A coup d'état (English: /ˌkuːdeɪˈtɑː/, French: [ku deta]; plural: coups d'état; translation: strike (against the) state, literally: strike/blow of state)—also known as a coup, putsch, and overthrow—is the sudden, illegal deposition of a government,^[1][2][3][4] usually by a small group of the existing state establishment—typically the military—to depose the extant government and replace it with another body, civil or military. A coup d'état is considered successful when the usurpers establish their dominance. When the coup neither fails completely nor succeeds, a civil war is a likely consequence.

A coup d'état typically uses the extant government's power to assume political control of the country. In Coup d'État: A Practical Handbook, military historian Edward Luttwak states that "[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." The armed forces, whether military or paramilitary, are not a defining factor of a coup d'état.

Etymology[link]

Although the coup d'état has featured in politics since antiquity, the phrase is of relatively recent coinage;^[5] the Oxford Dictionary identifies it as a French expression meaning a “stroke of State”. 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. French, German and U.S. history are coloured with such politico-military actions.

Since the unsuccessful coups d'état of Wolfgang Kapp in 1920 (the Kapp Putsch), the Swiss German word Putsch (pronounced [ˈpʊtʃ]; coined for the Züriputsch of 1839) also denotes the same politico-military actions: 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 (the German literal translation of coup d'état), yet a putsch is not always a coup d'état, for example, the Beer Hall Putsch was by politicians without military support.

Usage of the phrase[link]

Linguistically, coup d'état denotes a "stroke of state" (French: coup [stroke] d' [of] État [state]).^[6] Analogously, the looser, quotidian usage means “gaining advantage on a rival”, (intelligence coup, boardroom coup). Politically, a coup d'état is a usually violent political engineering, which affects who rules in the government, without radical changes in 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. It is to be noted that in the latest years there has been a broad use of the phrase in mass media, which may contradict the legal definition of coup d'état.

[edit] Pronunciamiento

The Pronunciamiento (Pronouncement) is a Spanish and Latin American type of coup d'état. The coup d'état (called golpe de estado in Spanish) was more common in Spain and South America, while the Pronunciamiento was more common in Central America. The Pronunciamiento is the formal explanation for deposing the regnant government, justifying the installation of the new government that was effected with the golpe de estado. The difference between a coup and a pronunciamento is that 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.^[7]

History[link]

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.^[8] Moreover, as a change-of-government method, the incidence of the coup d'état has declined worldwide, 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.

Types[link]

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 elite. Generally led by mid-level or junior officers. Examples are China in 1911, Bulgaria in 1944, Egypt in 1952, Turkey in 1960, Greece in 1967, Libya in 1969, Portugal in 1974 and Liberia in 1980.
• Guardian coup d'état: the "musical chairs" coup d'état. The stated aim of such a coup is usually improving public order and 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 latter 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 Pakistan, Turkey (1971 and 1980), 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, such as the coup d'état in Chile in 1973 against the elected Socialist President Salvador Allende Gossens by the Chilean military. The same happened in Argentina throughout the period 1930–1983. The 20 July 1944 plot by parts of the German military to overthrow the elected National Socialist government of Adolf Hitler in Germany is an example of a failed veto coup d'état.^{[citation needed]}

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. A historical example is President, then Emperor, Louis Napoléon Bonaparte. Modern examples include Alberto Fujimori, in Peru, who, although elected, temporarily suspended the legislature and the judiciary in 1992, becoming an authoritarian ruler, and King Gyanendra's assumption of “emergency powers” in Nepal. Another form of self-coup is when a government, having been defeated in an election, refuses to step down.

Resistance to coups d'état[link]

Many coups d'état, even if initially successful in seizing the main centres of state power, are actively opposed by certain segments of society or by the international community. Opposition can take many different forms, including an attempted counter-coup by sections of the armed forces, international isolation of the new regime, and military intervention.

Sometimes opposition takes the form of civil resistance, in which the coup is met with mass demonstrations from the population generally, and disobedience among civil servants and members of the armed forces. Cases in which civil resistance played a significant part in defeating armed coups d'état include: the Kornilov Putsch in Russia in August 1917; the Kapp Putsch in Berlin in March 1920; and the Generals' Revolt in Algiers in April 1961.^[9] The coup in the Soviet Union on 19–21 August 1991 is another case in which civil resistance was part of an effective opposition to a coup: Boris Yeltsin, President of the Russian Soviet Federative Socialist Republic, stood on top of a tank in the centre of Moscow and urged people to refuse co-operation with the coup.

Post-military-coup governments[link]

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.

Current leaders who assumed power via coups d'état[link]

Title	Name	Assumed office	Country	Area of the World
Sultan	Qaboos of Oman*	23 July 1970	Oman	Middle East
President	Teodoro Obiang Nguema Mbasogo	3 August 1979	Equatorial Guinea	Sub-Saharan Africa
President	Blaise Compaoré	15 October 1987	Burkina Faso	Sub-Saharan Africa
President	Omar Hasan Ahmad al-Bashir	30 June 1989	Sudan	Sub-Saharan Africa
President	Idriss Déby[10][11]	2 December 1990	Chad	Sub-Saharan Africa
President	Yahya Jammeh**	22 July 1994	The Gambia	Sub-Saharan Africa
Emir	Hamad bin Khalifa Al Thani*	27 June 1995	Qatar	Middle East
President	François Bozizé**	15 March 2003	Central African Republic	Sub-Saharan Africa
Acting Prime Minister	Frank Bainimarama	5 December 2006	Fiji	South Pacific
President	Mohamed Ould Abdel Aziz***	6 August 2008	Mauritania	Saharan Africa
President of the High Transitional Authority	Andry Rajoelina	17 March 2009	Madagascar	Sub-Saharan Africa
Interim President	Dioncounda Traoré****	11 April 2012	Mali	Sub-Saharan Africa
Head of the "military command"	Mamadu Ture Kuruma*****	12 April 2012	Guinea-Bissau	Sub-Saharan Africa

* Monarchs who overthrew their own fathers.

** Both Jammeh and Bozizé were subsequently confirmed in office by apparently free and fair elections.^[12][13] The election confirming Jammeh was marked by repression of the free press and the opposition.^[14] An opposition leader described the outcome as a "sham".^[14]

*** Mohamed Ould Abdel Aziz was subsequently confirmed by a narrow margin in the Mauritanian presidential election, 2009, which were regarded as "satisfactory" by international observers.

****Overseeing new elections after the 2012 Malian coup d'état led by Amadou Sanogo forced the previous president to resign, as per the terms of a brokered reconciliation deal.

*****Promised to form a national unity government within days.

Other uses of the term[link]

The term has also been used in a corporate context more specifically as boardroom coup. CEOs that have been sacked by behind-the-scenes maneuvering include Robert Stempel of General Motors^[15][16] and John Akers of IBM, in 1992 and 1993, respectively.^[17][18]

Steve Jobs attempted management coups twice at Apple Inc.; first in 1985 when he unsuccessfully tried to oust John Sculley and then again in 1997 which successfully forced Gil Amelio to resign.^[19][20]

See also[link]

References[link]

Bibliography[link]

External links[link]

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

Media related to Coups d'état at Wikimedia Commons

Moussa Traoré (born 25 September 1936) is a Malian soldier and politician. As a Lieutenant, he led the military ouster of President Modibo Keïta in 1968. Thereafter he served as Head of State (by various titles) from 1968–1979, and President of Mali from 1979 to 1991, when he was overthrown by popular protests and military coup. He was twice condemned to death in the 1990s, but eventually pardoned on both occasions and freed in 2002. He has since retired from political life.

Early life[link]

Born in Kayes Region, he studied at Kita and at the military academy in Fréjus, France. He returned to Mali in 1960, after its 1959 independence. He became second lieutenant in 1961, and lieutenant in 1963. He went to Tanganyika (now Tanzania) as military instructor to its liberation movements. He then became instructor at the École militaire interarmes in Kati.

Head of State 1968-1991[link]

On 19 November 1968 he took part in the coup d'état which deposed President Modibo Keïta. He became president of the Comité militaire de libération nationale, which made him effective Head of State of the Republic of Mali. All political activity was banned. A police state was run by Captain Tiécoro Bagayoko. Informers monitored academics and teachers, mostly hostile to the military rule. The socialist economic policies of Modibo Keïta were partially dropped. In 1972-1973, a major drought hit Mali. International aid money was corruptly appropriated. In 1974, he issued a changed constitution for a Malian Second Republic, which was inaugurated in 1978, and was proported to move Mali toward civilian rule. However, the military leaders remained in power. In September 1976, a new political party was established, the Democratic Union of the Malian People (UDPM), based on the concept of non-ideological democratic centralism. Single- party presidential and legislative elections were held in June 1979. Traoré, the only candidate for president, was elected with 99 percent of the vote.^[1]

In 1977 ex-president Modibo Keïta died in detention, in suspicious circumstances. His funeral was well attended. The regime reacted strongly, and made violent arrests. On 28 February 1978, Moussa Traoré had arrested both Tiécoro Bagayoko and Kissima Doukara, defence and security minister, on accusations of plotting a coup. In trying to move to more open politics, he appointed the historian Alpha Oumar Konaré as arts minister. In 1979, he created the UDPM (Union Démocratique du Peuple Malien), a single permitted political party; also the Union Nationale des Femmes du Mali and Union Nationale des Jeunes du Mali, compulsory organisations for women and young people. In 1980, student demonstrations were broken up, and their leader Abdoul Karim Camara ("Cabral") died from torture. In 1982, he was made commander-in-chief. Traoré was chairman of the Organization of African Unity from May 1988 to July 1989. The UDPM-controlled legislature amended the constitution in 1985 to remove limits on the length of time a president could hold office—effectively making Traoré president for life.

The political situation stabilized during 1981 and 1982, and remained generally calm throughout the 1980s. The UDPM began attracting additional members as it demonstrated that it could counter an effective voice against the excesses of local administrative authorities. Shifting its attention to Mali's economic difficulties, the government approved plans for cereal marketing liberalization, reform in the state enterprise system, new incentives to private enterprise, and an agreement with the International Monetary Fund (IMF). However, by 1990, there was growing dissatisfaction with the demands for austerity imposed by the IMF's economic reform programs and the perception that the president and his close associates were not themselves adhering to those demands. As in other African countries, demands for multi-party democracy increased. The Traore Government allowed some opening of the system, including the establishment of an independent press and independent political associations, but insisted that Mali was not ready for democracy.^[2]

Opposition and overthrow[link]

In 1990, the National Congress for Democratic Initiative (Congrès National d’Initiative démocratique, CNID) was set up by the lawyer Mountaga Tall, and the Alliance for Democracy in Mali (Alliance pour la démocratie au Mali, ADEMA) by Abdramane Baba and historian Alpha Oumar Konaré. These with the Association des élèves et étudiants du Mali (AEEM) and the Association Malienne des Droits de l'Homme (AMDH) aimed to contest Moussa Traoré's rule, with a plural political life.

Under the old constitution, all labor unions had to belong to one confederation, the National Union of Malian Workers (UNTM). When the leadership of the UNTM broke from the government in 1990, the opposition grew. In part this was a reaction to the stalling of Traoré's "Multiparisme" program, announced in October 1989 but then shelved. These groups were driven by paycuts and layoffs in the government sector, and the Malian government acceding to pressure from international donors to privatise large swathes of the economy that had remained in public hands even after the overthrow of the socialist government in 1968. Students, even children, played an increasing role in Bamako's protest marches, and homes and businesses of those associated with the regime were ransacked by crowds.

On 22 March 1991 a huge protest march in central Bamako was put down violently, with estimates of those killed reaching 300. Four days later a military coup deposed Traoré. The Comité de Transition pour le Salut du Peuple was set up, headed by General Amadou Toumani Touré.^[3]

Trials and pardons[link]

In 1993, Traoré was condemned to death for "political crimes", largely focused on the killing of around 300 pro-democracy demonstrators in Bamako, but his sentence was later commuted. In 1999 was once more condemned to death with his wife Mariam Traoré, for "economic crimes": the embezzling of the equivalent of US$350,000 during his rule. President Alpha Oumar Konaré commuted these sentences to life imprisonment. Shortly before leaving office, on 29 May 2002, he further pardoned the couple, for the sake of national reconciliation, a stance which incoming president Amadou Toumani Touré championed.^[4]

Traoré's once reviled legacy has been somewhat softened under President Amadou Toumani, with the former dictator recognised at least informally as a former head of state and many former supporters now rallying around Chogel Maiga's Patriotic Movement for Renewal party (Mouvement Patriotique pour le Renouveau, MPR). Both Traoré and his wife have retired from public life, in part due to ill health.^[5]

References[link]

• Pascal James Imperato. Traore, Gen. Moussa in Historical Dictionary of Mali, pp. 242–245. Scarecrow Press/ Metuchen. NJ - London (1986) ISBN 0-8108-1369-6
• Moussa Traoré. (2008). In Encyclopædia Britannica. Retrieved October 24, 2008, from Encyclopædia Britannica Online.
• Lamine Diallo. Président Moussa Traoré 1968 - 1991. Anciens Présidents: Presidence de la Republique du Mali (Official Website of the Presidency of the Republic of Mali) 10 June 2003.

v t e Heads of state of Mali Modibo Keïta Moussa Traorém Amadou Toumani Tourém Alpha Oumar Konaré Amadou Toumani Touré Amadou Sanogom Dioncounda Traoré* m military* acting