Military coup is the sudden overthrow of a government by the armed forces. A successful coup usually requires a small group of officers to control all or part of the armed forces, police, and other security elements of the state. Coups rarely alter a nation’s fundamental social and economic policies, or redistribute power between competing political groups. Rather, they replace one leader with another and may briefly shift the balance of power in favor of the military or other powerful interest groups.
A recent putsch in Myanmar, for example, exemplifies this pattern. After an election that gave Aung San Suu Kyi’s party a supermajority in parliament, the ruling military junta froze democracy and expanded its own powers. The army’s impulsive actions reveal that its leaders have an insatiable appetite for more power.
While many fear that praetorian politics is making a comeback, the 2021 putsch in Tunisia and the similar ones in Mali, Burkina Faso, and Niger are more evidence of military leaders’ deep frustration with their own inability to govern effectively than an awakening nostalgia for old dictatorships. The recent putches also point to a crisis in democratic norms that are being rapidly eroded.
Much of the latest research pinpoints factors—such as coup proofing or “political legacy effects”—that reduce the likelihood of a military takeover. But these findings may be misleadingly simple: Most coups are not caused by any particular factor; instead, they are the result of a combination of multiple factors. A new generation of scholars needs to develop complementary methods that will allow us to understand more fully why and when a military coup occurs.