A Coup d’etat is an attempt to overthrow the government by violent or non-violent means. Unlike a revolution, which seeks broad social and political change, a coup is aimed at replacing key officials or changing the structure of government itself. Coups are often seen as a way to pre-empt revolutionary change from below, but repeated military interventions have rarely contributed to the resolution of long-term social or economic problems.
A growing number of political science datasets document a range of events that could be called Coups, including the Global Instances of Coup, the Coups & Political Instability Dataset, and the Cline Center’s Coup d’etat Project. However, the definition of what constitutes a Coup remains controversial and, to some extent, subjective. In addition, these datasets are based primarily on international news sources, which may bias the kinds of events that get included.
The January 6th storming of the US Capitol is an example of an event that has generated much debate about whether it is a Coup d’etat or not. The Cline Center initially released a statement that the available evidence supported classification as an attempted coup d’etat, but two of the event criteria outlined in the Coup d’etat Project codebook remain ambiguous.
The Cline Center is currently assessing the evidence to determine if further event categorizations are required, and if so, how these will be applied. This will help to maintain the rigor and validity of the Cline Center’s coup d’etat dataset.