Peronism Essay ⋆ Political Science Essay Examples ⋆ EssayEmpire

Argentina’s Peronist movement was founded in the mid-1940s by Colonel Juan Domingo Perón. Organizationally, Peronism has usually involved a personalistic leader (Perón from 1945– 1974, Carlos Menem from 1988–1999, and Néstor Kirchner from 2003–2007), a group of powerful labor unionists, and a political party (the Partido Peronista before 1955; neo-Peronist parties from 1955 to 1973, and the Partido Justicialista since 1973). Until the 1970s, Perón and the unionists overshadowed the politicians, but Perón’s death in 1974, coupled with a deep economic crisis in the 1970s and 1980s that weakened the labor movement, ultimately expanded the role of the politicians.

Peronism’s ideology, justicialismo, is summarized in its motto “social justice, economic independence, and national sovereignty.” Diverse policies are compatible with these ideals, and the movement’s personalist leaders have always had considerable leeway in choosing among them. Perón admired aspects of Mussolini’s Italy, where the army sent him to study from 1939 to 1941; Peronism, like fascism, was personalistic and anticommunist. Unlike fascists, however, Perón and his allies were not explicitly anti-Jewish or racist. Their policies were in most respects prolabor, and they restricted but did not suppress organized opposition.

After building worker support as the labor secretary in a military government (1943–1946), Perón won the presidency in 1946 in a fair election and again in 1952 in an irregular one. The death in 1952 of Eva (“Evita”) Duarte de Perón, Perón’s charismatic wife, weakened the government, and in 1955 Perón was deposed in a military coup. From 1955 to 1973 Perón lived in exile, mostly in Madrid. In Argentina, meanwhile, the military dissolved the Partido Peronista and passed a law that prevented Peronists who took orders from Perón from assuming the presidency or important governorships. With Perón out of the country and with Peronist party activity constrained, factions of Peronist union leaders and neoPeronist politicians competed to gain the blessing of the exiled leader and to control the movement’s resources in Argentina. In the 1960s Peronism spawned violent groups on the extreme right as well as on the extreme left, some of which had overlapping memberships. From abroad, Perón skillfully used and even encouraged conflicts among his followers to avoid being reduced to a symbolic figurehead.

A military coup in 1966 banned all political parties, not just those associated with Peronism. In late 1969 the economy began to falter and violence involving guerrilla groups, including the Peronist Montoneros, escalated. In 1972 the military allowed Perón and his third wife, Isabel, to return to Argentina, hoping that he could tame the guerrillas, and in 1973 Perón won the presidency again in a fair election. In 1974 Perón died, however, leaving the presidency to his vice president, Isabel, whose government had shadowy ties to death squads. Hyperinflation and rising political violence led to another coup in March 1976 and to a harsh military regime that became notorious for human rights violations.When civilian rule returned in 1983, Raúl Alfonsín of the Radical Civic Union won the presidency and Peronism split. On one side were “renewalists” who wanted to democratize the Partido Justicialista, to prosecute military leaders accused of human rights violations, and to suspend payment on the foreign debt.“Orthodox” Peronists opposed these policies, and in 1988 Carlos Menem, the swashbuckling Peronist governor of La Rioja, drew on orthodox support to defeat a renewal candidate in the Partido Justicialista’s first-ever presidential primary. A bout of hyperinflation before the May 1989 presidential election gave Menem an easy win over the candidate of the incumbent Radicals.

Menem had run as a Populist, but hyperinflation persuaded him to enact free market economic reforms, setting aside the statist and nationalist model that Perón had initially favored. Menem’s reforms initially improved the economy, but the currency became overvalued and the country grew more dependent on skittish short-term foreign capital. Economic discontent allowed Fernando de la Rúa, a Radical, to win the 1999 presidential election, but ongoing economic turmoil forced him to resign. In 2003 Néstor Kirchner, a Peronist, won the presidency, enacted more nationalist and statist economic policies, and renewed the prosecution of military leaders accused of violating human rights. During his presidency from 2003 to 2007, Kirchner combined Perón’s (and Menem’s) predilection for personalistic leadership with center-left domestic and foreign policies, and in 2007 he supported his wife, Cristina Fernández de Kirchner, in her successful campaign to succeed him as president. In the first decade of the twentieth century, Peronism remained a heterogeneous political movement with a personalistic leader supported by a shifting coalition of ideologically diverse union leaders and politicians.

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