Coup Agency and Mechanisms (CAM)
Codebook (v3.0)
Codebook (v3.0)
Holger Albrecht, Kevin Koehler, and Austin Schutz
02 February 2022
The CAM Data
This codebook describes the Coup Agency and Mechanisms (CAM) dataset, covering all military coups since 1950. The dataset is based on Jonathan Powell and Clayton Thyne’s definition of coups as “illegal and overt attempts by the military or other elites within the state apparatus to unseat the sitting executive” (Powell and Thyne 2011, 252).
In contrast to other coup datasets, CAM applies a narrower empirical focus on coups and coup attempts including military personnel among the plotters, rather than palace coups or other forms of take-over exclusively by civilian elites. The operational definition for military coups therefore reads: military coups d’état are illegal and overt attempts by military officers to unseat sitting executives. A successful coup in the CAM dataset occurs where coup plotters unseat the incumbent office holder for at least ten days.
Versions
The CAM data come in two versions:
cam_listis the basic list of coups, along with the outcome (success/failure) and agency (elite/combat) variables. For most applications, the list will have to be transformed into country-year format.cam_wideis the country-year format of the data set. If multiple coups occurred in the same country and year, they are recorded ascoup1tocoup4(and similar for the agency and outcome variables).
Both versions are available for download in v.3.0 (cam_list_3.0.csv, cam_wide_3.0.csv), covering coups between 1950 and 2017. We also provide updated coup data, adding coups as they occur in cam_list_current.csv. Please note that only cam_list_current will be updated. The CAM_transform.R file contains R code transforming cam_list into cam_wide.
Variables
The CAM dataset records all military coups between 1950 and 2020. There are 477 coups in total. The cam_wide version contains observations for country-years from 1950 to 2020 for countries which experienced at least one coup in this time period, amounting to a total of 7029 observations.
cowcodeis the numerical COW country code (see COW Country Codes).regionis a numeric region code with 1=Europe, 2=MENA, 3=Sub-Saharan Africa, 4=Asia, and 5=Americas.year.countryis the English name of the country.no(cam_listonly) is 1, 2, 3, or 4 for the first, second, third, or forth coup in a country and year.coupis 1 if a military coup occurred. It is 1 for all observations incam_list, but not incam_wide.coup1(cam_wideonly) is 1 if at least one coups occurred in a country-year.coup2(cam_wideonly) is 1 if a second coup occurred in a country-year.coup3(cam_wideonly) is 1 if a third coup occurred in a country-year.coup4(cam_wideonly) is 1 if a fourth coup occurred in a country-year.
| Obs | No | |
|---|---|---|
| coup1 | 7029 | 411 |
| coup2 | 7029 | 56 |
| coup3 | 7029 | 8 |
| coup4 | 7029 | 2 |
successfulis 1 if a coup displaced the chief executive for at least 10 days and zero otherwise. The variable is missing if no coup occurred.successful1(cam_wideonly) is 1 if the first coup in a country-year was successful.successful2(cam_wideonly) is 1 if the second coup in a country-year was successful.successful3(cam_wideonly) is 1 if the third coup in a country-year was successful.successful4(cam_wideonly) is 1 if the fourth coup in a country-year was successful.
| Obs | No | |
|---|---|---|
| successful1 | 7029 | 199 |
| successful2 | 7029 | 26 |
| successful3 | 7029 | 3 |
| successful4 | 7029 | 1 |
dategives the date on which the coup occurred.date1(cam_wideonly) gives the date of the first coup. The variable is missing if no coup occurred.date2(cam_wideonly) gives the date of the second coup. The variable is missing if no second coup occurred.date3(cam_wideonly) gives the date of the third coup. The variable is missing if no third coup occurred.date4(cam_wideonly) gives the date of the fourth coup. The variable is missing if no fourth coup occurred.
combatis 1 if the coup was executed by combat officers (as opposed to elite officers). See Albrecht, Koehler, and Schutz (2021) for the coding rationale.combat1(cam_wideonly) is 1 if the first coup was a combat officer coup and zero if it was an elite officer coup. The variable is missing if no coup occurred.combat2(cam_wideonly) is 1 if the second coup was a combat officer coup and zero if it was an elite officer coup. The variable is missing if no second coup occurred.combat3(cam_wideonly) is 1 if the third coup was a combat officer coup and zero if it was an elite officer coup. The variable is missing if no third coup occurred.combat4(cam_wideonly) is 1 if the fourth coup was a combat officer coup and zero if it was an elite officer coup. The variable is missing if no fourth coup occurred.
| Obs | No | |
|---|---|---|
| combat1 | 7029 | 244 |
| combat2 | 7029 | 37 |
| combat3 | 7029 | 3 |
| combat4 | 7029 | 2 |
Updates
11 military coups occurred since 2017. These coups were added to the CAM list (cam_list_current.csv), along with agency and outcome variables. The following table lists these cases along with the sources for the agency variables.