# Self-Coup

> Self-Coup is mapped as the seized center: it changes rule by capturing command, disabling rivals, or hollowing institutions.

| Field | Value |
|---|---|
| Stable ID | `node:kiduna:political-change:coups-breakdown:self-coup` |
| Family | Coups, Breakdown & Consolidation |
| Domain | State Power |
| Kind | process |
| Archetypal function | The Seized Center |
| Epistemic status | synthesis; supported |

## Concrete anchor

Self-Coup belongs to the **Coups, Breakdown & Consolidation** family. It is treated as a specific political object, role, institution, tactic, event, ideology, or mechanism before any symbolic transfer is made.

## What it does

Self-Coup changes rule by capturing command, disabling rivals, or hollowing institutions, changing who can act, what becomes visible, and which costs are distributed to others.

## Who gains and who loses power

The mechanism can increase the capacity of actors able to use Self-Coup, while shifting cost, delay, risk, exclusion, or dependence toward actors with less authority, information, organization, money, or safe access. The distribution is conditional, not an essence of the node.

## Archetypal function

**The Seized Center.** Self-Coup is mapped as the seized center: it changes rule by capturing command, disabling rivals, or hollowing institutions.

## Gift

can end paralysis or dislodge a failed regime; through Self-Coup, that capacity becomes available for deliberate use.

## Wound / Shadow

substitutes coercive fact for public authorization and normalizes exceptional rule; Self-Coup can then reproduce the very arrangement it claims to change.

## Conditions

- scale and jurisdiction are explicit
- affected people and absent stakeholders are named
- time horizon and countermoves are considered

## Strategic meaning

Use Self-Coup to identify the operative target, resource, dependency, decision forum, and likely countermove. Ask what would make the mechanism stronger, weaker, more legitimate, or less necessary.

## Divinatory meaning

The Seized Center enters through Self-Coup. Read for the capacity seeking expression, the cost displaced from view, and the relationship that changes if the frame moves.

**Question:** What changes when Self-Coup becomes the unit of analysis rather than background?

## Game function

**leverage.** Reveal one hidden dependency connected to Self-Coup; another player names a countermove. Initiative 1.

## Relationships

- **mobilizes — Military Coup:** Military Coup mobilizes Self-Coup by changing authority, participation, resources, information, legitimacy, timing, or the cost of cooperation. _(synthesis; supported)_
- **distributes costs to — Palace Coup:** Self-Coup distributes costs to Palace Coup by changing authority, participation, resources, information, legitimacy, timing, or the cost of cooperation. _(synthesis; supported)_
- **mobilizes — Desegregation:** Desegregation mobilizes Self-Coup by changing authority, participation, resources, information, legitimacy, timing, or the cost of cooperation. _(interpretive; tentative)_
- **amplifies — Constitutional Moment:** Self-Coup amplifies Constitutional Moment by changing authority, participation, resources, information, legitimacy, timing, or the cost of cooperation. _(interpretive; tentative)_

## Countermaps and polarity prompts

- Read Self-Coup from the viewpoint of the actor who bears its cost.
- Reverse cause and symptom: what if Self-Coup is an effect of the system it appears to drive?
- Change the clock: what looks different over a day, an election cycle, a generation, and a century?
- Ask when the Gift becomes the Wound through scale, secrecy, intensity, latency, or unequal reciprocity.

## Epistemic and Sentinel note

Claim layers: synthesis, interpretive, symbolic_divinatory. Scope, jurisdiction, period, and source perspective may change the claim.
No node-specific Sentinel factors were recorded; ordinary source, audience, and context checks still apply.

## Visual direction

A text-free enamel expression of Self-Coup: one dominant mechanism, one counterforce, raised warm-metal linework, midnight field, restrained civic red, teal, ivory, and amber. No party logo, national flag, sacred symbol, or recognizable person.

## Research / provenance

- [V-Dem Dataset and Codebook](https://www.v-dem.net/data/the-v-dem-dataset/) — V-Dem Institute, 2026. Comparative measurement of democratic institutions; indicators remain model-based measures.
- [National Emergency Powers](https://crsreports.congress.gov/product/pdf/RL/98-505) — Congressional Research Service, 2024. U.S. emergency authorities and congressional checks.
- [Charter of the United Nations](https://www.un.org/en/about-us/un-charter/full-text) — United Nations, 1945. International institutional order, sovereignty, security, and cooperation.

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Engine Output version 1.0.0; generated 2026-08-24T00:00:00Z. Sentinel annotations are stored separately in `sentinel/handoffs.json`.
