How do coup d'etats and coup attempts happen?

Discontent is common and coup attempts are rare, so something else selects them

Question: How do coup d'etats and coup attempts happen?
Position‹3 of 3: Coup attempts are more likely when there is a strong chance they will succeed
Argument1 of 2›: Discontent is common and coup attempts are rare, so something else selects them

The argument

Proponents of this position begin from a comparison of frequencies. Governments that officers dislike are common. So are governments short of money, unpopular, accused of corruption, or presiding over a failing war. Coup attempts, against that background, are rare. Proponents argue that an explanation resting on grievance therefore predicts far more attempts than actually occur, and that the question worth asking is not what makes officers discontented but what makes a discontented officer move. The argument is that the missing variable is the expected cost of failure. An attempt that fails is not a political setback but, for those who launched it, commonly a capital matter. The plotters are identifiable, the act is treason by definition, and the government they tried to remove is the one that judges them. Proponents point out that this sets the threshold for acting extremely high and makes the decision a gamble rather than an expression of feeling. An officer weighing it is not asking whether the government deserves to fall but whether this particular attempt will work, which is a question about the behaviour of other people. Holders of the view conclude that attempts cluster where the answer to that question looks favourable. Visible signs that a government cannot rely on its forces, a recent attempt that went unpunished, the withdrawal of external backing, a leader who is absent, ill or publicly abandoned by allies: each of these raises the estimated chance of success without changing anyone's grievance. Proponents argue that this explains both why long standing grievances produce nothing for years and why, when conditions shift, an attempt can appear quickly and with no new provocation.

Premises

[P1]Conditions commonly offered as causes of coups, such as unpopularity, corruption, economic failure and military grievance, are widespread, while coup attempts are rare. [P2] A failed attempt is identifiable treason judged by the government it targeted, so the cost of failure is severe and the threshold for acting high. [P3] An officer deciding whether to act is therefore estimating whether enough others will join or stand aside, which is a judgement about expected success rather than about grievance. [C] What distinguishes the rare coup attempt from the common grievance is the plotters' estimate that it will succeed.

Counter-arguments

Critics argue that the account is hard to separate from a tautology, since an attempt is made only when somebody thought it would work, and that saying so adds little. They also question the direction of the reasoning, because the signals the position treats as evidence of likely success, such as a divided army or a leader abandoned by allies, are the same conditions that grievance based accounts already cite, so the two explanations may be describing one thing in different vocabulary. Others note that attempts frequently fail, and fail in ways that were foreseeable, which suggests plotters often act on grievance and misjudge their support rather than calculating well.

Rejecting the premises

[Rejecting P3] Plotters frequently misjudge their support and fail in foreseeable ways, which suggests the decision is not well modelled as an estimate of expected success. [Rejecting C] The signals treated as evidence of likely success are the same conditions grievance based accounts cite, so the conclusion may restate a rival explanation rather than displace it.