[Using the Cline Center’s Coup D’état Project definitions, we
classify the storming of the US Capitol Building on January 6, 2021 as
an attempted coup d’état: an organized, illegal attempt to
intervene in the presidential transition by displacing the power of
the Congress to certify the election. ]
[[link removed]]

JAN 6 WAS AN ATTEMPTED COUP D’ETAT  
[[link removed]]


 

January 27, 2021
Cline Center’s Coup D’état Project
[[link removed]]


*
[[link removed]]
*
[[link removed]]
*
*
[[link removed]]

_ Using the Cline Center’s Coup D’état Project definitions, we
classify the storming of the US Capitol Building on January 6, 2021 as
an attempted coup d’état: an organized, illegal attempt to
intervene in the presidential transition by displacing the power of
the Congress to certify the election. _

,

 

The Cline Center’s Coup D’état Project
[[link removed]] has
categorized the storming of the US Capitol Building on January 6,
2021  as an attempted coup. 

Labels matter when it comes to political violence, because each type
has distinctive consequences and implications for societal stability.
Coups and attempted coups are among the most politically consequential
forms of destabilizing events tracked by the Cline Center.  

Two days after the storming of the Capitol, the Cline Center released
a provisional statement
[[link removed]] describing
the categories of political violence that might be used to
characterize the event. At that time, evidence relevant to two of the
five Coup D’état Project event criteria was ambiguous. Over the
past two weeks, new evidence reported in multiple news sources,
including court documents and first-hand accounts, has clarified what
happened on January 6th. 

HOW THE CLINE CENTER DEFINES COUPS D’ÉTAT

The Cline Center’s  Coup D’état Project
[[link removed]] is
the world’s largest global registry of failed and successful
coups.  The Cline Center defines a coup as an “organized effort to
effect sudden and irregular (e.g., illegal or extra-legal) removal of
the incumbent executive authority of a national government, or to
displace the authority of the highest levels of one or more branches
of government.” To be categorized as a coup, an event must meet 
the following criteria (which are detailed at greater length in
the  Coup D’état Project codebook
[[link removed]]): 

* There must be some person or persons who initiated the coup. 
* The target of the coup must have meaningful control over national
policy. 
* There must be a credible threat to the leaders' hold on power. 
* Illegal or irregular means must be used to seize, remove, or
render powerless the target of the coup.  
* It must be an organized effort. 

These events fall into three categories. Coups that are planned but
thwarted before action is taken are _coup conspiracies_. Once action
is taken against a target, it may fail, in which case it is
an _attempted coup_. If the authority of a target is seized, or
removed, it is a _successful coup_. 

Some social scientists define coups d’état in ways that require the
perpetrators to hold formal positions within the existing national
government. We do not. In the Cline Center’s approach, the
relationship between the perpetrators and the government only
determines the type of coup.  Coup D'état Project data includes
events initiated from both within and outside the government. Other
researchers might classify efforts to overthrow a government by
non-governmental actors as insurgencies or civil conflict events
rather than coups. We allow data users to decide whether the broader
or narrower definition is appropriate for their purposes.

As explained in the Cline Center’s provisional statement
[[link removed]],
the storming of the US Capitol on January 6th clearly met the first
three definitional criteria: one or more persons posed a credible
threat to the power of the legislative branch to determine national
policy. However, it was unclear at that time whether the attackers
were trying to merely disrupt the process of governing or were
attempting to change who controls the government. It was also unclear
whether the assault on the Capitol was spontaneous, or had been
organized in advance. 

Over the past few weeks, Cline Center researchers have reviewed
voluminous reporting about the event, including official documents,
quotes from participants, and analysis of details in videos and
images. This additional evidence clearly demonstrates that the two
remaining criteria were met. 

ONE OR MORE GROUPS PLANNED TO STORM THE US CAPITOL

The fifth criterion for categorizing coups excludes purely spontaneous
acts that are not intentionally organized in advance. It is clear that
those assembled on January 6th possessed a variety of motives and
expectations. Those  who stormed the US Capitol Building—as well as
those who merely joined in the peaceful protests that preceded
it—included a diverse mix of groups and unaffiliated individuals.
But one or more of the groups within the ranks of those who entered
the Capitol Building had carefully planned, equipped, and organized
themselves for violent action. 

ONE OR MORE GROUPS INTENDED TO USURP CONGRESSIONAL AUTHORITY TO
CERTIFY THE 2020 PRESIDENTIAL ELECTION 

The “Save America March” rally that immediately preceded the
attack on the US Capitol Building was thematically focused on changing
the outcome of the 2020 US Presidential election. That alone does not
mean the people who stormed the building intended any more than
temporarily disrupting the normal operations of the US Congress. Cline
Center researchers paid careful attention to evidence that might
clarify the intentions of those involved in assaulting the US Capitol
Building. 

Our team has concluded from publicly-available reporting that one or
more groups attempted to intervene in the presidential transition in
order to extend President Trump’s time in office past the
constitutionally-imposed limit of January 20, 2021. Ample evidence
demonstrates that one or more groups within the ranks of those who
illegally entered the Capitol intended to usurp congressional
authority to certify the election, arrogating control of the
transition to themselves or to the executive branch. This would change
who controls the federal government, rather than merely disrupt the
process of governing. 

WHAT TYPE OF COUP ATTEMPT WAS IT?

If a failed act of insurrection was planned, organized, and
implemented in such a way that it posed a short-term credible threat
to overthrow the legitimate authority of a policy-making branch of
national government, it is an attempted coup d’état under Cline
Center definitions. But which type of attempted coup it might be
depends on its circumstances and initiators. At the time of this
writing, the groups and individuals known to have organized and
planned this coup attempt fall clearly into the category of
“dissidents.” In the Cline Center typology, a _dissident
coup_ is initiated by a small group of discontents that can include
former government officials, religious leaders, business owners, or
civilians.

If ongoing investigations by legal authorities and news organizations
reveal credible evidence that other types of actors were involved,
then it might also fall into one or more additional categories of 
coup d’état. For example, if further investigation were to reveal
clear evidence of executive branch involvement, then the events of
January 6 would also be considered an attempted auto-coup_._ Under
Cline Center definitions, an _auto-coup_ occurs when “the
incumbent chief executive uses illegal or extra-legal means to assume
extraordinary powers, seize the power of other branches of government,
or render powerless other components of the government such as the
legislature or judiciary.” The Coup D’état Project codebook
[[link removed]] contains more detailed
definitions of the various types of coups in the dataset. Cline Center
researchers will continue to assess whether any additional coup
categories should be applied to this event.  

SUMMARY

Using Cline Center definitions, the storming of the US Capitol
Building on January 6, 2021 was an attempted coup d’état. At the
time of this writing, the Cline Center’s Coup D’état Project
classifies the type of attempt as a _dissident coup_. Additional
classifications regarding the type of coup attempt are possible if
additional details are uncovered. 

ABOUT THE CLINE CENTER AND THE COUP D’ÉTAT PROJECT

The Cline Center for Advanced Social Research
[[link removed]] is a nonpartisan research center
at the University of Illinois Urbana-Champaign
[[link removed]] with over a decade of experience in
systematically categorizing acts of protest and political violence
around the world. Since its initial public release in 2013, the Cline
Center’s Coup D’état Project
[[link removed]] has
aimed to document every coup, attempted coup, and coup conspiracy
anywhere in the world since 1945. Version 2.0 of the dataset
encompasses 943 events, including 426 realized coups, 336 attempts,
and 181 conspiracies that occurred between 1945 and 2019.  It is the
largest global registry of these destabilizing events.

To build these data, Cline Center researchers began with the excellent
work of other scholars, including  the Center for Systemic Peace
[[link removed]] (Marshall and
Marshall, 2007), the _World Handbook of Political and Social
Indicators_ (Taylor and Jodice, 1983), Luttwak’s (1979) _Coup
d’État: a Practical Handbook_, Powell and Thyne
[[link removed]] (2011), and
unpublished datasets compiled by Svolik and Akcinaroglu (2006). The
Coup D’état Project team refined and then expanded on existing
datasets using the Cline Center Global News Index
[[link removed]],
events from the Social, Political, and Economic Event Database (SPEED
[[link removed]])
Project, and other open-access resources. For more details, see
the Coup D’état Project codebook
[[link removed]].

Click here to read the Cline Center’s January 8th provisional
statement on the storming of the US Capitol
[[link removed]]

REFERENCES

Luttwak, Edward. 1979. _Coup d'État, A Practical Handbook_.
Cambridge, MA. Harvard University Press.

Marshall, Monty and Donna Marshall. 2007. _Coup d’état Events,
1960-2006._ Center for Systemic Peace.

Nardulli, Peter. Michael Martin, Michael Slana, Sina Toosi, Joseph
Bajjalieh. 2013. _The Coup D’_é_tat Project Dataset. _Cline
Center for Democracy. September 2013. University of Illinois at
Urbana-Champaign. Retrieved
from [link removed]

Powell, Jonathan M. and Clayton L. Thyne. 2011. Global Instances of
Coups from 1950 to 2010: A New Dataset. _Journal of Peace
Research. _48(2): 249-259.

Svolik, Milan and Seden Akcinaroglu. 2006. _Government Change in
Authoritarian Regimes. _Unpublished data sets. University of Illinois
at Urbana-Champaign.
Taylor, Charles L. and David A. Jodice. 1983. _World Handbook of
Political and Social Indicators._ New Haven. Yale University Press.

* coups d'etat
[[link removed]]
* Insurrection in Washington DC
[[link removed]]
* Donald Trump
[[link removed]]

*
[[link removed]]
*
[[link removed]]
*
*
[[link removed]]

 

 

 

INTERPRET THE WORLD AND CHANGE IT

 

 

Submit via web
[[link removed]]

Submit via email
Frequently asked questions
[[link removed]]

Manage subscription
[[link removed]]

Visit xxxxxx.org
[[link removed]]

Twitter [[link removed]]

Facebook [[link removed]]

 




[link removed]

To unsubscribe, click the following link:
[link removed]