A coup d'état ( AHD: tä), often simply called a coup, is the sudden overthrow of a government by a part of the state establishment — usually the military — to replace the branch of the stricken government, either with another civil government or with a military government.

The coup d'état succeeds if its opponents fail to thwart the usurpers, allowing them to consolidate their positions, obtain the surrender of the overthrown government or acquiescence of the populace and the surviving armed forces, and thus claim legitimacy. Coups d'état typically use the power of the existing government for the takeover. As Edward Luttwak remarks in Coup d'État: A Practical Handbook: A coup consists of the infiltration of a small, but critical, segment of the state apparatus, which is then used to displace the government from its control of the remainder. In this sense, the use of either military or another organized force is not the defining feature of a coup d'état.

Since the unsuccessful coups d'état of Wolfgang Kapp in 1920 (the Kapp Putsch), and of Adolf Hitler in 1923 (the Beer Hall Putsch), the Swiss German word "Putsch" ( ) (originally coined with the Züriputsch of 1839) is often used also, even in French (such as the putsch of 8 November 1942 and the putsch of April 21, 1961, both in Algiers) and Soviet Union (August Putsch in 1991), while the direct German translation is Staatsstreich.

Usage

Politically, the coup d'état is a type of political engineering, generally violent (hence "strike", "blow"; French "coup"), but not always, yet differing from a revolution (by a larger, armed group to effect violent, radical change to the political system) in that the change is to the government, not the form of government.

Linguistically, coup d'état is French for “a stroke of state” (coup 1, d' 2 état, 3). Analogously, the term also is casually used to mean gaining advantage on a rival, either by a group or a person, e.g. an intelligence coup, boardroom coup.

Tactically, a coup d'état usually involves control by an active portion of the country's military, while neutralizing the remainder of the armed services' possible counteraction. The acting group either captures or expels the political and military leaders, seizes physical control of the most important government offices, means of communication, and the physical infrastructure, such as key streets and electric power plants.

Etymology

Although the coup d'état has been used in politics since antiquity,Julius Caesar's civil war, 5 January, 49 BC the expression itself is relatively new. Per the Oxford Dictionary, in 1646, Howell first used coup d'État in his book Louis XIII: Life of Richelieu. It was first used in England, in 1811, by Thompson, referring to Napoleon Bonaparte's overthrowing of the Revolutionary Directory in 1799.Fact: date=April 2007