State Terror, Economic Policy, and Social Rupture during the Argentine 'Proceso,' 1976-1981

Abstract

Abstract : Report explores varied usage of state terror as a complement to a specific economic and social project under the military-bureaucratic authoritarian regime that governed Argentina from 1976 to 1981. It uses the Gramscian notion of domination to do so, showing how state terror was applied systematically and multivariously in order to disrupt the economic and political strength and excluded social classes. This essay had Its genesis during my stay as a visiting scholar at the Center for the Study of State and Society (CEDES) in Buenos Aires, Argentina in the Fall of 1983. This paper explores the varied usage of state terror as a complement to a specific economic and social project under the military-bureaucratic authoritarian regime that governed Argentina between 1976 and 1981. To do so, it adopts a neo-Gramsican theoretical approach in order to demonstrate that state terror was an essential part of the exercise in dominio that was the so-called 'Proceso de Reorganizacion Nacional' (Process of National Reorganization). It then demonstrates that both overt and more subtle forms of state terror were used by the military regime and its civilian allies in a systematic attempt to disrupt the economic and political strength of those believed responsible for the chaotic social conditions they inherited: the domestic bourgeoise and organized working classes. Finally, an appraisal is made of the impact this application of state terror had on collective identities within the victimized classes, as well as on Argentine society as a whole.