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56-478: The NRC came into power through a bloodless coup d'état , led by Acheampong, which overthrew the democratically elected Progress Party (PP) government of Dr. K. A. Busia , taking place while Dr. Busia was in the United Kingdom for medical reasons. The constitution was suspended and all political parties banned. One of the main grievances leading to the coup had been the currency devaluations undertaken under

112-655: A pronunciamiento , in which the military deposes the existing government and hands over power to a new, ostensibly civilian government. A "barracks revolt" or cuartelazo is another type of military revolt, from the Spanish term cuartel ('quarter' or 'barracks'), in which the mutiny of specific military garrisons sparks a larger military revolt against the government. Other types of actual or attempted seizures of power are sometimes called "coups with adjectives". The appropriate term can be subjective and carries normative, analytical, and political implications. While

168-462: A coup , is typically an illegal and overt attempt by a military organization or other government elites to unseat an incumbent leadership. A self-coup is when a leader, having come to power through legal means, tries to stay in power through illegal means. By one estimate, there were 457 coup attempts from 1950 to 2010, half of which were successful. Most coup attempts occurred in the mid-1960s, but there were also large numbers of coup attempts in

224-617: A coup is usually a conspiracy of a small group, a revolution or rebellion is usually started spontaneously by larger groups of uncoordinated people. The distinction between a revolution and a coup is not always clear. Sometimes, a coup is labelled as a revolution by its plotters to feign democratic legitimacy. According to Clayton Thyne and Jonathan Powell's coup data set, there were 457 coup attempts from 1950 to 2010, of which 227 (49.7%) were successful and 230 (50.3%) were unsuccessful. They find that coups have "been most common in Africa and

280-418: A coup. A 2019 study found that states that had recently signed civil war peace agreements were much more likely to experience coups, in particular when those agreements contained provisions that jeopardized the interests of the military. Research suggests that protests spur coups, as they help elites within the state apparatus to coordinate coups. A 2019 study found that regional rebellions made coups by

336-569: A coup. The authors of the study provide the following logic for why this is: Autocratic incumbents invested in spatial rivalries need to strengthen the military in order to compete with a foreign adversary. The imperative of developing a strong army puts dictators in a paradoxical situation: to compete with a rival state, they must empower the very agency—the military—that is most likely to threaten their own survival in office. However, two 2016 studies found that leaders who were involved in militarized confrontations and conflicts were less likely to face

392-844: A fixed succession rule being much less plagued by instability than less institutionalized autocracies. A 2014 study of 18 Latin American countries in the 20th-century study found the legislative powers of the presidency does not influence coup frequency. A 2019 study found that when a country's politics is polarized and electoral competition is low, civilian-recruited coups become more likely. A 2023 study found that civilian elites are more likely to be associated with instigating military coups while civilians embedded in social networks are more likely to be associated with consolidating military coups. A 2017 study found that autocratic leaders whose states were involved in international rivalries over disputed territory were more likely to be overthrown in

448-512: A greater consultation of regional and local-specific sources. Successful coups are one method of regime change that thwarts the peaceful transition of power . A 2016 study categorizes four possible outcomes to coups in dictatorships : The study found that about half of all coups in dictatorships—both during and after the Cold War—install new autocratic regimes. New dictatorships launched by coups engage in higher levels of repression in

504-816: A major threat to dictators. The Harem conspiracy of the 12th century BC was one of the earliest. Palace coups were common in Imperial China . They have also occurred among the Habsburg dynasty in Austria, the Al-Thani dynasty in Qatar , and in Haiti in the 19th to early 20th centuries. The majority of Russian tsars between 1725 and 1801 were either overthrown or usurped power in palace coups. The term putsch ( [pʊtʃ] , from Swiss German for 'knock'), denotes

560-405: A putsch. Pronunciamiento ( ' pronouncement ' ) is a term of Spanish origin for a type of coup d'état . Specifically the pronunciamiento is the formal declaration deposing the previous government and justifying the installation of the new government by the golpe de estado . One author distinguishes a coup, in which a military or political faction takes power for itself, from

616-554: A retired Ghana Army captain, Victor Latzoo, a retired lieutenant in the Ghana Army, Staff Sergeant Godfried K. Amereka, Warrant Officer H. Raphael Nyatepeh, Captain Gustav K. Banini, Corporal John Gbeeze, Francis Agboada and Michael Hamenoo. Tsikata, Staff Sergeant Godfried Amereka, Warrant Officer Raphael Nyatepeh, Francis Agboada and Michael Hamenoo were sentenced to death. Two others were sentenced to eighteen years in jail. The NRC

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672-572: A somewhat higher chance of success in Africa and Asia. Numbers of successful coups have decreased over time. A number of political science datasets document coup attempts around the world and over time, generally starting in the post-World War II period. Major examples include the Global Instances of Coups dataset, the Coups & Political Instability dataset by the Center of Systemic Peace,

728-568: A threat. It also made the various service commanders in charge of both the military and the state as there had been some tensions between relatively junior officers in government and the senior commanders of the Armed Forces. The NRC government embarked on various programmes to help improve the economy. One of its most successful was the "Operation Feed Yourself" programme which encouraged self-reliance on home-grown food by encouraging both large scale and small scale farming. This started well but

784-425: A two-sided impact on coup attempts, depending on the state of the economy. During periods of economic expansion, elections reduced the likelihood of coup attempts, whereas elections during economic crises increased the likelihood of coup attempts. A 2021 study found that oil wealthy nations see a pronounced risk of coup attempts but these coups are unlikely to succeed. A 2014 study of 18 Latin American countries in

840-589: Is an editor's note in the London Morning Chronicle ,1804, reporting the arrest by Napoleon in France, of Moreau , Berthier , Masséna , and Bernadotte : "There was a report in circulation yesterday of a sort of coup d'état having taken place in France, in consequence of some formidable conspiracy against the existing government." In the British press , the phrase came to be used to describe

896-533: Is more likely in former French colonies. A 2018 study in the Journal of Peace Research found that leaders who survive coup attempts and respond by purging known and potential rivals are likely to have longer tenures as leaders. A 2019 study in Conflict Management and Peace Science found that personalist dictatorships are more likely to take coup-proofing measures than other authoritarian regimes;

952-655: Is quoted as stating that Acheampong was brought in at the latter stages to support the coup. Agbo was the second-in-command of the First Infantry Battalion at Tema , Selormey was the second-in-command of the armored regiment and Baah was the second-in-command of the Fifth Infantry Battalion in Accra . Acheampong stated in the nationwide broadcast to announce the coup that: I bring you good tidings; Busia's hypocrisy has been detected. We, in

1008-621: Is ultimately seen as a failure in the end. It was during this era that the National Pledge was also introduced. This was to be recited on national occasions. The government also revalued the national currency which had been devalued by the Busia government by 42 per cent. It also repudiated some of the national debt in February 1972. On 4 August 1974, the "Operation Keep Right" was implemented which changed Ghana's road traffic from driving on

1064-663: The All-African Trade Union Federation , Albert Kwaku Owusu Boateng, a journalist and Major Alexander Alanganona Awuviri, a Ghana Air Force officer. They all pleaded not guilty but were sentenced to death by firing squad after the trial though their sentences got commuted to life imprisonment later by the Head of state of Ghana , Colonel Acheampong. In 1979, he contested the Ghanaian presidential election as an Independent candidate, winning 0.27% of

1120-704: The Cultural Revolution . Imoru Ayarna Imoru Ayarna (c. 1917 – 11 July 2015) was a Ghanaian businessman and politician. He was the founder and leader of the erstwhile People's Action Party in Ghana. Ayarna formed the PAP after the ban on party politics was lifted in 1969. He teamed up with Dr. W.K. Lutterodt, People's Popular Party (PPP), the Republican Party of Mr. Quaidoo and Dr. John Bilson 's All People's Congress . He contested

1176-593: The Ghanaian parliamentary election on 29 August 1969 for a seat in the Parliament of Ghana during the second republic. His party won 2 seats out of 140, although he lost his seat, winning a total of 693 votes and beating only the All People's Republican Party candidate, Asigiri Israel Dawudu who had 323 votes. The seat was taken by the Progress Party led by Kofi Abrefa Busia . In late 1973, during

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1232-456: The head of government assume dictatorial powers. A soft coup , sometimes referred to as a silent coup or a bloodless coup , is an illegal overthrow of a government, but unlike a regular coup d'état it is achieved without the use of force or violence. A palace coup or palace revolution is a coup in which one faction within the ruling group displaces another faction within a ruling group. Along with popular protests, palace coups are

1288-420: The paramilitary faction led by Ernst Röhm , but Nazi propaganda justified it as preventing a supposed putsch planned or attempted by Röhm. The Nazi term Röhm-Putsch is still used by Germans to describe the event, often with quotation marks as the 'so-called Röhm Putsch'. The 1961 Algiers putsch and the 1991 August Putsch also use the term. The 2023 Wagner Group rebellion has also been described as

1344-444: The rents that an incumbent can extract . One reason why authoritarian governments tend to have incompetent militaries is that authoritarian regimes fear that their military will stage a coup or allow a domestic uprising to proceed uninterrupted – as a consequence, authoritarian rulers have incentives to place incompetent loyalists in key positions in the military. A 2016 study shows that the implementation of succession rules reduce

1400-429: The 20th century study found that coup frequency does not vary with development levels, economic inequality , or the rate of economic growth. In what is referred to as "coup-proofing", regimes create structures that make it hard for any small group to seize power. These coup-proofing strategies may include the strategic placing of family, ethnic, and religious groups in the military; creation of an armed force parallel to

1456-604: The Americas (36.5% and 31.9%, respectively). Asia and the Middle East have experienced 13.1% and 15.8% of total global coups, respectively. Europe has experienced by far the fewest coup attempts: 2.6%." Most coup attempts occurred in the mid-1960s, but there were also large numbers of coup attempts in the mid-1970s and the early 1990s. From 1950 to 2010, a majority of coups failed in the Middle East and Latin America. They had

1512-625: The Coup d'etat Project by the Cline Center, the Colpus coup dataset, and the Coups and Agency Mechanism dataset. A 2023 study argued that major coup datasets tend to over-rely on international news sources to gather their information, potentially biasing the types of events included. Its findings show that while such a strategy is sufficient for gathering information on successful and failed coups, attempts to gather data on coup plots and rumors require

1568-827: The Ghana Armed Forces, have today taken over the Government from Busia and his ruling Progress Party. With immediate effect, the Constitution is withdrawn, Parliament is dissolved, the Progress Party and all political parties are banned. On 9 October 1975, the NRC was replaced by the Supreme Military Council . Its composition consisted of Acheampong, the chairman, who was also promoted straight from Colonel to General . The others included

1624-465: The NRC government. None of them resulted in bloodshed. In November 1972, 8 people were found guilty by a military tribunal for plotting to overthrow the government. They were Staff Sergeant S. J. Opon-Nyantekyi, Daniel D. O. Attakora, Emil W. K. Adzima who was the former press secretary to Kofi Busia, George K. A. Ofosu-Amaah, who was a senior lecturer in law at the University of Ghana and Director of

1680-648: The PP regime. Acheampong is reported to have been promoted to Colonel just two days prior to the coup to "secure his loyalty" for the Busia government . He was also the commander of the First Infantry Brigade at the time (now Southern Command of the Ghana Army ). He collaborated with three officers, Major Agbo , Major Baah and Major Selormey , whose military units were vital for the bloodless coup. Agbo

1736-587: The Special Branch (national intelligence unit) in the Busia regime, Private C. Adu Boateng, Sergeant W. Agyare, Private K. Oduro and Sergeant G. Nimako. In August 1973, Kojo Botsio , a minister in the Nkrumah CPP government together with others was arrested for planning to overthrow the government. In December 1973, three out of five accused persons were found guilty of subversion by a military tribunal. The guilty were Imoru Ayarna , former leader of

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1792-412: The above factors are connected to military culture and power dynamics. These factors can be divided into multiple categories, with two of these categories being a threat to military interests and support for military interests. If interests go in either direction, the military will find itself either capitalizing off that power or attempting to gain it back. Oftentimes, military spending is an indicator of

1848-424: The authors argue that this is because "personalists are characterized by weak institutions and narrow support bases, a lack of unifying ideologies and informal links to the ruler". In their 2022 book Revolution and Dictatorship: The Violent Origins of Durable Authoritarianism , political scientists Steven Levitsky and Lucan Way found that political-military fusion, where the ruling party is highly interlinked with

1904-510: The contextualized idea of a 'knockout blow to the existing administration within a state'. One early use within text translated from French was in 1785 in a printed translation of a letter from a French merchant, commenting on an arbitrary decree, or arrêt , issued by the French king restricting the import of British wool. What may be its first published use within a text composed in English

1960-489: The coup attempt will be successful. The number of successful coups has decreased over time. Failed coups in authoritarian systems are likely to strengthen the power of the authoritarian ruler. The cumulative number of coups is a strong predictor of future coups, a phenomenon referred to as the "coup trap". In what is referred to as "coup-proofing", regimes create structures that make it hard for any small group to seize power. These coup-proofing strategies may include

2016-609: The coup trap and reduces cycles of political instability. Hybrid regimes are more vulnerable to coups than very authoritarian states or democratic states. A 2021 study found that democratic regimes were not substantially more likely to experience coups. A 2015 study finds that terrorism is strongly associated with re-shuffling coups. A 2016 study finds that there is an ethnic component to coups: "When leaders attempt to build ethnic armies, or dismantle those created by their predecessors, they provoke violent resistance from military officers." Another 2016 study shows that protests increase

2072-406: The disbanded People's Action Party , Kojo Botsio and John Tettegah. Albert Kwaku Owusu-Boateng was jailed for 30 years for concealing the plot while Air Force Major Alexander A. Awuviri was acquitted and discharged. In 1976, a coup plot referred to as the "One Man One Matchet" coup was foiled. The plotters included Brigadier Khattah, the leader, who escaped arrest and the others were Kojo Tsikata ,

2128-557: The left as introduced by the United Kingdom to driving on the right in harmony with its neighbouring West African states where traffic circulation was on the right. This was supervised by Akuffo who was the Border Guards commander at the time. The NRC government also implemented the official conversion of units of measurement in the country to the metric system on 1 September 1975. There were several attempts to overthrow

2184-419: The likelihood of a coup taking place. Nordvik found that about 75% of coups that took place in many different countries rooted from military spending and oil windfalls. The accumulation of previous coups is a strong predictor of future coups, a phenomenon called the coup trap . A 2014 study of 18 Latin American countries found that the establishment of open political competition helps bring countries out of

2240-435: The likelihood of coups. A fifth 2016 study finds no evidence that coups are contagious; one coup in a region does not make other coups in the region likely to follow. One study found that coups are more likely to occur in states with small populations, as there are smaller coordination problems for coup-plotters. In autocracies, the frequency of coups seems to be affected by the succession rules in place, with monarchies with

2296-427: The mid-1970s and the early 1990s. Coups occurring in the post- Cold War period have been more likely to result in democratic systems than Cold War coups, though coups still mostly perpetuate authoritarianism . Many factors may lead to the occurrence of a coup, as well as determine the success or failure of a coup. Once a coup is underway, coup success is driven by coup-makers' ability to get others to believe that

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2352-674: The military and created the administrative structures of the military from its inception, is extremely effective at preventing military coups. For example, the People's Liberation Army was created by the Chinese Communist Party during the Chinese Civil War , and never instigated a military coup even after large-scale policy failures (i.e. the Great Leap Forward ) or the extreme political instability of

2408-574: The military hierarchy including all military service commanders such as Lt. Gen. Akuffo the Chief of Defence Staff , and the army, navy, air force and Border Guards commanders respectively. Some officers were promoted, some changed portfolios and many others were dropped. The Commanders of the First and Second Infantry Brigades of the Ghana Army were also included. It is thought that this coup removed Agbo, Baah and Selormey, whom Acheampong had begun to see as

2464-400: The military more likely. A 2018 study found that "oil price shocks are seen to promote coups in onshore-intensive oil countries, while preventing them in offshore-intensive oil countries". The study argues that states which have onshore oil wealth tend to build up their military to protect the oil, whereas states do not do that for offshore oil wealth. A 2020 study found that elections had

2520-614: The military rule of the National Redemption Council led by then Colonel I. K. Acheampong , he was tried along with others for plotting to overthrow the government by influencing then Colonel Robert Kotei , who was the Commander of the First Infantry Brigade at the time. His co-conspirators allegedly included Kojo Botsio , a former minister in the Nkrumah government , John Tettegah , a former general secretary of

2576-509: The occurrence of coup attempts. Succession rules are believed to hamper coordination efforts among coup plotters by assuaging elites who have more to gain by patience than by plotting. According to political scientists Curtis Bell and Jonathan Powell, coup attempts in neighbouring countries lead to greater coup-proofing and coup-related repression in a region. A 2017 study finds that countries' coup-proofing strategies are heavily influenced by other countries with similar histories. Coup-proofing

2632-712: The political-military actions of an unsuccessful minority reactionary coup. The term was initially coined for the Züriputsch of 6 September 1839 in Switzerland. It was also used for attempted coups in Weimar Germany , such as the 1920 Kapp Putsch , Küstrin Putsch , and Adolf Hitler 's 1923 Beer Hall Putsch . The 1934 Night of the Long Knives was Hitler's purge to eliminate opponents, particularly

2688-440: The regular military; and development of multiple internal security agencies with overlapping jurisdiction that constantly monitor one another. It may also involve frequent salary hikes and promotions for members of the military, and the deliberate use of diverse bureaucrats. Research shows that some coup-proofing strategies reduce the risk of coups occurring. However, coup-proofing reduces military effectiveness, and limits

2744-401: The risk of coups, presumably because they ease coordination obstacles among coup plotters and make international actors less likely to punish coup leaders. A third 2016 study finds that coups become more likely in the wake of elections in autocracies when the results reveal electoral weakness for the incumbent autocrat. A fourth 2016 study finds that inequality between social classes increases

2800-400: The strategic placing of family, ethnic, and religious groups in the military and the fragmenting of military and security agencies. However, coup-proofing reduces military effectiveness as loyalty is prioritized over experience when filling key positions within the military. The term comes from French coup d'État , literally meaning a 'stroke of state' or 'blow of state'. In French,

2856-457: The top, is a form of coup d'état in which a political leader, having come to power through legal means, stays in power through illegal means through the actions of themselves and/or their supporters. The leader may dissolve or render powerless the national legislature and unlawfully assume extraordinary powers not granted under normal circumstances. Other measures may include annulling the nation's constitution , suspending civil courts, and having

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2912-664: The various murders by Napoleon's alleged secret police , the Gens d'Armes d'Elite , who executed the Duke of Enghien : "the actors in torture, the distributors of the poisoning draughts, and the secret executioners of those unfortunate individuals or families, whom Bonaparte's measures of safety require to remove. In what revolutionary tyrants call grand[s] coups d'état , as butchering, or poisoning, or drowning, en masse, they are exclusively employed." A self-coup , also called an autocoup (from Spanish autogolpe ) or coup from

2968-410: The war's duration. A 2003 review of the academic literature found that the following factors influenced coups: The literature review in a 2016 study includes mentions of ethnic factionalism, supportive foreign governments, leader inexperience, slow growth, commodity price shocks, and poverty. Coups have been found to appear in environments that are heavily influenced by military powers. Multiple of

3024-410: The word État ( French: [eta] ) is capitalized when it denotes a sovereign political entity. Although the concept of a coup d'état has featured in politics since antiquity, the phrase is of relatively recent coinage. It did not appear within an English text before the 19th century except when used in the translation of a French source, there being no simple phrase in English to convey

3080-575: The year after the coup than existed in the year before the coup. One-third of coups in dictatorships during the Cold War and 10% of later ones reshuffled the regime leadership. Democracies were installed in the wake of 12% of Cold War coups in dictatorships and 40% of post-Cold War ones. Coups occurring in the post- Cold War period have been more likely to result in democratic systems than Cold War coups, though coups still mostly perpetuate authoritarianism . Coups that occur during civil wars shorten

3136-639: Was made up of Acheampong, the various service commanders of the Ghana Armed Forces , the Inspector General of Police , four other army officers of the rank of Major and a civilian who was the Attorney General and Commissioner for Justice. Coup d%27%C3%A9tat A coup d'état ( / ˌ k uː d eɪ ˈ t ɑː / ; French: [ku deta] ; lit.   ' stroke of state ' ), or simply

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