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In an age of 'radical uncertainty,' state capacity proves critical for countries to contain 'wicked crises' and improve the resilience of societies. At the same time, authoritarian populism has come to dominate politics in several countries. The impact of populist leadership on state capacity, however, remains an under-researched theme. We explore how populist rule has impeded effective management of the COVID-19 pandemic by weakening state capacity. We compare Brazil and Turkey as cases with similar degrees of state capacity but diverging pandemic management performance. We also examine South Korea as a benchmark case combining high state capacity and effective leadership. We show that state capacity is central in managing 'wicked crises,' but populist leadership undermines it through a set of mechanisms. On a broader scale, we aim to contribute to the debate by exploring the interactions among crises, state capacity, and populist rule. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

The May 2023 elections in Turkey are puzzling because public support for President Erdoğan did not erode despite political-economic failures of considerable magnitude. The economy was ailing, the government's performance in containing natural disasters was dismal, and oscillations in foreign policy were perplexing. Yet, Erdoğan managed to win elections once again, giving him the mandate to continue ruling the country over the next five years. What explains this political outcome in the face of 'multiple governance crises'? We adopt Albert O. Hirschman's 'exit, voice, and loyalty' framework to explain the multiple but interrelated sources of the resilience of authoritarian populism in Turkey. We suggest the 'exit, voice, and loyalty' equilibrium in the 2023 Turkish elections requires an integrated analysis along two dimensions, each interacting with and mutually reinforcing the other: the economy-identity nexus and the domestic-external nexus. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]