DOI: 10.13012/b2idb-9651987_v8
title: Cline Center Coup d’État Project Dataset

description: Coups d'Ètat are important events in the life of a country. They constitute an important subset of irregular transfers of political power that can have significant and enduring consequences for national well-being. There are only a limited number of datasets available to study these events (Powell and Thyne 2011, Marshall and Marshall 2019). Seeking to facilitate research on post-WWII coups by compiling a more comprehensive list and categorization of these events, the Cline Center for Advanced Social Research (previously the Cline Center for Democracy) initiated the Coup d’État Project as part of its Societal Infrastructures and Development (SID) project. More specifically, this dataset identifies the outcomes of coup events (i.e., realized, unrealized, or conspiracy) the type of actor(s) who initiated the coup (i.e., military, rebels, etc.), as well as the fate of the deposed leader. 

Version 2.2.0 adds 94 additional coup events. 66 of these came from examining Powell and Thyne’s “discarded” events and 28 of these events were added to the data set in the normal annual review of potential new coup events. This version also updates the coding to events in Brazil in 1945 and the Congo in 1968.

Version 2.1.3 adds 19 additional coup events to the data set, corrects the date of a coup in Tunisia, and reclassifies an attempted coup in Brazil in December 2022 as a conspiracy.

Version 2.1.2 added 6 additional coup events that occurred in 2022 and updated the coding of an attempted coup event in Kazakhstan in January 2022. 

Version 2.1.1 corrected a mistake in version 2.1.0, where the designation of “dissident coup” had been dropped in error for coup_id: 00201062021. Version 2.1.1 fixed this omission by marking the case as both a dissident coup and an auto-coup.

Version 2.1.0 added 36 cases to the data set and removed two cases from the v2.0.0 data. This update also added actor coding for 46 coup events and added executive outcomes to 18 events from version 2.0.0. A few other changes were made to correct inconsistencies in the coup ID variable and the date of the event. 

Version 2.0.0 improved several aspects of the previous version (v1.0.0) and incorporated additional source material to include:
• Reconciling missing event data
• Removing events with irreconcilable event dates
• Removing events with insufficient sourcing (each event needs at least two sources)
• Removing events that were inaccurately coded as coup events
• Removing variables that fell below the threshold of inter-coder reliability required by the project
• Removing the spreadsheet ‘CoupInventory.xls’ because of inadequate attribution and citations in the event summaries
• Extending the period covered from 1945-2005 to 1945-2019
• Adding events from Powell and Thyne’s Coup Data (Powell and Thyne, 2011)

Version 1.0.0 was released in 2013. This version consolidated coup data taken from the following sources:
• The Center for Systemic Peace (Marshall and Marshall, 2007)
• The World Handbook of Political and Social Indicators (Taylor and Jodice, 1983)
• Coup d’Ètat: A Practical Handbook (Luttwak, 1979)
• The Cline Center’s Social, Political and Economic Event Database (SPEED) Project (Nardulli, Althaus and Hayes, 2015)
• Government Change in Authoritarian Regimes – 2010 Update (Svolik and Akcinaroglu, 2006)

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<b>Items in this Dataset</b>

1. <i>Cline Center Coup d'État Codebook v.2.2.0 Codebook.pdf</i> - This 17-page document describes the Cline Center Coup d’État Project dataset. The first section of this codebook provides a summary of the different versions of the data. The second section provides a succinct definition of a coup d’état used by the Coup d'État Project and an overview of the categories used to differentiate the wide array of events that meet the project's definition. It also defines coup outcomes. The third section describes the methodology used to produce the data. <i>Revised January 2025</i>

2. <i>Coup Data v2.2.0.csv</i> - This CSV (Comma Separated Values) file contains all of the coup event data from the Cline Center Coup d’État Project. It contains 29 variables and 1094 observations. <i>Revised January 2025</i>

3. <i>Source Document v2.2.0.pdf</i> - This 347-page document provides the sources used for each of the coup events identified in this dataset. Please use the value in the coup_id variable to identify the sources used to identify that particular event. <i>Revised January 2025</i>

4. <i>README.md</i> - This file contains useful information for the user about the dataset. It is a text file written in markdown language. <i>Revised January 2025</i>

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<b> Citation Guidelines</b>

1. To cite the codebook (or any other documentation associated with the Cline Center Coup d’État Project Dataset) please use the following citation:

Peyton, Buddy, Joseph Bajjalieh, Dan Shalmon, Michael Martin, Jonathan Bonaguro, and Scott Althaus. 2025. “Cline Center Coup d’État Project Dataset Codebook”. Cline Center Coup d’État Project Dataset. Cline Center for Advanced Social Research. V.2.2.0. Janurary 30. University of Illinois Urbana-Champaign. doi: 10.13012/B2IDB-9651987_V8

2. To cite data from the Cline Center Coup d’État Project Dataset please use the following citation (filling in the correct date of access):

Peyton, Buddy, Joseph Bajjalieh, Michael Martin, Sam Alahi, Norah Fadell, and Maddie Jeralds. 2025. Cline Center Coup d’État Project Dataset. Cline Center for Advanced Social Research. V.2.2.0. Janurary 30. University of Illinois Urbana-Champaign. doi: 10.13012/B2IDB-9651987_V8