1. A good grasp of the literature on corporatism can be obtained by reading the following works, a list that is not meant to be comprehensive. On the general characteristics and typologies of corporatism in Latin America, see Authoritarianism and Corporatism in Latin America, edited by James Malloy (Pittsburgh: Pittsburgh University Press, 1977), especially the essay by Guillermo O'Donnell, “Corporatism and the Question of the State”; also, Alfred Stepan, The State and Society: Peru in Comparative Perspective (Princeton, N.J.: Princeton University Press, 1979), chaps. 2 and 3; Howard Wiarda, Corporatism and National Development in Latin America (Boulder: Westview, 1981); The New Corporatism, edited by Fredrick B. Pike and Thomas S. Stritch (Notre Dame and London: University of Notre Dame Press, 1974), which contains Philippe C. Schmitter's seminal essay, “Still the Century of Corporatism?” On “disaggregating” corporatism, see Ruth and David Collier, “Inducements versus Constraints: Disaggregating ‘Corporatism’,” American Political Science Review 73, no. 4 (Dec. 1979): 967–86. For a state-of-the-art corporatist survey of Europe, see Patterns of Corporatist Policy-Making, edited by Gerhard Lehembruch and Philippe C. Schmitter, Political Sociology Series no. 2 (Beverly Hills: Sage, 1982).

2. The notion of state corporatism as a continuum is derived from Collier and Collier, “Inducements versus Constraints,” pp. 977–80; and Stepan, State and Society, pp. 73–81.

3. Both Stepan's State and Society (pp. 74–78) and O'Donnell's “Corporatism and the Question of the State” provide good definitions of “inclusionary” and “exclusionary” state corporatism.

4. Among major inducements offered by the state are legislative and administrative measures beneficial to working-class welfare, economic measures that promote income redistribution toward wage-earning sectors, and preferential treatment for cooperative unions. The latter may be manifested both in terms of union demands (through the enactment of legislation facilitating the financial and organizational growth of favored unions—including monopoly of representation, official registration, right of combination, compulsory membership or minimum-wage standards for represented workers or both, extension of union benefits, state subsidies, favorable rulings by the state in labor disputes, and so on), as well as in terms of individual labor leaders (formal or informal access or incorporation into decision-making spheres, codification of internal regulations and mechanisms favoring incumbents over challengers in union elections, material benefits, and so on). Constraints may include legislation that undermines the strength and legal position of unions in general or those of specific unions and union leaders in favor of other, more cooperative labor groups; state controls on union finances, the scope of permissible activities and negotiable issues, the right to strike, and grievance procedures; the rescinding or ignoring of labor and welfare legislation; intervention in collective bargaining and establishment of wage and benefit ceilings; outright control of unions through government intervention; and coercion. See Collier and Collier, “Inducements versus Constraints,” pp. 980–81; Alessandro Pizzorno, “Los sindicatos y la acción política,” Economía y política en la acción social, Cuadernos Pasado y Presente no. 44 (Córdoba: 1973), pp. 75–106; Jorge Correa, Los jerarcas sindicales (Buenos Aires: Editorial Obrador, 1974), pp. 109–10; and Sebastião C. Velasco e Cruz, Instabilidade Política: O Caso Argentino, 1955–1970 (Rio de Janeiro: IUPERJ, 1977), pp. 81–85.

5. Guillermo O'Donnell, Modernization and Bureaucratic Authoritarianism: Studies in South American Politics (Berkeley: University of California Press, 1973), pp. 115–68.

6. Decreto 15,074 (law 12,921)/27 November 1943. Anales de legislacíon argentina 3 (1943): 4591. By provisions in the 1853 constitution, amended in 1898, the number of ministries was fixed at eight. This number was changed by the 1949 constitutional reform. See Jerónimo Remorino, La nueva legislación social argentina (Buenos Aires: Ministerio de Relaciones Exteriores y Culto, 1953). For a general description of Argentine labor laws at the time, see Ernesto Krotoschin, Tratado práctico de derecho de trabajo, vol. 1 (Buenos Aires: DePalma Editores, 1977), pp. 544–51.

7. See Remorino, La nueva legislación, pp. 52–55; and Santiago V. Liñares Quintana, Gobierno y administración de la República Argentina, vol. 2 (Buenos Aires: Tipográfica Editora Argentina, 1946), pp. 91–92.

8. Victor Alba, Historia del movimiento obrero en América Latina (Mexico, D.F.: Librerías Mexicanas Unidas, 1964), p. 363.

9. See Robert Alexander, Labor Relations in Argentina, Brazil, and Chile (New York: McGraw-Hill, 1962), pp. 172–209; also his Juan Domingo Perón: A History (Boulder: Westview Press, 1979), pp. 79–81. Also see Roberto Carri, Sindicatos y poder en la Argentina (Buenos Aires: Editorial Sudestaba, 1967), pp. 37–41.

10. Juan D. Perón, La organización a través del pensamiento de Perón (Buenos Aires: Editorial Freeland, 1973), p. 13.

11. Ibid., pp. 54, 57; and Juan D. Perón, Conceptos políticos (Buenos Aires: Ediciones Argentinas, 1973), p. 52. “Justicialista” was the name Perón gave to the Peronist party in reference to the equitable social basis of his ideology.

12. See George Blanksten, Perón's Argentina (Chicago: University of Chicago Press, 1953), pp. 261–71; Alexander, Labor Relations, pp. 173–78; Silvia Sigal and Juan C. Torre, “Los sindicatos y la clase obrera argentina, primera parte” (Buenos Aires, mimeo, n.d.), pp. 17–19; Marcello Cavarozzi, “Sindicatos y poder en la Argentina, 1955–58,” Estudios CEDES (Buenos Aires) 2, no. 1 (1979): 9–11; and Juan J. Sebreli, Buenos Aires, vida cotidiana y alienación (Buenos Aires: Siglo Veinte, 1964), p. 183.

13. The most important of these measures was Decreto 23,852/2 October 1945 (the Ley de Asociaciones Profesionales), which along with Decreto 536/9 January 1945 established a registry for officially recognized unions at all levels. For discussions of the effects of these measures, see Alexander, Labor Relations, pp. 177–78; Carri, Sindicatos y poder, pp. 28–29; and Edward Epstein, “Control and Cooptation of the Argentine Labor Movement,” Economic Development and Cultural Change 2, no. 2 (Apr. 1979):449.

14. Decreto 23,852/1945, Decreto 536/1945, and Decreto 26,008/28 August 1948 are complementary legislation that require state approval of “authorized” strikes by officially recognized unions. All other strikes were declared illegal. See Pedro F. Prado, Leyes y decretos de trabajo y previsión, 2nd ed. (Buenos Aires: Librería y Editora Alsina, 1949), pp. 613–18; Alba, Historia del movimiento obrero, pp. 363–66; Carri, Sindicatos y poder, pp. 28–29.

15. See Samuel Baily, Labor, Nationalism, and Politics in Argentina (New Brunswick, N.J.: Rutgers University Press, 1967), chap. 5; and Blanksten, Perón's Argentina, pp. 261–71.

16. Cavarozzi, “Sindicatos y poder, 1955–58,” p. 9.

17. Juan D. Perón, Perón Expounds His Doctrine (New York: AMS Press, 1948), p. 36.

18. See Collier and Collier, “Inducements versus Constraints,” for the effects of inclusionary state corporatism on union independence. Also see Carri, Sindicatos y poder, pp. 28–41, for the exact effects of Peronist labor legislation.

19. Decreto 15,074/27 November 1943, Decreto 4,925/1944, resolutions of the Secretaría de Trabajo y Previsión 48 and 60 of 1945, and Decreto 1,594/January, 1946. See Remorino, La nueva legislación, pp. 52–55; and Juan D. R. Gronda, Leyes nacionales de trabajo, 2nd ed., vol. 2 (Buenos Aires: Editorial Ideas, 1949), pp. 437–40. Also see Anales de legislación argentina 3; and for Decreto 1,594/1946, see Anales de legislación argentina 6 (1946):73.

20. These agencies included the Cámara de Alquileres, the Consejo Agrario Nacional, the Comisión Nacional de Aprendizaje y Orientación Profesional, the Administración Nacional de la Vivienda, the Caja Nacional de Ahorro Postal, the Dirección General de Asistencia y Previsión Social para Ferroviarios and that for Obreros de la Industria del Vidrio, the Dirección Nacional de Servicios de Empleo, the Comisión Nacional de Precios y Salarios, the Dirección Nacional de Asistencia Social, and the Consejo Nacional de Relaciones Profesionales. For the laws that created them, see Remorino, La nueva legislación, pp. 65–70; and Ernesto Krotoschin and Jorge A. Ratti, Código de trabajo (Buenos Aires: DePalma Editores, 1956), vol. 1, pp. 612–38.

21. Gronda, Leyes nacionales de trabajo, pp. 452–53.

22. See the laws cited in note 14.

23. See Constitución de la nación argentina (Buenos Aires: Subsecretaria de Informaciones de la Presidencia de la Nación, 1949), Artículo 83.

24. Ley 13,529/8 July 1949, Anales de legislación argentina 9 (1949):196.

25. República Argentina, Presidente, Mensaje el inagurar el 88° período ordinario de sesiones del honorable congreso nacional, part 2, “Reseña oficial de actividades” (Buenos Aires: Subsecretaria de Informaciones, 1 May 1954), p. 446.

26. Ley 14,236/16 October 1953, “Organización del Instituto Nacional de Previsión Social,” Anales de legislación argentina 13 (1953): 164–68. As mentioned in note 20, the Instituto Nacional de Previsión Social formally fell within the jurisdiction of the Ministerio de Trabajo, having been created by Decreto 29,176/27 October 1944. Anales de legislación argentina 4 (1944):602. It was, however, a decentralized agency.

27. Peter Waldman, “Los cuatro fases del gobierno peronista,” Aportes 15 (Jan. 1971):103.

28. Baily, Labor, Nationalism, and Politics, p. 100; Alexander, Perón, pp. 79–81, and Labor Relations, pp. 179–80.

29. Decreto 5,311/1946 eliminated Artículo 8 of Decreto 33,827/1944, which protected state employees from arbitrary or politically motivated dismissal. Perón based Decreto 5,311/1946 on the precedent established by Artículo 83, Párrafro 10, of the 1853 constitution, which allowed the president to appoint and dismiss public officials. This provision was one of the few in the 1853 constitution that Perón allowed to stand after the 1949 constitutional reform. See Daniel Tieffenberg, Legislación obrera en la era peronista (Buenos Aires: Editoras Populares Argentinas, 1956), pp. 39–126; and Liñares Quintana, Gobierno y administración, vol. 1, p. 357.

30. Constitución de la Nación Argentina.

31. Suprema Corte, Caso Cia. Dock Sud de Buenos Aires, Ltd. 12 January 1946. La ley 41: 260; and Fallos de la Corte Suprema, 1946, pp. 23–30. For a discussion of early resistance to these centralizing moves, see Krotoschin and Ratti, Código de trabajo, p. 617.

32. Resolution 171/1946 of the Secretaría de Trabajo y Previsión.

33. Decreto 5,205/1957 rescinded the Peronist legislation concerning regional delegations. For an overview of various aspects of the federal-provincial disputes about jurisdiction over labor matters, including the Onganía regime's decision to recentralize and reconsolidate national labor authority, see Antonio Vázquez Vialard, “La intervención del estado en las relaciones laborales,” Legislación de trabajo 19, no. 227 (Nov. 1971): 987–95; and “Jurisdicción nacional o provincial del contralor administrativo laboral,” Legislación de trabajo 21, no. 245 (May 1973):385–404.

34. Julio Mafud, “Los nuevos controles,” in Sociología del peronismo (Buenos Aires: Editora Americalee, 1972), pp. 91–92.

35. Observations in this section are based on an examination of budgetary allocations to centralized agencies of the Secretaría-Ministerio de Trabajo announced in the Presupuesto general de la administración nacional (República Argentina, Ministerio de Hacienda) for the years 1947–55. Figures refer to current pesos derived from general funds.

36. There were, however, several special accounts that provided nonpersonnel allocations to these agencies. The most important special account was controlled by the Instituto Nacional de Previsión Social as a separate item in the budget, rather than a redirected item in the labor ministry's account.

37. Personnel numbers are taken from the Presupuesto general for the years cited (see note 35).

38. Ibid.

39. Baily, Labor, Nationalism, and Politics, p. 101; and Jean-Claude García-Zamor, Public Administration and Social Changes in Argentina (Rio de Janeiro: Editôra Mory, 1968), p. 17.

40. José L. de Imaz, Los que mandan (Buenos Aires: EUDEBA, 1964), p. 41.

41. Ibid. Chapter 1 contains a broad biographical and sociological sketch, complete with data tables, on Argentine administrative elites from 1936 to 1960. See Mafud, “Los nuevos controles,” pp. 131–32, for a description of the middle-class orientation of the Peronist bureaucracy.

42. Mafud, “Los nuevos controles,” p. 132.

43. See Alexander, Perón, pp. 79–81.

44. To cite but one example, such was the case of Hugo Mercante, head of the DGTASD until 1953, who was a brother of Colonel Domingo Mercante, Perón's coconspirator, onetime Secretario de Trabajo y Previsión, and governor of the province of Buenos Aires. Both brothers were among the first to share Perón's vision of Argentine society.

45. Imaz, Los que mandan, p. 14.

46. See the statements to this effect offered in the various proclamations issued by the junta, including “Acta de la revolución argentina” (29 June 1966), “Mensaje al país del Presidente de la Nación Teniente General Juan Carlos Onganía” (30 June 1966). Good analyses of the motives for the coup are found in O'Donnell, Modernization, pp. 116–17, 152–63; and in J. W. Rowe, “Onganía's Argentina: The First Four Months,” pts. 1 and 2, American Universities Field Staff Reports Service, East Coast South America Series, vol. 12, nos. 7–8 (Argentina).

47. See the section on “Fines políticos” in the “Acta” and “Mensaje de la Junta,” note 46.

48. O'Donnell, Modernization, pp. 92–97; and Gary Wynia, Argentina in the Postwar Era (Albuquerque: University of New Mexico Press, 1978), pp. 168–72, 184–85.

49. A good summary of these measures, as well as labor's response to them, is found in Carri, Sindicatos y poder, pp. 145–87; Santiago Senén González, Breve historia del sindicalismo argentino (Buenos Aires: Alzamor Editores, 1974), pp. 113–28; and Rubén Rotundaro, Realidad y cambio en el sindicalismo (Buenos Aires: Editorial Plenamar, 1971), pp. 317–45, 379–85. On the use of repressive measures, see O'Donnell, Modernization, pp. 96–98; and Wynia, Argentina, pp. 184–85.

50. For the total number of major union affiliates at the time, see Juan C. Torre, “La tasa de sindicalización en la Argentina,” Desarrollo Económico 48 (Jan.-Mar. 1973):903–13.

51. In a book to be published by the University of California Press, O'Donnell presents what is likely to be the definitive study of the first bureaucratic-authoritarian period in Argentina. In it, he offers a detailed examination of the divisions and factions existing within the Onganía administration.

52. O'Donnell, manuscript cited in note 51, chap. 3, pp. 8, 15–16.

53. Carri, Sindicatos y poder, p. 185. In his manuscript, O'Donnell outlines the liberal economic team's basic attitude toward organized labor (chap. 3, pp. 12, 16–17).

54. I have examined this process in more detail in “‘Voluntary’ Abdication of Authoritarian Rule: The Case of the Onganía Regime in Argentina, 1966–70,” a paper I presented at the Southern Political Science Association Annual Meetings in November 1980.

55. The division of labor in the Onganía administration is briefly described by O'Donnell in his manuscript, chap. 3, pp. 1–2 (see note 51).

56. “Estatuto de la Revolución Argentina,” cited in Legislación de trabajo 15 (1967):173.

57. By the constitution of 1853, amended in 1898 and restored by the constitutional convention in 1957, the number of ministries was fixed at eight.

58. Rowe, “Onganía's Argentina,” pt. 2, p. 4.

59. Ley 16,956/27 September 1966, Boletín de legislación 8, no. 9 (Sept. 1966):519–27.

60. Buenos Aires Herald, 23 October 1969, p. 10.

61. Boletín de legislación 8, no. 9 (Sept. 1966):523. Also see Legislación de trabajo 15 (1967):173. Emphasis added.

62. Ley 16,956/1966, Boletín de legislación, and Decreto 2,870/19 October 1966, Artículo 6. Legislación de trabajo 15 (1967):176; and Boletín de legislación 8, no. 10 (Oct. 1966):606–7.

63. Ley 16,985/25 October 1966, Boletín de legislación 8 (Oct. 1966), no. 10:606–7.

64. Decreto 7,536/13 October 1967, Boletín oficial, 20 October 1967.

65. Decreto 9,316/27 December 1967, Boletín oficial, 24 January 1968.

66. Ley 17,272/27 May 1967, Artículo 10, Boletín de legislación 9, no. 5 (May 1967):240–41.

67. Decreto 5,373/30 August 1968, Boletín de legislación 10, no. 9 (Sept. 1968):551–86.

68. Among the positions eliminated were those of the secretary general, pro-secretary, adjunct secretary, and one of the assistant secretaries.

69. “Resolución” of the Secretario de Trabajo, 23 October 1967, Boletín de legislación 9, no. 10 (Oct. 1967):240–41.

70. Ley 18,416/20 October 1969, Artículo 21, Boletín de legislación 11, no. 10 (Oct. 1969):519–21.

71. Ley 18,608/6 February 1970, Artículos 1–4, Boletín de legislación 12, no. 2 (Feb. 1970):78–80.

72. Ley 18,692/29 May 1970, Boletín oficial, 3 June 1970.

73. Ley 18,416/20 October 1969, Digesto de trabajo 29 (1969):778; and Boletín de legislación 11, no. 10 (Oct. 1969):519–21.

74. This statement does not imply that other organizational reforms were not attempted. Particularly significant were Onganía's attempts to impose his inclusionary corporatist reforms within the framework of national labor administration. The major attempt to do so came through the creation of a number of “community councils” that were designed to bring together business, labor, and community leaders to discuss questions of common concern. Included as semiautonomous agencies under the formal jurisdiction of the SET were the Tribunal Nacional de Relaciones Profesionales; the Consejo Nacional de Salario Mínimo, Vital, y Móvil; the Tribunal de Trabajo Doméstico; the Registro Nacional de la Industria de la Construcción; and the Tribunal Bancario y de Seguros, Reaseguros, Capitalización y Ahorro. Few of these agencies actually began operations, however, and none had any tangible influence over labor or economic policy because both the labor movement and the economic team that controlled labor administration perceived these instruments as running contrary to their respective interests. For an outline of the corporatist design of Onganía (and the paternalist faction), see the speech given by Interior Minister Guillermo Borda, on 24 April 1968, reprinted in La Nación, 25 April 1968. Also see Primera Plana, 16 March, 1 April, and 13 May 1969, for a general discussion of Onganía's corporatist program.

75. Data on branch allocations are derived from the Presupuesto general for the years cited (see note 35). All figures refer to current pesos designated for centralized agencies from general funds in the budget.

76. Compare the classification of the SET found in the 1967 budget (p. 24), with that in the 1970 budget (p. 90). The 1973 budget signed by Perón includes the Ministerio de Trabajo under the heading of “Bienestar Social.”

77. Defense employed 30.8 percent of those on the state's payroll in 1969 and 1970, followed by Culture and Education (24.4 percent), and Economic Development (20.4 percent, for a total of 126,637 employees). Personnel costs amounted to 61.0 percent of the budget for central administrative agencies for both years, with the total number of state employees reaching 621,766. With 1,425 employees, the SET employed a tiny fraction of the public work force. See República Argentina, Folleto de divulgación del presupuesto de la administración nacional (Buenos Aires: Ministerio de Hacienda, 1971), pp. 25–26, 47–48.

78. Guillermo O'Donnell, “Reflections on the Patterns of Change in the Bureaucratic-Authoritarian State,” LARR 13, no. 1 (1978):6. For a more complete description of the characteristics and position of “incumbents of technocratic roles” in bureaucratic-authoritarian regimes, see his Modernization, pp. 76–85.

79. Jorge Niosi, Los empresarios y el estado argentino (Buenos Aires: Siglo Veintiuno Editores, 1974), p. 218, table 21.

80. Mariano C. Grondona, “La estructura cívico-militar del nuevo estado argentino,” Aportes 6 (Oct. 1967):74.

81. See Rowe, “Onganía's Argentina,” pt. 2, p. 4, and Area Handbook for Argentina, 1969 (Washington, D.C.: American University, 1969), p. 327.

82. All biographical references in this section have been compiled by first looking up the names of incumbents in key positions for the period 1966–70 as they appeared in the Anuario Kraft (Buenos Aires: Guillermo Kraft Limitada), and the Guía interacción de administración pública (Buenos Aires: Organización Markas, 1968 and 1971), then cross-referencing them with the biographies offered in Quién es quién en la República Argentina, 1968 (Buenos Aires: Guillermo Kraft Limitada, 1968) and those appearing in La Nación on various dates.

83. For example, both Secretary of Labor Rubén San Sebastián and Assistant Secretary of Labor Hector Villaveirán had begun their careers in labor administration many years before (Villaveirán began during the first Peronist administration and San Sebastián during the Aramburú regime). At the time of their appointments, they were serving in important positions in labor administration (San Sebastián as director general of labor relations, and Villaveirán as honorary counsel to the minister).

84. Valentín Súarez was named interventor in the CGT by Ley 18,281/14 July 1969, Boletín de legislación 11, no. 7 (July 1969):326–27.

85. Niosi, Los empresarios, p. 218, table 21.

86. Personnel figures are taken from the Presupuesto general for the years cited (see note 35). For 1969–70, see also the Folleto de divulgación, pp. 47–48 (see note 77).

87. Another critical question that remains to be explored is that regarding the different degrees of success encountered by the Peronist and bureaucratic-authoritarian corporatist experiments. Beyond the fact that the former regime was far more homogeneous on practical and ideological grounds, it remains to be determined whether inclusionary corporatist systems are inherently more likely to succeed than exclusionary corporatist systems, and if so, exactly why.