What is a coup d'etat?
One coup d'etat it is commonly defined as a subversion of the institutional order constituted by a given nation. This subversion may or may not have violent characteristics. As the researcher Mafalda Félix do Sacramento points out, in her article “The coups d'état as the main means of subversion”, in one coup:
[…] there doesn't necessarily have to be a force of rebellion against the government. It sometimes happens that it is the government's own members or leaders who act against the system, in order to increase the power they have over a nation. As an example, we observe the case of Brazil in the year 1937, with the government of Getúlio Vargas, who declared via radio the implementation of a new regime, or even in the case of Peru, in 1992, where President Alberto Fujimori staged a coup d'état with the support of the Armed Forces, and dissolved the Congress; arrested most party leaders, censored the media, and placed the army on the main streets of Lima.” [1]
Pulling the hook from the examples cited by Sacramento, we must point out that, in the Brazilian case, the
GetulioVargas, who was also civil, before the coup of new state, of 1937, and was ahead of the 1930 revolution, which was a blow against the Republicoligarchic with military assistance. THE Proclamation of the Republic, in 1889, was also a coup against the Empire. All these cases are examples of subversion of the constituted institutional order, that is, of the power structure ordered and guaranteed by laws and the Constitutional Charter.Origin of the expression "coup d'état"
Although the definition of a coup d'état today has the meaning we pointed out above, it was not always understood in this sense. In order to understand the differences, it is necessary that we know the context of the elaboration of this expression.
The expression “coup d'état” was coined by a 17th-century French political theorist named GabrielNaude. in your book Political considerations sur les coups-d'état (Political considerations on coups d'etat), published in 1639, Naudé gives to coup d'etat (coup d'etat, in French) the following definition:
[…] bold and extraordinary actions that the princes are forced to perform in the event of difficult undertakings, bordering on the despair, against common law, and without keeping any order or form of justice, putting at risk the interest of individuals for the good general. [2]
It is noticeable that the theorist is referring not to the overthrow of a constituted power or subversion institutional, but to authoritarian actions taken by the power itself, in this case, represented by the Prince. A coup d'état, for Noudé, would have the purpose of self-preservation, even if, to do so, it was necessary to attack the political body formed by subjects or citizens (depending on the context). Naudé's great theoretical reference was the work The prince, in NicholasMachiavelli, published over a hundred years before Naudé's work, in 1513.
One of the examples of a successful coup, for Naudé, was the St. Bartholomew's Night Massacre, which took place in Paris, on August 24, 1572, in the context of religious civil wars. On that day, the Queen of France, Catherine de Medici, ordered the massacre of thousands of Huguenot Protestants in order to re-establish control over the kingdom.
GRADES
[1] SACRAMENTO, Mafalda Felix do. Coups d'etat as the main means of subversion. A comparative analysis with other subversive systems. In: Sol Nascente – Journal of the Research Center on Applied Ethics. n. 4. p 89.
[2] NAUDÉ, Gabriel. apud GONÇALVES, Eugênio Mattioli. Gabriel Naudé's Machiavellian Apology for the Night Massacre of St. Bartholomew. In: Griot – Journal of Philosophy, vol. 8, n.2, dec. 2013.
By Me. Cláudio Fernandes
