No abstract

What connection exists between protests and coup attempts? Although recent studies have revealed that the former incites the latter, they generally do not consider international factors. We contend that post-Cold War nonviolent protests have promoted coup attempts. With sentiment in the international community turning against coups following the end of the Cold War, coup organizers have had to portray their actions as democratic. Launching a coup attempt during ongoing nonviolent protests became a convincing method to prove democratic bona fides. This is because the international community favors nonviolence, and it signals that the emerging regime will not have extreme preferences and will keep order. Conversely, the international community does not regard violent protests as legitimate, and staging a coup attempt during violent protests will not enable a military to claim legitimacy. This argument is tested through statistical analysis and by using the 2011 Egyptian coup as a case study. As expected, the results indicate that the impact of protests on coup attempts varies depending on (1) whether those protests are violent or nonviolent, and on (2) the period. Specifically, only the nonviolent protests in the post-Cold War era prompt coup attempts meaningfully.

While democratic revolutions are not uniform in their pursuit of democracy, they do have something in common: those calling for revolution and participating in demonstrations do so under the banner of democracy. However, studies have revealed that these citizens were not at first committed to democracy per se; rather, they took the opportunity to vent their frustration against the current regime because of their struggle against poverty and social inequality. Why, then, do citizens who are not pursuing democracy per se participate in revolutions under the banner of democracy? Previous studies have failed to clarify this point. To fill this gap, we outline three strategic rationalities and necessities behind the use of “democracy” as a common slogan to justify civil revolutions: 1) organizing large scale dissident movements in a country; 2) attracting international support; and 3) imitating successful examples from the past. Evidence from the 2003 Rose Revolution in Georgia and the 2005 Orange Revolution in Ukraine supports this theory.

US President Donald Trump is known for his unique character. However, does the notion imply that his policy is unique? Existing studies on presidents have assumed that Trump's policy significantly differs from that of former President Barack Obama due to extremely biased policies, especially foreign policy. To test the validity of such a common view, the study conducted a quantitative text analysis of executive orders issued by both presidents. Results show that (1) there are systematic differences between Obama's and Trump's policy; (2) tracklessness, rather than deflectiveness highlights the uniqueness of Trump's policy; and (3) the uniqueness of Trump's policy is pronounced in domestic rather than foreign policy.