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This chapter analyzes the civilian uprising that ended Chile’s 16-year-long military dictatorship headed by General Augusto Pinochet. In the mid-1980s, citizens formed the Democratic Alliance to help restore Chilean democracy. After a few failed campaigns, the movement decided to focus on a plebiscite vote scheduled for 1988. Although the plebiscite was designed to give Pinochet the appearance of legitimacy, the movement seized this opportunity to expose the regime’s illegitimacy. Activists undertook massive efforts to ensure an accurate, independent vote count, which indicated that the population opposed Pinochet’s rule. Angered by the plebiscite outcome, Pinochet ordered senior military officers to alter the results and declare martial law. The officers refused and sided with the opposition. Without any power to steal the election or impose sanctions, Pinochet was forced to accept the outcome and allow free elections to proceed.

This chapter examines how the Free Officers laid the groundwork for their revolution. During the first six months in power, the officers gradually came to see themselves not only as the vanguard of the struggle for national independence but as legitimate rulers of Egypt. They acted swiftly, purging political ranks and reforming the constitution. They abolished the political parties and assumed direct authority over the country. This was how the Free Officers declared their revolution. The chapter first considers the “blessed movement,” the term used by the Free Officers to refer to themselves, and the military junta they established before discussing the two factions, known as the minimalists and maximalists, that differed in attitude toward the issue of military rule. It also explores how the Free Officers' abolition of political parties intersect with the controversies of the previous six months: the resistance to voluntary “purification” and party organization, and opposition to land reform.

This chapter examines the relations between the military junta and the officer corps that formed it. It first considers the role envisioned by the Free Officers for the army and for their own movement before discussing their growing discord with Muhammad Nagib in the context of a power struggle. It then analyzes the officers' conflict with Colonel Rashad Mahanna and the controversy surrounding the revelation of the names of the original nine junta members who decided to oust King Farouk from power. It also assesses the impact of the power struggle between Nagib and his younger colleagues on the internal stability of the Command Council of the Revolution (CCR) and concludes with the argument that the junta's actions were not consistent with its promise of a return to democracy.

This chapter discusses human rights and the U.S.–Argentine relations in 1979–1980. Having spearheaded U.S. efforts to promote human rights in Argentina for three years, Patricia Derian was outraged when she discovered that the Carter administration had decided to initiate “a major policy shift” toward the South American nation in order to “normalize relations and end our official criticism of the regime.” It was evident that the Carter administration’s success in organizing the Argentine military junta’s invitation to the Inter-American Commission on Human Rights (IACHR) had come at a heavy political cost. Indeed, the administration’s decision to make Export–Import (Exim) Bank approval of the $270 million Allis-Chalmers sale of a hydroelectric turbine factory to Argentina contingent on the junta’s invitation to the IACHR sparked criticism from American business leaders and conservative journalists, who accused the Carter administration of obstructing profitable bilateral trade relations in the interest of a poorly defined and badly executed human rights policy.

In August 2007, the Burmese military junta raised the price of fuel by 500%, sparking panic in an already poverty-stricken nation. Subsequent reports of civilian protests were buried deep in international newspapers, but several weeks later when the nation's Buddhist monks joined in, the world took notice. A small trickle of wire service stories gave way to a tsunami of print, broadcast, and online coverage, including blogs, youtubes, and multi-media background pieces. Increased awareness of Burma's economic woes spurred world leaders, including United States' President George W. Bush, to initiate sanctions against the junta. On the grassroots level, thousands worldwide joined social networking sites where they could learn about the monks' campaign and support Burma's pro-democracy efforts. Why, how, and when did the American press take note of events in Burma and what role did religion play in capturing public attention? What was the impact of new media on the coverage and its reception? What role did Buddhism play in galvanizing public opinion? How did the story affect United States foreign policy, and what are the limits of “soulcraft,” the religious dimension of statecraft? This chapter examines events that occurred in Burma between mid-August and late September 2007, and in addition it looks at why Buddhism is central to understanding them.

This chapter studies the situation faced by the United States in Burma in August 1988. The people challenged the ruling military junta, with Aung San Suu Kyi—daughter of Burma's martyred independence hero—emerging as the opposition leader. Suu Kyi had saintly qualities, and her situation evoked questions about human rights. This was not the intention of either the Ronald Reagan or the George H. W. Bush administrations; but all agreed that the Burmese junta had acted brutally. After 1990, there were calls for sanctions and other strong measures against the ruling junta. Human rights, which had seldom been at the top of the American diplomatic agenda in Southeast Asia, were suddenly the focus of American policy debates. For perhaps the first time Burma received more attention in the United States than any other Southeast Asian country.

This chapter examines the rise of developmental autocracy in South Korea in 1961 following a turbulent period of successive student and military revolutions. It first appraises the role of U.S. foreign policy in bringing Syngman Rhee to power and enabling him to survive armed challenges to his rule. The chapter then looks at the student-led revolution that paved the way for the country's first democratic government in April 1960, followed by a virtually bloodless military coup d'état led by Park Chung Hee that seized power in May 1961. It also considers the United States' support for the military junta due to its leaders' strong determination to promote economic development. The chapter argues that Washington's decision to recognize Park instead of trying to restore South Korea's democratically elected leaders brought about developmental autocracy in the country.

This chapter examines how the relations between the military junta and its allies, particularly communists and the Muslim Brotherhood, deteriorated. The Democratic Movement for National Liberation (DMNL), the largest and least doctrinaire communist movement in Egypt, and Muslim Brotherhood had collaborated with the Free Officers and played significant supporting roles in their coup. The officers were thus confronted with two crucial questions: First, what debt, if any, did they owe their allies? Second, what ideological influence would these movements exert on the course of social and political reform? The chapter shows that the Free Officers gradually distanced themselves from the Muslim Brotherhood and abruptly turned on the communists. It considers the Command Council of the Revolution's (CCR) decision to outlaw the Muslim Brotherhood as well as its campaign against communism. It argues that the CCR's relations with the Muslim Brotherhood and the communist movements were influenced more by power politics than by ideology.

This chapter examines the role of the United States and South Korea's military officers in creating and sustaining developmental autocracy in the country between 1961 and 1972. It suggests that American officials helped Park Chung Hee in implementing unpopular policies and weakening his opposition so that he could institute crucial reforms necessary for economic development. After discussing American efforts to push the military junta away from military rule and economic nationalism toward political and economic liberalization, the chapter looks at the conflict between Washington and the Park regime owing to their differences over how a developmental autocracy should function, as well as Park's rifts with his domestic opponents over foreign policy. It also analyzes Park's introduction of Yusin, a harsh authoritarian system that essentially rejected democracy and which the United States had to support because it had little choice.

This book examines the formative period of the Egyptian revolution that began on July 23, 1952, when the Free Officers, a group of army officers led by Muhammad Nagib and Gamal Abdel Nasser, staged a coup d'etat that overthrew King Farouk. After forcing King Farouk to abdicate, the Free Officers established a military junta, decreed a land reform program, appointed Nagib as prime minister, and ordered all political parties to apply for recertification. They also abrogated the Constitution and outlawed all political parties, after which they declared a three-year “transition period” of martial law and proclaimed their movement a revolution. The book explores the political dynamics of this transition period by assessing and synthesizing a variety of interpretations of events and how the coup of July 23, undertaken in the name of social and political reform, became the “July Revolution.” It also considers the debate over the legacy of Nasser and the regime he founded in Egypt.

After Hosni Mubarak stepped down, Egypt was ruled by the Supreme Council of Armed Forces (SCAF). During this time, a new form of antimilitarist activism emerged for the first time in Egyptian history. Of the three waves of antigovernment uprisings, this one was perhaps the most revolutionary: the goal was not to topple a single person or to hold elections but rather to dismantle the entrenched power of the armed forces. This chapter offers insights into these groups that fall in between the Muslim Brotherhood/military dichotomy. Many of these groups were led by women. After Mubarak was ousted, certain private companies celebrated the revolution in their advertising, but opposition to the SCAF was never commercialized. Despite egregious human rights abuses committed under the SCAF, neither the business elite nor the United States ever withdrew support from the military junta. However, the SCAF did lose popular support, evidenced when mass protests emerged in July during the Tahrir sit-in, and then again during the Battle of Mohamed Mahmoud in November–December 2011.

For several reasons, prolonged participation in politics can endanger both the military as an institution and the leaders at the helm, prompting an abdication of political power. Military muscle doesn’t equal political acuity. Governance often turns out to be a humbling experience for military leaders ill-equipped to perform the task. Even military officers initially determined to establish a dictatorship may lose their appetite for governance as they begin to appreciate the human and political capital required to run a government, let alone establish an enduring dictatorship. The intramural squabbles within the junta can snowball in intensity over time and cause the leadership to implode.

This chapter examines Argentina's relationship with the International Monetary Fund (IMF) during the period 1976–1984. It tracks Argentina's engagement with the IMF from the arrival of a Fund mission soon after the military junta took power in 1976 through to the economic meltdown in the last months of 2001, which culminated in the withdrawal of IMF support for the country and the largest sovereign default in history to that point. The Argentina-IMF case is used to test the argument linking treatment of borrowers to shared economic beliefs. The chapter first provides an overview of economic policymaking in Argentina in 1976–1981 and in 1991–2001; economic policymaking in the latter period was dominated by neoliberals. It also compares the economic beliefs of neoliberals with those of structuralists and concludes with a discussion of the breakdown in Argentine-IMF relations.

This chapter examines the background to the Free Officers' coup d'etat and the political bickering that followed by focusing on the parliamentary regime in its last years, between January 1950 and July 23, 1952. During this period, reform-minded members of the political establishment clashed with those who continued to play politics as usual. Their failures resulted in the end of liberalism in Egypt. The chapter first provides an overview of how competing interests, both foreign and national, doomed Egypt's parliamentary order from the outset before discussing the election of a Wafdist government in 1950 and its eventual failure. It then analyzes the events that served as a prelude to the Free Officers' rising around which disaffected liberals, progressives, communists, and the Muslim Brotherhood constructed a new savior myth: that a military junta would, after imposing constitutional reform, restore parliamentary life and then return to the barracks.