Abstract
This study uses a historical-comparative method to examine the impacts of the four international economic crises that occurred until 2019 on the United States, Germany, and Brazil, focusing primarily on their effects on the political regime and the post-2008 period. The selected countries had different authoritarian experiences, either in the distant past or more recently. The State is conceptualized along three dimensions: political regime, decision-making apparatus, and the structure of political domination supported by coalitions. The argument is that the respective international critical junctures tend to impact this three-dimensionality, making it easier to observe their variations and continuities. Three hypotheses are formulated and corroborated regarding these crises: they tend to increase or decrease the levels of democracy or autocracy in regimes or change them; autocratization depends on a pro-business power balance that subordinates workers; the democratic commitment of actors operates against autocratization. This study’s contribution to the literature lies in the approach to processes of autocratization and democratization, which are investigated here through the impacts of international economic crises on States. Critical junctures shed light on key components of the mutability of the Leviathan. It investigates the political regime through the political economy of the relationships between the State, markets, and social classes, not exclusively through political-institutional variables. Mechanisms of intersection between the political-institutional sphere and economic and social structures and actors are analyzed. These mechanisms impact the three-dimensionality of the State, leading to changes in the regime or within the regime.
capitalism crises; State; political regimes; autocratization; coalitions