Academic literature on the topic 'Failed presidencies'

Are presidential democracies inherently unstable and prone to breakdown? Recent work on Latin America suggests that the region has seen the emergence of a new kind of instability, where individual presidents do not manage to stay in office to the end of their terms, but the regime itself continues. This article places the Latin American experiences in a global context, and finds that the Latin American literature helps to predict the fates of presidents in other regions. The first stage of a selection model shows that presidents who are personally corrupt and preside over economic decline in contexts where democracy is paired with lower levels of GDP/capita are more likely to face challenges to their remaining in office for their entire terms. For the challenged presidents in this set, the risk of early termination increases when they use lethal force against their challengers, but decreases if they are corrupt. These factors help account for the disproportionately large number of South American presidents who have actually been forced from office, the “South American anomaly” of the title.

Since 1979, one in every six South American presidents has failed to complete his constitutional term. These ‘presidential failures’ occur when elected presidents are forced out of office but without compromising the democratic order. This article seeks to discover the factors that underlie presidential failures through a survival analysis of 65 South American presidencies between 1979 and 2012. We argue that ‘democratic stock’, assessed by taking a historical perspective on democracy, significantly affects presidential survival, a finding which has not been observed in previous studies. It is found that partisan support and democratic stock reduce the hazard of presidential failure. Surprisingly, inflation, executive–legislative power imbalances, party system fragmentation and presidential scandals have no significant effects. These findings offer new evidence for the ‘institutions vs. street’ debate by showing that, when institutional variables are accounted for, the effect of social mobilisations significantly weakens.

In a test of the hypothesis of the existence of a honeymoon period in Brazil after Dilma Rousseff’s victory in the 2014 presidential election, a sentiment analysis of a large database composed of newspaper articles published by Brazil’s most influential quality newspapers, Folha de S. Paulo, O Globo, and Estado de S. Paulo, from January 2014 to August 2016, showed that negative coverage of her skyrocketed right after she took office and stayed very high until she was removed from power. Also tested was the hypothesis that the bias against Rousseff was simply a general disposition of the media to exert their watchdog function in the public interest through a comparison of her coverage with that received by Senator Aécio Neves, the losing candidate in the election and leader of the main opposition party and the campaign for her impeachment, who was the object of innumerable charges of corruption. This hypothesis was also rejected. A análise de valência de uma grande base de textos publicados pelos quality newspapers mais influentes do Brasil, Folha de São Paulo, O Globo e o Estado de S. Paulo, de janeiro de 2014 a agosto de 2016 demonstra que, após sua vitória na eleição presidencial de 2014, Dilma Rousseff não teve uma Lua de Mel por parte da grande imprensa. Pelo contrário, sua cobertura negativa se intensificou enormemente logo depois de assumir o cargo e ficou muito alta até sua remoção do poder. Também foi testada a hipótese de que o viés contra Rousseff fosse simplesmente uma disposição geral da mídia para exercer sua função de vigilância (watchdog) do interesse público frente aos políticos eleitos por meio da comparação de sua cobertura com aquela recebida por Aécio Neves, senador, candidato derrotado à presidência e líder da oposição e da campanha pelo impeachment de Dilma, e alvo de inúmeras acusações de corrupção. Tal hipótese também foi rejeitada pela análise dos dados.

Consideration of the prevalence of regional prejudice in Brazil shows how stereotypical assumptions about culture, race, and socioeconomic class inform regional biases. A comparison of discriminatory social media posts after the 2014 and 2018 presidential elections reveals similarities in most of the racist and xenophobic language in the two election cycles but an increase in references to Venezuela and Cuba and heightened animosity toward the Partido dos Trabalhadores in 2018. Racism directed by social media users against nordestinos is part of a historical continuum of oppression fostered by regional stereotypes and failed public policies that have real-life implications for Brazil’s nordestinos. A consideração da prevalência de preconceito regional no Brasil mostra a centralidade de premissas estereotipadas sobre cultura, raça e classe socioeconômica. Uma comparação de publicações discriminatórias nas mídias sociais após as eleições presidenciais de 2014 e 2018 revela semelhanças na maior parte da linguagem racista e xenofóbica nos dois ciclos eleitorais, mas um aumento nas referências à Venezuela e Cuba e maior animosidade em relação ao Partido dos Trabalhadores em 2018. Racismo dirigido por usuários de mídia social contra os nordestinos faz parte de um continuum histórico de opressão promovida por estereótipos regionais e políticas públicas fracassadas que têm implicações na vida real para os nordestinos do Brasil.