OSIPP Discussion Paper : DP-2019-E-003

Coups, Justification, and Democracy
March 25, 2019

Taku Yukawa*
Associate Professor, Osaka School of International Public Policy (OSIPP)

Kaori Kushima
Ph.D. Student, Osaka School of International Public Policy (OSIPP)

Kaoru Hidaka
Specially Appointed Assistant Professor, Osaka School of International Public
Policy (OSIPP)【Keywords】 coups, justification, democracy【Abstract】Coups are inherently illegal actions and are outside the conventionalrules of political engagement. How, then, have the military organizations thatstaged coups justified their actions? What were the objectives cited for thesecoups? We have created a unique dataset of justifications for all the successful
coups that had occurred between 1975 and 2014. The results show that while“democracy” began to be cited as a justification for coups after the Cold War, thisjustification became redundant in the latter half of the 2000s. This article
demonstrates how the rise and fall of the anti-coup sentiment in the international
community led to the redundancy of the aforementioned justification. Thesefindings may support the existence of “democratic coups,” an issue that has been
debated vigorously in recent years, although such coups have already become lessfrequent.
Corresponding Author. Osaka School of International Public Policy, Osaka University,
Address: 1-31 Machikaneyama, Toyonaka, Osaka 560-0043, JAPAN.
Email: yukawa@osipp.osaka-u.ac.jp
1*1. Introduction
Research on coups have traditionally focused on the causes that gave rise to them (Johnson et al. 1984;
Finer 1988; Belkin and Schofer 2003; Roessler 2011). In recent years, however, there have emerged
numerous studies that also deal with the success and failures (Powell 2012), as well as the consequences(Marinov and Goemans 2014; Thyne and Powell 2016), of coups. Datasets have been created to support suchstudies (Powell and Thyne 2011; Marshall and Marshall 2016), further enhancing their quantitative analysis.
However, the contention of this article is on the failure of prior research to systematically analyze an
important aspect of coups, that is, the manner in which coups have been justified by their perpetrators. In
other words, prior studies have not systematically examined the justifications and objectives of theperpetrators of coups. Coups are defined as “illegal and overt attempts by the military or other elites within
the state apparatus to unseat the sitting executive” (Powell and Thyne 2011: 252). This definition indicatesthat coups are inherently illegal and outside the conventional rules of political engagement. For this reason,
the perpetrators of coups – usually the military – must justify their usage of such illegal means to achieve
power transfer before an audience both inside and outside the country. In fact, the military, in many cases,
seeks to justify its action by releasing a statement on radio and television, holding a news conference, or
speaking directly to people, following an overthrow of the government.
How, then, have these coups been justified? The most common cause that has been identified for coups
includes a feud between the government and the military, particularly a conflict resulting from thegovernment’s infringement on the military’s vested interests (Needler 1975; Leon 2014). The military, forinstance, would stage a coup to protest a budget cut or an interference in personnel matters. Typical examples
include the 1982 coup in Bangladesh, in which Army Lieutenant General Hussain Muhammad Ershad
overthrew the government in a protest against President Abdus Sattar’s decision to minimize the authorityof the military (Bertocci 1982: 1000-1001). Likewise, the 1997 coup in Sierra Leone was executed by the
military on account of their discontent with President Ahmed Tejan Kabbah’s favorable treatment of aparamilitary group (Riley 1997: 287). However, the government’s infringement on the military’s vested
interests or a conflict between the government and the military are not acceptable justifications. The military
must prove that, through these coups, it will pursue the interest of the entire nation and not its own by using
a rhetoric that appeals to both national and international communities. In fact, the justifications cited for thecoups in Bangladesh and Sierra Leone were democracy and removal of political corruption. There was no
involvement of personal interests of the military nor any confrontation between the government and themilitary.
What objectives are cited and what kind of rhetoric is used in justifying a coup? Do justifications include
economic performance, corruption, national defense, ideology, or democracy? We have created a uniquedataset for all the 106 successful coups that had occurred between 1975 and 2014 to examine how thesecoups were justified.
Why is it even necessary to build such a dataset and conduct a comprehensive and systematic analysis of
the justifications? One reason is that the objective cited at the time of a coup strongly dictates the politicalprocess that follows. The 1985 coup in Sudan can be examined to understand this point. Field Marshal Abdel
2

Rahman Suwar al-Dahab, who organized the coup, became the chairman of the Transitional Military Council
and pledged to transfer power to a civilian government by April 1986 (The Associated Press, Jun.9, 1985),
although some individuals within the government opposed the idea of an election on the grounds that thecouncil was slow to facilitate the power transfer (The Associated Press, Jul.14, 1985). However, the councildelivered on its pledge and held a parliamentary election to transfer power to a civilian government because
people’s protests had begun to grow. Meanwhile, Captain Valentine Strasser, who had seized power in the
1992 Sierra Leone coup, sought to justify the move by pledging that he would “sincerely pursue the processof returning our country to true multiparty democracy.” (The Associated Press, May.1, 1992). This promise
invited heavy criticisms for Strasser from both inside and outside the nation due to a delay in making thetransition to a civilian government (IPS-Inter Press Service, Apr.27, 1993), as a result of which he ended up
holding an election (Africa News, Jan.10, 1994). In that sense, justification goes beyond a mere matter ofrhetoric; it enables the understanding of the political process that follows.
Furthermore, this article aims to conduct a fresh empirical analysis on the relationship between coups
and democracy by using a dataset that has been created to document justifications for coups. As will be
explained in the next section, there has emerged an argument in recent years that coups promote
democratization, a claim that has spurred vigorous debate. The dataset created for this article makes asignificant contribution to the debate. This article, in particular, will systematically analyze the rhetoric usedin justifying coups, and observe – in a more direct manner – the relationship between coups and democracy,
thereby suggesting that the end of the Cold War has drastically transformed the relationship between coups
and democracy. For additional analysis, a newly created dataset regarding international criticisms toward
coups will also be used to identify the pressure exerted by the international community on the transformationin the way that coups are justified. It has been observed that the tide has begun to shift again in the latter halfof the 2000s. “Democracy” is now being used less frequently as a justification for coups since criticism
toward coups in the international community has subsided. These fresh insights have been obtained withrespect to the relationship between coups and democracy by approaching the issue from an entirely new
angle – by examining how coups are justified.

2. Coups and Democracy
In the past, coups were widely regarded as anti-democratic. In recent years, however, some people havestarted to believe that coups can trigger democratization by overthrowing the dictators who have beenrefusing to relinquish their power (Collier 2008; Marinov and Goemans 2014; Thyne and Powell 2016; M.
Miller 2012). This is the argument for the existence of “democratic coups” (Varol 2012).
To prove this argument, as pointed by Collier (2008), the only actor that could topple powerful dictatorssuch as Zimbabwe’s Robert Mugabe is the military. For this reason, the argument that coups provide awindow of opportunity for democratization possesses a certain degree of validity. Moreover, Thyne andPowell (2016: 194) pointed out that only 16.9% of the coups that had occurred between 1950 and 2008 wereintended to replace democratic governments.
However, even if a coup removes a dictator, democratization cannot take place if another dictator takes3over afterward. In order for a coup to create democracy, the military regime must hold an election to transfer
power. It is often argued that such a process requires international pressure (Marinov and Goemans 2014:804-806). Unlike the situation prevalent during the Cold War, democracy has become a norm in the current
era. The international community has begun to take hardline positions against coups, issuing sanctions andcondemnations against the perpetrators (Shannon et al. 2015). As a result, any military that seizes power
through a coup will be subject to strong international pressure and will have no choice but to hold an election
and yield to a democratic government.
Even so, the thesis that a coup leads to democracy is still a subject of debate for the following reasons.
First, there is much uncertainty while identifying the impact of the end of the Cold War. Marinov andGoemans (2014), who had emphasized a mechanism through which international pressure is applied, argued
that it was only after the Cold War that coups began to promote democratization. However, Thyne and Powell(2016) wrote that democratization was brought about by coups during the entire period between 1950 and2008. Thus, there is a disagreement as to whether the end of the Cold War was a turning point. Did the endof the Cold War change the relationship between coups and democracy?
Second, there is a fundamental argument that almost no relationship exists between coups and democracy(even after the Cold War) and that any influence that coups may have on democratization is extremely limited(Derpanopoulos et al. 2016; A. Miller 2012). The effectiveness of international pressure, as compared tocoups, in promoting democracy is doubtful since the response of the international community is usuallyinconsistent (Shannon et al. 2015: 364; Tansey 2018). These criticisms are directly aimed at the thesis that
coups promote democratization. Whether coups have had any impact on democratization is a controversial
question in and of itself because establishing a causal relationship between them is extremely difficult. In aquantitative analysis of empirical data on democratic coups, the proxy to measure democratization – thedependent variable – is usually either the Polity score for several years after the coup or whether the regimeplans to hold a competitive election within five years after the coup. However, the occurrence of a coup has
a strong correlation with the legitimacy of the regime, the capabilities of the nation, and the political stability(Masaki 2016: 52). Such variables also influence the proxy. Thus, it is difficult to establish a causal
relationship between coups and democracy and make an accurate analysis.
The approach of this article – creating a systematic and comprehensive dataset for the justification ofcoups – has a great advantage in dealing with the aforesaid debate, which is the ability to analyze the situation
immediately as and when a coup occurs, instead of analyzing the political process that follows. This approach,for one, makes it possible to examine the relationship between a coup and democracy without involving
other variables. When creating a dependent variable on whether an election was held within five years after
the coup, it is difficult to analyze any causal relationship because there are other variables involved in theprocess. However, this article seeks to find out whether democracy was used as a means of justifying a coupat the time of its occurrence. This method allows for direct observations to determine the possibility of a
relationship between the coup and democracy.
This method also makes it possible to identify, on an empirical basis, any causal mechanism between acoup and democratization. In the event that democratization follows a coup, with an election held at a4

relatively early stage, one scenario would be that the military had pledged beforehand that it would hold anelection. Another scenario would be that the military had not made any promise of democratization but, as aresult of miscalculations, had to hold an election anyway. These two scenarios greatly differ with respect tothe mechanism through which the situation unfolds. Such a difference could not have been detected underprior research, as it only observed whether elections were held several years after a coup. The analysis of
this article, however, allows for such a determination.
Thus, the main thrust of this article is to examine the situation during a coup’s occurrence. This makes it
possible to provide fresh insights on coups and democracy.

3. Coding Rules and Procedures
In our dataset, the definition of coup is limited to those which were successful, defined here as those inwhich “the perpetrators [seized] and [held] power for at least seven days” (Powell and Thyne 2011: 252).
This is because unsuccessful coups rarely have the opportunity to put forth public justifications of their acts.
Using this definition, successful coups were collected by using Powell (2012) for the data from 1975 to 2006
and then supplementing this with Powell and Thyne (2011) for the period from 2007 to 2014.
Next, “justification” in the context of this dataset refers to the goals put forward by a coup after it
successfully seized power. These are not necessarily consistent with the coup’s actual objectives; ademocratic justification may be claimed by a coup actually motivated by the vested interests of the militaryor specific individuals, for example. Similarly, it is not uncommon for the perpetrators of coups now regarded
as “democratic” by some scholars to not have actually used that justification themselves. For example, while
the Carnation Revolution (the 1974 coup in Portugal) has been regarded as a democratic coup that promoted
the country’s democratization (Varol 2012: 322), the military in that case did not appeal to democratic values
at all. Thus, our dataset focuses on what the perpetrators themselves appealed to when justifying their coup.
A coup’s justification is generally provided through the release of a statement via radio and/or television,or through a press conference. In addition to these kinds of official justifications, this article also collected
as much in the way of unofficial justifications as possible, such as those voiced in interviews conducted by
the international media with military leaders and the personal views of military commanders that appearedin news programs. In the data collection, only those statements of justification which met the following
criteria were selected: (1) the statement contained words which matched the coding rules (described later) –for example, “democra-” for the category of democracy-; (2) the context of the statement could be interpreted
as providing the justification of a coup; and (3) the statement was expressed by the coup’s perpetrators, suchas the military or paramilitary organizations such as presidential bodyguards. The data was thus not collectedmechanically; even if a statement contained a specific word (e.g. “democra-”), it was excluded if the word’s
usage did not match the intent of the coding. That meant, for example, that statements critical of democracy,that used the word only in proper nouns (such as a reference to the Democratic Party), or were made by
opposition leaders or activists who supported a coup (but were not perpetrators) were excluded from thedataset. However, if a civilian leader seated following a coup released a justification for the political change,that was included in our dataset. This is because such civilian actors were often in collusion with the military5and could thus be regarded as de facto perpetrators, as observed in the case of Vice President Mohammed
Waheed who succeeded to the presidency after the 2012 Maldives coup. Additionally, since the main focusof this article is on the justification given for the illegitimate power shift of a coup itself, policy speeches
about the future governance of the state by the new regime were not regarded as statements of justification.
The data was compiled from public sources including Lexis/Nexis (Lexis Advance), press sources such as the
New York Times, Washington Post, the Guardian, the Independent, Al Jazeera, and other case-specific local
press sources and secondary documents.
The data was classified into the following eight specific forms of justification, each of which werereferred to in the literature as potential motivations behind coups. Although actual motivations might differ
from those articulated, drawing on them is a reasonable way to categorize statements of justification. First,
democracy (our main focus) was coded based on whether perpetrators stated that they conducted their coupin order to promote democratization. In addition to words including “democra-” itself, our dataset also
regards the phrases “rule of law,” “human rights,” and words indicating opposition to dictatorships as equally
pointing to a democracy-oriented justification1. The second is economic performance. It has been pointed
out that poverty, economic stagnation, and economic crises tend to trigger coups (Londregan and Poole 1990;
Hoadley 1973). Therefore, it is quite possible for a military to justify a coup by referencing poverty or
economic stagnation caused by the poor economic policies of the incumbent regime. Third, governance.
Coups tend to occur when an incumbent has lost political legitimacy due to corruption (Sutter 1999). Thus,
poor governance by the incumbent could be a source of justification for a coup. A typical example is the2006 coup in Thailand which was justified by then-president Thaksin Shinawatra’s corruption. Fourth,domestic instability (Finer 1988). Coups can be caused by an incumbent’s inability to maintain domestic
stability and order (by failing to resolve a civil war, uprisings, or protest demonstrations, for example). Fifth,
international threats. The military may plot a coup when the incumbent cannot provide security against
foreign threats (Feaver 1999; Svolik 2013). Sixth, ideology. Ideologies such as communism or liberalism arealso cited to justify coups. This was particularly prominent during the Cold War. Seventh, civil-military
conflict, or dissatisfaction on the part of the military regarding its position and the respect given to it. Thatis, any policy that went against the organizational interests of the military (such as a reduction in their budget
or interference in personnel matters) or the interests of particular individuals in military could provide themotivation to stage a coup. Although it seems unlikely that the military would openly appeal to these interests,
whether or not and how the military cites these parochial interests in justification is worth paying attention
to. Finally, other reasons; these include power vacuums (caused by the sudden death of an incumbent),
religious reasons, resistance to exploitation, neocolonialism, or neoimperialism, and so forth. Naturally, thejustifications described above are not necessarily mutually exclusive; it is quite possible that perpetrators
will cite multiple objectives.
In addition to the construction of the justification dataset described above, this article also collectedsupplementary data. As mentioned, the major contribution of this article is to analyze the situation at the very1

For a further discussion of components of democracy, see Diamond 1999; Dahl 1971.
6moment a coup occurs rather than the political process that follows. In this regard, we collected additional
data on whether the name given to the new regimes installed after successful coups contain a word related
to “democracy.” The names chosen by the new regimes that emerge following coups tend to have elements
in common with the rationale used to justify the military’s acts. For example, the “Revolutionary Military
Council” (1983 Grenada) and the “National Committee for the Reestablishment of Democracy” (2012 Mali).
That is, militaries have to provide a favorable framing for their behavior in order to gain legitimacy for theillegal act of coups. This framing is not limited solely to the statements issued after a coup but also to thenaming of the new regimes. Therefore, whether the new regimes used the word “democratic” as part of its
name is something that certainly deserves attention, just as the rhetoric of justification does.

4. Results
There were 106 successful coups from 1975 until 2014, which is the period under study. However, noattempts were made to justify 7 (6.6%) of these coups. In other words, no statements were issued, or news
conferences held, to justify these 11 coups. Conversely, this means that justifications were attempted for
93.4% of the coups that occurred during the period, indicating that providing justifications for coups was
extremely common.
Fig.1 and Fig.2 show how these coups have been justified. Fig.1 shows chronological changes,
percentagewise, in the type of justifications offered. Fig.2 shows changes in the number of coups that had
cited democracy as a justification – the subject of this article – as well as changes in the overall number ofcoups that have occurred.
The results bear out this article’s intuitive assumption that confrontations between the government andmilitary were rarely cited as the reason for staging a coup. Preservation of one’s own interest is not acceptable
as a justification either domestically or internationally.
Likewise, no attempts were made after the Cold War to justify coups from an ideological standpoint, afinding that is also in accord with this article’s assumption. This, too, seems to be a reasonable outcome. On
the other hand, it may come as a surprise that international threats, or efforts to deal with such threats, haverarely been used as a justification. Prior studies have occasionally pointed out certain connections between
international threats and coups. However, such connections have not been observed in case of justificationof coups.

7

100.00%
90.00%
80.00%
70.00%
60.00%
50.00%
40.00%
30.00%
20.00%
10.00%
0.00%
1975-1979 1980-1984 1985-1989 1990-1994 1995-1999 2000-2004 2005-2009 2010-2014
democracy

economic performance

governancedomestic instability

international threats

civil-military conflicts

ideology

other reasonsFig.1 Justifications for Coups (1975-2014)

30

100%
90%

25

80%
70%

20

60%
15

50%
40%

10

30%
20%

5

10%
0

0%

Fig.2 The Total Number of Coups and the Number and Percentage of Coups that Have Cited
Democracy as a Justification
4.1 Increased Use of Democracy as Justification after the Cold War
What follows is an analysis of the relationship between coups and democracy, which is the primary subjectof this article. Two important observations have been made with respect to the use of democracy in justifying
a coup. First, the turning point was the end of the Cold War. As is clear from Fig.2, which shows changes in
the use of democracy as a justification over the years, the military organizations that staged a coup after the8Cold War argued frequently that the coup was for the sake of democracy.
For example, in the 1991 coup that took place in the Republic of Mali, the coup leader, Lieutenant Colonel
Amadou Toumani Toure, stated: “One of the essential aims of our arrival (is) to install multi-party politics,
real democracy in the style of certain other countries.” (Los Angeles Times, Mar.27, 1991). Likewise, Major
Daouda Malam Wanke, the head of the security force who assassinated President Ibrahim Bare Mainassara
in the 1999 coup in Niger, sought to justify his action by saying that he would “reintroduce democracy to
Niger.” (World Markets Analysis, Apr.20, 1999). In addition, in the 2003 Guinea-Bissau coup that occurredfollowing the political instabilities surrounding military personnel policies, the military regime stated onradio that the coup was intended to protect democracy (Associated Press Online, Sep.15, 2003).
What is interesting is that the justifications for coups that occurred before the end of the Cold War andjustifications for those that occurred afterward were different even though they took place in the same
country and in a similar context. The coups in Nigeria can be used as examples to understand this point. In
Nigeria, Commander Sani Abacha, who was frustrated with the government of President Muhammadu
Buhari and Major General Tunde Idiagbon, staged a coup with Major General Ibrahim Babangida in 1985.
Abacha stated: “the mismanagement of the economy, lack of public accountability, insensitivity of thepolitical leadership and a general deterioration in the standard of living” and justified his action by citing
instances of mismanagement, economic failure, and a lack of governance of the previous administration (The
Associated Press, Aug.27, 1985). However, Babangida subsequently gained power, and Abacha executed acoup again, in 1993, in protest. As a dictator, Abacha cited democracy as a justification for the politicaltransition, saying: “We must lay a very solid foundation for the growth of true democracy” “This governmentis a child of necessity with a strong determination to (…) enthrone a lasting and true democracy” (Daramola
2008: 371, 374). These two coups, which can be traced to power struggles among high-ranking military
officials, were carried out by the same individual. Even so, one took place during the Cold War, and the otherafterward. Consequently, there was a significant difference in the language used to justify these two coups.
The coups in Sudan are another useful example. The country experienced coups in 1985 and 1989, bothof which were triggered by anti-government demonstrations related to an internal conflict between thenorthern and southern parts of the nation, economic downturns, and people’s frustration toward thegovernment’s handling of the conflict. However, a huge difference can be observed with respect to how thesetwo coups were justified. Field Marshal Abdel Rahman Suwar al-Dahab, who took power in the 1985 coup,emphasized that he made the move for the sake of peace and stability for the country, citing the slogan: “Thearmed forces in order to save bloodshed, secure the liberation of the country and unity of its lands, decided
unilaterally to stand by the people (…) to seize power and transfer it to the people after a limited transitional
period.” (United Press International, Apr.6, 1985). However, in the 1989 coup, which occurred in the samecontext, coup leader Colonel Omar Hassan al-Bashir sought to convey that the coup was intended to achieve
democracy, saying: “O heroic Sudanese people! Today is the day for emancipation from the false democracy.
Today is the day of liberation.” (BBC Summary of World Broadcasts, Jul.7, 1989).
The above data constitute direct evidence of how coups have been justified, indicating that the relationshipbetween democracy and coups has undergone a drastic transformation after the Cold War. These data support
9

the assertion made by Marinov and Goemans (2014) regarding the debate over the existence of democratic
coups.
This can also be confirmed by the name given to the regimes that were established after these coups. New
regimes that emerged following coups began to bear the word “democratic.” During the period examined inthis article – from 1975 until 2014 – the word “democratic” did not appear as part of the name of a regime
until around 2003. More specifically, between 2000 and 2004, one in four regimes (25.0%) that was createdas a result of a coup used the word “democratic” as part of its name. These figures changed to three in eight(37.5%) from 2005 to 2009, and two in nine (22.2%) from 2010 to 2014. However, there was no single
instance prior to 2000 in which the word was used as part of a regime name. This, too, may indicate that the
military regimes established as a result of a coup around that time had begun to cite democracy to justify
their action.

4.2 Retreat of Democracy
Another noteworthy finding is that in the 2010s, the use of democracy as a justification for coups began
to decline. Fig.1 shows that the use of democracy as a justification fell to 44.4% from 75% and has been
replaced by “economic performance” and “governance.” This means that those executing coups are now
appealing to people’s sense of pragmatism, rather than an abstract value such as democracy. For example, in
a 2014 incident that took place in Ukraine, Oleksandr Turchynov, who took power as interim president, did
not cite democracy as a justification. Instead, Turchynov denounced the previous administration’s economic
failure by stating that “Yanukovych had 'driven the economy to the brink of a catastrophe,'” “While theeconomy is improving in the world, Ukraine is tripping into the abyss and is in a pre-default condition.”(BBC, Feb.23, 2014; Moscow News, Feb.24, 2014). This was also the case during a 2013 coup in Egypt anda 2014 coup in Thailand. In both cases, the military cited economic reasons to justify its action. This is atrend that has emerged only recently, and there is no guarantee if it will continue. Thus, it could be argued
that this is only an aberration. However, this article is of the view that democracy did begin to recede andthat there were solid reasons and circumstances behind the development. This will be further discussed in
the next section.

5. Background: Response of the International Community
5.1 End of the Cold War and Increased Criticism on Coups
Why was “democracy” increasingly used to attempt to justify coups following the end of the Cold War?
In addressing this question, this article emphasizes the international community’s reaction to coups. In otherwords, the diffusion of democratic norms in the post-Cold War world led to coups becoming the target ofinternational criticism and sanctions; this thus caused “democracy” to be more commonly cited as ajustification
Such a shift in the international community has already been pointed out in the literature (Marinov andGoemans 2014; Shannon et al. 2015; McCoy 2006), but none of these have systematically andcomprehensively investigated whether coups in fact came to be criticized after the end of the Cold War.
10

While Shannon et al. (2015) created a dataset of the international community's reactions to coups, theirdefinition of “reaction” contains both positive and negative reactions, thus limiting its usefulness indetermining the international unacceptance of coups after the Cold War. Previous research has also
overlooked the reasons why the international community criticized coups (was it because they weredamaging to democracy, or for other reasons?). Since a coup per se is nothing more than a kind of domestic
power transition, there seems to be no reason to problematize it in the international community given theprinciple of non-intervention. Therefore, it is worth attempting to analyze the arguments used to criticize
coups in other countries. On the basis of the above considerations, this article constructed an original datasetof the international criticisms as well. The coding procedure is as follows: First, the international criticismsof each coup were divided into two major groups depending on whether they originated from theinternational community -both states such as the US and former colonial powers, and internationalorganizations such as the UN, IMF and EU- or from major regional organizations to which the country where
the coup occurred belonged2. Not only explicit words of criticism but also certain accusatory behaviors suchas imposition of sanctions or breaking diplomatic ties were considered. Then the language and behavior ofinternational criticism observed within two months of each coup were collected. This time period of analysis
was chosen so as not to overlook international criticism released after the post-coup unrest calmed down.
Finally, the languages of accusation were coded based on whether the reason for the criticism included word
containing “democra-” using the same criteria as the justification dataset. Data were in principle obtained
from the same sources as that dataset as well.
The results shown in Fig.3 confirm a clear difference between criticism made before and after the end of
the Cold War. The international community’s criticisms of coups began to increase in the late 1980s; thiswas followed by a sudden rise in criticisms by regional organizations. These are thought to be caused by the
diffusion of democratic norms and the maturation of anti-coup norms; both of these were promoted from thelate 1980s and the beginning of the post-Cold War period. In fact it was from that time (particularly after theend of the Cold War) that the international community began to regard democracy as a specific type ofdomestic regime to be favored and started to promote democratization by supporting or monitoring elections
and tailoring assistance and sanctions to the targeted country’s regime type (McFaul 2004; Dunning 2004).
Likewise, a major turning point for the development of anti-coup norms was the accusation levied by the
UNDA and UNSC against the 1991 Haiti coup and the 1997 Sierra Leone coup (Tansey 2018: 292). Regionalorganizations also institutionalized anti-coup norms in this period; the OAS agreed on a non-permissive
policy toward coups and defined sanctions on them through Resolution 1080 in 1991, the revision of Article
9 of the Charter in 1992, and the Inter-American Democratic Charter in 2001; the OAU also stipulated in
the 1999 Algiers Declaration that coups were never to be permitted (Shannon et al. 2015: 366-367). Thus,
since the late 1980s, democratic norms have become consolidated and anti-coup norms have spread within
the international community. Therefore, the post-Cold War increase in the frequency of democratic

2

Following organizations are included；OAS, MERCOSUR, CARICOM, CACM, AU (OAU),ECOWAS, SADC, IGAD, EAC, SCO, GCC, League of Arab States, ASEAN, SAARC, PIF.
11

objectives being used as justification for coups (as confirmed in the previous section) could be interpreted
as an adaptation to this transformation of international tides. Also, with this trend in mind, it isunderstandable that the international community’s criticisms of coups began earlier than that by regionalorganizations.
100%
90%
80%
70%

international
community

60%

ROs

50%
40%
30%
20%
10%
0%

Fig.3 International Criticisms toward Coups
Next, we have examined the content of levied criticism to see whether disrespect for democratic values
was used as an accusation. First, of a total of 47 coups criticized by the international community, 39 (83.0％)
were denounced as undemocratic. The reasons for denouncing coups were therefore primarily derived fromtheir undemocratic nature; this confirms that criticisms have increased in tandem with the diffusion of
democratic norms in the international community. On the other hand, criticisms by regional organization of
their member countries show a somewhat different pattern: of a total of 28 such criticisms, 15 (53.6％) werebased on their undemocratic nature, lower than that from the international community. This can be potentiallyinterpreted as being due to the fact that such regional organizations often include developing countries whose
leaders came to power by coups as member states; they therefore have a tendency to defend incumbent
leaders over democratic regimes, even though coups are illegal in these countries as they are in the West.
Although the international community’s response has clearly changed as described above, it is not clear
whether the perpetrators of the coups have perceived and put weight on this change. In other words, we havenot fully examined the causal relationship between the normative change in the international community andthe domestic shift in the justification of coups. In this regard, it would be necessary to look at specific cases
rather than conducting a macroscopic data analysis. As early as immediately following the end of the Cold
War, the perpetrator of the 1991 Haitian coup, General Raoul Cédras, expressed his view that seizing thepower by coup had already come to be regarded as unacceptable by the international community, stating:12

“Under this new world order, an elected President cannot be forced out like this. I can understand that (…)”3
Likewise, in the 1996 Niger coup, coup leader Ibrahim Baré Maïnassara appealed to the legitimacy of theiract and referred to the anti-coup trend in the international community; “We knew that our intervention would
not win us applause internationally,” “It doesn't go with the winds of these times. But we could not watch
while our country became another Somalia” (The New York Times, Feb.3, 1996). Next year, when Sierra
Leone was affected by a coup, Zimbabwe President Mugabe described the change in the international tide
regarding coups as “a new attitude to coups and illegal governments,” and said that “[f]uture coups will haveit the hard way. They won't be entertained.” (IPS-Inter Press Service, Jun.9, 1997). In the Burundi coup thatsame year, the mastermind of the coup Pierre Buyoya also revealed a similar understanding: “We hear coups
are no longer acceptable to change situations. I fully understand this principle because, as everyone knows,
I am among those who fought for democracy in Burundi” (The Guardian, Jul.27, 1996). These statements
by perpetrators reflect the perception that anti-coup norms began to emerge in this period, something that is
not be found in justifications put forth before the end of the Cold War.
The trend described above could be observed in those coups enacted against democratic regimes (Polity
score ≥ 5) as well. For example, Yahya Jammeh, who organized the 1994 coup in Gambia, justified the coupby criticizing Dawda Jawara's former government as not having truly been democratic (Wiseman 2004: 456).
Similarly, in the 2003 Central African Republic coup, the military gave the objective of their coup as
correcting “democratic errors” (IHS Global Insight, Mar.17, 2003). These trends reflect the fact that anticoup norms have prevailed to such an extent that even when the toppled government had been a democratic
one, a coup needs to be justified in democratic terms.
Based on the above consideration, it is clear that the international community came to criticize coups after
the end of the Cold War, leading perpetrators to also uphold democracy as a justification for their coups.

5.2 Recession of Anti-coup Norms in the International Community
Next we take up the retreat of democracy. The literature has pointed out the inconsistency of theinternational community’s reaction to coups as well as the recession of anti-coup norms from the 2010s (vonSoest and Wahman 2015; Tansey 2017). Behind this trend is not only the rising tide of forces like China who
stand against the promotion of democracy and assert the principle of non-intervention but also a shift in theinternational community (who had previously promoted democratization) towards emphasizing strategicinterests rather than the normative value of democracy.
This trend of democratic retreat can also be seen in our dataset of the international responses to coups:
criticism of coups has clearly decreased since 2005. This pattern is robust and can be observed both in theinternational community and among regional organizations.
And the transformation in the international community’s responses can be seen by looking at actual cases.
For example, in the 2011 Egyptian coup, the overthrow of the regime was well-received not only by US3

https://www.nytimes.com/1991/11/04/world/haitian-general-says-misdeeds-prompted-the-coup.html(accessed on December 15, 2018)13

President Barack Obama and UN Secretary General Ban Ki-Moon, but also by China and Russia. For
instance, the warnings by Mikhail Margelov, the Russian head of the Federation Council's Foreign Affairs
Committee, about the danger of the rapid democratization indicate the recession of anti-coup norms basedon the principle of democracy: “If, let's say, European models of democracy are introduced into this sort ofarchaic society without it being thought through, (…) we will see the sort of results that are unlikely to please
our European and American partners,” “whenever democratic models arrive in an unmodernized society,they don't work” (BBC Monitoring, Feb.11, 2011). Another case is the recent 2017 Zimbabwe coup, which
stemmed from the issue of President Mugabe’s succession and ultimately provoked a military uprising that
supported dismissed Vice President Emmerson Mnangagwa. Although it followed the classical pattern ofmilitary coups, US Secretary of State Rex Tillerson applauded the political transition by saying that “[w]econgratulate all Zimbabweans who raised their voices and stated peacefully and clearly that the time forchange was overdue”4. Likewise, China emphasized its position that “China and Zimbabwe are all-weather
friends”5.
These changes in international trends led to the retreat of the use of democratic goals in the justifications
for coups. In fact, military organizations that staged coups began to cast doubt on value of democracy during
this period. For example, following the 2006 Fiji coup, perpetrator Frank Bainimarama expressed his viewthat democracy could not be espoused without reservation, saying that “[d]emocracy is a good thing but
democracy must not be used to hide corruption or used as a means to divide this nation” (The Southland
Times, Dec.8, 2006). Also, in a 2014 coup in Thailand, the military justified its coup by appealing to more
pragmatic values, stating that “interests” were the most significant factor in country relationships and that“[i]f they know us well, they will not hesitate to praise the [coup]” (BBC Monitoring Asia Pacific, Sep.21,
2014). Thus, with the receding international tide of anti-coup norms from the latter half of the 2000s, theperpetrators of coups also gradually came to distance themselves from the use of “democracy” as ajustification.
In sum, it is clear that changes in how the international community reacts to coups are behind the shifts inthe justifications for coups raised in the previous section.

6. Conclusion
This article has created a unique dataset regarding the rhetoric used in justifying coups; a subject that had
not been analyzed in a systematic or comprehensive manner in prior research. An analysis of thesejustifications goes beyond merely observing the use of language. This endeavor has a substantive
significance in that justification has a strong influence on the political process that follows. Further, ananalysis of justification, which is an analysis of the situation at the very moment of a coup, has made it

4https://www.state.gov/secretary/20172018tillerson/remarks/2017/11/275839.htm (accessed on December

15, 2018)
5

https://www.theguardian.com/world/2017/nov/16/zimbabwe-army-chief-trip-china-last-week-questions-coup (accessed on December 15, 2018)14

possible to directly conduct an empirical analysis of the relationship between coups and democracy without
using other variable factors.
Our dataset has demonstrated three main points. First, the relationship between coups and democracy has
drastically changed after the Cold War. While this has conventionally been a matter of debate, an analysis ofjustifications has shown that the end of the Cold War was a turning point. Second, coups and democracy
were separated again in the latter half of the 2000s, with military organizations citing democracy lessfrequently as a justification for coups. With regard to the influence of coups on democratization, prior studies
had argued that there had been changes since the end of the Cold War. However, they had not argued that
democracy was retreating. This is a unique insight provided by this article. Third, this article has
demonstrated empirically, by creating an original dataset, an existence of the reaction of the international
community to these trends. The anti-coup norm in the international community, which peaked after the endof the Cold War, has begun to recede in the latter half of the 2000s.
Thus, this article has demonstrated that the occurrence of so-called democratic coups did increase after
the Cold War, and that this increase proved to be only a temporary phenomenon.

Reference
Belkin, Aaron and Evan Schofer. 2003. “Toward a Structural Understanding of Coup Risk”, Journal ofConflict Resolution 47(5): 594-620.
Bertocci, Peter J. 1982. “Bangladesh in the Early 1980s: Praetorian Politics in an Intermediate Regime”,
Asian Survey 22(10): 988-1008.
Collier, Paul. 2008. “Let us Now Praise Coups”, Washington Post, June 22: 22.
Dahl, Robert A. 1971. Polyarchy: Participation and Opposition. New Haven, Yale University Press.
Daramola, Adeyemi. 2008. “A Child of Necessity: An Analysis of Political Discourse in Nigeria”,
Pragmatics 18(3): 355-380.
Derpanopoulos, George, Erica Frantz, Barbara Geddes, and Joseph Wright. 2016. “Are Coups Good for
Democracy?”, Research & Politics 3(1): 1-7.
Diamond, Larry. 1999. Developing Democracy: Toward Consolidation. Baltimore: Johns Hopkins
University Press.
Dunning, Thad. 2004. “Conditioning the Effects of Aid: Cold War Politics, Donor Credibility, and
Democracy in Africa”, International Organization 58(2): 409-423.
Feaver, Peter D. 1999. “Civil-Military Relations”, Annual Review of Political Science 2(1): 211-241.
Finer, Samuel. 1988. The Man on Horseback: The Role of the Military in Politics. 2nd ed. Boulder, CO:
Westview Press.
Hoadley, J. Stephen. 1973. “Social Complexity, Economic Development, and Military Coups d'Êtat in Latin
America and Asia”, Journal of Peace Research 10(1-2): 119-120.
Johnson, Thomas H., Robert O. Slater, and Pat McGowan. 1983. “Explaining African Military Coups d'Etat,
1960-1982”, American Political Science Review 78(3): 622-640.
Leon, Gabriel. 2014. “Loyalty for Sale? Military Spending and Coups d’etat”, Public Choice 159(3-4): 36315

383.
Londregan, John B. and Keith T. Poole. 1990. “Poverty, the Coup Trap, and the Seizure of Executive Power”,
World Politics 42(2): 151-183.
Marinov, Nikolay and Hein Goeman. 2014. “Coups and Democracy”, British Journal of Political Science
44(4): 799-825.
Marshall, M. G. and D. R. Marshall. 2016. “Coups d’État events, 1946-2015”, Retrieved fromhttp://www.systemicpeace.org/inscr/CSPCoupsCodebook2015.pdf
Masaki, Takaaki. 2016. “Coups d’État and Foreign Aid”, World Development 79: 51-68.
McCoy, Jennifer L. 2006. “International Response to Democratic Crisis in the Americas, 1990–2005”,
Democratization 13(5): 756-775.
McFaul, Michael. 2004. “Democracy Promotion as a World Value”, The Washington Quarterly 28(1): 147163.
Miller, Andrew C. 2012. “Debunking the Myth of the ‘Good’ Coups d’État in Africa”, African Studies
Quarterly 12(2): 45-70.
Miller, Michael. 2012. “Economic Development, Violent Leader Removal, and Democratization”, American
Journal of Political Science 56(4): 1002-1020.
Needler, Martin C. 1975. “Military Motivations in the Seizure of Power”, Latin American Research Review
10(3): 63-79.
Powell, Jonathan. 2012. “Determinants of the Attempting and Outcome of Coups d’état”, Journal of Conflict
Resolution 56(6): 1017-1040.
Powell, Jonathan M., and Clayton L. Thyne. 2011. “Global Instances of Coups from 1950 to 2010: A New
Dataset”, Journal of Peace Research 48(2): 249-259.
Riley, Steve. 1997. “Sierra Leone: The Militariat Strikes Again”, Review of African Political Economy
24(72): 287-292.
Roessler, Philip. 2011. “The Enemy within: Personal Rule, Coups, and Civil War in Africa”, World Politics
63(2): 300-346.
Shannon, Megan, Thyne, Clayton, Hayden, Sarah. and Dugan, Amanda. 2015. “The International
Community's Reaction to Coups”, Foreign Policy Analysis 11(4): 363-376.
Sutter, Daniel. 1999. “Legitimacy and Military Intervention in a Democracy: Civilian Government as a
Public Good”, American Journal of economics and Sociology 58(1): 129-143.
Svolik, Milan W. 2013. “Contracting on Violence: The Moral Hazard in Authoritarian Repression and
Military Intervention in Politics”, Journal of Conflict Resolution 57(5): 765-794.
Tansey, Oisín. 2017. “The Fading of the Anti-Coup Norm”, Journal of Democracy 28(1): 144-156.
Tansey, Oisín. 2018. "Lowest Common Denominator Norm Institutionalization: The Anti-coup Norm at theUnited Nations", Global Governance 24(2): 287-305.
Thyne, Clayton L. and Jonathan M. Powell. 2016. “Coup d’état or Coup d'Autocracy? How Coups Impact
Democratization, 1950-2008”, Foreign Policy Analysis 12(2): 192-213.
Varol, Ozan. 2012. ‘‘The Democratic Coups d’État”, Harvard International Law Journal 53(2): 292-356.
16

Von Soest, Christian, and Michael Wahman. 2015. “Are Democratic Sanctions Really Counterproductive?”,
Democratization 22(6): 957-980.
Wiseman, John A. 2004. “The Gambia: Recent History”, In Africa South of the Sahara 2004 (33rd edition),edited by Katharine Murison, 455-460. London: Europa Publications Ltd.

17