📊 A History of Coups

Every Latin American country has gone through at least one coup.

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History 🪖

December 2022 in Peru was the first attempted coup état of the 2020s, but it’s far from the first one in Peruvian history. In fact, Castillo’s model could well have been former President Alberto Fujimori, who pulled off a (successful) self-coup over 30 years ago in 1991.

And Peru’s far from alone in having its modern history marked by violent seizures of power.

Every single Latin American country had at least one coup over the course of the 20th century. Some have even seen back-to-back ones as different political and military factions fought for control. Argentina witnessed 6 coups throughout the century; Chile suffered 8.

Every LatAm Country Has Gone Through at Least One Coup

Global instability has something to do with this, of course. Coups have an old relationship with social and economic discontent, and crises faced by countries such as Argentina and Peru certainly factored into the various government overthrows each country saw throughout the 1900s. International politics also played a major role, as many of the most famous and destructive coups—such as in Mexico in 1913, Brazil in 1964, or Chile in 1973—were backed by foreign governments such as the United States.