Argentine Democracy Research Articles

Intellectual aristocracy in the dawn of Argentine democracy: José Ingenieros on genius and mediocrity.

This article explores how psychological categories linked to the mental level, such as genius, mediocrity, and intellectual superiority, were directly intertwined with political discourse in the early 20th century. To illustrate this, I analyze El Hombre Mediocre (The Mediocre Man) published in 1913 by José Ingenieros, seemingly as a direct critique of the law for free democratic elections in Argentina sanctioned in 1912. The book's main argument drew on psychological categories to explain that democracy was, in fact, a poor choice in government. Ingenieros' main concern was that the population was mostly mediocre and therefore unable to govern or elect a suitable candidate to run the country. One category that stood out in his analysis was the "genius." This term was reserved for men who demonstrated exceptional intelligence and remarkable morals and ideals. The methodology used in this article is based on the qualitative and interpretative analysis of bibliographical sources (which include books of essays, scientific papers, and books aimed at lay audiences) from the perspective of intellectual history and the critical history of psychology. I argue that Ingenieros' book served as a political essay founded on a comprehensive scientific explanation, even if it was aimed at a lay audience. This analysis shows the productivity of psychological categories referring to giftedness, intelligence, and talent, in adulthood for assessing political movements and planning new imagined societies through the history of psychology. (PsycInfo Database Record (c) 2023 APA, all rights reserved).

Political Polarization in Times of Crisis: La grieta and Its Impact on Argentine Democracy during the COVID-19 Pandemic

The article discusses how the Argentine socio‑political polarization known as la grieta has influenced the country’s politics and impacted democratic standards during the Covid‑19 pandemic. It uses qualitative data to present the nature of Argentine socio‑political polarization, the outbreak of the Covid‑19 pandemic in Argentina and new areas of polarization that emerged in the country under the pandemic situation, mainly the quarantine measures and vaccination campaign. The paper also takes a look on potential challenges for the Argentine democracy in a post‑pandemic reality.

EL EXPERIMENTALISMO ARGENTINO. NOTA METODOLÓGICA PARA EL ANÁLISIS POLÍTICO.

The Argentine political reality is vertiginous, for that reason, a situation analysis is necessary. In this sense, the article proposes a methodological scheme that considers structural or long-term factors. For this, the author introduces the concept of "experimentalism". This concept captures the short-term political dynamics conditioned to the political logic that regulates long-term political interests. The work proposes a modeling for the relationship between public goods and payment to political loyalties, which allows describing the specific functioning of Argentine democracy: "polyarchy in a restricted area". While the latter does not explain the issue of Argentine experimentalism, it does allow us to understand why it becomes relevant today.

ACTIVISMO FEMINISTA EN INSTAGRAM. EL CASO DE LA CAMPAÑA NACIONAL POR EL DERECHO AL ABORTO LEGAL SEGURO Y GRATUITO EN ARGENTINA

espanolDurante 2018 la democracia argentina asistio al debate del aborto que hasta ese entonces habia estado excluido de la agenda publica. La Campana Nacional por el Derecho al Aborto Legal Seguro y Gratuito organizo, desde las plataformas digitales, la accion colectiva a favor de la interrupcion voluntaria del embarazo. El objetivo general de la investigacion es describir las estrategias que llevo adelante la Campana, en Instagram, para propiciar el proceso de conversacion digital en torno al aborto. La metodologia utilizada es el clasico analisis de contenido combinado con el web scrapingy diferentes opensoftwares. El estudio se enmarca en los desarrollos teoricos de la tecnopolitica y el ciberactivismo. EnglishDuring 2018, Argentine democracy attended the abortion debate that until then had been excluded from the public agenda. The National Campaign for the Right to Legal, Safe and Free Abortion organized, on digital platforms, collective action in favor of voluntary termination of pregnancy. The main objective of this research is to describe the strategies carried out by the Campaign, on Instagram, to promote the process of digital conversation around abortion. The methodology uses the classic content analysis combined with web scrapping and various open software. The study is framed in the theoretical developments of technopolitics and cyberactivism.

Chinese Capital and Argentine Political Alternation: From Dependence to Autonomy?

The political analysis of Argentine–Chinese relations in investments and financial matters shows two faces of the China’s capital exports to Argentina. On the one hand, Argentina became the perfect example in the practice of China’s government’s desired aims stipulated in its first China’s Policy Paper on Latin America and the Caribbean. On the other hand, China increased its structural power, integrating Argentina into its trade and financial scheme, and the South American country became dependent on Chinese capital. However, the political alternation and the change of foreign policy in Argentina in December 2015 diluted the unilateral dependence on China and transitioned to a multilateral dependence on the global capital markets, although China continued to play an important role in Argentine trade and finance. For that reason, the paper asserts some ideas about the way in which Argentina’s integration into the China’s global strategy presented not only supports but also challenges to the Argentine democracy, while exploring the impact of the second “Policy Paper”.

El enemigo íntimo: usos liberal-conservadores del totalitarismo en la Argentina entre dos peronismos (1955-1973)

This article considers the transformations of the concept “totalitarianism” in Argentina liberal-conservative thought, and its main implications. Firstly, some parts of the international post-war liberal debate are summarized in order to emphasize a broadened interpretation of totalitarian phenomena that not only includes Nazi-fascist and Communist regimes, but also points to the totalitarian traits of Democracy itself. Secondly, it is shown that Argentina’s liberal-conservative intellectuals incorporated this notion of totalitarianism through two moves: they highlighted the totalitarian attributes of Argentine Democracy as it was practiced by majoritarian political parties, and they presented a binary conception of Democracy, according to which there would be a true and desirable Democracy (liberal, moderate and respectful of civil rights) and a false and execrable Democracy (populist, excessive, and potentially totalitarian). For liberal-conservative intellectuals of Argentina, the return of Peronism by elections was like a phantom that threatened the true democracy, a democracy which should be defended of this intimate totalitarian enemy.

Language in the times of The Absent City: Competing for the Creation of the Master Narrative in Times of Repression in Buenos Aires

ABSTRACT The Absent City (2000), by Ricardo Piglia, is a detective novel that narrates the transition of Argentina from an authoritarian regime to a democracy. Piglia employs language as a major point of contention in the novel between the governing elite and a group of anarchists. The battle over cultural production and the creation of one Master Narrative versus multiple truths hinges upon “the Eva machine,” a device that transmits memories and re-produced texts to the Argentine masses telepathically. This paper studies language with aid from some of the major founding fathers of linguistics. It discusses theories put forth by Claude Lévi-Strauss, Ferdinand de Saussure, Friedrich Nietzsche, Jacques Lacan, among others. Through a linguistic study of Piglia's dystopian novel, this paper seeks to underscore how cultural agency determines what narrative(s) exists in the new Argentine democracy. This paper includes a discussion on relevant Nation-state and cultural studies theorists to underline how the life or death of the Eva machine shapes the national hegemonic discourse of past and present Argentina. The paper also studies the use of multiple genres and how they contribute to a linguistic reading of The Absent City.

Designaciones y organización partidaria: el partido de redes gubernamentales en el peronismo kirchnerista

Este artículo contribuye a comprender la estructura organizativa del peronismo, la fuerza política dominante en Argentina, a partir de la observación de las designaciones partidarias en el Estado. Para ello el trabajo presenta los resultados de una investigación sobre el alcance, los mecanismos, las motivaciones y los criterios de las designaciones partidarias en el Estado federal argentino, con particular énfasis en lo ocurrido durante la presidencia de Néstor Kirchner (2003- 2007). El argumento más general sostiene que las designaciones han devenido en este período en una herramienta esencial para lograr un control efectivo sobre el aparato estatal mientras que sirven, simultáneamente, para reconfigurar las élites partidarias del peronismo bajo el liderazgo del presidente. Los datos, surgidos de una amplia serie de entrevistas a expertos, permiten finalmente ofrecer un nuevo marco teórico para estudiar el vínculo entre partido y gobierno en el contexto de la democracia argentina contemporánea.

Political realignment and democratic breakdown in Argentina, 1916–1930

This article revisits one historical event that has been repeatedly discussed in the literature on democratic breakdown: the rise and fall of Argentine democracy between 1916 and 1930. First, we demonstrate why the claim that demands for drastic redistribution led to democratic breakdown is not a convincing explanation for the 1930 coup. Instead, we contend that the coup was the product of a polarizing political realignment that led to a legitimacy crisis. We evaluate this argument using estimates of Argentine legislators’ latent preferences (ideal points) between 1916 and 1930. Our roll-call data analysis suggests that disputes over socio-economic issues did not precipitate the breakdown of the regime. What mattered was the allocation of political power. These findings support the view that stable democracy requires that all major groups in society have a sufficiently large chance of being in power.

EPSTEIN, Edward; PION-BERLIN, David (eds). 2006. Broken Promises? The Argentine Crisis and Argentine Democracy. Lanham: Lexington Books, 288 pp.

EPSTEIN, Edward; PION-BERLIN, David (eds). 2006. Broken Promises? The Argentine Crisis and Argentine Democracy. Lanham: Lexington Books, 288 pp.

Social capital in developing democracies: Nicaragua and Argentina compared

Drawing on extensive field work in Nicaragua and Argentina, as well as public opinion and elite data, Leslie E. Anderson's Social Capital in Developing Democracies explores the contribution of social capital to the process of democratization and the limits of that contribution. Anderson finds that in Nicaragua, strong, positive, bridging social capital has enhanced democratization while in Argentina the legacy of Peronism has created bonding and non-democratic social capital that perpetually undermines the development of democracy. Faced with the reality of an anti-democratic form of social capital, Anderson suggests that Argentine democracy is developing on the basis of an alternative resource – institutional capital. Anderson concludes that social capital can and does enhance democracy under historical conditions that have created horizontal ties among citizens, but that social capital can also undermine democratization where historical conditions have created vertical ties with leaders and suspicion or non-cooperation among citizens.

Poetry, Potlatch and the Site: Arturo Carrera's Estación Pringles

Click to increase image sizeClick to decrease image size Notes 1 Unless otherwise attributed, all translations are my own. 2 See Ricardo Strafacce's Strafacce, Ricardo. 2008. Osvaldo Lamborghini, una biografía, Buenos Aires: Mansalva. [Google Scholar] Osvaldo Lamborghini, una biografía (2008) for documentation of Carrera's collaboration with Lamborghini. Originally written in 1981, El Palacio de los Aplausos (o el suelo del sentido) was first published in 2002, by the press Beatriz Viterbo. The plays produced by the puppet troupe, whose name was El escándalo de la serpentina, are compiled in a text titled Retrato de un albañil adolescente & Telones zurcidos para títeres con himen, first published in 1988. 3 Neither Escrito con un nictógrafo nor Momento de simetría are paginated. 4 There is a good English-language version of this text at http://www.poetryintranslation.com/PITBR/French/MallarmeUnCoupdeDes.htm. 5 See Jacques Derrida's Derrida, Jacques. 1987. From Restricted to General Economy: A Hegelianism without Reserve. Writing and Difference, Trans. Alan Bass 251–77. Chicago: U of Chicago P. [Google Scholar] ‘From Restricted to General Economy’ for a brilliant exposition of the concepts of ‘restricted’ and ‘general’ in Bataille's work. 6 See Jean-Joseph Goux's 1968 text ‘Marx and the Inscription of Labour’ for a thorough examination of this homology as it was understood in Carrera's theoretical milieu. 7 Besides Foucault, see Charles Taylor's Taylor, Charles. 1989. Sources of the Self: The Making of Modern Identity, Cambridge, MA: Harvard UP. [Google Scholar] genealogical reconstruction of modern subjectivity in Sources of the Self. 8 Kate Jenckes Jenckes, Kate. 2007. Blind Witnessing and the Aneconomics of the Literary (in Arturo Carrera's Potlatch). American Comparative Literature Organization Annual Conference. Panel: Post-Literature. Puebla, Mexico. April 19–22, 2007. Personal copy. [Google Scholar] has also made note of Carrera's revision of Bataille. She writes, ‘Although he doesn't explicitly reject Bataille's understanding of the term, he does counterpose Bataille's use of the redemptive terms ‘sacrifice’ and ‘salvation’ with the fact of pain, which does not go away once closed symbolic economies are broken open or interrupted by the poetic inscription of “not-enduring, not having, not-knowing”’ (7). 9 See Luis Alberto Romero's Romero, Luis Alberto. 2003. La crisis argentina: una mirada al siglo XX, Buenos Aires: Siglo XXI. [Google Scholar] La crisis argentina. Una mirada al siglo XX (2003), for an excellent, concise account of the economic crisis and its social repercussions. Also, see David Harvey's A Brief History of Neoliberalism (2004), which places Argentina's embrace of orthodox economic policies into relief against other such experiments throughout the world. 10 See Broken Promises, edited by Edward Epstein and David Pion-Berlin Epstein, Edward and Pion Berlin, David, eds. 2006. Broken Promises: The Argentine Crisis and Argentine Democracy, Lanham, MA: Lexington Books. [Google Scholar], for studies of these and other new social phenomena in Argentina. 11 See Giunta's Giunta, Andrea. 2007. Avant-Garde, Internationalism, and Politics: Argentine Art in the Sixties, Trans. Peter Kahn Durham: Duke UP. [Crossref] , [Google Scholar] Avant-Garde, Internationalism, and Politics: Argentine Art in the Sixties for an excellent discussion of Tucumán Arde. 12 Proyecto Venus Proyecto Venus. http://proyectov.org/venus2/ [accessed 20 April 2010]. [Google Scholar] ceased operating in 2006, though its website (http://proyectov.org/venus2/) remains accessible. On Eloísa Cartonera, see the project's website (http://www.eloisacartonera.com.ar) and also my own ‘New Media, Cardboard, and Community in Contemporary Buenos Aires.’ Epplin, Craig. 2007. New Media, Cardboard, and Community in Contemporary Buenos Aires. Hispanic Review, 75(4): 385–98. [Google Scholar] 13 Carrera has traced the gendered practice of declamation in Latin America back to the early twentieth century. ‘La declamación,’ he writes, ‘alcanzó un momento culminante durante el período de la poesía modernista en toda Latinoamérica y en España. Tuvo una diva central que la impuso y la puso de moda y hasta creó escuelas de declamación en todo el continente latinoamericano: Berta Singerman – amiga de los poetas más importantes de su época: Lorca, Neruda, Mistral, Storni, Ibarbourou’ (‘Declamation reached its culmination during the modernista period in Latin America and Spain. It had a principal diva who imposed it and made it fashionable, and who even founded declamation schools across the continent of Latin America: Berta Singerman – friend of the most important poets of her age: Lorca, Neruda, Mistral, Storni, Ibarbourou’; ‘De corazón’). 14 The problem of expertise in contemporary society has been the object of numerous studies. To mention just one, Rethinking Expertise by Harry Collins and Robert Evans (2007 Collins, Harry and Evans, Robert. 2007. Rethinking Expertise, Chicago: U of Chicago P. [Crossref] , [Google Scholar]), offers a useful typology of expertise with regard to scientific knowledge.

Political Realignment and Democratic Breakdown in Argentina, 1916-1930

There is a rich literature in comparative politics discussing what makes democracies fragile and more likely to break down. The question has stimulated a substantial amount of research focusing on the fate of specific countries as well as on large cross-national comparisons over long periods of time. In the last decade several important works in political economy have advanced our understanding of some of the forces that systematically influence regime stability across countries. However, closer examination of the processes at work at the country-level indicates that some this literature’s claims are at odds with the historical evidence. In this paper, we revisit one historical event that has been repeatedly discussed by the literature on democratic breakdown: the rise and fall of Argentine democracy between 1916 and 1930. First, we demonstrate that socioeconomic factors do not furnish a convincing explanation for the 1930 coup. Next, we present an alternative explanation: we argue that the coup was the product of a polarizing political realignment that led to a legitimacy crisis. We examine our argument using estimates of Argentine legislators' latent preferences (ideal points) between 1916 and 1930. The roll call data analysis suggests that disputes over socioeconomic issues did not precipitate the breakdown of the regime. What mattered was the allocation of political power. These findings support the view that stable democracy requires that all major groups in society have a sufficiently large chance of being in power.

Argentina: From Kirchner to Kirchner

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.

Broken Promises? The Argentine Crisis and Argentine Democracy ‐ Edited by Edward Epstein and David Poin‐Berlin

Broken Promises? The Argentine Crisis and Argentine Democracy ‐ Edited by Edward Epstein and David Poin‐Berlin

Argentine Democracy: The Politics of Institutional Weakness ‐ Edited by Steven Levitsky and Maria V. Murillo

Bulletin of Latin American ResearchVolume 27, Issue 2 p. 301-302 Argentine Democracy: The Politics of Institutional Weakness - Edited by Steven Levitsky and Maria V. Murillo Barbara Hogenboom, Barbara Hogenboom Centre for Latin American Research and Documentation, AmsterdamSearch for more papers by this author Barbara Hogenboom, Barbara Hogenboom Centre for Latin American Research and Documentation, AmsterdamSearch for more papers by this author First published: 13 March 2008 https://doi.org/10.1111/j.1470-9856.2008.00267_17.xRead the full textAboutPDF ToolsRequest permissionExport citationAdd to favoritesTrack citation ShareShare Give accessShare full text accessShare full-text accessPlease review our Terms and Conditions of Use and check box below to share full-text version of article.I have read and accept the Wiley Online Library Terms and Conditions of UseShareable LinkUse the link below to share a full-text version of this article with your friends and colleagues. Learn more.Copy URL Share a linkShare onFacebookTwitterLinked InRedditWechat No abstract is available for this article. Volume27, Issue2April 2008Pages 301-302 RelatedInformation

Argentine Democracy: The Politics of Institutional Weakness. Edited by Steven Levitsky and María Victoria Murillo. University Park: Pennsylvania State University Press, 2006. Pp. xii, 325. Tables. Notes. References. Index. $85.00 cloth; $25.00 paper.

Argentine Democracy: The Politics of Institutional Weakness. Edited by Steven Levitsky and María Victoria Murillo. University Park: Pennsylvania State University Press, 2006. Pp. xii, 325. Tables. Notes. References. Index. 25.00 paper. - Volume 63 Issue 4

Broken Promises? The Argentine Crisis and Argentine Democracy (review)

Broken Promises? The Argentine Crisis and Argentine Democracy (review)

Argentine Democracy: The Politics of Institutional Weakness (review)

Argentine Democracy: The Politics of Institutional Weakness (review)

Argentine democracy: the politics of institutional weakness

Argentine democracy: the politics of institutional weakness