Turkey's 1997 coup leaders, for example, worked with civil society groups and others who opposed the government. This weekend's coup leaders appeared to lack any allies. Turkey, said Mr Ulfelder's research, done in conjunction with the Early Warning Project, was a "very unlikely" candidate for a coup, he said in an email. Turkey also lacks the kind of social polarisation that disaffected elites often exploit to push forward a coup. In an institutional coup, the military is unified behind the takeover and uses its full power to force top-down control over the government -- as senior Turkish military leaders did in 1980.

Source: Bangkok Post July 17, 2016 22:30 UTC