Journal of Peace Research http://jpr.sagepub.com Civil Resistance to Military Coups Adam Roberts Journal of Peace Research 1975; 12; 19 DOI: 10.1177/002234337501200102 The online version of this article can be found at: http://jpr.sagepub.com Published by: http://www.sagepublications.com On behalf of: International Peace Research Institute, Oslo Additional services and information for Journal of Peace Research can be found at: Email Alerts: http://jpr.sagepub.com/cgi/alerts Subscriptions: http://jpr.sagepub.com/subscriptions Reprints: http://www.sagepub.com/journalsReprints.nav Permissions: http://www.sagepub.com/journalsPermissions.nav Downloaded from http://jpr.sagepub.com by Adam Roberts on August 16, 2007 © 1975 International Peace Research Institute, Oslo. All rights reserved. Not for commercial use or unauthorized distribution. Civil Resistance to Military Coups ADAM ROBERTS The London School of Economics & Political Science If one of the functions of government is to with or without the aid of foreigners. The provide for internal and external security, overthrow of the Allende government in many governments have left themselves and Chile in 11 September 1973 was a reminder their countries extraordinarily vulnerable in of this fact. face of the military coup d’ état. There is Governments faced with the possibility of substantial evidence that civil resistance may a military coup are sometimes, at least in offer a means whereby at least some govern- the military sense, defenceless. When an ments - particularly those which enjoy a army revolts there may be no one, or at least high degree of legitimacy - may ward off no guns, to oppose it. And even if parts of this threat. the armed forces remain loyal to the govern- The problem of military coups is a serious ment - as is most often the case - they may one. The coup is the classic technique where- not wish to take sides in the conflict for by military control is extended into civil fear that the ensuing recriminations and life; and it is also widely used in interna- violence would destroy the unity of the tional conflicts, for example when a foreign armed forces and their subsequent capacity power seeks to gain control of the govern- for national defence. ment of a country. It is of course perfectly Military coups are in fact sometimes pre- possible to envisage circumstances in which vented or defeated by civil resistance, either a coup is justifiable politically and beneficial on its own or in conjunction with the threat in its effects;’ and the increased incidence or use of violence. ’Civil resistance’ can be of coups in recent years can quite plausibly defined as a technique of political struggle be attributed in part at least to the failings relying on non-violent methods of action. of civilian governments. Nevertheless, the The reasons for the avoidance of violence coup tends to undermine the basis of legiti- can be various, including ethics, habit, law, macy on which governments depend, and to or prudence. Civil resistance can be used as replace it with the open use of force and an alternative to, or in various kinds of con- terror. It can easily lead either to further junction with, more violent forms of pressure coups or to civil war. Only rarely do mili- or struggle.2 Such resistance can be a partic- tary regimes turn out to be better than their ularly appropriate response to the coup, be- civilian predecessors. cause it can serve to strengthen any factions The problem of military coups is perhaps within the armed forces which oppose the especially serious for advocates of radical coup; and because it can highlight the de- state policies such as expropriating foreign pendence of the armed forces, and even assets, or reaching a peace settlement with a more of a newly-established military govern- recent enemy, or reducing the size, functions ment, on popular acquiescence and support. or privileges of the armed forces. Any gov- Deprived of this acquiescence and support, ernment embarking on one of these policies military governments can fail. may find itself faced with the danger of a There is no suggestion here that civil re- military coup conducted by its own forces, sistance is the only, nor necessarily the best, Downloaded from http://jpr.sagepub.com by Adam Roberts on August 16, 2007 © 1975 International Peace Research Institute, Oslo. All rights reserved. Not for commercial use or unauthorized distribution. 20 means by which the problem of the coup say: ’I have been unable to find a single d’etat can be tackled. It is a last resort, of case in the last twenty years of a para-mili- value in some crises, but to focus attention tary police which has actually defended its on it is not to deny that prevention is better political masters during a coup.’4 This may than cure. A generally acceptable constitu- be slightly exaggregated: the Ton Ton tional system, good government, the inculca- Macoutes in Haiti are perhaps an ugly ex- tion in the military of codes of honour or ception.5 But para-military forces are usual- ideological norms forbidding interference in ly reluctant to make a stand against regular civil affairs, and specific security measures forces attempting to seize the government. within the armed forces, can all help to re- In general, to threaten violence against a duce the danger of military takeover. coup is to threaten civil war, and carrying Even if attempts to forestall it fail, and a out that threat has in fact often led to civil coup d’etat does occur, civil resistance is not war - for example in Spain from 1936 to the only means by which it can be opposed. 1939. In that case an actual civil war failed A variety of more violent methods can be to defeat a croup. In other cases - for ex- employed, or threatened. Ad hoc militias ample in Greece after the croup of 20-21 can be formed, or permanent para-military April 1967 - the fear of the civil war, by forces whose sole task is to protect the inhibiting political action, can serve to help government can be brought into action. those who have seized power. It injects Foreign forces can be invited to intervene inertia into the situation, which works to the to preserve the constitutional order. But all new regime’s advantage. of these are doubtful remedies. While they Athough there is frequently no military should not be rejected dogmatically, the defence against them, it remains true that reasons why they are not likely to succeed coup often fail. The reason why they fail in more than a limited number of cases need have been studied all too little. Much of the to be understood. modern literature on the subject suggests Sometimes foreign forces may intervene that the croup is basically a matter of tech- in a state to prevent or defeat a coup d’etat. nique : that armies can overthrow a govern- The British military interventions in East ment provided they have the military re- Africa in the late 1960’s were unusual in- sources to do so. Some Marxists, working on stances of this, as was the Turkish invasion the assumption that the state is simply a rule of Cyprus in July 1974. But very few govern- of force, share this view.6 ments are willing to make their existence An extreme example of the widespread dependent upon the will of a foreign power. preoccupation with technique was Edward There is the additional disadvantage that Luttwak’s controversial book Cou¢ d’Etat. any outside intervention against a military Luttwak wrote that the ’ultimate rationale’ coup could enable coup leaders to claim that of political life is ’sheer force’, and S. E. they were leading a patriotic struggle against Finer (himself a noted writer on the subject) foreign attack.3 said in his foreword to Luttwak’s book that Para-military formations, whose task is ’it is necessary to meet fire with fire’.7 Such either to protect the constitutional order in generalizations were belied in Luttwak’s general (for example the CRS in France), or own text, where he referred in various un- to protect a particular national leader (for connected passages to the variety of pres- example Milton Obote’s former private sures, far removed from ’sheer force’, which army, the General Service Unit), may in can prevent or frustrate a cou¢. A military principle seem easiest way out of the dilem- or bureaucratic machine which does not in mas posed by the coup d’ltat. But in reality fact operate as a machine, which does not they do not. appear to be much of a protec- obey orders without questioning their con- tion. Edward Luttwak has gone so far as to tent or legitimacy, can make a cou¢ ’very Downloaded from http://jpr.sagepub.com by Adam Roberts on August 16, 2007 © 1975 International Peace Research Institute, Oslo. All rights reserved. Not for commercial use or unauthorized distribution. 21 difficult to carry out’.8 But there was no faction with the naval limitations imposed coherent discussion of types of resistance or upon Japan by the London Naval Treaty of the mechanisms by which they operate. 1930. The coup was opposed neither by the police, nor by the other parts of the army. Failed coups But the coup leaders failed to establish their The cases in which civil resistance has con- own legitimacy. Three important figures es- tributed to the defeat of attempted coups caped the assassins: Count Makino, The are numerous. Often it has done so in collab- Lord Keeper of the Privy Seal; Baron oration with the use or threat of military Suzuki Kantaro, the Grand Chamberlain; force.