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Argentine Political Instability: A Crisis of Simultaneous Quest for Authority and Equality

Published online by Cambridge University Press:  02 January 2018

Manwoo Lee*
Affiliation:
Department of Political Science, Millersville State College, Pennsylvania

Extract

During the past quarter of a century, Argentina has undergone a series of diverse political experiments. These included the rise and fall of Juan Perón (1943-1955), the military caretaker governments of Generals Eduardo Lonardi and Pedro Aramburu (1955-1958), the emergence and overthrow of Arturo Frondizi (1958-1962), the interim government of José Guido (1962-1963), the election and downfall of Arturo Illía (1963-1966), and finally the coming to power of General Juan Carlos Onganía. Onganía presently rules the country with no intention of loosening his control on the levers of power.

The Perón regime revealed a semitotalitarian tendency, an obsession with the building of new political authority and community. The Aramburu administration attempted to prove that the Perón regime was criminal and a destroyer of Argentine civilization. Ignoring the primacy of politics, the Frondizi government tried desperately to cope with the rapid economic development. Inertia characterized the Mia administration.

Type
Research Article
Copyright
Copyright © University of Miami 1969

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References

1 For example, see Bruce, James, Those Perplexing Argentines (New York: Longmans, Green and Co., Inc., 1953)Google Scholar and Whitaker, Arthur P., Argentina (Englewood Cliffs, New Jersey: Prentice Hall, 1964)Google Scholar.

2 For a detailed discussion of how caudillos retarded the institutionalization of political authority, see Mafud, Julio, El desarraigo argentino (Buenos Aires: Americalee, 1959), pp. 5760 Google Scholar.

3 For a discussion of methods conducive to political and social integration, see Deutsch, Karl W., ed., Political Community and North Atlantic Area (New Jersey: Princeton University Press, 1957), p. 26 Google Scholar.

4 Ayarragaray, Lucas, La anarquía argentina y el caudillismo, pp. 100101 Google Scholar, cited in Linares Quintana, Segundo V., “The Etiology of Revolution in Latin America,” The Western Political Quarterly 4 (June 1951): 162 Google Scholar.

5 See Alberdi, Juan B., Bases y puntos de partida para la organización política de la República Argentina (Buenos Aires: Editorial Francisco Cruz, 1914)Google Scholar.

6 Puigbo, Raul, “Crisis y estructura política en la Argentina,” Cuadernos del Sur, no. 13 (August 1965), p. 669 Google Scholar.

7 Interview with Torcuato S. Di Telia on June 22, 1966, Buenos Aires. Di Telia is head of the Di Telia Institute which specializes in the investigation of social and political problems of Argentina.

8 See Germani, Gino, “The Transition to a Mass Democracy in Argentina,” in Heath, Dwight B. and Adams, Richard N., eds., Contemporary Culture and Societies of Latin America (New York: Random House, 1965), p. 456 Google Scholar.

9 Gori, Gaston, El pan nuestro: panorama social de las regiones cerealistas argentinas (Buenos Aires: Galatea-Nueva Vision, 1958), pp. 4850 Google Scholar.

10 Germani, Gino, Política y sociedad en una época de transición: de la sociedad tradicional a la sociedad de masas (Buenos Aires: Editorial Paidos, 1966), p. 199 Google Scholar.

11 Ibid., p. 203.

12 Mayer, Jorge, “El Partido Conservador y su complejo de inferioridad,” El Principe, Año 2, no. 5 (July 1961), p. 46 Google Scholar.

13 Graciarena, Jorge, “Desarrollo y política,” in Di Telia, Torcuato S. and Germani, Gino, eds., Argentina, sociedad de masas (Buenos Aires: Editorial Universitaria, 1965), p. 253 Google Scholar.

14 Quoted in Rustow, Dankwart A., A World of Nations: Problems of Political Modernization (Washington, D.C.: The Brookings Institution, 1967), p. 156 Google Scholar.

15 Rustow, A World of Nations,?. 123.

16 “El poder y la autoridad,” Criterio 37, no. 1340 (September 24, 1959): 685.

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21 Interview with Former President Arturo Frondizi, July 28, 1966, Buenos Aires.

22 See Buenos Aires Herald, June 29,1966, pp. 1, 6.

23 Samuel P. Huntington expressed the view that “frequent coups d'etat should be viewed not as pathological, but rather as a healthy mechanism of gradual change, the nonconstitutional equivalent of periodic changes in party control through the electoral process.” See Huntington, S. P., Changing Patterns of Military Politics (Glencoe: Free Press of Glencoe, 1962), p. 40 Google Scholar.

24 Interview with Mariano Grondona, July 26, 1966, Buenos Aires. Grondona was undersecretary of interior under President José Guido (1962-1963 ).