Will there be blood? Explaining violence during coups d’état
| DOI | 10.1177/0022343319839449 |
| Published date | 01 November 2019 |
| Date | 01 November 2019 |
| Subject Matter | Regular Articles |
Will there be blood? Explaining violence
during coups d’e
´tat
Erica De Bruin
Government Department, Hamilton College
Abstract
Although just under half of all coup d’e
´tat attempts involve fatalities, there has been surprisingly little attention to the
conditions under which coups turn violent. Existing research emphasizes the incentives coup plotters have to avoid
bloodshed but does not explain the conditions under which violence nonetheless occurs. This article develops a
theoretical framework that predicts that the extent of violence that occurs during coup attempts will vary system-
atically with central features of incumbent regimes and coup plotters. It then tests these predictions using new data
on the fatalities associated with 377 coup attempts between 1950 and 2017. Coups against military regimes are
found to be less violent than those against civilian dictatorships. This is because military rulers are better able to
estimate the likelihood of the coup succeeding and more sensitive to the costs associated with using violence to
suppress a coup. Since their post-coup fates tend to be better than those of other authoritarian leaders, they also have
fewer incentives to hang on to power at any cost. The analysis also demonstrates that coups led by senior officers
involve less bloodshed than those by junior officers and enlisted men. However, coups against rulers that counter-
balance their militaries are no more violent than those against rulers that do not. The results shed new light on the
dynamics of coup attempts.
Keywords
civil-military relations, counterbalancing, coup d’e
´tat, coup-proofing, military regimes
Introduction
The threat of violence underlies all coup d’e
´tat attempts.
It is what distinguishes coups from voluntary resigna-
tions and other peaceful transfers of power (Luttwak,
1979; Marshall & Marshall, 2016). Yet the extent of
violence that occurs during coup attempts varies widely.
Many coups are carried out without bloodshed. This is
true even of coup attempts in countries with deep ethnic
divisions, like those in Nigeria in 1993 and Fiji in 2006,
neither of which resulted in a single fatality. Violence can
also be strikingly limited during coup attempts in coun-
tries experiencing other forms of political unrest. The
1977 coup attempt in Pakistan and the 1992 coup in
Peru were bloodless even though both countries were
embroiled in civil wars at the time. Other coup attempts,
however, resultin a significant number of deaths. In Haiti,
35 people died in the1989 coup attempt, as coup plotters
exchanged ‘intense rifle and artillery fire’ with loyal troops
in a battle for control over the capital (Preston, 1989: A3;
see also Treaster, 1989). The failed July 2016 coup in
Turkey resulted in an estimated 265 deaths (Arango &
Yeginsu, 2016). Coups in the Dominican Republic in
1965 and Guinea Bissauin 1998 killed thousands (Bosch,
2007; Dixon & Sarkees, 2016). What explains why some
coup attempts are more violent than others?
There has been surprisingly little scholarly attention
to this question. A related literature on civil war severity
has begun to develop (e.g. Lacina, 2006; Heger & Saleh-
yan, 2007; Balcells & Kalyvas, 2014). However, quanti-
tative research on coups has thus far focused on the
incidence and outcome of coup attempts (e.g. Londregan
& Poole, 1990; Powell, 2012; Svolik, 2013; Piplani &
Talmadge, 2015; Bo
¨hmelt & Pilster, 2015; Bell & Sud-
duth, 2017; De Bruin, 2018), as well as their impact on
democratization (Marinov & Goemans, 2014; Thyne &
Corresponding author:
edebruin@hamilton.edu
Journal of Peace Research
2019, Vol. 56(6) 797–811
ªThe Author(s) 2019
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DOI: 10.1177/0022343319839449
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