This is a fascinating little book. It attempts to explain the “Argentine paradox”—growing democracy accompanied by political instability—through sociological research techniques, study of collected data including direct questionnaires, and extensive tabulations of the results. The book was produced under the aegis of the worthy Instituto Toreuato Di Tella, which created the Centro de Sociología Comparada in 1963 to investigate problems of the social structure and the process of change in society, both in Argentina and in the rest of Latin America. The Centro cooperates with the related Centro de Investigaciones Económicas and Centro de Investigaciones en Administración Pública. Together these agencies collect data and maintain an increasing body of documents and computing equipment to utilize them.
Working from this base, Darío Canton produced a work in English in 1964, then translated it with no real change and published it in Spanish in 1966. He studied the members of the Congress at the end of 1889, shortly before the revolution of 1890, then compared the pattern with that of the Congresses of 1916 and 1946, when Hipólito Yrigoyen and Juan D. Perón came to power as standard bearers of the middle and lower classes respectively.
Canton’s study supplies data in areas hitherto unexplored—the basic socio-economic characteristics of Argentine Congressmen—at three epochs which marked changes in the balance of power, away from the old aristocracy and toward the masses. He presents such characteristics as educational level of the congressman and his father, social position, political activity before election to Congress, age at election and at inception of interest in politics. These data are presented in dozens of tables, dividing the congressmen by House of Deputies or Senate, by political party, as well as by the epoch (1890, 1916, or 1946). Through this weight of data the reader gets a picture of the emergence of the bourgeoisie in 1916 and of the lower classes thirty years later. He sees the changes in each group, the effect on political parties and on the evolution of democracy. An appendix briefly compares the democratizing tendencies in Argentina with events in England, France, and the United States.
On the basis of all this, Canton presents his “Argentine paradox.” The twentieth century has brought to Argentina the prerequisites for stable democracy: economic development, the incorporation of the middle classes into political life by the Sáenz Peña law of 1912 and at least the nominal participation of the workers after 1946. Yet a fragile political structure characterized by dictatorships and recurrent crises belies the apparently legitimate political system.
Why the paradox? Change came without altering much of the traditional structure and values. Political injustices were never really eliminated. More of society acquired the old upper-class values, thereby minimizing the value of incorporating the lower classes. Hence instability will persist until there is much more economic development to bring social change and an alteration of values.
This penetrating study is a real addition to Argentine history and the understanding of contemporary affairs. It should be useful to scholars in several fields. A substantial bibliography of works in both English and Spanish will be welcomed by North American students.
