sancho wrote:

Am I missing something or it just does not sound as military Coup d'État in this case?

You are right.  It doesn't seem like a coup.  In the US we tend to look at Latin American revolutions as something to be expected.  We think of Latin American countries as a mixture of easy-going democracy and dictatorship, one replacing the other from time to time. 

Perhaps a certain sangfroid which one associates with the British, for instance, helps a nation remain steady.  Or as someone has noted, it is only that the British aren't interested in Ideas!

In Hitler and the Germans Voegelin wrote about the requirements for democracy to function and that it is very much an accident of history when it does function.  See, for instance:http://www.voegelinview.com/ev/democrac … cians.html. EV also discusses the question of formal and substantive constitutional government in the New Science of Politics in connection with the beautifully written Soviet Constitution.

So perhaps the army in this case was just as you say, a constitutional police force! Or perhaps federal marshals enforcing a court decree.  It suggests something very good to me, in any case.

Best,

Fritz Wagner