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 Democratic Coup d'État advances a simple, yet controversial, argument: democracy sometimes comes through a military coup. Covering coups that toppled dictators and installed democratic rule in countries as diverse as Guinea-Bissau, Portugal, and Colombia, the book weaves a balanced narrative that challenges everything we knew about military coups.

In this lively and provocative book, Erica De Bruin looks at the threats that rulers face from their own armed forces. Can they make their regimes impervious to coups? How to Prevent Coups d'État shows that how leaders organize their coercive institutions has a profound effect on the survival of their regimes. When rulers use presidential guards, militarized police, and militia to counterbalance the regular military, efforts to oust them from power via coups d'état are less likely to succeed. Even as counterbalancing helps to prevent successful interventions, however, the resentment that it generates within the regular military can provoke new coup attempts. And because counterbalancing changes how soldiers and police perceive the costs and benefits of a successful overthrow, it can create incentives for protracted fighting that result in the escalation of a coup into full-blown civil war. Drawing on an original dataset of state security forces in 110 countries over a span of fifty years, as well as case studies of coup attempts in Asia, Africa, Latin America, and the Middle East, De Bruin sheds light on how counterbalancing affects regime survival. Understanding the dynamics of counterbalancing, she shows, can help analysts predict when coups will occur, whether they will succeed, and how violent they are likely to be. The arguments and evidence in this book suggest that while counterbalancing may prevent successful coups, it is a risky strategy to pursue—and one that may weaken regimes in the long term.

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.

Why the world’s most resilient dictatorships are products of violent revolution Revolution and Dictatorship explores why dictatorships born of social revolution—such as those in China, Cuba, Iran, the Soviet Union, and Vietnam—are extraordinarily durable, even in the face of economic crisis, large-scale policy failure, mass discontent, and intense external pressure. Few other modern autocracies have survived in the face of such extreme challenges. Drawing on comparative historical analysis, Steven Levitsky and Lucan Way argue that radical efforts to transform the social and geopolitical order trigger intense counterrevolutionary conflict, which initially threatens regime survival, but ultimately fosters the unity and state-building that supports authoritarianism. Although most revolutionary governments begin weak, they challenge powerful domestic and foreign actors, often bringing about civil or external wars. These counterrevolutionary wars pose a threat that can destroy new regimes, as in the cases of Afghanistan and Cambodia. Among regimes that survive, however, prolonged conflicts give rise to a cohesive ruling elite and a powerful and loyal coercive apparatus. This leads to the downfall of rival organizations and alternative centers of power, such as armies, churches, monarchies, and landowners, and helps to inoculate revolutionary regimes against elite defection, military coups, and mass protest—three principal sources of authoritarian breakdown. Looking at a range of revolutionary and nonrevolutionary regimes from across the globe, Revolution and Dictatorship shows why governments that emerge from violent conflict endure.

Textbook on revolution and political problems, with particular reference to the planning of a coup d Etat for the purpose of seizing political leadership.