Discussing political crisis as a social phenomenon: a short critical look

Abstract

This paper seeks to interpret political and institutional crisis from a perspective that prefers to interpret its internal dynamics, as a method to explicit the whole social process. It suggests that to interpret political crisis, it is necessary to make longer observation of the moves and actions of the main players and institutions in operation, in a context of social complexity. Thus, this paper aims to explicit the inability to focus on the outcomes of a political crisis, without taking into account its internal processes, which vary according to the diffuse and specific political capital possessed by social and institutional players. Thereby, political crisis are moments of fluidity of the prior political equilibrium, which can be amended on new bases, with a new legitimacy brought by individual and institutional performance in specific social space and historical time.