When a Coup is not a Coup. Conceptual Stretching of a Controversial Concept

• In Event: Democracy and Democratic Backsliding

Abstract

Coups d'état have traditionally been regarded as the greatest threat to the survival of democracy. The sudden, often military-backed removal of the government customarily meant the end of a democratic regime. In this age of democratic backsliding and populism (Mechokva, Lührmann, and Lindberg 2017, Inglehart and Norris 2016, Diamond 2015), however, democracies are threatened by incumbent takeovers (Svolik 2015) or slow and incremental processes of executive aggrandizement (Bermeo 2016), not classical, military coups, which are fewer than ever (Powell and Thyne 2011, Dix 1994, Marinov and Goemans 2014, Derpanopoulos et al. 2016, Belkin and Schofer 2005, McGowan 2003). Despite the decline of coups d'état worldwide, we document a puzzling increase in the use of the term when combined with a qualifying adjective in traditional and social media, as well as in academic texts. This paper asks why the use of the term increases while the occurrence of the phenomenon has been sharply reduced. Secondly, we ask what this increased use, often connected with a qualifying adjective, does to the term coup d'état in terms of its definition, validity, analytical value, and to political discourse in particular in political contexts of high polarisation.
Using data from Google Books (up to 2008) and Google Trends in addition to scholarly databases (Social Science Citation Index, Scientific Electronic Library Online) and performing a broad literature review, this manuscript first establishes and maps the use of the term coup d'état across different sources and categories of media, and seek to explain the puzzling pattern of increased use of the term while its empirical prevalence is reduced. We explore in particular whether the increase of the use of the term is linked to prevalence induced concept change or increased polarization. Further, the data are used to investigate the extent to which academic use differs from non-academic use, variation in the use of the term over time, and how and the degree to which the coup d'état has been redefined or reconceptualised through recent usage. Finally, the paper discusses how the current, and increased usage of the term both reflects and feeds into increased polarization. Used more and more as a tool for delegitimation rather than a conceptual tool for analysis, the concept becomes tantamount to almost any type of mandate interruption. The concept therefore loses its preciseness, analytical value, and validity, in addition to degrading the quality of the political discourse, and potentially holding grave consequences for policy.

Authors

• Leiv Marsteintredet, University of Bergen

• Ernesto F. Calvo, University of Maryland

• Andres Malamud, Universidade de Lisboa