Argentina Factsheet

Contents
1.1 History . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 1.1.1 Key Moments in History . . 1.1.2 Civil War . . . . . . . . . . 1.1.3 Early 20th Century . . . . . 1.1.4 The Pern era and beyond o 1.1.5 Leaders . . . . . . . . . . . Contemporary Data . . . . . . . . 1.2.1 Economy (2011) . . . . . . 1.2.2 People . . . . . . . . . . . . 1.2.3 Democratic Indicators . . . Institutional Arrangements . . . . 1.3.1 Executive . . . . . . . . . . 1.3.2 Legislature . . . . . . . . . 1.3.3 Judiciary . . . . . . . . . . 1.3.4 Main Parties . . . . . . . . Themes . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 1.4.1 Authoritarian Tradition . . 1.4.2 Rule of Law . . . . . . . . . 1.4.3 Democratic Transition . . . 1.4.4 Populism . . . . . . . . . . 1.4.5 Quality of Democracy . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 3 3 3 4 4 6 7 7 7 7 8 8 8 8 8 9 9 10 10 11 11

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1.1
1.1.1

History
Key Moments in History

Independence The Argentine War of Independence was fought from 1810 to 1818. In July 1816 an assembly met in San Miguel de Tucumn declaring full independence. News a reached Buenos Aires that Cdiz was all that remained of a free Spain leading a to the May Revolution where citizens gathered in the city hall and suspended Viceroy Baltasar Hidalgo de Cisneros from oce and created the First Junta; a provisional government to rule the viceroyalty in the absence of the king and an independent Spain. There were internal disagreements within the Junta and a string of military losses in Upper Peru (Bolivia) and Paraguay which lead to the replacement of the Junta with the First Triumvirate in September 1811. Jos de San Mart helped lead a revolution in late 1812 that deposed the n government and resulted in the creation of a new Triumvirate. Fearing an attack by the Spanish an assembly was convened in Buenos Aires in 1813 that dissolved the triumvirate and created a unipersonal oce electing Gervasio Antonio de Posadas as the Supreme Director in 1814. The Spanish were defeated by the Argentinean naval eet o the Montevideo coast in May 1814 ending the royalist threat from the eastern bank of the Uruguay River. By 1815, King Ferdinand VII was restored to his throne so Argentina needed to make an urgent decision regarding independence. On July 9 1816 an assembly of representatives from the provinces met at the Congress of Tucumn and declared the independence of Argentina from the Spanish Crown.

1.1.2

Civil War

The Argentine Civil Wars were a series of conicts that took place from 1814 to 1876. The main antagonists were the Federal Party and the Unitarian Party whose central cause of conict was the excessive centralism advanced by Buenos Aires leaders. An understanding was reached by Buenos Aires Governor Juan Manuel de Rosas and other Federalist leaders out of necessity and a shared enmity towards the Unitarian Party who still advocated dierent forms of centralised government. The Federal Pact was signed by the Argentine provinces of Buenos Aires, Entre R ad Sante Fe in January 1831 creating a Federal os military alliance. Following this the Unitarian League was dismantled. The Argentine Confederation largely function by leaders from the provinces delegating certain powers, such as foreign debt payment or the management of international relations to Buenos Aires, despite ongoing conicts, until the 1852 Battle of Caseros when Rosas was deposed and exiled. The 1852 San Nicols Agreement a was not signed by Buenos Aires and the State of Buenos Aires was declared. The secessionist state rejected the 1853 Constitution of Argentina and created its own in the next year. In the Battle of Cepeda in 1859 the Republic of the Argentine Confederation army led by Federal Justo Jos de Urquiza defeated e the State of Buenos Aires forces led by Unitarian Bartolom Mitre. Urquiza e 3

negotiated the Pact of San Jos de Flores providing a number of constitutional e amendments and other concessions. Mitre ultimately dissolved the Pact of San Jos leading to renewed civil war culminating in the Battle of Pavn in 1861 e o where Buenos Aires forces were victorious over Urquizas national forces. The Argentine Confederation was replaced by the Argetine Republic in December 1861, Mitre rearmed his commitment to the 1860 constitutional amendments and was elected the republics rst president in 1862.

1.1.3

Early 20th Century

After the second term of President Hiplito Yrigoyen ended in military coup o in 1930 the infamous decade began. This period was characterised by electoral fraud, persecution of political opposition, and generalised government corruption. It was also marked by signicant rural exodus spurred by the Great Depression resulting in the creation of the rst shanty towns and a leap in the population of Buenos Aires from 1.5 million in 1914 to 3.5 million in 1935. This in turn pushed the country towards import substitution industrialisation. The poor economic results of the policy and popular discontent led to another coup in the 1943 National Revolution led by nationalist military ocers including Colonel Juan Pern. The displaced workers from the urban migration, lacko ing in political experience when compared to the European immigrants, would provide to social base for Peronismo.

1.1.4

The Pern era and beyond o

Juan Pern is elected president in 1946. He had promised workers higher wages o and social security. During the rst half of the 20th century, a widening gap had existed between the classes; Pern hoped to close it through the increase o of wages and employment, making the nation more pluralistic and less reliant on foreign trade. In his rst two years in oce, Pern nationalized the Central o Bank and paid o its billion-dollar debt to the Bank of England; nationalized the railways, universities, public utilities, public transport and, probably most signicantly, created a single purchaser for the nations mostly export-oriented grains and oilseeds, the Institute for the Promotion of Trade (IAPI). In 1949 Pern rst articulated his foreign policy, the Third Way, developed to avoid o the binary Cold War divisions and keep other world powers, such as the United States and the Soviet Union, as allies rather than enemies. A new constitution adopted in 1949 strengthens the power of the president Congress dominated by Perns supporters and passes legislation providing jail terms for anyone showing o disrespect for the government. Regime opponents are subsequently imprisoned, independent newspapers are suppressed. In 1951 Pern is re-elected president o with a huge majority. Facing only token UCR and Socialist Party opposition and despite being unable to eld his popular wife, Eva, as a running mate, Pern was re-elected in 1951 by a margin of over 30%. This election was the o rst to have extended surage to Argentine women and the rst in Argentina to be televised. In 1955 there was an attempted coup by the Argentine navy 4

which was crushed as the army remained loyal to Pern. In September 1955 o there was a coup by all three branches of the armed forces which succeeded after three days of ghting, during which thousands are killed. Pern resigned o and went into exile in Paraguay. The federal constitution of 1853 is restored. In 1966 military rule is imposed again with a coup led by General Juan Carlos Ongania. General elections were held on March 11, 1973. Pern was banned o from running, but a stand-in, Hctor Cmpora, a left-wing Peronist was elected e a and took oce on May 25. On June 20, 1973, Pern returned from Spain to o end his 18-year exile. Cmpora resigned in July 1973, paving the way for new a elections, this time with Perns participation as the Justicialist Party nomio nee. Argentina faced mounting political instability, and Pern was viewed by many as the countrys only hope for prosperity and safety. Pern died in 1974 o leaving widow Isabel Mart nez de Pern as president. In 1976 there was a milio tary coup deposing Mart nez de Pern. Parliament is dissolved, opponents of the o regime are rounded up, thousands of people disappear. During the juntas rule, Congress was suspended, unions, political parties and provincial governments were banned, and in what became known as the Dirty War between 9,000 and 30,000 people deemed left-wing subversives disappeared from society. Torture and mass executions were both commonplace. The economy, which had been in dire condition prior to the coup, recovered for a short time, then deteriorated further. In 1981 General Leopoldo Galtieri headed the military regime. In April 1982, after Galtieri had been in oce for four months and with his popularity low Argentine forces invaded the lightly defended Falkland Islands. In Argentina the invasion was enormously popular, and the anti-junta demonstrations were replaced by patriotic demonstrations in support of Galtieri. Galtieri, and most of his government, thought that the United Kingdom would never respond militarily and in the worst case scenario the United States would not interfere after the support given by the junta to the Central Intelligence Agency in its ght against the Sandinistas in Nicaragua and the warm welcome given to Galtieri after a recent visit to Washington DC. However, after diplomatic pressure and negotiations led nowhere, the UK government, led by the Prime Minister, Margaret Thatcher, decided to re-take the islands, and deployed naval task forces to do so. Despite the numerical and geographic advantages held by Argentina, the superior training and technology of the British armed forces ensured British victory in the Falklands War within two months.

1.1.5

Leaders

1983 Military government collapsed; election of Radical Ral Alfons as presu n ident. 1989 Hyper-ination and political turmoil brings Peronist Carlos Menem to power. 1995 Menem won second term. 1999 De la Ra won Presidency as head of the Alianza. u 2003 Former President Carlos Menem wins rst round of presidential election but pulls out facing certain defeat, handing victory to fellow Peronist Nstor Kirchner. e 2007 Cristina Fernndez de Kirchner won the presidency in the rst round with a 45% of the vote. 2011 Argentina held national presidential and legislative elections on 23 October 2011. Incumbent president Cristina Fernndez de Kirchner secured a a second term in oce after the Front for Victory won just over half of the seats in the National Congress.

1.2
1.2.1

Contemporary Data
Economy (2011)

GDP per capita:$17,400 Real Growth Rate:8% Unemployment:7.2% Population below the poverty line (2010):30% Distribution of household income (2010):lowest 10%: 1.7% highest 10%: 29.5%

1.2.2

People

White (mostly Spanish/Italian 97%) Mestizo, Amerindian, or other non-white groups 3% Nominally Roman Catholic 92% (less than 20% practicing) Protestant 2% Jewish 2% Other 4% 4.9% of GDP spent on education (2007) Literacy is equal amongst men and women: male: 97.2% female: 97.2% (2001)

1.2.3

Democratic Indicators

Freedom House (Freedom of the World 2011) Political Rights Score: 2 Transparency International (Corruption Perceptions Index 2011) Score: 3 Rank: 100 Comparison: 20 out of Same as Mexico, slightly better than Bolivia. 30. World Bank Governance Project (2010) (Scores in percentiles - the higher the gure the better) Voice and Accountability: 57.3 Political Stability:45.3 Government Eectiveness: 46.9 Regulatory Quality: 26.8 Rule of Law: 32.7 7 Civil Liberties Score: 2 Status: Free

1.3
1.3.1

Institutional Arrangements
Executive

The President is elected through universal surage by the nation considered as a whole. The Constitutional reform of 1994 introduced a two-round system by which the winning President-Vice President ticket has to receive either more than 45% of the overall valid votes, or at least 40% of it and a 10% lead over the runner-up. In any other case, the two leading tickets get to face a second round whose victor will be decided by a simple majority.

1.3.2

Legislature

The bicameral National Congress consists of the Senate which has 72 seats and the Chamber of Deputies which has 257 seats. Senators have six year terms and deputies four years. Deputies and senators are elected directly. Deputies are representative of the whole people of the Nation, while Senators represent their district. Each district elects a number of deputies roughly proportional to their population by proportional representation, and three senators: two for the majority and one for the rst minority. Members of both chambers are allowed indenite re-elections. Each of the Provinces and of the Autonomous City of Buenos Aires elect deputies and senators directly. Deputies are representatives of the whole people of the Nation, while Senators represent their districts. Each district elects a number of deputies roughly proportional to their overall population by proportional representation, and three senators: two for the majority, and one for the rst minority. Members of both chambers are allowed indenite re-elections.

1.3.3

Judiciary

The Judiciary Branch is composed of federal judges and a Supreme Court with nine members (one President, one Vice-President and seven Ministers), appointed by the President with approval of the Senate, who may be deposed by Congress. During much of the 20th century, the Court and, in general, the Argentine judicial system, has lacked autonomy from the executive power, reformed in 2003 it was considered to have been made more independent and diverse with the addition of two female justices.

1.3.4

Main Parties

Argentina has a multi-party system with two or three strong political parties or alliances, and many smaller parties that enjoy representation at the National Congress. Since 1946, the strongest party has been the Justicialist Party (when not banned, it lost only two presidential elections, in 1983 and 1999). The second most important party was traditionally the Radical Civic Union, until the 2001 collapse.

1.4
1.4.1

Themes
Authoritarian Tradition

Decades of regime instability left a legacy of widespread and persistent institutional weakness. For much of the 20th century whenever the political or economic rules of the game were perceived to harm the short term interests of those in power they were circumvented, changed or simply broken. Despite a system of xed presidential terms only one elected president (Pern) completed o his mandate between 1928 and 1989. The transfer of power between Alfons n and Menem represented the rst time since Hiplito Yrigoyen took oce in 1916 o that an incumbent government peacefully surrendered power to a member of the opposition. Similarly, despite a formal guarantee of life-time tenure security for Supreme Court justice virtually every change of government or regime after 1946 was accompanied by court stacking. The absence of stable and accepted rules of the fame created high levels of uncertainty shortened actors time horizons and eroded trust and cooperation. In 1994, after a political agreement (the Olivos Pact) with the Radical Civic Union party leader, former president Ral u Alfons Menem succeeded in having the Constitution modied to allow presin, dential re-election, so that he could run for oce once again in 1995. The new Constitution, however, introduced decisive checks and balances to presidential power. It made the Mayor of Buenos Aires an elective position (previously the oce belonged to a presidential appointee and was in control of a huge budget), the president of the Central Bank and the Director of the AFIP (Federal Tax and Customs Central Agency) could only be removed with the Congresss approval. It also created the ombudsman position, as well as a board to propose new judicial candidates. Since the return to civilian rule in 1983, the Argentine military have been reduced both in number and budget and, by law, cannot intervene anymore in internal civil conicts. They became more professional especially when Menem abolished conscription in 1994, decisively ending a military prerogative over society Failures of the 1976-1983 military dictatorship led business and conservative leaders to reassess the value of democracy, and many of them began to invest seriously in electoral politics. A large majority of Argentineans consistently rejected authoritarian alternatives after 1983 and the traumatic experiences of the 1970s gave rise to public demands for the protection of civil liberties leading to the emergence of right oriented politics helping to entrench civil liberties to a degree that was unprecedented in modern Argentine history. Also there was development in the party system, which was often regarded as a source of regime instability due to its failure to integrate powerful economic actors into the electoral arena, the absence of a viable conservative party left the economic elite unable to defend its interest via electoral politics. Also the labour movement was poorly integrated due to the post-1955 proscription of Peronism and the weakly institutionalised nature of the Peronist Party. The combination of a weak electoral Right and a powerful but banned, Populist Party created an unstable dynamic in which civilian governments were highly vulnerable to military intervention. During the 1980s and early 19990s the Right

became better integrated into electoral politics initially with the Centre Democratic Union. Also the Justicialista Party reduced the inuence of trade unions transforming into a moderate predominantly patronage-based party. This lead to what had once been a stalemated party system becoming an integrative party system often associated with governability and regime stability.

1.4.2

Rule of Law

Under Marianna Sousas three part typology, Argentina is identied as a broad reformer having reformed in at least nine of the potential eleven categories. The 1994 amendment to the Argentine constitution provided for several reforms that sought to limit executive power, including an increase in the threshold required in Congress to conrm presidential judicial appointments. The intentional homicide rate in Argentina in 2009 is 5.5 per 100,000 people (Ministry of Justice) compared to 9.1 in Chile, 14 in Mexico, 26.6 in Brazil, 40 in Colombia and 49 in Guatemala.

1.4.3

Democratic Transition

Collier calls Argentinas type of transition a forced retreat. In 1983 after defeat in the Falklands during which the failure of the ruling generals precipitated the sudden collapse of the regime and thus led to a new democratic transition in 1983. The perceived weakness of the regime and the worsening economic conditions including growing national debt and little wage ination saw increasing media opposition, strike action and popular protest leading to Bignone seeking the democratic way out and holding elections in October which were won by Ral Alfons In the case of Argentina it can be seen that a combination of u n. factors resulted in the weakening of the regime and the strengthening of popular support and demonstration such that the government were backed into a corner and engaged in a forced retreat which saw the return of democracy. Here it can be seen that there existed popular mobilisation without the need for an elite-led liberalisation process to clear the way. The necessary movement for democracy was secured not by a liberalisation project of the elite from within but by the force of the popular movement. One caveat to this case is that the eect of the Falkland war on the regime may have had sucient weakening eect as to render it as fresh bait for the opposition to pounce on. Internal divisions raise cost of coercion. Government fails to control either elite defection or mass protest. The regime is unable to adjust to crisis. The regime collapses and outgoing elites unable to inuence structure of new regime.

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1.4.4

Populism

Pern is an example of a classical populist leader. Three ags of Peronismo o Social justice, Economic Independence, and Political Sovereignty however, Peronismo became an ill-dened ideology and recently it is thought of more as a movement. The return of populism in the 1990s or the emergence of neopopulism is often considered to be in response to the failure of the established government to control the economy resulting in crises of representation clearing the path for the populist leader. Menem in Argentina was able to use the strong populist tradition of Peronismo enabling him to appeal to a solid base of the organised working class embedded in a set of political institutions like the Partido Justicialista and the trade union movement. Menems campaign was therefore, legitimised through this institutional grounding.

1.4.5

Quality of Democracy

Altman and Prez-Lin caution that we are considering the level of democracy e na but the quality of democracy addressing; eective civil rights, eective participation and eective competition. Quality of democracy is more easily understood as the results achieved by the government and is often judged with respect to economic performance. The Argentine party system has experienced two modes in the postwar period: one with Peronismo and one without. When Peronismo was banned (elections of 1958-1965), the quality of representation in Argentina was substandard. But whenever the Justicialist party was allowed to contest elections (1946, 1973, and the whole period beginning in 1983), the quality of representation became at least adequate. After taking oce in the aftermath of Argentinas worst-ever recession, Kirchner presided over four years of export-led growth, rooted in a competitive exchange rate and soaring commodity prices. The economy grew 9% a year between 2003 and 2007, and consequently, living standards improved immensely. Private consumption increased by 52% between 2002 and 2007. Unemployment and poverty rates were halved: Unemployment fell from 20% in 2002 to 9% in 2007, and the poverty rate fell from nearly 50% to 27%. However, there were some worries about the freedom of the press. The government was accused of manipulating the distribution of ocial advertising to limit free speech, a practice termed soft censorship that had been institutionalized by Nstor Kirchner. In 2010, according to La Nacin, Cristina e o Kirchners administration spent $27 million on ocial ads, of which 67.5% went to programmes broadcasted by Canal 9, a TV channel whose owner is closely linked to the government. The problem has persisted even though the Supreme Court ruled in 2007 that the government may not manipulate advertising by giving it to or taking it away from media outlets on the basis of discriminatory criteria. In 2009, a federal appeals court ruled that the government violated constitutional freedom of the press when it withheld advertising from Editorial Perl, the countrys largest magazine publisher. Kirchner led an overhaul of the Supreme Court, which had been packed by President Carlos Menem in 1990 and was widely viewed as politicized and corrupt. Encouraged by Kirchner,

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Congress impeached or forced the resignation of six of the nine Supreme Court members and replaced them with respected jurists. On the human rights front, Kirchner pushed successfully for the annulment of laws limiting prosecution for human rights violations during the 197683 dictatorship namely, the 1986 Final Point Law establishing a deadline after which new human rights cases could not be launched, the 1987 Due Obedience laws protecting junior ocers from prosecution, and the 1990 pardon of top generals responsible for the Dirty War. Kirchner continued to govern at the margins of Congress and other institutions of horizontal accountability. Through November 2007, Kirchner issued 232 executive decrees, a rate (4.3 decrees per month) which matched that of Menem (4.4 per month). Kirchner retained the emergency powers delegated to the executive by Congress during the 2001 crisis, and in 2006 Congress granted him vast discretionary power to modify the budget after its legislative approval executive actions encroached on judicial independence, most notably his successful promotion of a law that enhanced executive control over the Magistrates Council, the body responsible for overseeing the appointment and removal of federal judges. However, the core institutions of democracy remain strong in Argentina: Elections are clean, civil liberties are broadly protected, and the military, author of six coups between 1930 and 1976, has withdrawn from politics.

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