Argentina does not fear authoritarianism, but anarchy – 12/03/2023 – Marcus Melo

Argentina is celebrating 40 years of democracy this year while watching the election of Javier Milei in perplexity. The paradox is the subject of reflection by political scientists at an event last week at their most qualified institution in the field, the Universidad Torcuato di Tella. Argentina is peculiar: the 1976 coup took place in the richest country to suffer a military coup until then; that of 1966, ditto; the 1962 one too!

What explains the democratic stability in the country since 1983, the longest lasting in Latin America with the exception of Costa Rica? A possible explanation is the combination of the disappearance of actors whose normative preferences were not for democracy, but authoritarian alternatives: the revolutionary left, represented mainly by the Motoneros, and the military. The radical Peronist sectors on the right and left (which even faced each other in armed clashes) disappeared from the political game.

Peronism only converted to democracy in the redemocratization that followed the country’s defeat in the Falklands War. And he accepted defeat by the radicals (UCR), led by Alfonsín. As Scott Mainwaring showed, Peronism’s illiberalism index drops significantly, but this did not imply the abandonment of extra-institutional practices such as radical mobilization (piqueteros) against legitimately elected governments. In addition to recurring abuse of power under Menem and the Kirchners.

The debacle of the military regime in the war, its economic failure – which contrasts with countries like Chile or Brazil – and the scale of the human rights violation that occurred delegitimized the authoritarian option in such a way that current democracy is anchored in a stable equilibrium, albeit of low quality. The collective fear is not, therefore, directed towards a possible authoritarian turn with Milei. But anarchy.

The risk of hyperinflation and Hobbesianism did not dissuade the electorate from rejecting Peronism, as I have shown here. Argentina is at a curious extreme: great democratic stability and an economy in shambles. Its antipode in the region is Peru, which has been experiencing strong economic dynamism, but with collapsed institutions.

The balance of democracy in Latin America is positive: if at the beginning of the third wave of democracy that began in 1978, 17 of the 20 countries were dictatorships, at the moment, there are only two (with the exception of the sixty-year-old autocracy of Cuba, Venezuela and Nicaragua). Only in them did democracy die. Furthermore, only one competitive authoritarian regime (El Salvador).

Since 2000, the distinguishing feature has been stability, with a slight average decline in indicators. But they find themselves in a low-quality trap from which they cannot escape.

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