Comparing the failed coup attempt in Turkey with the coup in Egypt

Abstract: Different patterns of military hegemony and different strategies adopted by elected governments in resistance to this hegemony may be the main factors that explain the different outcomes between the successful military coup in Egypt 2013 and the failed coup attempt in Turkey 2016. While the Turkish military attempted to establish political hegemony over the state through guardianship from outside, the Egyptian military managed to establish it via infiltration and colonization of the state from inside. While the AK Party government in Turkey adopted a strategy which included both co-optation and confrontation to encounter the military’s political powers, the appeasement strategy adopted by successive Egyptian rulers, even after the 2011 revolution, ended up transferring even more political influence to the military over the state. Therefore, in contrast to Turkish civilians who responded to the coup attempt in an undivided and in a decisive way, civilian political powers in Egypt were too divided and hesitant to stand together in the face of the military.