0 an unexpectedly successful achievement: --
1 a sudden illegal, often violent, taking of government power, especially by part of an army: --
a military coup
2 an unexpectedly successful achievement: --
When governments inconvenience them by trying to retain minimum government rights or increase basic wages, they even use coups against them.
The question, however, is how far such a consensus (assuming that it does exist) percolates down to the junior ranks, from where most of the attempted coups have come.
Many have failed in these domestic tasks, as witnessed by the high incidence of political violence, ethnic strife, military coups, and the failure of democratic experiments until the early 1990s.
Despite the changes in organisation names, the nature of recruitment and the sociopolitical environment have nevertheless sustained identifiable coalitions and networks across elections and military coups.
Alongside the patient accounts of summit-meetings long forgotten, of coups and elections and the comings and goings of heads of state, a few key ideas run through the narrative.
To be sure, some form of elite cooperation did continue after the election of 1993, and carried the fragile situation through two earlier attempted military coups.
The preceding 12 years, 1978 to 1989 saw 54 attempted coups, of which 26 (48 %) were successful.
Likewise, the degree of violence involved can range from none, so-called ' bloodless coups ', to pronounced.