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A military coup is a power grab by the army, often with the support of popular forces. While each coup is unique, the causes are common. The failures of democratic governments to deliver freedom and security, unmet demands for social and economic change, a sense that elections are rigged or manipulated, and military leaders’ own ambitions can push them toward seeking control at the barrel of the gun.
In Bolivia, the country’s president Luis Arce thwarted an apparent coup attempt Wednesday when Army General Juan Jose Zuniga was arrested, as troops with tanks attempted to storm the presidential palace in the capital, La Paz. It was the latest in a series of military attempts to seize power from elected leaders.
Coups d’etat often arise from political instability or the repression of democratically elected politicians by dictators and autogolpes, as well as corruption in both the government and private sector. Other factors that can lead to a military coup are the weakness of civilian institutions, suggested by Samuel Huntington’s “coup ceiling” theory, and the relative wealth or poverty of the population, as evidenced by the failed Ugandan countercoup of 1971.
While it’s important to recognize and react to military coups when they happen, identifying when a coup is taking place can be tricky for many democratic governments. The dictionary definition is relatively clear: Merriam-Webster defines a coup as “a sudden illegal, and often violent, seizure of government by part of the military.” But the fact that something is not a military coup does not necessarily mean it’s not a coup; for example, Tunisian constitutional scholar Kais Saied froze parliament and dismissed his prime minister in 2021 and then rewrote the constitution to greatly expand his own powers, effectively ending his country’s post-Arab Spring experiment with democracy.
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