A Postneoliberal Turn? Variants of the Recent Penal Policy in Argentina

Maximo Sozzo

doi:10.5204/ijcjsd.v6i1.390

Abstract

This paper analysed the connection between the emergence and consolidation of a postneoliberal political program and alliance – Kirchnerism – and penal policies in Argentina. Three key moments are identified in this recent period. After the experience of an intense punitive turn during the 1990s and early 2000s, Kirchnerist political alliances tried to deploy a progressive political discourse and agenda on penal issues. Nevertheless, this initially coincided with a strong wave of penal populism ‘from below’ that continued the precedent trend towards increasing punitiviness. Since 2005, and for a brief moment, this tendency stopped. However, after that and during the presidencies of Fernandez de Kirchner a more volatile and contradictory scenario was generated. The incarceration rate between 2002 and 2014 in Argentina grew substantially as did the rate of convictions. Meanwhile the percentage of suspended sentences as part of the total convictions and the percentage of custodial sanctions both fell. Especially in relation to incarceration, these levels of change are not as stark as those of the preceding decades. However, the trends persist. Therefore, the question of how to transcend the dynamics of the punitive turn remains a pending and urgent political subject. The article argues the importance of analysing why a punitive turn is interrupted and presents an explanation of it.

Highlights

In Argentina between 1983 and 2003, in the first 20 years of the transition to democracy, national governments were constructed out of different kinds of political programs and alliances
The government of the Radical Civic Union led by President Alfonsin (1983‐1989), which built a political program based on a kind of ‘social liberalism’, began the transition process
The Menem government was replaced by that of President De la Rua, which was a partnership between the Radical Civic Union and the Front for a Country in Solidarity (FREPASO), a new political party formed out of the Justicialist Party after its neoliberal turn, and which was presented as a center‐left alternative to ‘Menemism’

Summary

Introduction

In Argentina between 1983 and 2003, in the first 20 years of the transition to democracy, national governments were constructed out of different kinds of political programs and alliances. The Menem government was replaced by that of President De la Rua, which was a partnership between the Radical Civic Union and the Front for a Country in Solidarity (FREPASO), a new political party formed out of the Justicialist Party after its neoliberal turn, and which was presented as a center‐left alternative to ‘Menemism’. This national government was marked by strong continuities with ‘the Menemist decade’ and fell abruptly in December 2001 during the most challenging economic, social and political crisis since the beginning of the transition to democracy. The distinguishing criterion of these three moments is a predominant attitude towards what appears as the immediate past with regard to penal policy, dominated by a strong punitive turn that, among other results, produced a 98 per cent growth of the rate of incarceration between 1992 and 2002.2

Following the current

Against the current?

Findings

To conclude