# Autogolpe A "self-coup" — a form of coup d'état in which a sitting head of state, already holding power through constitutional means, uses extralegal measures to seize powers beyond those constitutionally granted, dissolve or override other branches of government, suspend the constitution, annul elections, or prevent the constitutional transfer of power to a successor. From Spanish *auto* ("self") + *golpe de estado* ("coup d'état," literally "strike of state"). The critical distinction from a conventional coup is the *origin* of the threat: in a standard military coup, armed forces overthrow the civilian government from outside; in an autogolpe, the sitting executive — the person the constitutional system has already placed at its apex — turns *against* the system that empowered them. The institutions designed to check executive power (legislature, judiciary, independent agencies, election machinery) become the *targets* of the sitting president rather than the instruments of accountability. ## The Fujimori archetype The canonical modern autogolpe is [[Alberto Fujimori]]'s April 5, 1992, seizure of power in Peru. Fujimori had been elected president in 1990 as an outsider candidate — a political unknown who defeated the establishment novelist Mario Vargas Llosa by running against the political class. Once in office, he found his agenda blocked by a congress in which his party held minimal representation and by a judiciary he regarded as obstructive and corrupt. Rather than continuing to work within constitutional constraints, Fujimori suspended the constitution, dissolved Congress, dismissed senior judges, and imposed emergency powers — all with the backing of the military. He then governed by decree while organizing a new constituent assembly to produce a constitution tailored to his expanded authority. The autogolpe was widely popular domestically: Fujimori's approval ratings surged to over 80 percent, reflecting broad public frustration with the institutions he had destroyed. The Fujimori case established the template: an elected outsider, frustrated by institutional constraints, uses the legitimacy of his electoral mandate to override the institutions that constrain him. The democratic legitimacy *of the leader* is deployed *against* the democratic legitimacy *of the system*. ## Other historical autogolpes - **Louis Napoleon Bonaparte (France, 1851)** — the original 19th-century case, analyzed by [[Karl Marx]] in *The Eighteenth Brumaire* (see [[Bonapartism]]); Louis Napoleon dissolved the National Assembly and seized dictatorial powers, then legitimated the seizure through plebiscite. - **Bordaberry (Uruguay, 1973)** — President Juan María Bordaberry dissolved parliament with military support and established a civic-military dictatorship. - **Ferdinand Marcos (Philippines, 1972)** — declared martial law and ruled by decree for over a decade. - **Erdogan post-2016 (Turkey)** — following the July 2016 coup attempt (whose origins remain disputed), President Recep Tayyip Erdogan used the state of emergency to conduct mass purges of the judiciary, military, academia, and civil service, concentrate power in the presidency through a 2017 constitutional referendum, and effectively transform Turkey from a parliamentary democracy into a presidential autocracy. Whether this constitutes an autogolpe or merely aggressive [[Democratic Backsliding]] is debated; the purge's scope and speed — over 150,000 people detained, dismissed, or investigated — is on a scale more consistent with coup consolidation than democratic erosion. ## January 6 and the American case The 2020–2021 American presidential transition has been analyzed by multiple scholars, political scientists, and institutions as an attempted autogolpe — a sitting president attempting to retain power by overriding constitutional succession. The University of Illinois Cline Center for Advanced Social Research formally categorized the [[January 6 Capitol Attack]] as an "attempted executive coup" (also known as a self-coup) in December 2022. The *Washington Post* reported on political scientists' characterization of the events as an autogolpe in January 2021, shortly after the attack. The case fits the autogolpe template on multiple dimensions: **The sitting executive as coup plotter.** [[Donald Trump]] — the sitting president — directed the effort to prevent the constitutional transfer of power. The threat came from the apex of the constitutional system, not from outside it. **Multi-vector assault on constitutional succession.** The effort was not limited to the January 6 rally and Capitol breach. It encompassed: pressure on state officials to overturn certified results (the Georgia phone call), organization of alternative electoral slates, pressure on the Vice President to refuse to certify electoral votes, Department of Justice pressure to declare the election corrupt, and ultimately the rally and breach on January 6 — a coordinated campaign to override constitutional succession through multiple channels simultaneously. **Democratic legitimacy deployed against democratic process.** Trump's claim rested on his assertion that he, not Biden, had won the election — that the democratic legitimacy of his (claimed) popular mandate superseded the institutional machinery of vote counting, certification, and transition. This is the core autogolpe move: using the leader's claim to democratic legitimacy as a weapon against the democratic system's institutional operations. **Scholarly disagreement.** The characterization is not unanimous. Some scholars argue that the events do not meet the technical definition of a coup because the military was not involved, the Capitol breach was disorganized, and the scheme ultimately failed at multiple institutional chokepoints (state election officials, courts, the Vice President, Congress). Others counter that an *attempted* autogolpe that fails is still an autogolpe attempt, and that the multi-vector nature of the scheme — legal pressure, political pressure, and mob violence in combination — fits the pattern even if the military component was absent. The KB's analytical position tracks the Cline Center's classification: an attempted autogolpe that failed due to institutional resistance at key chokepoints, but whose failure should not obscure the structural reality of what was attempted. ## Why autogolpes succeed Research on autogolpes suggests they succeed more often than conventional military coups. The structural advantages of the self-coup include: the sitting executive already controls the security apparatus; the executive already holds democratic legitimacy that can be deployed against institutional opponents; the public may support the executive's claim that obstructive institutions (a "do-nothing Congress," a "corrupt judiciary") deserve to be overridden; and the constitutional system is designed to *empower* the executive, creating leverage points that an external coup plotter would not have. ## Distinct from neighbors - **Military coup** — an armed seizure of power by military officers overthrowing the civilian government. The autogolpe is an *executive* seizure of power by the sitting civilian leader, sometimes with military backing. - **[[Democratic Backsliding]]** — the gradual erosion of democratic norms and institutions. The autogolpe is a *sudden* seizure; backsliding is *incremental*. Many autogolpes are preceded by a period of backsliding, and many autocrats who consolidate power through backsliding never need to execute a formal autogolpe. - **Revolution** — a popular uprising that overthrows the existing order. The autogolpe preserves the *leader* while destroying the *constraints* on the leader; revolution replaces the leader. - **[[Bonapartism]]** — the broader political-theory framework. Bonapartism describes the *governing style* (plebiscitary strongman politics); the autogolpe is a specific *event* (the seizure of extra-constitutional power) that a Bonapartist leader may execute. - **Executive overreach / constitutional hardball** — aggressive use of executive powers within (or at the boundaries of) constitutional authority. The autogolpe crosses the line from hardball to *extra-constitutional* seizure. ## See Also - [[January 6 Capitol Attack]] — the American case - [[Alberto Fujimori]] — the canonical modern case - [[Bonapartism]] — the governing-style framework - [[Democratic Backsliding]] — the gradual-erosion sibling - [[Election Denialism]] — the ideological infrastructure - [[The Big Lie]] — the legitimation narrative - [[Donald Trump]] — the American case subject - [[Viktor Orbán]] — the European comparative case - [[Illiberal Democracy]] — the governance form autogolpes often produce - [[Unitary Executive Theory]] — the constitutional-law expression of executive concentration - [[How Democracies Die]] — the analytical framework - [[MAGA]] — the movement vehicle - [[Lame Duck]] — the structural vulnerability window