A coup d’etat is French for “blow against the state.” It is not a revolution (revolutions involve people, coups involve uniforms). It is not a civil war (too slow, too messy). It is definitely not an election (those are the things coups are supposed to replace). It is a small group of absolute bastards (usually military, sometimes intelligence or party insiders) kicking the current leadership out and putting themselves in charge. Ideally it is over in a few hours. Ideally nobody notices until they wake up hungover and there is a new asshole on the television.
Three things you need to pull this off:
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Control of the state’s coercive apparatus. You need the military or at least a big chunk of it. Without guns, it is just a protest with better suits (and protesters tend to lose when the bullets start flying).
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Speed. Coups are won or lost in the first 24 hours. If the old government has time to rally support, call loyal troops, or flee and set up a counter-government, congratulations, you now have a civil war (and those are way more annoying).
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Legitimacy theater. The new government needs to pretend it was not a coup. They will claim they are “restoring democracy” or “protecting the constitution” or “responding to the will of the people.” Nobody buys this garbage but they say it anyway because that is how the game works.
There are three flavors: the military coup (soldiers with guns, most common in Africa and Latin America), the palace coup (someone inside the ruling circle stabs the leader in the back, most common in monarchies and one-party states), and the popular coup (mass protests backed by military defectors, most common when some dictator tries to steal an election and the people tell him to fuck off).
Coming soon: The Classical Coup, How to Take Over a Country in 12 Hours