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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A successful coup has to have backing by the keys to power. Keys can take several different forms. In a dictatorship the keys would be the treasurer, head of the domestic police, head of the military, etc. If you can get one or more of these individuals to back you AND you can over throw the others then you might have a successful coup. In a Revolution like you are seeing in Iran and China right now there is no hope for success on the rebel side. The citizen class in those countries currently do not have the means to seize the keys and emplace their own. The local governments have already exercised the will to use the domestic police and military to violently expel any rebel uprising, and they are willing to endure the protesting until it subsides. Unless the citizens are able to storm the building and execute the entire governing class or enough to gain the compliance of the remaining governing class, then we will only see more bloodshed until everyone gets tired and goes home.
Occupying a building, usually a government building or symbol of power, is usually symbolic but can lead to very real consequences. Humans are social and hierarchical animals, so shows of power and dissent in prominent places can be powerful even if in isolation they may fail or seem immaterial.
First of all, it obviously signals there is dissent, and that this dissent is either within the government, a body integral to government control such as the military, or is being demonstrated by a body or organisation outside the levers of control but is audacious or powerful enough to show dissent within a location of the regime’s power. Weak attempts at coups may target just a few buildings in an impotent way, but co-ordinated or successful coups aim to seize and occupy multiple locations of power, or affect a small number of nodes of power in some decisive way. These are often military bases and installations, as well as government buildings, as they represent the rulers’ monopoly on violence and its ability to go-ordinate that violence, which human history has shown is more or less an invariable pillar of power – losing these to rebels signals a lack of control and perhaps even the military siding with the dissidents. Really if the military is against the government the coup will likely succeed if external intervention is not present. Likewise, interrupting the functions of a building that hosts some government function may be more than symbolic, and may hinder the government’s ability to function which leave it vulnerable.
Even symbolically, prominent politicians protesting through occupation signal that not only is the government not united, that it is weak and there are reasons for protest, but that the protestors are signalling they are proximate and willing to easily transfer power to themselves in a location that permits this.
Targeting a handful of areas decisively usually means targeting and removing powerful individuals within the government the rebels wish to stage a coup against. Killing or imprisoning a king, nobles, or more contemporaneously military and political leaders like high-ranking officers or politicians will lead to the collapse of the ruling faction that the rebels can exploit to attain power. It also removes the loci of counter-coups by taking away people who can act as figureheads or co-ordinate counter-coups, and placing locations that could be used to do-ordinate counter coups in the hands of the rebels. Palace coups are the classic example, where one faction in a royal court supplants another within a small but important location (usually the palace or capital). These are relatively bloodless but are at the heart of the ruling faction’s base of power and is usually where they live and work, so a coup within one building can still decapitate the ruling faction and allow the rebels to immediately install themselves at this physical and symbolic head of power. Palace coups often involve the royal bodyguard, since if the very people who must be trustworthy and required to protect the leader are treacherous there is no solid foundation for their power, and effective resistance by the guard usually mean a coup without its own superior source of violent threat will likely be destroyed by the guard within that small area.
On the less extreme end, occupying a symbol of power basically makes the ruling government or faction look weak since they cannot prevent open dissent on their doorstep. This show of weakness is often enough to galvanise decisive factions (the military, the press, the public) to in turn feel confident enough to express dissent, and either independently rebel or else back the original rebels wishing to stage the coup. It often places the military or police in a position where they are forced to act decisively; failing to act decisively signals the ruler’s impotence and the military’s incompetence or unwillingness to act. If the military are potent but find they do not want to act against the rebels this signals that they fundamentally will not support the ruler, so it is often more convenient there and then for the military to instead depose the ruler. If the re-taking of the prominent building is half-hearted or protracted it again signals weakness. The original instigators may fail to hold the building but they likely sacrifice themselves to make the regime look weak and thus ripe for later successful coups or rebellions. If they successfully hold the building they are basically signalling the government can’t stop them, and thus is powerless due to lack of support or it’s own impotence. Either way, it makes the government unable to resist coups, or at least look weak, and a weak government will usually in any case invite coups due to the unpopularity this will create combined with the perceived ease of the success of a coup.
Have you seen “v for vendetta” ?
Occupying the building isn’t sufficient. A coup d’etat actually involves removing people from positions of governmental leadership and, optionally, replacing them with other people, but always outside of the methods described by law. In order to be successful, it isn’t enough to say “I now have the power” — the organs of government actually have to treat you like you do.
The “outside the methods described by law” part is what differentiates a coup from just an election.
Nice try Peru leaders, nice try…. I hope this answer is long enough even tho it’s not an answer but an attempt to be funny.
It would never have worked, a successful coup would require a tremendous amount of preparation. Most of all complete support of the military and the police.
That story from germany that you heard about ? Literally just a bunch of lunatics that are being paraded through media. Probably to distract from actual real criminal events, like our chancellor’s involvement in the cum-ex affair, but thats a whole different story.
In case you are interested learning about an actual coup I recommend reading about the “july 20 plot” during WW2. Here you can see an example of a very well prepared coup that only failed because Hitler survived.
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