ABSTRACT The Implications of ICT in Surviving a Coup d’État for a Popular Regime Andrés Cruz Director: Richard Jordan, Ph.D. An analysis of four cases has revealed that modern information and communication technology (ICT) provides an increasing advantage to popular regimes. The first two cases deal with coups that took place before modern ICT, and the second two with coups that took place after. For Algeria in 1961, the regime had, in addition to both enough popularity and legitimacy, the opportunity to make an appeal to the people with contemporary ICT. The regime's appeal kept support for the coup low enough to easily suppress it. The Turkish regime in 1980 had no popularity and chronic instability that was linked to a lack of legitimacy. Even if the regime had been able to reach out to the people, their appeal would have been ignored. Consequently, the regime fell. In Egypt in 2013, the regime had no popularity, and its legitimacy had worn out. The government reached out to the people using modern ICT, but their appeal fell on deaf ears. The coup ultimately succeeded. In Turkey in 2016, the regime had popularity, and legitimacy. In addition to the police and the military, the people answered the president's call to oppose the coup. This mobilization led to the defeat of the coup. Essentially, if the regime enjoys enough popularity and has the opportunity, ICT will facilitate outreach to the people that would, in turn, consolidate the position of the regime. APPROVED BY DIRECTOR OF HONORS THESIS __________________________________________________ Dr. Richard Jordan, Department of Political Science APROVED BY THE HONORS PROGRAM __________________________________________________ Dr. Elizabeth Corey, Director DATE:________________________ THE IMPLICATIONS OF ICT IN SURVIVING A COUP D’ÉTAT FOR A POPULAR REGIME A Thesis Submitted to the Faculty of Baylor University In Partial Fulfilment of the Requirements for the Honors Program By Miguel Andrés Cruz Waco, Texas May 2019 TABLE OF CONTENTS Acknowledgements ............................................................................................................ iii Table of Figures ................................................................................................................. iv Introduction ..........................................................................................................................1 Chapter One: Algeria 1961 ..................................................................................................5 Chapter Two: Turkey 1980 ................................................................................................17 Chapter Three: Egypt 2013 ................................................................................................27 Chapter Four: Turkey 2016 ................................................................................................43 Conclusion .........................................................................................................................54 Appendix ............................................................................................................................59 ii ACKNOWLEDGEMENTS I would like to first and foremost thank Dr. Richard Jordan. Without his guidance, I never would have finished this project. He’s been an excellent director, and I’m fortunate to have worked with him. I’d also like to thank Matthew Walker and Olivia Perez for their insightful suggestions at our meetings. Thank you to Dr. Ivy Hamerly and Dr. Sergiy Kudelia for serving on my committee. I’d like to thank my family for their support and encouragement. I also want to thank my roommates for listening to me ramble about the ideas I would ultimately put in this thesis. Finally, I’d like to thank my best friend in Turkey, who watched the 2016 coup unfold with me. Without that experience, I would not have picked this topic. iii TABLE OF FIGURES Figure 1: The ability of modern ICT to frustrate attempted coups is conditional on the popularity of the regime .............................................................................................................................. 3, 54 Figure 2: Understanding how ICT maximizes survival odds ................................................. 57 iv INTRODUCTION During the failed coup d’état in Turkey in 2016, I watched dumbfoundedly as President Erdoğan addressed the nation by calling a news anchor on FaceTime. I sighed in annoyance every time I received a mass text from the government asking for my support. However, the next morning, Erdoğan and his supporters had defeated the coup. That morning I remembered my grandfather saying, “It isn’t stupid if it works.” Ivan Perkins pointed out that between 1961 and 2011, every independent country, bar twenty- two, underwent a coup attempt.1 Specifically, the majority of Perkins’ non-coup free zones would not have had the ability to reach out using every platform on social media available. Erdoğan, however, managed to harness the power of modern Information and Communication Technology (ICT) to stay in power. More specifically, almost exclusively the regime can benefit from it. No factor has provided more impetus to the collapse of democratic governments than the coup.2 As Perkins pointed out, only twenty-two states did not undergo an attempt at the single biggest factor that leads to a democracy’s collapse. To start with, Edward Luttwak provides a definition saying, “a coup consists of the infiltration of a small but critical segment of the state apparatus, which is then used to displace the government 1 Ivan Perkins, “Staying Power,” August 6, 2014, https://www.foreignaffairs.com/articles/united-states/2014-08-06/staying-power. 2 Nikolay Marinov and Hein Goemans, “Coups and Democracy,” British Journal of Political Science 44, no. 4 (October 2014): 799–825, https://doi.org/10.1017/S0007123413000264. 1 from its control of the remainder.”3 Aaron Belkin and Evan Schofer found good quality statistical evidence linking the following four factors with coups: “Participation in war/military defeat, strength of civil society, regime legitimacy, and past coups.”4 In view of these numbers, understanding how to increase a regime’s chances of survival in a coup carries positive implications for democracy. UNESCO defines ICT as, “Diverse set of technological tools and resources used to transmit, store, create, share or exchange information.”5 UNESCO specifies that technologies include both live and recorded broadcasting technologies, the internet, and telephony. Of course, the level of ICT available depends on the year in which the coup attempt took place. It may seem self-evident, but regimes can only act with the means in their possession. So, a regime facing a coup in 1971 could clearly not rely on Twitter to help defeat the putschists. Erdoğan, in 2016 managed to harness both his popularity and the ICT at hand to rally support. Defining popularity, however, creates some complications. In the United States, examining polling from Gallup and other organizations would provide an indication of the president’s popularity. First, not every state has organizations that conduct such polls. Second, not every state would produce accurate polling information. Citizens living in a regime with authoritarian tendencies may falsify their preferences to avoid getting 3 Edward N. Luttwak, Coup d’État: A Practical Handbook, Revised Edition, 2 edition (Cambridge, Massachusetts: Harvard University Press, 2016). 4 Aaron Belkin and Evan Schofer, “Toward a Structural Understanding of Coup Risk,” The Journal of Conflict Resolution 47, no. 5 (2003): 594–620.' 5 “Information and Communication Technologies (ICT),” May 2, 2017, http://uis.unesco.org/en/glossary-term/information-and-communication-technologies-ict. 2 arrested as dissenters. Consequently, assuming the state in question has elections, the ballot box seems to provide the clearest, if most obvious, indicator of approval. However, barring the existence of other indicators, such as a mass petition to remove the head of state’s legitimacy and have early elections, then election results still serve as the most concrete indicator of popularity. Information and communication technology can directly contribute to an improvement in the ability of a popular regime to stay in power. An unpopular regime with low legitimacy can only count upon itself for survival. Before the advent of modern ICT, popular regimes could only hope that they had the opportunity to attempt to mount opposition to the coup. With ICT, regimes can communicate with citizens through a plethora of methods including mass text messages, Tweets and Facebook posts, and even a variety of television channels. That said, the regime requires the opportunity to use this technology. If the putschists do not allow the opportunity to reach out, ICT will prove ineffective. For a regime, the opportunity to ensure continued contact with citizens grants the ability to appeal for help; an appeal which citizens in a popular regime with legitimacy will answer. 3 Popular Unpopular Internet Era ICT The coup fails The coup succeeds Modern ICT gives the Reaching out creates no popular regime the best benefit for the unpopular chance to rally support regime EX. Turkey 2016 EX. Egypt 2013 Pre-Internet Era ICT The coup may fail The coup succeeds Popularity boosted A lack of popularity made chances of survival with reaching out a futile the tools at hand endeavor EX. Algeria 1961 EX. Turkey 1980 Figure 1: The ability of modern ICT