International conspiracies

: building a theory of covert foreign support for coups d'état

Abstract

The literature on coups d’état has been especially vibrant in the past several decades. Scholars focus on coups as exclusively domestic events, though some academics consider them within an international context. However, there are prominent historical cases of foreign governments covertly supporting coup attempts. As such, no current theory explains if and how a foreign state can affect when a coup occurs or whether it succeeds. Drawing on declassified United States archival sources, I build a theory that argues that foreign governments are limited by the domestic coup risk in the target state and are able to increase the sponsored attempt’s chance of success by manipulating expectations. Foreign states need willing domestic conspirators in the target country to support a coup attempt, and the supply of military officials willing and able to execute a coup is determined by the local coup risk. As the various aspects of coup risk are slow to change and largely insulated from outside manipulation, a foreign coup sponsor must work with conditions already in place. During the execution of a coup attempt, a foreign state is able to affect the plot’s outcome primarily via covert propaganda and protests. These methods are effective because they manipulate the expectations of the target military that the coup’s success is inevitable. As a consequence of this theory, we can expect that foreign-sponsored coups are rare which contrasts with apparent public belief that intelligence agencies are able to foment coup attempts easily. Furthermore, foreign covert support is limited to specific mechanisms. My theory provides a first step in systematically examining the role and capabilities of foreign covert support for coup attempts.

Date of Award	2 Dec 2025
Original language	English
Awarding Institution	University of St Andrews
Supervisor	Kristen Harkness (Supervisor) & Marc De Vore (Supervisor)