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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]

The literature on trading states has advanced our understanding of foreign economic policy dynamics, but what constitutes a proper trading state and determines its resilience remains somewhat unclear. This article contributes to the literature by developing a political economy framework to assess the role of 'state capacity' in conditioning Turkey's foreign economic policies. Using Turkey as a case, we argue that states are more likely to show suboptimal economic engagement in case of weak state capacity, as (i) they fail to pursue effective industrial policy resulting in low exit costs, (ii) business elites cannot put pressure on the political leadership for the preservation of existing trade ties in the event of an external shock, and (iii) weak financial support mechanisms lead to insufficient assistance to national firms operating abroad. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

The future of liberal democracy appears to be uncertain. This article develops a holistic approach to examine the prospects of liberal democracy by focusing on how three main regime types—that is, "established democratic regimes," "hybrid regimes," and "established authoritarian regimes"—interact with each other. We argue structural global political economy trends, which largely created the current authoritarian populist tide, remain strong despite signs of democratic renewal emerged with the recent new green Keynesian turn in established Western democracies, a more unified transatlantic response to the Russian invasion of Ukraine and growing political-economic fragility of key hybrid regimes ruled by authoritarian populist leaders. Also, the resilience of various types of autocracies which co-exist and reinforce one another through economic linkages and political coalitions should not be underestimated, especially demonstrative effects of the Russia–China partnership. Both democratic and authoritarian forms of capitalism face serious problems of income and wealth inequality, raising challenges over "performance legitimacy" in both regime types. In this context, the performance and political-economic orientation of hybrid regimes will have a crucial bearing on the fortunes of liberal democracy on a global scale. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]