On December 3, 2024, something unexpected – but hardly unprecedented – happened in South Korea. Without warning, President Yoon Suk Yeol declared Emergency lawciting the specter of “pro-North Korean anti-state forces.”
The move seemed to be more about curbing efforts by the fundamental opposition – the center-left Democratic Party – to thwart Yoon's political agenda through its control of parliament Many South Koreans were stunned. As a resident of Seoul told reporters: “It feels like a coup.”
This interviewee was not far-off.
As a scholar of Authoritarian politics and authors of The Kolpus dataset from Coup types and characteristicswe spent countless hours Documenting the history of coups for the reason that Second World War.
Yoon's short-lived declaration of martial law – it lasted only just a few hours before it was lifted – was an example of what political scientists call an “autogolpe,” or, to provide the phenomenon its English name, a “self-coup.”
Our show data that self-coups have gotten increasingly common, more common within the last decade than in some other ten-year period for the reason that end of World War II. Below you'll learn why what self-coups involve happens – and why Yoon's move failed, unlike about 80% of all self-coups.
The components of a self-coup
All coup attempts have some characteristics in common. It is an try and usurp executive power and a selected, observable and illegal motion by military or civilian personnel.
In an everyday coup, those responsible try and wrest power from an incumbent or presumed leader. In the past, most coups were carried out or not less than supported by military actors. A classic example is the Chilean army under General Augusto Pinochet overthrew the federal government by Salvador Allende in 1973 and imposed military rule.
However, some coups are led by the leaders themselves.
These self-coups are coups in reverse. Instead of replacing the country's leader in an unconstitutional manner, the incumbent executive takes or encourages illegal actions against other people within the regime – for instance, the courts or parliament – with the aim of extending their terms of office or expanding their very own power.
This may involve a government leader using troops to paralyze the legislature, as Yoon tried unsuccessfully in South Korea. Others had more success; Tunisian president Kais Saeed organized a self-coup in July 2021 by dismissing parliament and the judiciary to pave the best way for the expansion of his power as president. More than three years later, Saied stays in power.
Alternatively, a pacesetter could try it force state officials or the legislature reverse an election defeat. We saw how that happened Donald Trump after the 2020 US presidential election, and so we're including his try and pressure local officials – and then-Vice President Mike Pence – to overturn the election ends in our list of “self-coup attempts.”
The variants of self-coup methods
But not all The executive seizes power are self-coups. For example, when a president gets the legislature to increase presidential term limits and the courts agree – as Bolivian president Evo Morales This is what it did in 2017 – it might be a blow to executive constraints and democracy, but we don’t consider it a coup because the method for changing the law is constitutional.
In total, within the forthcoming Self-Colpus dataset, we have now captured 46 self-coups by democratically elected leaders since 1945, including probably the most recent attempt in South Korea. Our self-coup data was compiled over the past three years with the assistance of some enterprising students at Carnegie Mellon University.
Reviewing the circumstances – and outcomes – of those incidents helps us discover probably the most common characteristics of self-coups.
Yoon's actions in South Korea were typical in some ways, but not in others. More than half of self-coup attempts in democratic countries goal the judiciary or legislature, while around 40% explicitly aim to undermine democratic elections or prevent election winners from taking office. The rest goal other regime elites or a nominal leader.
Yoon imposed martial law to wrest executive power from an opposition-led legislature.
Interestingly, only 1 / 4 of self-coup attempts in democracies involve such an emergency declaration. Attacks on opposition parties and leaders and interference with elections are rather more common.
Approximately one in five self-coup leaders suspends or annuls the structure.
Relatively few self-coup attempts in democracies involve attempts to avoid term limits, although self-coups do end in what are often called “self-coup attempts.”Leaders for all times” have gotten increasingly common in Africa.
Why are self-coups increasing?
Coups and self-coups are two of probably the most common causes of death in democracies, although their relative frequency has modified over time.
While coups were the fundamental reason behind the collapse of democracy throughout the Cold War, self-coups have been the fundamental cause for the reason that fall of the Soviet Union within the early Nineteen Nineties.
A 3rd of all coup attempts by democratically elected leaders since 1946 have occurred within the last decade alone.
Although more research is required to elucidate the recent rise in self-coups, we imagine a part of the reply lies inside Decline of anti-coup norms – during which democracies punish coup plotters by refusing recognition, foreign aid or trade agreements – and the Rise of personalist politics global.
Why do self-coups fail?
Presidents and prime ministers who attempt a self-coup probably assume they’ve an excellent likelihood of success – in the event that they didn't, they wouldn't attempt a coup in the primary place.
The undeniable fact that Yoon seemingly began his self-coup attempt without prior support from the leaders of his own party could be very unusual.
While only half of traditional coup attempts are successful, in accordance with our data, greater than 4 out of 5 self-coup attempts by democratically elected leaders are successful.
Hector Mata/AFP via Getty Images
So what went mistaken for Yoon in South Korea?
Coup success Depends on coordination many individuals, including partisan allies and military elites. Although open military support just like the one Yoon initially received is useful, it shouldn’t be at all times decisive.
Most failed self-coups occur when military and party elites defect. The reasons for these migrations are often a combination of structural and contingent aspects. When masses of individuals pour into the streets to withstand the coup, as we saw in Seoul, military personnel can develop into nervous and expire. And international condemnation of the coup can definitely help thwart our own coup attempts.
Public support for democracy also helps. That’s why self-coups don’t typically occur in long-established democracies just like the United States which have amassed.”democratic capital“ – the stock of civic and social wealth that grows with a protracted history of democracy.
Although South Korea was a military dictatorship from 1961 to 1987, democratic rule prevailed for a long time. And the system was working in South Korea when it was threatened. Party leaders voted unanimously against Yoon.
This is in contrast to successful self-coups within the country Park Chung-hee in 1972 And Chun Doo-hwan in 1980.
What happens to failed self-coup leaders?
Rarely has a failed self-coup leader remained in office for long. The self-coup may end in their overthrow in a coup, as was the case with Haiti's Dumarsais Estimé in May 1950. Or they will likely be charged, as happened Peru's Pedro Castillo in December 2022. According to our data, just one failed self-coup leader managed to stay in office for greater than a 12 months until the tip of his term. Although he was not forced from office after the flawed 1994 Dominican Republic elections, Joaquin Balaguer needed to comply with latest elections in 1996 during which he wouldn’t run.
So the chances are high good that President Yoon's days in power are numbered. After his coup attempt, six opposition parties filed a motion to question the president. This application needs 200 out of 300 members to be adopted by the National Assembly.
All 190 members present voted to lift martial law, including 18 of 108 members of Yoon's party. Only just a few members of the conservative party would should vote against Yoon for the impeachment process to maneuver forward.
South Korea's democratic institutions are threatened by a self-coup appear to hold – not less than for now.
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