Basically title, because I saw an article from BBC that a few people tried to seize power in Germany. Do they get the power just by occupying the building? Do other states recognise this? What happens to the constitution and the law? Is is a lawless state while they create a new constitution?
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Looking at unsuccessful coups is a bad way of conceptualising how a coup is supposed to work, because if the state were in the necessary position for a coup to work, it would work.
Generally, the idea of a coup is to seize control of the state. This needs the support of the people who make up the state apparatus; the army, the police, the courts, etc. If you seize control, and everyone below you agrees you are now in charge, successful coup. A constitution is just a piece of paper if nobody believes in it, so they just write a new one and everyone agrees that that new one is the legitimate constitution.
When it comes to international relations and how foreign nations react, it really depends. If the new government is more friendly to your interests than the old, and doesn’t look poised to collapse, they’ll likely be recognised in an attempt to normalise relations.
Coups generally succeed because they’re seen as more legitimate than the government they’re overthrowing. Coups only work in a democracy if something has gone very wrong, so let’s look at it from the point of view of the Germans trying the coup.
They don’t view the Federal Republic as legitimate. They think the state is an illegitimate Republic controlled by a sneaky cabal of bureaucrats. So all they need to do is seize control, and everyone will support them as liberators. Don’t buy into your own bullshit.
It’s not “This building makes us legitimate”, it’s “This building didn’t make the people before us legitimate”.
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