• What is a coup?
• Origin of the term "coup d'etat"
• Characteristics of a coup
• Causes of coups
• Consequences of coups
• Coups in Argentina
• Coup in Chile

We explain what a coup d'état is, its causes, consequences and other characteristics. Also, historical examples in Argentina and Chile.

Many coups are carried out, or attempted, by the armed forces.

What is a coup?

It is called a coup (or in certain contexts simply "coup"), the sudden and illegal seizure of political power by a sector or social group specific, violating all rules Y laws constitutional laws that regulate its institutional transmission.

It is considered a violent political act, distinct, however, from riots, riots, revolutions and civil wars.

It is also often spoken of a coup d'état when some of the factors that exercise political power take actions that dismantle the institutionality of a nation. That is, when fundamental institutions are eliminated or laws are suppressed, without going through the necessary legal process that allows it, but through authoritarian or forceful measures.

Thus, a coup d'état can occur when a legitimately elected president is deposed by the armed forces, or when an economic elite twists the arms of state institutions to impose a president at their convenience.

It is also a coup when the party that controls the executive power overrides parliament by force, or in other situations in which the institutionality of the formal powers of Condition it is violated. This can sometimes be called a self-coup, as it is a coup that the state inflicts on itself.

In practice, coups are as old as the can same, but they exist as method recognizable from the Modern age, when the values Republicans and Democrats became the norm in the West.

Since then, many nations have suffered them, especially in the so-called Third World during the Cold War, when the powers World economy and politics financed insurgencies depending on how politically related the ruling sectors were.

Origin of the term "coup d'etat"

They began to speak of a “coup d'état” (Coup d'État) in 18th century France, to refer to certain measures taken by the King, of a violent and sudden nature, by means of which he tried to get rid of his political enemies, without any respect for the laws. moral standards or by the legislation.

Since then the term began to be used in other languages, until as early as 1930 it was addressed directly in the book Coup d'état Technique (Colpo di Stato technique) by Curzio Malaparte, in which he analyzes the actions of the fascism Italian and German Nazism.

There, Malaparte explained that not only was an event of this nature possible by the armed or military forces, but also through the conspiracy of civilian forces that led to the fall of a government legitimate through illegal actions.

Other treatises were subsequently written about it, such as Samuel Finer's 1962 book, Man on Horseback: The Role of Military Forces in Politics (The Man on Horseback: The Role of Military in Politics).

Despite what is warned in these texts, coups were particularly common during the twentieth century, especially in the Latin America in the 70s and 80s. More recently, there has been talk of new insurgency methods called "soft coup" or "market coup", favored by the informational and economic dynamics of the globalization.

Characteristics of a coup

Coups d'état are characterized by being:

• Violent and sudden, often causing deaths and material losses.
• Illegal and unconstitutional, since they do not respect any type of legal regulations, but act by force.
• Perpetrated by powerful sectors of the society: the military, the economic leadership, the political class, etc.
• The preferred mechanism for the establishment of de facto governments, that is, dictatorships or autocracies.

Causes of coups

Alleged subversive activities are used to enforce a martial order.

The causes of a coup d'etat can be very diverse, but they are usually never considered legitimate in their conduct, no matter how understandable they are. Some of them can be:

• Deep economical crisis, social or political that encourage some social sectors to seize power.
• Periods of social turbulence, states prior to civil or military conflict, or intense subversive activity, which are used to justify the imposition of a martial “order”.
• Delegitimization of the authorities in the exercise of power, either by politically, morally or economically questionable measures, or because they have in turn committed immoral and unacceptable actions for society.
• Political or economic threats to the interests and privileges of a certain sector of society that responds through an attempted overthrow.

Consequences of coups

The consequences of coups are often unpredictable. In the best of cases, they could initiate a political transition that quickly leads to the democracy, but the opposite could happen.

In fact, most dictatorships in the history They were established through coups d'état, given that once the laws that regulate power and determine how to assign it have been suspended, there is no way to prevent those who took control of the State from remaining in it a weather indeterminate.

In any case, the direct consequences of a coup are usually:

• The overthrow of the instituted government and the loss of the Rule of Law.
• The suspension of rule of law and therefore the violation of the fundamental rights of citizenship.
• The reordering of the political forces of the State, which may imply political persecution, imprisonment and other measures of force.
• The rise to power of a de facto government, that is, illegitimate and illegal.

Coups in Argentina

The 1976 coup led to a bloody dictatorship.

Among Latin American nations, the coup is a sadly common affair, but among them, Argentina's history seems to be particularly rich in coups.

In the 20th century alone, there were six successful coups in this nation, which established dictatorships (the first four provisional, the last two permanent): one in 1930, 1943, 1955, 1962, 1966, and 1976.

• Coup of 1930. It began on September 6, when the president-elect in 1928, Hipólito Yrigoyen, of the Radical Civic Union, was overthrown by the military commanded by José Félix Uriburu. He assumed the presidency in his place, being later recognized by the Supreme Court and giving rise to the "doctrine of de facto governments", which would justify future dictatorships. Thus, a government of neo-corporate Catholic nationalism was installed in Argentina, which failed to govern and ended up calling controlled elections, giving rise to the so-called “infamous Decade” of fraudulent and corrupt conservative governments.
• 1943 coup. This coup against the conservative regime of Ramón Castillo, occurred during the WWII, was supported by the United States to motivate Argentina to abandon its neutral stance towards the conflict in Europe, and thus intervene in British assets in the region. On June 4 of that year, different anti-communist military groups disputed power, ending the "infamous Decade" and beginning the "Revolution of 43", which was a transitory dictatorship culminating in general elections on February 24, 1946 .
• Coup of 1955. Occurred between September 16 and 23 of that year, this insurrectional movement overthrew President Juan Domingo Perón and dissolved the Congress of the Republic, imposing a National Consultative Board in its place. Under the name of "Revolución Libertadora", nationalist-Catholic and liberal-conservative sectors prescribed the Peronist Party and persecuted its sympathizers, until in 1958 they called for elections with the proscription of Peronism, which were won by Arturo Frondizi in an electoral pact of his party, the Unión Cívica Radical, with Perón.
• Coup of 1962. Four years after Arturo Frondizi was elected, on March 29 sectors of the armed forces rose to overthrow him, after the elections of that year won, in several provinces, Peronist parties politically rehabilitated by Frondizi. Power was assumed by José María Guido, provisional president of the Senate, who accepted the guidelines imposed by the military to ban the communism and Peronism, the annulment of past elections and the enactment of a new electoral law.
• Coup of 1966. Occurred on June 28, during the presidency of Arturo Illia, of the Unión Cívica Radical el Pueblo, this coup opened the way to a dictatorship called "Argentine Revolution", which instead of announcing itself as a provisional government, as in In the previous cases, it established a permanent regime, as was happening in other countries of the South American region. Known as the Authoritarian Bureaucratic State, this regime was extremely unstable and suffered two internal coups, so that three military dictators succeeded one another in power: Juan Carlos Onganía (1966-1970), Marcelo Levingston (1970-1971 ) and Alejandro Agustín Lanusse (1971-1973).
• 1976 coup. On March 24 of that year, the government of María Estela Martínez de Perón, wife of the former president, was overthrown by a Military Junta made up of one member of each body of the armed forces. Under the name of "National Reorganization Process", this permanent dictatorship was led by four different military boards, with the excuse of placating the insurgent movements of the radical left Peronist sectors.During a long and bloody dictatorship, the military persecuted and exterminated the dissent, in one of the most emblematic cases of violation of human rights of the continent. After being defeated in the Malvinas War in 1983, the dictatorship gave way to democracy on December 10.

Coup in Chile

The coup against Salvador Allende had the support of the United States.

The coup d'état that occurred in Chile on September 11, 1973 overthrew the democratic government of the socialist Salvador Allende, through an armed insurrection that had the support of the United States, ready to do anything to stop the advance of the socialism in Latin America during the Cold War.

After subduing much of the country, the insurgent military, led by Augusto Pinochet and with a marked anti-communist and conservative spirit, demanded the resignation of the president, who took refuge in the government palace.

The military proceeded to bombard the presidential palace, until they seized political power after Allende's suicide, thus establishing one of the most atrocious dictatorships in South American history: Pinochetism.