Why do generals attempting to coup always storm the palace? What happens next? Why do ordinary soldiers follow them? Are they in on the plot?
In: Economics
The Dictators Handbook is a great read that explains this all fairly well.
What keeps a party in power is their ability to control the military, both economically and politically. If either of these issues, but more specifically the economics, are threatened then the military leaders become susceptible to either seize power for themselves or seize power with the intent to install a new government that is more politically acceptable.
So let’s discuss a military led coup first.
The economic issue is pretty simple to understand: if the country stops paying the military, the military will turn around and take it. When the hand thatvfeeds you stops feeding, biting is fair game.
The political issue is a little more complex, but to give one example – if the morale of the military is so low and the governments actions so distasteful to the military structure – there is a chance the military attempts to seize power eith the thought of simply replacing the existing government. It’s rare for a military to seize power and then *retain* it, because a military is not a government structure – it would devolve into essentially a warlord situation.
Anyway, the either situation the result is the same: find an opportune time to physically attack the entire leadership structure of the country.
Now let’s talk *government* lead coups.
A democracy or parliament system can fall to coups if the commander in chief, for whatever reason, orders the military to attempt a dissolution of the other branches of government by way of literally killing them. This requires that the economic and political issues are mitigated by the commander (i.e. they have the ability to pay and/or bribe the military, AND their politics are at least palettable).
This can *also* happen by a *citizen lead* couple. The general populace can literally diamantle their government by raising the capital when the majority of the government body is in session and kill them.
Imagine if, on Janaury 6th, the crowd made it to the House and Senate chambers and just straight up killed every single member of the house and senate. Just straight up an entire branch of government was gone overnight. Whomever lead that would probablynbe powerful enough, politically, to force some form of structural change to our government because the chaos that would ensue would be unimaginable.
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