Coups And Revolutions

In 2011, Egypt witnessed more protests than any other country in the world: the beginning of a revolutionary process that would unfold in three waves of revolution, followed by two waves of counterrevolution. In addition to providing new and unprecedented empirical data, the book makes two theoretical contributions. First, a new framework is presented for analyzing the state apparatus in Egypt that is based on four pillars of regime support which can either prop upor press upon whoever is in power: the Egyptian military, the business elite, the United States, and the multi-headed opposition. Secondly, the book brings together the literature on bottom-up revolutionary movements and top-down military coups, and introduces the concept of a coup from below incontrast to the revolution from above that took place under Gamal Abdel Nasser.

The term coup d'état--French for stroke of the state--brings to mind coups staged by power-hungry generals who overthrow the existing regime, not to democratize, but to concentrate power in their own hands as dictators. We assume all coups look the same, smell the same, and present the same threats to democracy. It's a powerful, concise, and self-reinforcing idea. It's also wrong. In The Democratic Coup d'État, Ozan Varol advances a simple, yet controversial, argument: Sometimes, a democracy is established through a military coup. Covering events from the Athenian Navy's stance in 411 B.C. against a tyrannical home government, to coups in the American colonies that ousted corrupt British governors, to twentieth-century coups that toppled dictators and established democracy in countries as diverse as Guinea-Bissau, Portugal, and Colombia, the book takes the reader on a gripping journey. Connecting the dots between these neglected events, Varol weaves a balanced narrative that challenges everything we thought we knew about military coups. In so doing, he tackles several baffling questions: How can an event as undemocratic as a military coup lead to democracy? Why would imposing generals-armed with tanks and guns and all-voluntarily surrender power to civilian politicians? What distinguishes militaries that help build democracies from those that destroy them? Varol's arguments made headlines across the globe in major media outlets and were cited critically in a public speech by Turkish President Recep Tayyip Erdogan. Written for a general audience, this book will entertain, challenge, and provoke, but more importantly, serve as a reminder of the imperative to question the standard narratives about our world and engage with all ideas, no matter how controversial.

This book sets out to test the hypothesis that the fundamental concept which determines the validity and competence of usurper regimes in common law jurisdictions is the concept of legitimacy as was clearly elucidated in the Grenada Case of Mitchell v DPP (1986). A comparative analysis of this case in juxtaposition with sixteen other extra-constitutional common law cases comprised the main scope of the study. Consequently, an exhaustive survey of these cases beginning with the Dosso case in Pakistan in 1958 and ending with the Qarase case in Fiji in 2009 was conducted. The analysis reveals that the appropriateness of utilizing any of the judicially recognized doctrinal concepts of strict constitutionalism, state necessity, Kelsen's theory of revolutionary legality and the doctrine of successful revolution depends, inter alia, on whether there was continuity or discontinuity of the legal order of the state. These doctrinal concepts have their own implications for the concept of legitimacy following the occurrence of a coup d'etat or a revolution.Legitimacy itself has important implications for resolving various extra-constitutional issues which inevitably arise.

"In the 20th and 21st century revolutions have become more urban, often less violent, but also more frequent and more transformative of the international order. Whether it is the revolutions against Communism in Eastern Europe and the USSR; the "color revolutions" across Asia, Europe and North Africa; or the religious revolutions in Iran, Afghanistan, and Syria; today's revolutions are quite different from those of the past. Modern theories of revolution have therefore replaced the older class-based theories with more varied, dynamic, and contingent models of social and political change. This new edition updates the history of revolutions, from Classical Greece and Rome to the Revolution of Dignity in the Ukraine, with attention to the changing types and outcomes of revolutionary struggles. It also presents the latest advances in the theory of revolutions, including the issues of revolutionary waves, revolutionary leadership, international influences, and the likelihood of revolutions to come. This volume provides a brief but comprehensive introduction to the nature of revolutions and their role in global history"--

1989 was one of the great Years of Revolution in history, and it was also the anniversary of many famous revolutions. As the world commemorated the two hundredth anniversary of the French Revolution, startling changes were occuring in an Eastern Europe whose political map had been drawn in the aftermath of the Second World War, the revolutionary consequences of which could hardly be imagined at its outbreak fifty years before in 1939. Although few of us can have expected to see the revolutionary changes of 1989 in our lifetime, it remains to be seen whether history will judge all of the upheavals in Eastern Europe as 'revolutions', or whether some will be categorized in later centuries as 'revolts', 'coups', 'failed revolutions', or indeed 'counter-revolutions'. The distinguished contributors to this volume, published in the Wolfson College Lectures series, enjoy the advantage of historical perespective regarding past revolutions and counter-revolutions. Their papers present a wide-ranging analysis both of the concepts of revolution and counter-revolution, and of particular upheavals of vastly different character.