n., pl. coups d'état (kū') or coup d'états (dā-täz').

The sudden overthrow of a government by a usually small group of persons in or previously in positions of authority.

[French : coup, blow, stroke + de, of + état, state.]

Coup d'état (Fr., stroke of state), an attempt to change a government by the threat or use of force, usually but not always associated with the military, although the willingness and ability or lack of it on the part of the armed forces to defend a government can be decisive in a coup d'état by others. Although the popular image is of tanks surrounding the presidential palace as in Chile in 1973, this was in fact only the second successful coup in Chilean history (there was also a civil war) and the preferred method in Hispanic countries has been the cuartelazo, the ominous confining of itself to barracks by the garrison of the capital, usually enough to achieve the objectives of the military leaders. The so-called Curragh mutiny, for example, was a threatened British cuartelazo, and a threat of refusal to act in support of the civil power took place as recently as 1968 in France.

This is not to deny that Latin America has seen more military coups than any other continent: until the 1980s, Bolivia had had more governments than it had years of independent life, and the record of the armed forces elsewhere in the continent has been shameful, exacerbated until relatively recently by US influence. As Franklin D. Roosevelt said of the deplorable dictator Somoza, installed in Nicaragua by US arms, ‘he may be a son of a bitch, but he's our son of a bitch’. The same thought no doubt crossed the mind of Churchill when he supported pro-British but unsavoury military leaders in the Middle East between the wars.

In general, those military coups that are not an outright grab for power and money stem from an intense dislike of the corruption and disorder of civilian politics, coupled with a belief that the armed forces represent the distillation of patriotism. The latter argument, of course, has commonly been used to justify the former and it is a rare military regime that does not promptly sink into the most appalling corruption itself. Two glowing exceptions were Atatürk, who reached power in a coup but erected a rigid barrier between the military and politics that lasted for 50 years, and ‘Pepe’ Figueres in Costa Rica, who in 1948 abolished the very armed forces that originally brought him to power. Armed forces chronically involved in politics also notoriously lose sight of their primary function, as seen in the lamentable performance of the Argentine army in the Falklands.

In most cases the coup is undertaken to displace one set of rulers, typically the civilian leadership, and establish the power of an alternative group, which is often, but not necessarily, the military. What distinguishes a coup from revolutions is that they are typically carried by relatively small groups and do not involve mass political action. The second key difference is that while those who carry out the coup are seeking to change the government or ruling group, they are not usually trying to change the regime or bring about broader social change. The coup is often an attempt to remedy a specific or immediate grievance and is very unlikely to involve any widescale change in the social order. Often the coup is undertaken to pre-empt revolutionary change from below and impose a measure of reform from above. The new government installed by the coup usually relies on some degree of civilian collaboration, particularly from the civil service, but rarely provides any useful solution to long-term social and economic problems.

Military coups occurred regularly in 19th-century Spain and the Balkans, but during the 20th century they have been largely confined to developing states in Africa, Latin America, and Asia. Coups have been less prevalent, although not unknown, in developed industrialized counties, where governments have a large degree of legitimacy and where accepted procedures for the orderly change of administration are in place. In post-WW II Europe, military intervention in civilian politics has been provoked by failures in the process of decolonization such as in France in 1958, when the revolt of the French army during the Algerian independence war led to the return to power of de Gaulle; the army then revolted against him in turn, which de Gaulle overcame by appealing to the troops over their officers' heads.

Other causes have been rapid economic change and political polarization as in Greece in 1967, and these factors as well as post-colonial trauma contributed to the 1974 military coup in Portugal. The farcical failure of the attempted coup of 23 February 1981 in Spain by reactionary elements within the army and Guardia Civil yearning for a return to authoritarian government demonstrated the vital role of legitimacy, in the person of King Juan Carlos if not in a brawling and intemperate parliament. Here the dreadful cost of the Spanish civil war and the 40-year dictatorship by Franco that followed the last coup d'état undoubtedly also served to render the coup a complete non-starter.

Another factor is what we might call ‘trade union’ disputes between the military and governments. If the military has means available to it for advancing its corporate and professional interests then the danger of direct action over differences with the government is dissipated. Furthermore many armies have a long and determined tradition of non-intervention in civil affairs. For example, despite endemic political corruption and mismanagement, as well as acute religious and regional divisions, the Indian army has resolutely stayed out of politics, whereas in Pakistan the military appointed itself the overseer of the national interest and has on occasion seized power to ‘save’ the nation, seeing itself as an Atatürk-like modernizing force confronting a traditionally kleptomaniac, divisive civilian political élite.

On many occasions great powers have either intervened directly or used local surrogates to overthrow regimes that threatened their interests. The entire British conquest of India hinged on this technique, finally coming unstuck in Afghanistan where, over a century later, the Soviets also thought they could depose rulers at will, to their ultimate sorrow. The US-sponsored overthrow of Diem in Vietnam was likewise something akin to getting their tie caught in a mangle, as the very human tendency to reinforce error took over. A move originally intended to revitalize South Vietnam and make it better capable of defending itself ended with the commitment of a previously unimaginable level of US resources. Even the Anglo-American overthrow of Mossadegh in Iran, once considered a highly successful piece of rascality, does not today find many defenders as the West gloomily contemplates the jinnee of outraged nationalism allied with religious revivalism that emerged once their stopper the shah blew out of the Middle Eastern bottle.

— Hugh Bicheno

[ܖkōō dāܒtä]

ܖkōō dāˈtä pl. coups d'état -ˈtä (z) pronunc. same a sudden, violent, and illegal seizure of power from a government: he was overthrown in an army coup d'état.

Etymology: mid 17th cent.: French, literally ‘blow of state.’

See the Introduction, Abbreviations and Pronunciation for further details.

The sudden, forcible, and illegal removal of a government, usually by the military or some part thereof, often precipitated by more immediate grievances bearing directly on the military. The coup may be the prelude to some form of military rule, with a greater or lesser degree of civilian collaboration, perhaps requiring the collaboration of the civil service and members of the professional and middle classes, or involving the co-optation of sympathetic politicians and parties and of occupational groups, such as peasant and union leaders. While the focus of the coup is on the remedy of specific or immediate grievances, the outcome is unlikely to involve wide-ranging changes in the social order. More often a coup is seen as an effective means of pre-empting revolutionary change from below by imposing some measure of ‘reform’ from above. However, repeated military intervention has seldom contributed to a resolution of long-term social and economic problems.

Although not unknown in developed industrial societies, coups have been exceptional wherever governments, popular or not, are accorded a large degree of legitimacy and where there are widely accepted procedures for effecting a regular and orderly change of administration. In Europe the most recent cases of military intervention have been precipitated either by failures of decolonization (France 1958, Portugal 1974), or by rapid economic change and political polarization (Greece 1967), or have been linked to the crisis of communism in Eastern Europe (Poland 1981). The strengthening of the European Union, with democracy as a condition of membership, has also been seen as a stabilizing factor. Moreover here the military has available to it constitutional means for advancing its corporate and professional interests. In developing and underdeveloped countries, however, military intervention was commonplace until the 1980s; in much of Africa it remains so. The nature and frequency of coups has varied both by country and by context. Latin America has the longest experience of military involvement and intervention, dating almost from the inception of the republics, and even affecting relatively advanced states like Brazil, Chile, and Argentina. With independence in Africa coups quickly became the accepted means of changing governments in the absence of free and regular elections, and in circumstances where governments are highly personalized, have little authority, and command almost no legitimacy.

There are several distinct but related schools of thought about coups and their causes. Some seek to explain them largely as a response to social upheaval, economic collapse, and political and institutional failure. On that view intervention is a military response to acute social and political unrest in societies where the level of political culture is low or minimal. The military acts, almost by default, to fill a power vacuum at the centre. Others have looked instead for specifically ‘military’ explanations for intervention, focusing on the organizational strengths of the armed forces (e.g. discipline, centralized command structure, cohesion), compared with civilian institutions in underdeveloped countries. Intervention, according to this view, is likely to be the result of acute frustration with civilian incompetence and corruption. Others again have focused on the internal politics of the armed forces, insisting that coups are more or less random phenomena, arising from and inspired by a mix of personal ambitions, corporate interests, constituency rivalries, and often intense manifestations of ethnic and sectional loyalty. The appearance in Latin America of authoritarian military regimes, from the 1960s through to the 1980s, has been attributed to the failure of one particular model of economic development, based on import substitution, and the need to attract substantial foreign investment to promote export-based recovery and sustained industrial growth. The military was determined to stay in power to restructure society and create a climate more appropriate to such investment.

It is doubtful whether such a complex and variable phenomenon can be explained in terms of one or a small number of variables. Meanwhile military regimes have been increasingly concerned with the problems of withdrawal: how to extricate themselves from government without at the same time creating the conditions for renewed intervention. Since the 1980s there have been additional pressures arising from the debt crisis, and growing demands from creditor states for good governance. International monetary bodies have also begun to insist on multiparty democracy as a condition for further aid. Consequently, there has been a sharp decline in military intervention in the Third World, measured in terms of the incidence of coups.

— Ian Campbell

For more information on coup d'état, visit Britannica.com.

The two most celebrated coups in French history are those of 18 Brumaire 1799 [see Napoleon, I] and of 2 December 1851 [see Napoleon III]. The latter was mockingly compared by Marx to the former.

(kooh day-tah)

A quick and decisive seizure of governmental power by a strong military or political group. In contrast to a revolution, a coup d'état, or coup, does not involve a mass uprising. Rather, in the typical coup, a small group of politicians or generals arrests the incumbent leaders, seizes the national radio and television services, and proclaims itself in power. Coup d'état is French for “stroke of the state” or “blow to the government.”

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