From Wikipedia, the free encyclopedia

This article includes a list of references or external links, but its sources remain unclear because it has insufficient inline citations. You can improve this article by introducing more precise citations where appropriate. (August 2008)

A coup d’état (pronounced /kuːdeɪˈtɑː/ AHD: [ko͞o"dā tä]), often simply called a coup, is the sudden unconstitutional overthrow of a government by a (typically small) part of the state establishment – usually the military – to replace the branch of the stricken government, either with another civil government or with a military government.

The coup d’état succeeds if its opponents fail to thwart the usurpers, allowing them to consolidate their positions, obtain the surrender of the overthrown government or acquiescence of the populace and the surviving armed forces, and thus claim legitimacy. Coups d’état typically use the power of the existing government for the takeover. As Edward Luttwak remarks in Coup d'État: A Practical Handbook: 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. In this sense, the use of either military or another organized force is not the defining feature of a coup d'état.

Since the unsuccessful coups d’état of Wolfgang Kapp in 1920 (the Kapp Putsch), the Swiss German word "Putsch" (pronounced [ˈpʊtʃ]) (originally coined with the Züriputsch of 1839) is often used also, even in French (such as the putsch of 8 November 1942 and the putsch of April 21, 1961, both in Algiers) and Soviet Union (August Putsch in 1991), while the direct German translation is Staatsstreich. However, not all putsch are coups d’état (for example the Beer Hall Putsch was by politicians who were not in office backed by non-state forces).

[edit] Usage

Linguistically, coup d’état is French for “a stroke of state” (coup [blow], d’ [of] état, [state]).^[1] Analogously, the term also is casually used to mean gaining advantage on a rival, either by a group or a person, e.g. an intelligence coup, boardroom coup.

Politically, the coup d’état is a type of political engineering, generally violent (hence "strike", "blow"; French "coup"), but not always, yet differing from a revolution (by a larger, armed group to effect violent, radical change to the political system) in that the change is to the government, not the form of government.

Tactically, a coup d’état usually involves control by an active portion of the country's military, while neutralizing the remainder of the armed services' possible counteraction. The acting group either captures or expels the political and military leaders, seizes physical control of the most important government offices, means of communication, and the physical infrastructure, such as key streets and electric power plants.

[edit] Etymology

Although the coup d'état has been used in politics since antiquity,^[2] the expression itself is relatively new. Per the Oxford Dictionary, it is a French expression (literally " a state blow" ). In 1646, James Howell first used coup d'État in his book Louis XIII^{[citation needed]}. It's first use in England was in 1811, referring to Napoleon Bonaparte's overthrowing of the Revolutionary Directory in 1799.^{[citation needed]}

According to Professor Thomas Childers of the University of Pennsylvania, the lack of an English word to denote a sudden, unconstitutional change of government derives from England's political institutions. Although the histories of France and Germany are coloured with such political actions, England's history is not. The last coup d’état in England was the Glorious Revolution in 1688, in which a parliamentarian group headed by William of Orange overthrew James II, the last Roman Catholic monarch, to establish a modern parliamentary democracy. In England, this is a rare political occurrence, hence there has been no need to coin a descriptive word.

[edit] The Pronunciamiento

The Pronunciamiento is the Spanish and Hispano American analogue of the military coup d’état although "golpe de estado" is a more used expression. Pronunciamiento (pronouncement in English), refers to the installation, explanation, and justification of the effected coup d’état. Edward Luttwak in Coup d'état: A practical handbook explains that the difference between a pronunciamiento and a coup d'état is that in the latter, a military faction overthrows the civilian government, whereas a pronunciamiento is the overthrowing of civilian government by official action of the command structure (the chiefs of staff) of its military forces.^[3]

[edit] History

Coups are especially common in Africa. Between 1952 and 2000, 33 countries have experienced a total of 85 coups. Western Africa witnessed almost half (42) of them. Most of these 85 coups were directed against civilian regimes; 27 however had a military regime as target. It is worthwhile to note that in only 5 cases the head of the incumbent government died^[4].

In recent years, the military coup d’état has declined worldwide as a means of changing government. The usual military intervention in civil government, regarded as a coup d'état, uses the threat of military force to depose a politically vulnerable or an unpopular leader. In contrast to a traditional coup d'état, the military do not directly assume power, but install a militarily-acceptable civilian leader. The advantage is the appearance of legitimacy; classic examples are the collapse of the French Fourth Republic, and the bloodless coup d'état effected on 3 August 2005, in Mauritania while the president was in Saudi Arabia.

There have been examples of the potential for mass street protests to overthrow unpopular leaders, sometimes leading the opposition to take power in a coup d’état fashion. In such situations, such as in Serbia (2000), Argentina (2001), The Philippines (1986, 2001), Bolivia (2003), Georgia (2003), Ukraine (2004-2005), Ecuador (2005), and Bolivia (2005), popular uprisings forced the incumbent president or leader to resign so that a new leader might assume power. This often results in economic stability and political calm, in which an unknown and uncontroversial interim leader can govern until proper elections are held. However, these changes of government are not described as coups d’état, because they are not orchestrated by a small group - a key element within the definition - but result from popular massive action, thus generally being described as revolutions. Also, in cases like Argentina in 2001 the crisis was ultimately resolved following the constitution. Another example, the Iranian Revolution of 1979 is such a change of government, led by the Ayatollah Khomeini, because it sprang from popular opposition to the rule of the last Shah of Iran.

[edit] Types of coups d’état

A coup d’état also is classified by the rank of the military men leading the governmental overthrow. A Veto coup d’état or Guardian coup d’état is led by the army's top commanding officers (usually generals). Sometimes the commander-in-chief, or a few very top commanders are excluded, as being appointees of the regime and thus loyal to them. In a Breakthrough coup d’état the leaders are junior officers (colonels or below), or even non-commissioned officers (sergeants), and most of the army's senior officers are displaced too. When junior officers or enlisted men seize power in this way, the coup d’état also is a mutiny with grave implications for the organizational structure and professional integrity of the military.

A bloodless coup d’état is when the threat of violence is sufficient to depose the incumbent government with no fighting, and there are no subsequent executions of the deposed faction. However, a "bloodless coup d’état" is not always truly non-violent. Napoleon's 18 Brumaire coup d’état is considered an exemplar "bloodless coup", but during the coup, legislators were forcibly ejected from their meeting place by soldiers. In 1889, Brazil became a republic via a 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 term self-coup applies when the incumbent government — aided and abetted by the military — assumes extraordinary powers not allowed by law. The historical example is President, and later French Emperor, Louis Napoléon Bonaparte. A modern example is Alberto Fujimori in Peru, who, though elected, in 1992 assumed control of legislative and the judicial branches of government, installing himself as an authoritarian ruler. The assumption of "emergency powers" by King Gyanendra of Nepal was a self-coup.

Besides Luttwak's non-military coup d’état, 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 Sulla, in 88 B.C., replacing the elected leader Marius in Rome. 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 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 fascist 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, aided by the CIA^[5].

[edit] 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.

[edit] Incumbent leaders of regimes who assumed power via a coup d’état

Title and Name	Country	In power since
Leader and Guide of the Revolution Muammar al-Gaddafi	Libya	1 September 1969
Sultan Qaboos of Oman	Oman	23 July 1970
President Teodoro Obiang Nguema Mbasogo	Equatorial Guinea	3 August 1979
President Blaise Compaoré	Burkina Faso	15 October 1987
President Zine El Abidine Ben Ali	Tunisia	7 November 1987
President Omar Hasan Ahmad al-Bashir	Sudan	30 June 1989
Chairman of the State Peace and Development Council Than Shwe	Burma	23 April 1992
President Yahya Jammeh*	The Gambia	22 July 1994
Emir Hamad bin Khalifa	Qatar	27 June 1995
President François Bozizé*	Central African Republic	15 March 2003
Acting Prime Minister Josaia Voreqe Bainimarama	Fiji	5 December 2006
President of the High Council of State Mohamed Ould Abdel Aziz	Mauritania	6 August 2008
President of the National Council for Democracy and Development Moussa Dadis Camara	Guinea	24 December 2008

*Both Jammeh and Bozizé were subsequently confirmed in office by apparently free and fair elections^[6][7]. The election confirming Jammeh was marked by repression of the free press and the opposition^[8]. An opposition leader described the outcome as a "sham"^[8].

[edit] 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

[edit] Notes

[edit] References

This article or section cites its sources but does not provide page references. You can improve this article or section by introducing citations that are more precise.

Look up coup d'état in Wiktionary, the free dictionary.

• 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