The Heresthetics of Coup Making

Abstract

Heresthetics is a term coined by Riker to refer to the stratagems used by politicians to manipulate the structure of a decision-making situation. The object of such manipulation is to force one's opponents into a choice of alternatives such that, whichever alternative is chosen, the opponents will lose. The main argument of this article is that military coups and regimes are largely the outcomes of successful heresthetical maneuvers. In this article my argument is applied to the emergence of the Brazilian military regime of 1964. But the argument should apply more widely. At the very least, this preliminary exercise should stimulate more research on the strategic maneuvers that engender military regimes and other forms of political change. By investigating the relationship between heresthetics and regime change this article also shows how social choice theory and game theory can be used to complement and enrich current explanations of political change.