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While coups drive a majority of regime changes and are responsible for the overthrow of many democratic governments, there has been very little empirical work on the subject. This book develops a new theory of coup dynamics and outcomes, drawing on 300 hours of interviews with coup participants and an original dataset of 471 coup attempts worldwide from 1950 to 2000. The author delivers a concise and empirical evaluation, arguing that understanding the dynamics of military factions is essential to predicting the success or failure of coups. He draws on an aspect of game theory known as a coordination game to explain coup dynamics. He finds a strong correlation between successful coups and the ability of military actors to project control and the inevitability of success. Examining Ghana's multiple coups and the 1991 coup attempt in the USSR, the author shows how military actors project an image of impending victory that is often more powerful than the reality on the ground. In his close analysis of ten coups in Ghana from 1967 to 1981, he identifies three distinct points of coup origination : coups from top military officers, coups from the middle ranks, and mutinous coups from low-level soldiers.

COUPS D'ETAT --- COUPS D'ETAT--GHANA

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MUHAMMAD, PROPHET, D. 632--BIOGRAPHY

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The author looks here at the threats that rulers face from their own armed forces. Can they make their regimes impervious to coups ? This book shows that how leaders organize their coercive institutions has a profound effect on the survival of their regimes. When rulers use presidential guards, militarized police, and militia to counterbalance the regular military, efforts to oust them from power via coups d'etat are less likely to succeed. Even as counterbalancing helps to prevent successful interventions, however, the resentment that it generates within the regular military can provoke new coup attempts. And because counterbalancing changes how soldiers and police perceive the costs and benefits of a successful overthrow, it can create incentives for protracted fighting that results in the escalation of a coup into full-blown civil war. Drawing on an original dataset of state security forces in 110 countries over a span of fifty years, as well as case studies of coup attempts in Asia, Africa, Latin America, and the Middle East, the author sheds light on how counterbalancing affects regime survival. Understanding the dynamics of counterbalancing, she shows, can help analysts predict when coups will occur, whether they will succeed, and how violent they are likely to be. The arguments and evidence in this book suggest that while counterbalancing may prevent successful coups, it is a risky strategy to pursue - and one that may weaken regimes in the long term.

COUPS D'ETAT--PREVENTION --- CIVIL WAR--PREVENTION

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LEAHY, WILLIAM D.--BIOGRAPHY --- USA--NAVY--BIOGRAPHY --- ADMIRALS--USA--BIOGRAPHY

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TURKEY--HISTORY--COUP D'ETAT, 1980 --- TURKEY--POLITICS AND GOVERNMENT