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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It boils down to power. Most of the somewhat pathetic coups we see (and this is definitely one of them) tend to fail because they focus on seizing one important symbolic thing, and the plotters think that if they seize (building/object/scepter/whatever) then everyone will just naturally switch their allegiance to them.
Humans obviously don’t work that way. If you were able somehow to seize the White House, Capitol Building, and Supreme Court building, America wouldn’t suddenly ask you for marching orders. They’d storm the buildings and take them back.
This is why coups have less chance of success in countries where power is decentralized (ie, democracies/republics). They are more successful in countries with heavily centralized power- if a strongman rules the country with absolute power, and I take out the strongman, it is far easier to simply step in and be the new guy issuing orders. My only real task from that point is eliminating competition.
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