Common enemies? Coups, insurgent strength and intra-elite competition: evidence from Latin America

Abstract

ABSTRACT What is the relation between coups d’etat and civil wars? While a wide set of studies have traced the determinants of internal armed conflicts and coup attempts, the interplay between these contentious processes remains unexplored. Building on different strands of research, this article seeks to explain why, and under what conditions, some regimes experience coup attempts in the midst of civil wars while others do not. Concretely, I posit that coup attempts during internal armed conflicts are more likely to occur when two conditions converge: when insurgents reach a medium-level of strength in situations of intra-elite competition. Key military forces, elite outsiders and coalition insiders interpret this situation as a unique opportunity for changes in the distribution of power and potentially coalesce through the formation of alternative regime coalitions. This argument is tested with a novel dataset on 90 Latin American revolutionary socialist insurgencies active since 1950 and a qualitative case study of the dynamics leading to the 1976 coup d’etat in Argentina, with results supporting the theoretical expectations. These findings contribute to a more detailed understanding of the relation between coups and civil wars, opening the way for further studies on this burgeoning area of research.