Coup d'état

A coup d'état (/ˌkuːdeɪˈtɑː/ ^ⓘ; French for 'stroke of state'[1]), or simply a coup, is an illegal and overt attempt by the military or other government elites to unseat the incumbent leader by force.[2][3] A self-coup is when a leader, having come to power through legal means, tries to stay in power through illegal means.[3]

Part of a series on
Revolution
Types Bourgeois Colour Communist Democratic Nonviolent Permanent Proletarian Social Wave
Methods Boycott Civil disobedience Civil war Class conflict Coup d'état Demonstration Guerrilla warfare Insurgency Nonviolent resistance Protest Rebellion Revolutionary terror Samizdat Strike action Tax resistance Terrorism
Causes Authoritarianism Autocracy Capitalism Collaborationism Colonialism Cronyism Despotism Dictatorship Discrimination Economic depression Economic inequality Electoral fraud Famine Fascism Feudalism Imperialism Military occupation Monarchy Millenarianism Natural disaster Nepotism Persecution Political corruption Political repression Poverty Tyranny Totalitarianism Unemployment
Examples Neolithic Commercial Scientific Industrial English Atlantic American Brabant Liège French Haitian Serbian Greek Of 1820 Of 1830 Belgian Texas Of 1848 Hungarian (1848) Eureka Rebellion Bulgarian unification Philippine 1st Iranian Young Turk Mexican Chinese Of 1917–1923 Russian German Spanish Guatemalan Chinese Communist Hungarian (1956) Cuban Rwandan Cultural Argentine Nicaraguan 2nd Iranian Saur People Power August Revolution Carnation Of 1989 Yogurt Velvet Romanian Singing Bolivarian Bulldozer Rose Orange Tulip Kyrgyz Arab Spring Tunisian Egyptian Yemeni Euromaidan 2018–2020 Arab protests Sudanese
Politics portal
v t e

By one estimate, there were 457 coup attempts from 1950 to 2010, half of which were successful.[2] 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.[2] Coups occurring in the post-Cold War period have been more likely to result in democratic systems than Cold War coups,[4][5][6] though coups still mostly perpetuate authoritarianism.[7]

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 elites and the public to believe that their coup attempt will be successful.[8] The number of successful coups has decreased over time.[2] Failed coups in authoritarian systems are likely to strengthen the power of the authoritarian ruler.[9][10] The cumulative number of coups is a strong predictor of future coups, a phenomenon referred to as the "coup trap".[11][12][13][14]

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 fragmenting of military and security agencies.[15] However, coup-proofing reduces military effectiveness as loyalty is prioritized over experience when filling key positions within the military.[16][17][18][19][20][21] [22]