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Populism in Argentina: A Comparative Perspective
Abstract
Argentina has been an example par excellence for populism. The most important populist movement is Peronism with the Peronist party Partido Justicialista. Since its foundation in 1945 by Juan Perón, Peronists governed 35 out of 73 years as presidents, achieved between at least 30 and more than 60% of votes in presidential and parliamentary elections, and governed many provinces and cities throughout the country.
... Populism has strong historical foundations in Latin American politics. Social movements such as those led by Juan Perón in Argentina, Getúlio Vargas in Brazil, José Maria Velasco Ibarra in Ecuador, and others represented the so-called first wave of populism in the region in the early and mid-twentieth century (Muno 2019). It functioned as a movement for the reaffirmation of "latinoamericanismo" and antiimperialism. ...
... Their governments emphasized economic stability and structural adjustments programs recommended by the International Monetary Fund (IMF) and the World Bank, and the liberalization of the economy (Edwards 1995(Edwards , 2019Cammack 2000). The third wave started in the late 1990s and continues to the current period (Muno 2019). Clearly opposed to a free market economy and strongly rooted in the left, it favors the protection of domestic sovereignty, criticizes imperialism, and is culturally committed to a Latin American identity in opposition to globalism. ...
This article explores the normative foundations of the contemporary populist turn in Latin America from a theoretical perspective. We argue that the ongoing structural crisis of representative democracy, defined by its inability to identify and respond to growing social demands to provide valuable results for the majority of the population, negatively affects its legitimacy. This facilitates the irruption of a more radical political project, which, in the case of Latin America, is based on a populist discourse. The discussion focuses on the theoretical determination of the arguments used by populism to justify political action. Este artículo explora los fundamentos normativos del giro populista contemporáneo en América Latina desde una perspectiva teórica. Argumentamos que la actual crisis estructural de la democracia representativa, definida por su incapacidad para identificar y responder a las crecientes demandas sociales de proporcionar resultados valiosos para la mayoría de la población, afecta negativamente su legitimidad. Esto facilita la irrupción de un proyecto político más radical, que, en el caso de América Latina, se basa en un discurso populista. La discusión se centra en la determinación teórica de los argumentos utilizados por el populismo para justificar la acción política.
... The third period of populism in Argentina and the region follows the economic and social debacle that occurred in this Latin American country in 2001 (during a new government of the Unión Cívica Radical), two years after the end of Menem's decade-long presidency. Néstor Kirchner (also a Peronist but virtually an unknown figure before his rise to power) entered the government in 2003, and even if the personalist nature of his leadership and his general anti-institutional stance would remain weak during the first moments of his government, both elements would gradually strengthen, accompanied by the growth of an atomized and relatively unorganized social base (Muno 2019). In any case, Kirchnerism, which would establish its stable political structure in the Frente Para la Victoria, would not undergo a subsequent process of party reorganization, similar to what Menem experienced with the Partido Justicialista in its consolidation phase. ...
This study seeks to understand the political discourse of Javier Milei and to determine which concept of populism best captures his approach. Although perceived by many as a populist, Milei is unusual in that he sees himself as a liberal libertarian and defender of the West against collectivist policies. To this end, this study analyzes selected speeches by Milei from three different periods during and after the 2024 presidential election campaign and applies a deductive coding scheme designed to identify ideational populism, populist discursive framing, populism as strategy, and populism as crisis performance. The analysis confirms that Milei is at best a partial populist, as he fails to define the core populist concept of “the people”. It concludes that the concept of crisis performance emerges as the most apt theoretical framework to classify Milei’s type of populism. By rhetorically transforming the crisis not only into an existential economic issue but also into a moral tale of corruption and failure at the highest levels, he can appeal for radical change and offer himself as the national political savior. Milei’s discourse also illustrates that, unlike ideological populism or discursive populist framing, in the performative turn, the victims of the crisis, the people, often remain a vague signifier defined by their suffering at the hands of elites.
... The Constitutional Court or Supreme Court, which is independent in liberal democracies, is a central component to enforce "discriminatory legalism". To bring the court under control, "court packing" is often used: If there is no majority of judges with whom the populists agree, their number can be increased to the point of creating such a majority (Levitsky and Ziblatt, 2018, p. 48, see also Muno, 2019 with several examples from Argentina for court packing). This ensures that the constitution is interpreted in the populists' sense. ...
In this paper, we seek to explore whether populism, when in power, is guided by a particular logic of governance that can be derived from the logic of populism itself. To this end, we develop an ideal type of populist governance and apply it to case studies of India, the United States, Venezuela, and Hungary. Methodologically, the cross-regional comparison with a Most Different Systems Design is carried out through a structured, focused comparison. We conclude that populism in power has a tendency toward autocracy that is inherent in populist governance logic. This may manifest itself “only” in democratic backsliding or regression, that is, in a deterioration of the quality of democracy, but it can also lead to autocratization.
... Dies zeigt sich besonders deutlich anhand des Peronismus in Argentinien (Germani 1962;Horowitz 2012;Muno 2019; siehe auch den Beitrag von Muno in diesem Band). Anders als häufig angenommen stützte sich Juan Domingo Perón nämlich nicht allein auf seine charismatischen Qualitäten und die Gewerkschaften, sondern er schuf auch dauerhafte ideelle Strukturen. ...
Anhand des Falles Venezuela können die Implikationen und Folgen des Populismus an der Macht über einen längeren Zeitraum nachgezeichnet werden. Zwischen 1999 und 2013 stützte sich das Regime vor allem auf die charismatischen Qualitäten von Hugo Chávez und die Einnahmen aus dem Ölgeschäft. Als mit dem Tod Chávez’ und dem kurz darauf folgenden Einbruch der Ölpreise die beiden tragende Säulen des Regimes einstürzten, waren Anzeichen eines Legitimitätsverlusts unübersehbar. Dennoch konnte sich Chávez’ Nachfolger Maduro bis heute an der Macht behaupten. Die Erklärung dieses scheinbaren Paradox liegt nicht nur in verstärkter Repression, sondern auch darin, dass es dem populistischen Regime in Venezuela ein Stück weit gelungen ist, den von Chávez etablierten personalen Mythos zu institutionalisieren.
A situação atual da Argentina, sob a perspectiva do governo de Javier Milei, pode ser entendida através dos conceitos de colonialismo, dependência e ultraliberalismo. O ultraliberalismo de Milei parece agravar as heranças coloniais e a dependência econômica da Argentina, aumentando a crise socioeconômica. Seu governo, com políticas radicais como a dolarização e desregulamentação, resultou em maior pobreza e desigualdade. A análise, neste artigo, a partir de uma revisão de literatura, inclui, também, o entendimento da Teoria da Dependência, que mostra como países periféricos, como a Argentina, estão subordinados às nações centrais. Nas considerações finais, aponta-se que o neoliberalismo, iniciado na ditadura de 1976, teve impactos negativos duradouros. Com Javier Milei, a crise na Argentina se amplifica e decorre de fatores centrais interligados: legado colonial, dependência global e políticas ultraliberais.
This article delves into the academic discussion on the relationship between populism and liberal democracy, challenging the view that all populist movements, parties, and leaders are inherently illiberal. Drawing from a Laclauian perspective, which frames populism as an integral part of democratic politics that amplifies the voices of marginalized groups, we argue that populism can align with the principles of liberal democracy and/or does not necessarily lead to illiberal democracy or authoritarianism. Through the examination of left-wing populist cases in Argentina [Kirchnerism (2003-2015)] and Greece [SYR-IZA (2015-2019)], we aim to demonstrate the inadequacy of approaches that understand populism as an inherently illiberal phenomenon, which often overlook the pluralistic and inclusive aspects of populism. Thus, we provide a response to this query: Is every populist case necessarily illiberal?
Historically, Latin America has been a fertile ground for the emergence of populism. Scholars have identified several waves of populist governments flourishing in the region during the last century. The third wave began in the 2000s when leftist leaders came to power in some Latin American countries, a phenomenon called “the Pink Tide”. Two of the most notable examples of populist governments in this wave were Evo Morales in Bolivia (2006–2019) and Rafael Correa in Ecuador (2007–2017). Both leaders promoted an anti-elitist rhetoric highlighting a confrontational divide between domestic elites (as perpetrators of injustices) and the people (as victims). This rhetoric also involved external actors. The relationship with the great powers was permeated by the populist discourse based on the logic of “them vs. us”. In this context, the paper analyses the rhetoric of Evo Morales and Rafael Correa concerning the role of the European Union in their countries. Primary sources (speeches, press releases and official documents) are examined to understand the image built around the EU and to grasp how populist rhetoric portrayed the EU’s role in areas such as trade and migration. The result is a complex assessment of the ideas about the EU disseminated by these leaders, examining how Morales’s and Correa’s rhetoric evolved over the years and identifying similarities and differences between their approaches.
2019 yılı aralık ayında başlayan Covid-19 salgını, toplum sağlığının korunması için günlük hayatın ve toplumsal düzenin hemen hemen her alanını etkileyen ve devlet kapasitesini ön plana çıkaran salgın politikaları üretmeyi gerektirmiştir. Buna bağlı olarak küresel anlamda devletlerin pandemi süresince uyguladığı politikalar ve özellikle son dönemde yükselişte olan popülist rejimlerin pandemi politikaları önemli bir tartışma unsuru olmuştur. Söz konusu tartışmalarda popülist rejimler birbirine benzer biçimlerde tasvir edilmiş ve ağırlıklı olarak sağ popülizm örneklerine odaklanılmıştır. Bu yaklaşımlar, pandemi politikalarındaki farklılaşmaların göz ardı edilmesine neden olmuştur. Buradan hareketle çalışma, Latin Amerika’da popülist rejimlere örnek teşkil eden Arjantin ve Brezilya’nın pandemi politikalarını sınıfsal dinamikler üzerinden inceleyecektir. Çalışmanın metodu bu ülkelerdeki pandemi dönemi politikalarının içeriğinin Covid-19 salgını konusundaki raporlar üzerinden incelenmesi ve politikaları etkileyen sınıfsal dinamiklerin ikincil kaynaklar üzerinden analiz edilmesinden oluşmaktadır. Sırasıyla sol ve sağ popülizm örnekleri olarak da görülebilecek Arjantin ve Brezilya’da, pandemi politikaları açısından belirgin farklılıklar görülmektedir. Bu farklılaşmayı yanıştır biçimde, analizler Latin Amerika’da popülist rejimlerin her dönemde farklı toplumsal kesimlere dayandığını ve politikaların bu dinamikler üzerinden şekillendiğini göstermektedir. Arjantin’de rejimin Peronist dönemin özelliklerini yansıtır biçimde işçi sınıfının ve yerli burjuvazinin, Brezilya’da ise finans sektörü ve üst gelir gruplarının desteğine dayanması, bu iki popülist yönetimin doğasını ve politikalarını ayrıştıran temel bir faktör olarak karşımıza çıkmaktadır. Çalışmadaki bu iki ülke örneği, popülizmin farklılaşan biçimlerini yansıtmakta ve pandemi politikalarını bu dinamikler üzerinden okumaya fırsat sunmaktadır.
Die Wirkungen des Populismus auf die Demokratie werden kontrovers diskutiert. Der Beitrag analysiert die Effekte populistischer Herrschaft auf die Qualität der Demokratie. Nach der Klärung der Grundbegriffe Populismus und Demokratie stellen wir die Wirkungsbezüge zusammen, mit denen positive und negative Effekte verbunden werden. Die Beziehungen werden anhand von Hypothesen gebündelt. Da wir davon ausgehen, dass sich die Wirkungen nicht pauschal auf die Demokratie auswirken, untersuchen wir die Effekte mithilfe einer differenzierten Demokratiemessung. Durch den Einsatz der Demokratiematrix entsteht ein spezifisches Profil, das zeigt, in welchen Bereichen die Qualität der Demokratie am stärksten bzw. am wenigsten beeinträchtigt oder korrigiert wird. Bei der Fallauswahl wird auf eine Literaturanalyse zurückgegriffen, um populistische Akteure wie Parteien und Präsidenten zu identifizieren. Das methodische Vorgehen beruht dann auf einer (Bayesianischen) Time-Series Cross-Sectional Analyse, um kurzfristige und langfristige Effekte einer populistischen Opposition, eines populistischen Kabinettpartners sowie einer populistischen Regierungsführung auszumachen. Nach der Präsentation der empirischen Befunde werden die Hypothesen ausgewertet. Abschließend wird die Wirkung des Populismus auf die Entwicklung der Qualität der Demokratie diskutiert.
Populismus in Argentinien ist eng mit Peronismus verbunden, einer Bewegung, die 1945 von Juan Perón begründet wurde und seitdem in 39 von 75 Jahren das Land regierte. Im vorliegenden Beitrag werden verschiedene historische Manifestationen des argentinischen Populismus peronistischer Prägung untersucht, die Ära Perón und die Regierungszeiten der Präsidenten Menem und der Kirchners. Der lange existierende und regierende Peronismus bietet so eine sehr gute Grundlage zur Analyse von Populismus an der Macht. Es zeigt sich, dass der Peronismus ein Beispiel für einen inklusiven Populismus ist, der zudem, trotz negativer Auswirkungen auf die Demokratiequalität, kompatibel mit Demokratie ist.
How and why does geography inform the organisational strategies of political parties? Encuentro por la Democracia y la Equidad (Encounter for Democracy and Equity, hereafter EDE), is a centre‐left Argentine political party that, since arriving in Buenos Aires in 2008, quickly became one of the largest oppositional parties in the city in terms of its activist base and electoral representation. This was achieved by explicitly prioritising a territorial organisational strategy: building the party at the scale of the neighbourhood by opening branches, accumulating activists and constructing linkages with civil society. Through a qualitative analysis of EDE's organisational strategy over ten years (2008‐2018) the paper proposes four dimensions for understanding the relationship between grassroots territorial organising and party strategy: party‐building; electoral success; democratic linkages; and alliance building. The findings are of relevance not only to party‐building in Latin America but also to the recent surge of territorial organising in parties in Europe. The paper makes three contributions to geographical literature. First, it adds to limited Anglophone geographical engagements with Latin American electoral and party politics by highlighting the centrality of spatiality to party‐building. Second, it emphasises sub‐national dynamics of party organising, contributing to a dismantling of methodological state centrism that pervades party scholarship. Third, it develops a geographical analytical approach to party organisation that demonstrates how sociospatial relations constitute parties’ unfolding relations with the state and civil society.
Does Latin America's left turn matter in media politics? Has ideology any impact on governments’ practices and policies regarding media and journalistic institutions? This essay focuses on the existence of a specific kind of media activism on the part of leftist governments in Latin America. It does so by assessing discourses on the media, direct-communication practices, and media regulation policies. While showing that the current binary distinctions stressing the existence of two lefts – “populist” and “nonpopulist” – obscure important commonalities and continuities, the author demonstrates that institutional and structural constraints account for the differences among the various leftist governments in Latin America. In sum, the paper challenges the prevailing neglect of ideology as a relevant factor in explaining developments in government–media relationships in the region.
We study the beliefs and values of Peronism. Instead of a comprehensive approach, we focus on three elements. First, we study beliefs and values about the economic system present in Peron’s speeches during the period 1943–55. Second, given that these beliefs are non‐standard (for economists), we present two models formalizing some of the key aspects (for example, the idea that there is something more than a material exchange in labor relations). Third, we study survey data for the 1990s on the beliefs of Peronist and non-Peronist voters in Argentina and Democrat and Republican voters in the US. While income and education suggest that Peronists (in relative terms) look like the Democrats, their beliefs and values suggest that Peronists are the Argentine equivalent of the Republicans.
Populist forces are increasingly relevant, and studies on populism have entered the mainstream of the political science discipline. However, no book has synthesized the ongoing debate on how to study the phenomenon. The main goal of this Handbook is to provide the state of the art of the scholarship on populism. The Handbook lays out not only the cumulated knowledge on populism, but also the ongoing discussions and research gaps on this topic. The Handbook is divided into four sections. The first presents the main conceptual approaches and points out how the phenomenon in question can be empirically analyzed. The second focuses on populist forces across the world with chapters on Africa, Australia and New Zealand, Central, Eastern, and Western Europe, East Asia, India, Latin America, the post-Soviet States, and the United States. The third reflects on the interaction between populism and various issues both from scholarly and political viewpoints. Analysis includes the relationship between populism and fascism, foreign policy, gender, nationalism, political parties, religion, social movements, and technocracy. The fourth part encompasses recent normative debates on populism, including chapters on populism and cosmopolitanism, constitutionalism, hegemony, the history of popular sovereignty, the idea of the people, and revolution. With each chapter written by an expert in their field, this Handbook will position the study of populism within political science and will be indispensable not only to those who turn to populism for the first time, but also to those who want to take their understanding of populism in new directions.
La relación de los gobiernos posneoliberales con los movimientos sociales ha sido objeto de gran debate. Este artículo presenta un estudio de la dinámica de los movimientos sociales en los períodos de gobierno de Néstor Kirchner y Cristina Fernández de Kirchner. Allí se identifican los ciclos en que los diferentes colectivos movilizados se relacionan con el gobierno, implementan repertorios de acción, demandas públicas y generan formas de participación que contribuyen al proceso político en Argentina entre 2003 y 2015. La comprensión de estas dimensiones contribuye, por un lado, al estudio de las dinámicas políticas bajo los gobiernos llamados populistas en la región y, por el otro, a dilucidar el lugar de los diferentes movimientos sociales en estos procesos.
The Argentine unemployed movement of the piqueteros was a key socio-political player in the early 2000s. Although public and academic attention paid to these piqueteros has decreased notably since 2010, they continue to be active. This article provides an empirical update to the existing research on Argentina’s unemployed movement by analysing how distinct piquetero organizations have adapted to evolving political and socioeconomic changes during the presidency of Cristina Fernández de Kirchner (2008-2015). In drawing on social movement research, we suggest a number of mechanisms that can help to explain the continuing existence of the piqueteros. While a persistent focus on grassroots work has been identified as key to their existence, adaptation to the changing political and socioeconomic context has meant that core claims related to the very issue of (un-)employment, including the demand for dignified work, have largely been dropped from the political agenda of various piquetero organizations.
This book concerns recent and current political developments in Latin America related to the emergence of left-leaning regimes riding the waves of anti-neoliberalism and a primary commodities boom. Based on five years of field research and a critical engagement with social movements in the region, the book documents the short-term advances and strategic weaknesses of these left-leaning regimes, highlighting their failure to take advantage of favourable economic and political conditions. The authors profile four cases of recent and current political developments, and the prospects for socialism, in Argentina, Bolivia, Cuba and Venezuela.
In 2014, the currency devaluation and inflationary spike dented the president's popularity and eroded perceptions of her government's economic competence.
Although there is a lively academic debate about contemporary populism in Europe and Latin America, almost no cross-regional research exists on this topic. This article aims to fill this gap by showing that a minimal and ideological definition of populism permits us to analyse current expressions of populism in both regions. Moreover, based on a comparison of four prototypical cases (FN/Le Pen and FPÖ/Haider in Europe and PSUV/Chávez and MAS/Morales in Latin America), we show that it is possible to identify two regional subtypes of populism: exclusionary populism in Europe and inclusionary populism in Latin America.
Unlike in 2003, Argentina’s 2007 presidential election brought few surprises. Peronist candidate Cristina Kirchner—nominated after her husband, Nestor chose not to seek re-election—won easily. This victory was rooted in both the strong performance of Nestor Kirchner’s government and the weakness of the non-Peronist opposition. The article examines the impact of the Kirchner government on Argentine democracy. It argues that, notwithstanding Kirchner’s concentration of power, the regime remained fully democratic, and that in some areas, its quality improved. The article then examines two problems confronting Argentina’s democracy: the collapse of opposition parties and the persistent weakness of political and economic institutions.
In 2001 and 2002, economic depression and widespread hostility
toward the political elite raised fears that Argentina would follow
a Peru or Venezuela-like path toward party system—and possibly
regime—collapse. Yet Argentine democracy weathered the crisis
without a rupture of constitutional rule. The 2003 presidential election
was free of violence or fraud, and notwithstanding calls to "throw
everybody out," established political elites fared surprisingly well. A
major reason for this outcome was the persistent strength of Peronism,
which—despite severe internal conflict—dominated the election
and retained control of the presidency. Although democracy survived,
Argentina's capacity to avert similar crises in the future hinges on
breaking a long-term pattern institutional instability.
To what extent has the Argentine party system been polarized along class lines? The political historiography gives mixed and contradictory answers to this question. We explore the social bases of Argentina's political parties using an original database, the most comprehensive database of Argentine elections yet assembled, and new methods of ecological inference that yield more reliable results than previous analyses. We identify two distinct party systems, one in place between 1912 and 1940, the other emerging after 1946. The first party system was not consistently class based, but the second was, with the Radical Party representing the middle classes and the Peronists, workers and the poor. Still, there were important exceptions. Lower-class support for the Peronists, as proxied by literacy rates, declined during Perón's exile, which implies that the party had trouble mobilizing lower-class illiterate voters. Since the return to democracy in 1983, class polarization has again found some expression in the party system.
Resumen:
¿Cuán polarizado por clase socioeconómica ha sido el sistema partidario en la Argentina? La historiografía política nos ofrece respuestas variadas y contradictorias a esta pregunta. En este trabajo exploramos las bases sociales de los partidos políticos argentinos usando una base de datos original, la más completa de elecciones argentinas que se haya construido. Además aplicamos métodos novedosos de inferencia ecológica que producen resultados más confi ables que estudios anteriores. Identifi camos dos sistemas partidarios distintos, uno existente entre 1912 y 1940, y el otro surgiendo después del 1946. El primer sistema partidario no fue consistentemente basado en las clases sociales, pero el segundo sí lo fue, con el partido radical representando las clases medias y el peronista las clases trabajadoras y pobres. Sin embargo, hubo excepciones. El apoyo que la clase baja dio al peronismo, medido con tazas de alfabetismo como proxy, declinó durante el exilio de Juan Perón, sugiriendo que el partido no pudo movilizar votantes analfabetos pobres. Desde la transición democrática en el 1983, la polarización económica ha vuelto a ser expresada en el sistema partidario.
El trabajo analiza el proceso político mediante el cual la presidencia de Néstor Kirchner (2003-2007) cambió la debilidad electoral y fragmentación partidaria por una fuerte concentración del poder en el presidente. Para ello, en primer lugar, se revisan los debates académicos sobre los rasgos de los presidencialismos latinoamericanos. Luego, el trabajo analiza el poder del presidente argentino y las características del liderazgo presidencial y se enfoca en las estrategias que llevó adelante en relación con su propio partido para la conformación de una mayoría legislativa disciplinada. Dos son las conclusiones que pueden extraerse de este proceso: en primer lugar, si bien las crisis políticas y económicas pueden traer consigo cambios importantes sobre la dinámica de funcionamiento del sistema político, en detrimento del poder presidencial, estas nuevas condiciones son abandonadas rápidamente una vez que las condiciones económicas y políticas mejoran. En segundo lugar, la fortaleza de los presidentes argentinos es fruto del ejercicio de las funciones presidenciales, antes que de una construcción partidaria previa.
What is populism? What is the relationship between populism and democracy? Populism: A Very Short Introduction presents populism as an ideology that divides society into two antagonistic camps: the “pure people” versus the “corrupt elite,” and that privileges popular sovereignty above all else. It illustrates the practical power of this ideology by describing populist movements of the modern era—European right-wing parties, left-wing presidents in Latin America, and the Tea Party movement in the United States—and charismatic populist leaders such as Juan Domingo Péron, H. Ross Perot, Silvio Berlusconi, and Hugo Chávez. Although populism is ultimately part of democracy, populist forces constitute an increasing challenge to democratic politics.
When presidents or prime ministers make law by decree, are we witnessing the usurpation of legislative authority? The increased frequency of policy-making by decree, in older democracies as well as in the newer regimes of Latin America and the post-communist world, has generated concern that legislatures are being marginalized and thus that democratic institutions are not functioning. Professors Carey and Shugart suggest which elements of constitutional design should (and should not) foster reliance on decree authority. Individual chapters then bring the experiences of Argentina, Brazil, France, Italy, Peru, Russia, the United States, and Venezuela to bear on the theory. The book combines broadly comparative analysis with intensive case studies to provide a more thorough understanding of the scope of executive authority across countries.
Die vorliegende Arbeit beschäftigt sich mit der Politik ökonomischer Reformen in jungen Demokratien. Aus der Perspektive neuerer Ansätze der Policy-Forschung (Akteurzentrierter Institutionalismus, Vetospieler-Theorem, Advocacy Coalitions Framework) erfolgt in Form konfigurativer Studien die empirische Analyse der Politik ökonomischer Reformen in Argentinien, Uruguay und Thailand.
Die Analyse zeigt, dass Reformpolitik durchsetzbar ist, wenn Krisen im Sinne von Windows of Opportunity Reformchancen eröffnen. Diese Gelegenheitsfenster wirken aber nur, wenn entscheidende Akteure (Vetospieler) im Sinne eines Policy-Learning ihr Verhalten ändern bzw. die reformerisch orientierten Akteure (Reformkoalition) die Reformgegner überwinden oder überzeugen können.
The peronism of Perón and Menem : from justicialism to liberalism? - In: Argentina in the crisis years (1983-1990) / ed. by Colin M. Lewis ... - London : Inst. of Latin American Studies, 1993. - S. 90-101
Welche Zusammenhänge lassen sich für die Region zwischen Demokratisierung und Wohlfahrtsstaatlichkeit feststellen? Hierbei soll zum einen anhand des Vergleichs von 18 lateinamerikanischen Staaten der Zusammenhang zwischen Demokratisierung und dem zentralen Indikator für Wohlfahrtsstaatlichkeit — der Sozialleistungsquote — herausgearbeitet werden. Anhand von mehreren Kontrollindikatoren — der Einbindung in weltwirtschaftliche Strukturen, politisch-institutionellen Eigenschaften sowie dem ökonomischen Entwicklungsniveau — wird sodann der Demokratisierungseffekt im Verbund mit anderen Einflussfaktoren auf wohlfahrtsstaatliche Leistungen diskutiert.
With a skillfully conveyed message of managerial competence and an electorate disenchanted by a floundering economy and the outgoing incumbent’s confrontational style, Mauricio Macri demonstrated that a non-Peronist can win Argentina’s presidency. © 2016 National Endowment for Democracy and Johns Hopkins University Press.
Based on five years of field research, this volume profiles four case studies in Argentina, Bolivia, Cuba and Venezuela to examine recent and current political and economic developments related to left-leaning regimes in Latin America.
This article provides a new comparative methodology for the study of party-voter linkages from the perspective of voters where the critical question that distinguishes clientelistic from programmatic parties is access to publicly provided benefits. In the former case, partisan networks mediate access to goods. In the latter, beneficiaries are defined by policy and access is independent from partisan distribution networks. We show that these different access mechanisms shape voters' distributive expectations and the nature of their linkages to political parties by developing a unique methodology to measure party networks. We test it using original survey data from Argentina and Chile and show variation both across and within countries on party-voter linkages based on differential access to benefits and parties' organizational capacity.
The most important struggle in the politics of economic reform implementation is between the executive and ruling party, not among the state, social groups, and opposition parties. Economic reforms dislocate the relation between executive and ruling party; the executives' response determines the reforms' outcome. When the executive accommodates ruling parties, as in Argentina and Mexico, implementation is more likely than when it neglects them, as in Venezuela and Paraguay. However, accommodation produces gaps in the reform agenda. Paradoxically, market reforms in Latin America have prospered only as a consequence of illiberal lacunae.
Since 1989 a delegative form of democracy characterized by inordinate presidentialism and weak checks and balances has emerged and consolidated in Argentina. How does the judiciary fit in to this system? Soon after his election as president, Carlos Menem reined in judicial independence to convert the judiciary into an institution that would not question his chief policy initiatives. However, he also forged a supreme court that used its authority to legitimize the president's accumulation of power at the expense of other institutions. The Argentine experience demonstrates the weakness of the rule of law and horizontal accountability and is relevant to the comparative study of judicial institutions in nascent democracies.
Part I. Modalities of Distributive Politics: 1. Between clients and citizens: puzzles and concepts in the study of distributive politics Part II. The Micro-Logic of Clientelism: 2. Gaps between theory and fact 3. A theory of broker-mediated distribution 4. Testing the theory of broker-mediated distribution 5. A disjunction between the strategies of leaders and brokers? 6. Clientelism and poverty Part III. The Macro-Logic of Vote-Buying: What Explains the Rise and Decline of Political Machines?: 7. Party leaders against the machine 8. What killed vote buying in Britain and the United States? Part IV. Clientelism and Democratic Theory: 9. What's wrong with buying votes?
This article highlights an important paradox: in Argentina between 2003 and 2013 the center-left Peronist government’s approach to governance mirrors that of the center-right Peronist administration of the 1990s. While the latter centralized authority to pursue neoliberal reforms, the former have centralized authority in the name of expanding government intervention in the economy. In both cases, corruption has tended to go unchecked due to insufficient government accountability. Therefore, although economic policies and political rhetoric have changed dramatically, government corruption remains a constant of the Argentine political system due to the executive branch’s ability to emasculate constitutional checks and balances.
RESUMEN:
Este artículo pone de relieve una paradoja importante: en la Argentina entre 2003 y 2013 los gobiernos peronistas de centro-izquierda reflejan los de la administración peronista de centro-derecha de la década de 1990. Mientras en los años noventa la concentración del poder presidencial se usó para promover reformas neoliberales, en los 2000 la autoridad centralizada se persiguió en nombre de la expansión de la intervención gubernamental en la economía. En ambos casos, la corrupción ha tendido a pasar inadvertida debido a la insuficiencia de la rendición de cuentas del gobierno. Por lo tanto, aunque las políticas económicas y la retórica política han cambiado drásticamente, la corrupción gubernamental sigue siendo una constante del sistema político argentino, gracias a la capacidad del Poder Ejecutivo para nulificar a los controles y equilibrios constitucionales
Populism has traditionally been defined as a cumulative concept, characterized by the simultaneous presence of political, economic, social, and discursive attributes. Radial concepts of populism offer a looser way of spanning different domains. Criticism of modernization and dependency theory, which assumed tight connections between different domains, and the emergence of new types of personalistic leadership that lack some traditional attributes of populism have made cumulative and radial concepts of populism problematic. Populism can be reconceptualized as a classical concept located in a single domain, politics. Populism can be defined as a political strategy through which a personalistic leader seeks or exercises government power through direct, unmediated, uninstitutionalized support from large numbers of followers.
This article attempts to fill the void in research on the Justicialista Party (PJ) organisation. Challenging accounts of the contemporary PJ as a weak, personalistic organisation, it argues that the party maintains a powerful base-level infrastructure with deep roots in working- and lower-class society. This organisation has been understated by scholars because, unlike prototypical working class party structures, it is informal and highly decentralised. The PJ organisation consists of a range of informal networks – based on unions, clubs, NGOs and activists' homes that are largely unconnected to the party bureaucracy. These organisations provided the government of Carlos Menem with a range of benefits in the 1990s, particularly in the realm of local problem-solving and patronage distribution. Yet they also constrained the Menem leadership, limiting its capacity to impose candidates and strategies on lower-level party branches.
In this article, I attempt to clarify the relationships among three contemporary concepts that are often used interchangeably or conflated in the literature: anti-establishment politics, political outsiders and populism. In order to make sense of these manifestations of public discontent, I argue that one must examine the nature of political appeals, political actors' locations vis-a-vis the party system and the linkages between citizens and government. Doing so, furthermore, helps clarify the meaning of populism, one of the most elusive concepts in political science. The definition of populism I offer allows us to synthesize much of the literature on the subject while weeding out unnecessary and secondary characteristics. Importantly, too, this definition allows us to separate competing claims of 'direct democracy' and thus populists from non-populists.
The economic crises and adjustment processes of the last decade have fundamentally challenged Latin American parties, altering established policy parameters and straining traditional social coalitions. The question of whether or not established parties successfully adapt to these changes is critical to democratic stability, for when parties fail and party systems decompose, democratic regimes often become vulnerable. This article examines a case of successful party adaptation: the (Peronist) Justicialista Party (PJ) in Argentina. Since 1989, a Peronist government has implemented a set of neoliberal reforms that run directly counter to Peronism's traditional populist program. Yet despite this shift, the PJ has retained its mass base. After briefly outlining the internal changes in the PJ since the mid-1980s, the article seeks to explain the party's adaptive capacity. It argues that the PJ's adaptation was facilitated by a distinctive configuration of organizational features: an under-institutionalized party hierarchy and an entrenched mass base. This combination of features permitted rapid change at the party leadership level, while at the same time helping to ensure a stable base of support.
Latin American populism is generally associated with the
developmental stage of import substitution industrialization; it is
thus widely presumed to have been eclipsed by the debt crisis of
the 1980s and the free market reforms of the neoliberal era.
However, the leadership of Alberto Fujimori in Peru suggests that
new forms of populism may be emerging despite the fiscal
constraints of neoliberal austerity. This new variant of populism
thrives in a context where economic crisis and social dislocation
undermine traditional representative institutions, enabling
personalist leaders to establish unmediated relationships with
heterogeneous, atomized masses. Political support can be
cultivated through populist attacks on entrenched political elites or
institutions, along with targeted but highly visible poverty alleviation
programs. This new form of populist autocracy complements the
efforts of neoliberal technocrats to circumvent the representative
institutions that are integral to democratic accountability. The
Peruvian case thus demonstrates that populism has been
transformed rather than eclipsed during the neoliberal era and that it
should be decoupled theoretically from any particular phase or
model of economic development.
Argentina made headlines around the world last December as its presidency changed hands no fewer than four times in less than two weeks.Lost amid the chaos,however,were hopeful signs that the country has now turned the corner of democratic consolidation.
Building on the separation-of-powers approach in American politics, this article develops a new micro-level account of judicial decision-making in contexts where judges face institutional insecurity. Against conventional wisdom, I argue that under certain conditions the lack of judicial independence motivates judges to “strategically defect” against the government once it begins losing power. The result is a reverse legal–political cycle in which antigovernment decisions cluster at the end of weak governments. Original data on more than 7,500 individual decisions by Argentine Supreme Court justices (1976–1995) are used to test hypotheses about why, when, and in which types of cases judges are likely to engage in strategic defection. Consistent with the theory's predictions, the results of the analysis show a significant increase in antigovernment decisions occurring at the end of weak dictatorships and weak democratic governments. Examining subsets of decisions and controlling for several additional variables further corroborate the strategic account.
Governing parties face two fundamental tasks: they must pursue policies effectively, and they must win elections. Their national coalitions, therefore, generally include two types of constituencies—those that are important for policy-making and those that make it possible to win elections. In effect, governing parties must bring together a policy coalition and an electoral coalition. This distinction sheds light on how the transitional costs of major economic policy shifts can be made sustainable in electoral terms. It also provides a starting point for analysis of how two of Latin America's most important labor-based parties, the Peronist party in Argentina and the Partido Revolucionario Institucional (PRI) in Mexico, maintained electoral dominance while pursuing free-market reforms that adversely affected key social constituencies. Peronism and the PRI are conceived of as having encompassed historically two distinctive and regionally based subcoalitions: a metropolitan coalition that gave support to the parties' development strategies and a peripheral coalition that carried the burden of generating electoral majorities. This framework permits a reconceptualization of the historic coalitional dynamics of Peronism and the PRI and sheds light on the current process of coalitional change and economic reform.
This article examines the capacity of Latin American labor-based parties to adapt to the challenges of economic liberalization and working class decline. It presents an organizational approach to explaining party change, highlighting the ways in which informal and weakly institutionalized structures may contribute to party adaptation. It argues that loosely structured labor-based parties, such as many mass populist parties, possess a distinctive advantage in adapting to environmental change. Though a source of inefficiency and even internal chaos, populist legacies such as fluid internal structures, nonbureaucratic hierarchies, and centralized leaderships yield a high degree of strategic flexibility. The argument is applied to the case of the Argentine Justicialista Party (PJ), a mass populist party that adapted with striking success to the socioeconomic changes of the 1980s and 1990s. The weakly institutionalized nature of Peronism's party-union linkage facilitated the dismantling of traditional mechanisms of labor participation, which resulted in the Pj's rapid transformation from a labor-based party into a predominantly patronage-based party. At the same time, the Pj's nonbureaucratic hierarchy and weakly institutionalized leadership bodies provided President Carlos Menem with substantial room for maneuver in developing and carrying out a radical neoliberal strategy that, while at odds with Peronism's traditional program, was critical to its survival as a major political force. The conclusion places the Peronist case in comparative perspective by examining the cases of five other Latin American labor-based parties.
The Latin-American Wars of Independence realized the long-standing hope of the criollo gentry to rid themselves of Spanish limitations on their economic and political activities. From the beginning of the New World colonies, the Spanish rulers had labored diligently to check the aspirations of the colonial gentry by limiting their access to both land and status. Grants of encomienda had yielded up to the colonists use rights to Indian labor and produce, but not the ownership of land. At the same time, the Crown had curtailed the ability of criollos to obtain titles of nobility. These limitations had been supported by the prowess of Spanish arms, effective perhaps even more in keeping potential competitors at bay in Europe than in exercising viable military control in the New World. The failure of this ultimate means of control during the Napoleonic wars finally called into question also continued Spanish dominance over the American colonies.
The national Peronist social contract in Argentina has a long history rooted in syndicalism and populism. However, Menemismo in the 1990s, El Argentinazo in December 2001, and Kirchnerismo post crisis have all served to change the fundamental framework of the Argentine economy, the social underpinnings of that economy and how it intersects with global capital. This article is an attempt to identify the nature of Kirchner's administration through analysis of political economy, therefore seeking to facilitate a deeper understanding of the developmental nature and impact of the Kirchner administration of 2003–2007.
Why have political populism and economic liberalism coexisted under Presidents Menem in Argentina, Collor in Brazil, and Fujimori
in Peru? In order to elucidate this surprising convergence, which established conceptions of populism did not expect, this
article stresses some underlying affinities between neoliberalism and the new version of populism emerging in the 1980s. Both
neopopulism and neoliberalism seek to win mass support primarily from unorganized people in the informal sector, while marginalizing
autonomous organizations of better-off strata and attacking the “political class.” They both apply a top-down, state-centered
strategy of wielding political power. Finally, neoliberal efforts to combat Latin America’s deep economic crisis yield some
benefits for poorer sectors, to which neopopulist leaders appeal, while imposing especially high costs on many of the better-off
opponents of neopopulism.
Eva Perón: la biografia
- Dujovne Ortiz
- A Dujovne Ortiz
Argentina under the Kirchners. The legacy of left populism
- López Levy
- M López Levy