated political power: Power in the hands of a small elite or single party, so that controlling a limited set of institutions essentially is controlling the state.
3. Limited external interference: Enough autonomy that outside powers cannot simply reverse the coup the next day.
4. Some underlying social and economic discontent: Unrest makes the existing regime vulnerable and lowers loyalty in key institutions.

Luttwak also describes the necessary requirements for a successful coup:

1. Narrow conspiratorial core**:** A small group within the military / security / bureaucratic nexus that secretly coordinates. The public and most of the state remain uninvolved.
2. Control of key nodes, not everything: The aim is to control a few critical nodes (command centres, security headquarters, communications systems, symbolic buildings in the capital), because those nodes give leverage over the rest of the state machinery.
3. Neutralization of loyalist centres of power**:** Rather than fighting the entire army, plotters should focus on isolating or paralyzing the parts that might resist: cutting communications, blocking movement, detaining top command if possible.
4. Manufactured perception of fait accompli: By controlling communication channels (broadcast media, now also digital channels) and visible symbols of authority, the coup group tries to create the perception that it already is the new authority. Most officials and citizens then adapt to what looks like the new reality. Connor and Hebditch (2017) analyze the political, military, and social factors that cause the military to intervene in civilian government. They begin by categorizing coups into breakthrough coups**,** which are designed to overthrow traditional or colonial systems and initiate a new political order (e.g., Egypt 1952, Cuba 1959), guardian coups , which are aimed at restoring "order" or defending constitutional principles from a failing or corrupt civilian government (e.g., Turkey) , and veto coups**,** which are launched to block policies or prevent a particular group (e.g., civilian leftists) from gaining power (e.g., Argentina).

Usually coups are swift, surgical military operation rather than a drawn-out revolution. It needs to strike when the government is weak, divided, or distracted (e.g., during an economic crisis or political chaos). The recruitment must be extremely covert and to prevent infiltration or preemptive arrests by the existing regime.

A coup should target communication hubs (like radio, television, and communication centers), political centers like presidential palaces and parliament buildings, and military bases to secure the means of violence.

Propaganda and managing public perception in the execution and consolidation phases are critical. The conspirators should quickly broadcast a clear, motivating message to the public and the uncommitted military, often framing the coup as a necessary step to eliminate corruption, restore national dignity, or save the country from ruin, and to seize state media to control all information flow and create the immediate impression that the coup has already succeeded (fait accompli).

Coups usually fail as a result from poor communication, hesitance, or the inability to neutralize the national leader or seize the media quickly enough.

Muñoz stresses the role of digitally-coordinated "playbook in orchestrating a coup. This new strategy involves multiple phases across various platforms: A small core group uses encrypted messenger services (like Telegram) for the initial, secret planning and organization of the various phases. They then use major social media platforms (Facebook, Twitter/X, YouTube, etc.) to amplify the narrative and galvanize their users. Less-moderated "alt-tech" platforms (Gettr, Parler, Truth Social) are used to push fringe content and further radicalize followers before finally mobilizing them for the physical, offline action.

Using modern technology the plotters take advantage of algorithms designed for virality and engagement to ensure their narratives reach millions of users. They navigate the platforms' inconsistencies to avoid detection and removal for as long as possible, and they catapult content from smaller platforms onto the major ones without being flagged. They can avoid being flagged since they possess a considerable knowledge of content moderation policies.

Outcomes

Successful coups are one method of regime change that thwarts the peaceful transition of power. A 2016 study categorizes four possible outcomes to coups in dictatorships:

• Failed coup
• No regime change, as when a leader is illegally shuffled out of power without changing the ruling group or the type of government
• Replacement of incumbent with another dictatorship
• Ousting of the dictatorship followed by democratization (also called "democratic coups")

The study found that about half of all coups in dictatorships—both during and after the Cold War—install new autocratic regimes. New dictatorships launched by coups engage in higher levels of repression in the year after the coup than existed in the year before the coup. One-third of coups in dictatorships during the Cold War and 10% of later ones reshuffled the regime leadership. Democracies were installed in the wake of 12% of Cold War coups in dictatorships and 40% of post-Cold War ones.

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. Coups that occur during civil wars shorten the war's duration.

Impact

Democracy

Since the end of the Cold War, coups have become rarer, and more likely to be followed by democratization. Coups still often simply replace one autocracy with another one (with the new autocratic regime usually more repressive, in an attempt to prevent another coup) or have no effect on regime type.

Research published in 2021 indicates that successful coups orchestrated by the ruling elite function primarily to recalibrate the authoritarian coalition, thereby sustaining the existing autocratic governance structure and rarely facilitating a shift toward democracy. In sharp contrast, successful coups initiated by non-elite actors (from below) often lead to the collapse of the authoritarian regime, generating a tangible opening for democratic transition.

, there was debate about whether coups in autocracies should now be considered to promote democratization, on average, or if countries' chances of democratization are still unchanged or worsened by coups (since democratization can take place without a coup). One reason for the increase in the chance of democratization is that a higher proportion of coups (half of post-Cold-War coups) now take place in democracies (a higher percentage of countries are also now democracies). Democratic countries often rebound from coups quickly, restoring democracy, but coups in a democracy are a sign of poor political health, and increase the risk of future coups and loss of democracy. The dataset is small, so statistical significance varies depending on the model used, ; debate will end if data on more coups makes the pattern clear.

The post-Cold-War increase in the chances of post-coup democratization may partly be due to the incentives created by international pressure and financing. US law, for instance, automatically cuts off all aid to a country if there is a military coup. According to a 2020 study, "external reactions to coups play important roles in whether coup leaders move toward authoritarianism or democratic governance. When supported by external democratic actors, coup leaders have an incentive to push for elections to retain external support and consolidate domestic legitimacy. When condemned, coup leaders are apt to trend toward authoritarianism to assure their survival.

But coup conspirators also increasingly say that they chose a coup to save their country from the autocratic incumbents. Successful conspirators may hold free and fair elections simply because they think it is a good idea. A desire for economic growth and legitimacy have also been cited as motivations for democratization.

Legal scholar Ilya Somin believes that a coup to forcibly overthrow a democratic government might sometimes be justified. Commenting on the 2016 Turkish coup d'état attempt, Somin opined,

Repression and counter-coups

It has been argued that failed coups might motivate a regime to reform and reduce repression. Such reforms are not obvious in the data, . Coups that fail, or merely shuffle the leadership without changing the system, generally do not change the amount of repression (measured in government-sanctioned and pro-government killings).

Research from 2016 suggests that increased repression and violence typically follow both successful and unsuccessful coup attempts. According to a 2019 study, coup attempts lead to a reduction in physical integrity rights.

Coups that lead to democratization unsurprisingly reduce repression, and coups that bring in a new autocratic regime increase it. Post-Cold-War, post-coup autocracies seem to have become more repressive and post-coup democracies less repressive; the gap between them is therefore larger than it was during the Cold War.

Averaging across democratic and non-democratic outcomes, most coups seem to tend to increase state repression, even coups against autocrats who were already quite repressive. The time interval in which violence is measured matters. The months after a bloodless coup can be bloody. The small sample size and high variability means that this conclusion again does not reach statistical significance, and a firm conclusion cannot be drawn.

According to Naunihal Singh, author of Seizing Power: The Strategic Logic of Military Coups (2014), it is "fairly rare" for the incumbent government to violently purge the army after a failed coup. If it starts the mass killing of elements of the army, including officers who were not involved in the coup, this may trigger a "counter-coup" by soldiers who are afraid they will be next. To prevent such a desperate counter-coup that may be more successful than the initial attempt, governments usually resort to firing prominent officers and replacing them with loyalists instead.

Notable counter-coups include the Ottoman countercoup of 1909, the 1960 Laotian counter-coup, the Indonesian mass killings of 1965–66, the 1966 Nigerian counter-coup, the 1967 Greek counter-coup, 1971 Sudanese counter-coup, and the coup d'état of December Twelfth in South Korea.

A 2017 study finds that the use of state broadcasting by the putschist regime after Mali's 2012 coup did not elevate explicit approval for the regime.

International response

The international community tends to react adversely to coups by reducing aid and imposing sanctions. A 2015 study finds that "coups against democracies, coups after the Cold War, and coups in states heavily integrated into the international community are all more likely to elicit global reaction." Another 2015 study shows that coups are the strongest predictor for the imposition of democratic sanctions. A third 2015 study finds that Western states react most strongly against coups of possible democratic and human rights abuses. A 2016 study shows that the international donor community in the post-Cold War period penalizes coups by reducing foreign aid. The US has been inconsistent in applying aid sanctions against coups both during the Cold War and post-Cold War periods, a likely consequence of its geopolitical interests.

Organizations such as the African Union (AU) and the Organization of American States (OAS) have adopted anti-coup frameworks. Through the threat of sanctions, the organizations actively try to curb coups. A 2016 study finds that the AU has played a meaningful role in reducing African coups.

A 2017 study found that negative international responses, especially from powerful actors, have a significant effect in shortening the duration of regimes created in coups.

According to a 2020 study, coups increase the cost of borrowing and increase the likelihood of sovereign default.

Current leaders who assumed power via coups

Leaders are arranged in chronological order by the dates they assumed power, and categorized by the continents their countries are in.

Asia

Africa

References

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