Putsch or coup d’état: Robert Dossou puts the December 7 events into perspective
Former president of the Constitutional Court, Lawyer Robert Dossou, provided a conceptual clarification on the terms “putsch” and “coup d’État”, often used interchangeably in public debate.
According to the jurist, the events that took place on December 7, 2025 are, strictly speaking, a putsch, also referred to as a pronunciamiento.
He says the term pronunciamiento, originating in Latin America, denotes a form of military intervention characteristic of putschs. In political science terms, Lawyer Dossou recalls that a putsch is defined as a situation in which a state institution not vested with political power seizes that power in order to exercise it.
By contrast, he points out, a coup d’État occurs when a state body already vested with political power strips other institutions of their prerogatives and monopolizes the entire political function. This is therefore a fundamental difference based on the institutional position of the actor at the moment the act is carried out.
Lawyer Robert Dossou also warns against what he calls semantic erosion. According to him, the evolution of political language leads to the abusive use of the expression “coup d’État” to describe distinct realities.
He specifically criticizes qualifiers like “constitutional coup d’État”, arguing that such a phrase wrongly suggests a coup could be validated by the Constitution. In his view, it would be better to speak of a coup on or against the Constitution, or to use other, legally more precise expressions.
The jurist finally emphasizes that both the putsch and the coup d’État each fall under precise legal statuses, even though in some situations their manifestations can resemble one another. He also notes that particularly serious coups d’État can sometimes be carried out through certain laws, reminding us that the breach of the constitutional order is not always limited to the use of arms.
With this clarification, Lawyer Robert Dossou calls for a more rigorous use of concepts, believing that the precision of words is essential for a fair reading of political and institutional facts.
Comments