The Democratic Coup d’Etat opens with a simple statement of its controversial premise: “Sometimes democracy is established through a military coup.” In the ensuing 200 pages, Ozan Varol’s new book presents a nuanced examination of the factors that comprise a military coup and how it may (may) result democracy: the makeup of the military forces, the relationship between the military and the governing dictatorship, the relationship between the populace and the military after the coup. Anyone interested in the creation and maintenance of functioning democracies will find valuable insights within its pages.
One of the first striking things about the book is encountering the sheer number of dictatorships in recent world history. The book is rife with examples illustrating different causes and outcomes of military coups, ranging from the recent events in Turkey to Burkina Faso in 2014, Romania under Ceausescu, Portugal in 1974, Peru in 1975, Brazil in ’45, Guatemala in ’44, and many others.
But the events of the Arab Spring provide the most prominent touchstone in the book. Partially inspired by the events in Cairo in 2011, where the Egyptian military toppled of longtime dictator Hosni Mubarak following months of popular protests against the regime, the book frequently returns to this recent example of how the military may play a role in both installing and overthrowing a democratically-elected government.
Varol’s description of the factors that create a military coup are fascinating. I had never before considered the difference between a “military state” and a “police state,” and how that affects civilians’ attitudes to the armed forces. Another interesting chapter analyzes how a military decides to support or crush a burgeoning democratic movement, comparing volunteer military forces to “citizen-soldiers” serving mandatory conscription and likely to have closer ties to members of a popular uprising.
While reading the first sections of the book, I wondered what lessons democratic activists could learn from this history. A late chapter, “Between Scylla and Charbydis,” provides a helpful analysis. There, Varol describes the difficult passage civilians must navigate in a post-coup society: the military will demand from the new government certain “exit benefits,” such as structuring the new civilian government to grant the military greater power in domestic affairs, in exchange for handing control back to the people. If civilians wish to negotiate against the military’s demands, they will have to do so without provoking a heavy-handed backlash from the armed forces. Varol suggests civilians can take anticipatory action for these circumstances and describes bargaining positions, such as “sunset dates” that gradually reduce military involvement in politics. Subsequent chapters in the book further describe this kind of high-stakes society-wide hostage negotiation, as well as the organizing that civilian political parties must do to gain and maintain popular support and establish a balanced civil-military relationship.
The book is valuable not just for its analysis of the ways militaries interact with democratic institutions, but for its description of how civilians can build democratic institutions that withstand antidemocratic forces and prevent military coups. Following foreign events like the Arab Spring from afar can be difficult, but Varol breaks down military involvement in these uprisings in clear and engaging chapters. The Democratic Coup d’Etat is a must-read for anyone who wants to understand the dynamics underlying contemporary democracy.
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