"
Regime change" is the replacement of one
regimeThe word regime refers to a set of conditions, most often of a political nature. It may also be used synonymously with "regimen", for example in the phrases "exercise regime" or "medical regime".-Politics:In politics, a regime is the form of government: the set of rules, cultural or social norms,...
with another. While it is widely believed that the term was first coined by former
US PresidentThe President of the United States is the head of state and head of government of the United States and is the highest political official in the United States by influence and recognition...
Bill ClintonWilliam Jefferson "Bill" Clinton was the 42nd President of the United States from 1993 to 2001. He was the third-youngest president; only Theodore Roosevelt and John F. Kennedy were younger when entering office...
, use of the term dates to at least 1925.
Regime change can occur through conquest by a foreign power,
revolutionA revolution is a fundamental change in power or organizational structures that takes place in a relatively short period of time.Aristotle described two types of political revolution:...
,
coup d'étatA coup d'état , or coup for short, is the sudden unconstitutional deposition of a legitimate government, usually by a small group of the existing state establishment—typically the military—to replace the deposed government with another, either civil or military...
or reconstruction following the
failure of a stateThe term failed state is often used by political commentators and journalists to describe a state perceived as having failed at some of the basic conditions and responsibilities of a sovereign government...
. Regime change may replace all or part of the state's existing institutions, administrative apparatus, bureaucracy and other elements.
The term has been popularized by recent US Presidents.
"
Regime change" is the replacement of one
regimeThe word regime refers to a set of conditions, most often of a political nature. It may also be used synonymously with "regimen", for example in the phrases "exercise regime" or "medical regime".-Politics:In politics, a regime is the form of government: the set of rules, cultural or social norms,...
with another. While it is widely believed that the term was first coined by former
US PresidentThe President of the United States is the head of state and head of government of the United States and is the highest political official in the United States by influence and recognition...
Bill ClintonWilliam Jefferson "Bill" Clinton was the 42nd President of the United States from 1993 to 2001. He was the third-youngest president; only Theodore Roosevelt and John F. Kennedy were younger when entering office...
, use of the term dates to at least 1925.
Regime change can occur through conquest by a foreign power,
revolutionA revolution is a fundamental change in power or organizational structures that takes place in a relatively short period of time.Aristotle described two types of political revolution:...
,
coup d'étatA coup d'état , or coup for short, is the sudden unconstitutional deposition of a legitimate government, usually by a small group of the existing state establishment—typically the military—to replace the deposed government with another, either civil or military...
or reconstruction following the
failure of a stateThe term failed state is often used by political commentators and journalists to describe a state perceived as having failed at some of the basic conditions and responsibilities of a sovereign government...
. Regime change may replace all or part of the state's existing institutions, administrative apparatus, bureaucracy and other elements.
Popular use
The term has been popularized by recent US Presidents. Bill Clinton and
George W. BushGeorge Walker Bush was the 43rd President of the United States from 2001 to 2009 and the 46th Governor of Texas from 1995 to 2000....
regularly used the term in reference to
Saddam HusseinSaddam Hussein Abd al-Majid al-Tikriti was the President of Iraq from 16 July 1979 until 9 April 2003...
's regime in
IraqIraq , officially the Republic of Iraq , also known as Mesopotamia, is a country in Western Asia spanning most of the northwestern end of the Zagros mountain range, the eastern part of the Syrian Desert and the northern part of the Arabian Desert.Iraq shares borders with Jordan to the west, Syria...
.
Ronald ReaganRonald Wilson Reagan was the 40th President of the United States and the 33rd Governor of California .Born in Tampico, Illinois, Reagan moved to Los Angeles, California in the 1930s...
had previously called for regime change in
LibyaLibya , officially the Great Socialist People's Libyan Arab Jamahiriya , is a country located in North Africa...
, directing the
Central Intelligence AgencyThe Central Intelligence Agency is a civilian intelligence agency of the United States government.It is an independent agency responsible for providing national security intelligence to senior United States policymakers....
(CIA) to work towards that goal.
Regime change can be used in a
euphemisticA euphemism is a substitution of an agreeable or less offensive expression in place of one that may offend or suggest something unpleasant to the listener, or in the case of Doublespeak, to make it less troublesome for the speaker...
sense to describe the unilateral imposition of one nation's will onto another through military force. In
mass mediaMass media denotes a section of the media specifically designed to reach a very large audience such as the population of a nation state. The term was coined in the 1920s with the advent of nationwide radio networks, mass-circulation newspapers and magazines. However, some forms of mass media such...
the term is often associated with measures imposed by external forces rather than internal revolutions and coups.
The term regime change is sometimes erroneously used to describe a change in the
government of the day}}In the study of political science the executive branch of government has sole authority and responsibility for the daily administration of the state bureaucracy. The division of power into separate branches of government is central to the democratic idea of the separation of powers .In many...
.
The term regime change can also be applied to bodies other than nation states.
http://blog.fastcompany.com/archives/2006/03/09/dealing_with_regime_change_at_the_office.html
Examples
Overthrow of unfriendly governments by the
United StatesThe United States of America is a federal constitutional republic comprising fifty states and a federal district...
can be found throughout the past 50 years . Regime change in
IraqIraq , officially the Republic of Iraq , also known as Mesopotamia, is a country in Western Asia spanning most of the northwestern end of the Zagros mountain range, the eastern part of the Syrian Desert and the northern part of the Arabian Desert.Iraq shares borders with Jordan to the west, Syria...
became a stated goal of United States foreign policy when Public Law 105-338 (the "
Iraq Liberation ActThe Iraq Liberation Act of 1998 is a United States Congressional statement of policy calling for regime change in Iraq. It was signed into law by President Bill Clinton.-Findings and declaration of policy:The Act found that between 1980 and 1998 Iraq had:...
") was signed into law by U.S. President Bill Clinton. The act directed that:
- "It should be the policy of the United States to support efforts to remove the regime headed by Saddam Hussein from power in Iraq and to promote the emergence of a democratic
Democracy is a system of government in which either the actual governing is carried out by the people governed , or the power to do so is granted by them...
government to replace that regime."
This regime change has been brought about as a consequence of the
2003 invasion of IraqThe 2003 invasion of Iraq, was led by the United States, backed by British forces and smaller contingents from Australia, Denmark, Poland and Spain. Four countries participated with troops during the initial invasion phase, which lasted from March 20 to May 1...
.
Besides US-led regime changes there were numerous regime changes produced by the
Soviet UnionThe Union of Soviet Socialist Republics was a constitutionally socialist state that existed in Eurasia from 1922 to 1991. The name is a translation of the , tr. Soyuz Sovetskikh Sotsialisticheskikh Respublik, abbreviated СССР, SSSR. The common short name is Soviet Union, from , Sovetskiy Soyuz...
, such as in
Outer MongoliaOuter Mongolia was an administrative division of the Qing Empire. The area was roughly equivalent to that of the modern state of Mongolia...
, in Tannu Tuwa in 1921, in the independent republics in the Caucasus during the Russian civil war, in the Baltic states in 1940, and in all of the East European countries that fell under Soviet rule due to the Yalta agreements of 1943.
A reasonably large number of countries underwent regime change in the aftermath of the
global conflictsA world war is a war affecting the majority of the world's most powerful and populous nations. World wars span several continents, and last for multiple years...
of the twentieth century. The First World War saw the breakup of the Austro-Hungarian and the Ottoman empires. The Second World War saw the destruction of
Nazi GermanyNazi Germany and the Third Reich are the common English names for Germany between 1933 and 1945, while it was led by Adolf Hitler and the National Socialist German Worker's Party . The name Third Reich refers to the state as the successor to the Holy Roman Empire of the Middle Ages and the German...
and its replacement first by an occupation regime and then by the modern Federal Republic of Germany and the
German Democratic RepublicThe German Democratic Republic was a Communist state that originated from the Soviet Zone of occupied Germany and the Soviet sector of occupied Berlin...
, the re-establishment of
AustriaAustria , officially the Republic of Austria , is a landlocked country of roughly 8.3 million people in Central Europe. It borders both Germany and the Czech Republic to the north, Slovakia and Hungary to the east, Slovenia and Italy to the south, and Switzerland and Liechtenstein to the west...
as the parliamentarian Second republic and the adoption of a pacifist constitution by
Japanis an island country in East Asia. Located in the Pacific Ocean, it lies to the east of the Sea of Japan, People's Republic of China, North Korea, South Korea and Russia, stretching from the Sea of Okhotsk in the north to the East China Sea and Taiwan in the south...
. Of course, the former was preceded by Reich-induced regime change and
puppet governmentsThe term puppet state describes a nominal sovereignty controlled effectively by a foreign power. The term refers to a government controlled by the government of another country like a puppeteer controls the strings of a marionette...
in many European states.
After the second world war, Britain's granting of independence to various nations constituted a peaceful externally-imposed régime change.
One of the bloodiest regime change in Europe was due to the coup d'état of Generalissimo
Francisco FrancoFrancisco Franco Bahamonde, commonly known as Francisco Franco , or simply Franco, was a military general and dictator of Spain from October 1936, and de facto regent of the nominally restored Kingdom of Spain from 1947 until his death in 1975...
in
SpainSpain , officially the Kingdom of Spain , is a country located in southwestern Europe on the Iberian Peninsula.
[The Spanish constitution does not establish any official denomination of the country, even though España , Estado español and Nación española are used interchangeably...]
in 1936, itself a reaction to the abolition of the kingdom and the establishment of a republican regime in 1931.
A lesser-known externally-imposed regime change was the
Cambodian-Vietnamese WarThe Cambodian–Vietnamese War was a series of conflicts between the two countries, culminating in the Vietnamese invasion and subsequent occupation of Cambodia and the removal of the Khmer Rouge regime from power...
, resulting in the removal of the
Khmer RougeThe Khmer Rouge was the name given to the followers of the Communist Party of Kampuchea, the totalitarian ruling party in Cambodia from 1975 to 1979, led by Pol Pot, Ieng Sary, Son Sen and Khieu Samphan....
from power in
CambodiaThe Kingdom of Cambodia , formerly known as Kampuchea , is a country in South East Asia with a population of over 14 million people. The kingdom's capital and largest city is Phnom Penh...
.
As US objectives
General
Douglas MacArthurGeneral of the Army Douglas MacArthur was an American general, United Nations general, and Field Marshal of the Philippine Army. He was a Chief of Staff of the United States Army during the 1930s and later played a prominent role in the Pacific theater of World War II...
during the
Korean WarThe Korean War is a war that started between North Korea and South Korea on 25 June 1950 and paused with an armistice signed 27 July, 1953...
advocated this policy, leading to his dismissal by President Harry Truman. Later, in the
Vietnam WarThe Vietnam War or the Second Indochina War was a Cold War military conflict that occurred in Vietnam, Laos, and Cambodia from 1959 to 30 April 1975...
, many conservatives such as
Barry GoldwaterBarry Morris Goldwater was a five-term United States Senator from Arizona and the Republican Party's nominee for President in the 1964 election. He was also a Major General in the U.S. Air Force Reserve. He was known as "Mr...
, also supported the concept, denouncing President
Lyndon B. JohnsonLyndon Baines Johnson , served as the 36th President of the United States from 1963 to 1969 after his service as the Vice President of the United States from 1961 to 1963...
's goal of merely saving
South VietnamSouth Vietnam refers to a state which governed southern Vietnam until 1975. It received international recognition in 1950 as the State of Vietnam and later as the “Republic of Vietnam” . Its capital was Saigon...
from being taken over by the Communist North as a "no-win" policy. The American-backed overthrow of the
Maurice BishopMaurice Rupert Bishop was a Grenadian politician and revolutionary.-Background:Bishop was the son of Rupert and Alimenta Bishop. He was educated at the London School of Economics and had an extensive background in studies of the black power movement. Returning to Grenada, he became active in...
government in
GrenadaGrenada is an island country and sovereign state consisting of the island of Grenada and six smaller islands at the southern end of the Grenadines in the southeastern Caribbean Sea. Grenada is located northwest of Trinidad and Tobago, northeast of Venezuela, and southwest of Saint Vincent and the...
in 1983 can also be viewed in the same light, as can the U.S. support of the
ContrasThe Contras is a label given to the various rebel groups opposing Nicaragua's FSLN Sandinista Junta of National Reconstruction government following the July 1979 overthrow of Anastasio Somoza Debayle...
insurgency in Nicaragua (leading to the
Iran-Contra AffairThe Iran–Contra affair was a political scandal in the United States which came to light in November 1986, during the Reagan administration, in which senior US figures agreed to facilitate the sale of arms to Iran, the subject of an arms embargo, to secure the release of hostages and to fund...
) and the
United States embargo against CubaThe United States Embargo against Cuba is a commercial, economic, and financial embargo partially imposed on Cuba in October 1960 and strengthened to a near-total embargo in February 1962....
.
Internal regime change
Regime change can be precipitated by revolution or a
coup d'étatA coup d'état , or coup for short, is the sudden unconstitutional deposition of a legitimate government, usually by a small group of the existing state establishment—typically the military—to replace the deposed government with another, either civil or military...
. The Russian Revolution, the 1962 Burmese coup and the 1990 collapse of
communismCommunism is a socioeconomic structure and political ideology that promotes the establishment of an egalitarian, classless, stateless society based on common ownership and control of the means of production and property in general. Karl Marx posited that communism would be the final stage in human...
in
Eastern EuropeEastern Europe is a region lying in the Eastern part of Europe. The term is highly context-dependent and there are "almost as many definitions of Eastern Europe as there are scholars of the region"...
are consummate examples.
Less violent examples of internally-driven regime change are the establishment of the
French Fifth RepublicThe Fifth Republic is the fifth and current republican constitution of France, which was introduced on 5 October 1958. The Fifth Republic emerged from the collapse of the French Fourth Republic, replacing a parliamentary government with a semi-presidential system...
and the
Federation of AustraliaThe federation of Australia was the process by which the six separate British self-governing colonies of New South Wales, Queensland, South Australia, Tasmania, Victoria and Western Australia formed a federation...
.
In academic use
In addition to the above uses, the term 'regime change' can also be used in a more general sense, particularly in academic work, to refer to a change in political institutions or laws that affect the nature of the system as a whole. For example, the end of the
Bretton Woods systemThe Bretton Woods system of monetary management established the rules for commercial and financial relations among the world's major industrial states in the mid 20th century...
was a regime change in the international system, as was the repeal of the National Mandatory Speed Limit in the United States. Regime changes are often viewed as ideal opportunities for
natural experimentA natural or Quasi-experiment is a naturally occurring instance of an observable phenomena which approximate or duplicate the properties of a controlled experiment. In contrast to laboratory experiments, these events aren't created by scientists, but yield data which nonetheless can be used to...
s by social scientists.
External links