Coups, Justification, and Democracy

Taku Yukawa, Kaori Kushima and Kaoru Hidaka
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Taku Yukawa: Associate Professor, Osaka School of International Public Policy, Osaka University
Kaori Kushima: Ph.D. Student, Osaka School of International Public Policy, Osaka University
Kaoru Hidaka: Specially Appointed Assistant Professor, Osaka School of International Public Policy, Osaka University

No 19E003, OSIPP Discussion Paper from Osaka School of International Public Policy, Osaka University

Abstract: Coups are inherently illegal actions and are outside the conventional rules of political engagement. How, then, have the military organizations that staged coups justified their actions? What were the objectives cited for these coups? 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, this justification 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. These findings may support the existence of “democratic coups,” an issue that has been debated vigorously in recent years, although such coups have already become less frequent.

Keywords: coups; justification; democracy (search for similar items in EconPapers)
Pages: 17 pages
Date: 2019-03
New Economics Papers: this item is included in nep-his and nep-pol
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Citations: View citations in EconPapers (1)

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Persistent link: https://EconPapers.repec.org/RePEc:osp:wpaper:19e003

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