Coups

What’s in a name? Experimental evidence of the coup taboo

ABSTRACT Lead­ers of mil­i­tary coups rou­tine­ly deny that their actions amount to a coup, often labelling them as rev­o­lu­tions or even con­sti­tu­tion­al suc­ces­sions. These attempts to mud­dy the waters occa­sion­al­ly suc­ceed in prompt­ing dis­cus­sions over whether the military’s actions tru­ly amount to a coup. But does the label mat­ter? Does pub­lic sup­port for mil­i­tary intervention…