Economic and political crises: some reflections in the light of the Brazilian experience

Abstract

Starting from the realization that political crises have typically occurred in Brazil
at the same time in which economic crises were also taking place, this paper attempts to
inquire into the reasons for this coincidence. In the first two sections, a theoretical analysis
is developed which puts forward some reasons why economic crises are prone to generate
political crises. In the rest of the paper, the general ideas so far presented are applied to the
case of the two more recent economic and political crises that occurred in Brazil: that of the
early l960’s and the present one.

JEL Classification: E32; D72; Z13.