La justicia peronista takes as its departure point an important claim. Questioning persistent characterizations of populism generally and Peronism specifically as “aberrational”—the notion that populist governments are necessarily antilegal or illiberal—Juan Manuel Palacio argues that the first Peronist era (1943–55) was in fact largely defined by Juan Perón's use of the law and its associated institutions (pp. 17–20). Though this may not seem especially controversial, Palacio situates his position within recent trends in Argentine historiography to show that there has been a notable dearth of serious engagement with Peronist legal culture. In part, this reflects revisionist scholarship that has sought to relocate Peronism within the longer arc of Argentine history and thus minimize the exceptionalism emphasized by early historians supportive of Perón. But, Palacio notes, even those studies that view Peronism as a “before-and-after” moment, in that the experience of Peronism was a historical inflection point, have mostly failed to...
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