Why do coups happen in some nascent democracies but not in others? To answer this question, I probe four interconnected variables in democratizing regimes: the military’s ethos; the military’s corporate interests; the military’s perception of the new civilian ruling elite; and the correlation of force between the military and the founding democratic government. My argument is twofold: first, I maintain that ideational variables are central to shaping the military’s political behavior; and second, I argue in favor of merging insights from cultural, corporate, and structural theories to understand the consolidation, or breakdown, of nascent democracies. My main case study for this paper will be Egypt; I will also make references to the Tunisian case for a comparative perspective.