The national-international connection: Global economic crises and the comparative political development of Argentina, Brazil, and Chile

This dissertation interprets how regime transformation is shaped in part by global economic crises. In each of the three crisis periods (1873-1896, 1929-1949, 1973-1992) and in each of the three cases (Argentina, Brazil, and Chile) global economic crisis challenged the political and economic power of once-ascendant political coalitions. Crisis opened the system of relationships, making politics and policy more open. Finally a resolution was reached, closing the system until the next crisis. In this sense then, the dissertation is a "path dependent" approach, in which what is possible today often depends crucially on what happened yesterday.;Explanations of regime transformation require an examination of: actors and coalitions; institutions; and policies. These three facets of regime transformation are the building blocks of the study. Organizing the study in this manner allow us to link attitudes to behavior, policy to politics, and actors to outcomes. The ways in which these component elements combined, mutated, and recombined over time, and from case to case, are charted by following the relationships over the duration of the three "world historic times.".;I put forth an argument that is combinatorial or conjunctural in its approach. I maintain that changes in the international economy alone do not "cause" regime change, but rather external economic pressures are a key conjunctural factor in a complex process that also involves changing patterns of industrialization, intrasocietal political pressures, as well as involving domestic political institutions. These intrasocietal factors explain why the scope, pace, and nature of political change differ from case to case. Hence, the key to regime transformation was not economic crisis per se, but rather how domestic regimes and policymakers responded to such crises.