Around 50 years ago Brasília became the capital of Brazil. The distances between São Paulo and Rio de Janeiro - where the biggest part of the population live - from Brasília are big enough to have silently influenced the destine of the country in my opinion.
It's still difficult to protest in Brazil. Most people can't go to the capital with ease. For a lot of people even the capital of their own states lies hundreds of kilometers away.
Not only that: having the national political institutions isolated makes it difficult to know what's being decided there hence you can't even protest because you are not aware of the changes about to take place.
Another possible consequence of the moving was the weakening of political power of the aristocratic elite(in control since the beginning), which can explain the spread and increase of socialist ideals. Compared to the US I think the Brazilian elite doesn't have much political power anymore and I think the reason for this is Brasília.
Social media has given the population the possibility of uniting to show their discontent while protesting locally. But this is the case only now. I wonder how big was the impact of having taken the national political institutions away from the population and how it could be measured.
Any insight on this issue would be welcomed! I find this subject very interesting and would like to analyse it in the future with real data. Maybe I'll start by relating economic development to the distance of the population to the capital for each country.