Economic Shocks and Political Regimes: How International Crises Impacted Autocratization and Democratization in Brazil, Germany, and the US

Abstract

Adopting the historical-comparative method, this article addresses the impacts of the four international economic crises that occurred up to 2019 on the US, Germany, and Brazil, focusing on their effects on the State, especially on the political regime, and in the post-2008 period. The selected countries have undergone different authoritarian and democratic experiences. I conceptualize the state three-dimensionally: it is a decision-making apparatus regulated by a political regime and supported by a structure of political domination anchored in expanded coalitions. I argue that the respective critical international junctures tend to impact this three-dimensionality of the state, that is, they illuminate the observation of changes and continuities in the Leviathan. I formulate and corroborate three hypotheses about these international crises: they tend to change regimes or increase or decrease their levels of democracy or autocracy; the autocratic response depends on a pro-business balance of power, which subordinates workers; the democratic commitment of the actors acts against autocratization. The contribution to the literature lies in addressing the processes of autocratization and democratization of regimes based on political economy, particularly by observing the impacts of international economic crises on States, and not exclusively by analyzing political-institutional variables.