Instabilidade e queda presidencial em perspectiva comparada: um estudo de caso mais-similar sobre os governos Kirchner (2007-2015) e Rousseff (2011-2016)

Abstract

A set of variables has been raised in the literature to explain the dismissal of Latin American presidents since the 1990s, within it economic crisis, neoliberal politics, corruption scandals, street protests, media performance and loss of parliamentary support. However, often these factors are also present in governments that didn’t suffer impediment. Therefore, we seek to answer why some governments are deposed while others remain until the end of their term of office, despite showing equivalent factors? In order to answer this question, we used the most similar case study design, with the selection of the Kirchner (2007-2015) and Rousseff (2011-2016) governments, comparing the presence of variables that are already identified in literature and exploring two new factors, foreign policy and constitutional mechanisms of impeachment. The results showed that some of these variables were observed on both analyzed cases with peculiarities of each country being kept, which weakens the explanatory power over the fall result. On the other hand, these introduced variables showed a much more preponderant and autonomous leadership role from Brazil in relation to the great powers countries and sought to diversify its economic partners; and as for the constitutional mechanism of impeachment, we identified that the typification of the Argentine president's conduct is broader than that of the Brazilian one, although over there the resignation appeal is preferred rather than impeachment, suggesting that Argentine Parliament prefers to leave the burden of replacement to the Executive Power itself, and that the limit of conduct typified in the Brazilian case (liability crime only), is not as restrictive as it seems, on the contrary, the normative text leaves gaps that allow an expanded interpretation by Congress, which uses it according the political crisis context and pre-existing conditions for process opening. Thus, along with the raised elements in this study, we hope to suggest the introduction of new analysis variables for the outcomes of presidential falls, considering the relevance of the theme in the development of causal explanations, given the high incidence of democratic presidential falls and crises that Latin American region goes through.