The socioeconomic decay of Argentina has long been the center of a heated debate among scholars. Within this debate, William Smith concentrates his attention on the analysis of the authoritarian regimes that ruled Argentina during the so-called Argentine Revolution (1966-73) and the Process of National Reorganization (1976-83). He applies a political economy approach to the historical reconstruction of events. The stated aim of the study is to “tease out” the complex relations binding state interventionism and capital and labor’s responses.
This work forms part of the literature on state-led restructuring. Smith depicts the Argentine authoritarian regimes as bold attempts to promote “the wholesale reorganization of the state apparatus, the class structure, prevailing, patterns of accumulation, and the country’s mode of insertion in the world economy.” He provides a lucid analysis of the Argentine state elites’ “logic” in carrying out their project. Yet he is also careful to underscore the internal contradictions of the restructuring rationale, the deep divisions plaguing the authoritarian administrations, and the opposition of key economic groups that had supported the military takeovers, once their vested interests were jeopardized. In fact, one of the main conclusions of the study is that “in order to pursue projects for restructuring the economy to benefit capital, these regimes are frequently led to exclude the dominant classes’ political representation in decision making. However, in doing so, the authoritarian regimes become victims of their own making because as soon as key economic groups withdraw their support, political stability deteriorates rapidly, dooming the project to failure. Thus, while the Argentine authoritarian regimes were successful in repressing political opposition in the short run, they failed time and again to legitimate their power in the eyes not just of the working class and the middle sectors but of the capitalist class that initially endorsed them. Economically, the supposedly “superior technocratic” approach adopted by these regimes led the country to disasters worse than those they had inherited from civilian administrations.
In the last chapter, Smith focuses on the socioeconomic policies of the Alfonsín administration, ascribing Alfonsín’s failure to his inability to bring about fundamental structural changes in the Argentine economy, which eventually undermined his initial popular support. In this regard, Smith discusses the pros and cons of social pacts in the context of transition to democracy. While not discounting their importance, he quite rightly remains skeptical about the future prospects of pact making in Argentina because of the fragmentation of interest groups, the failure of political parties to aggregate and articulate societal demands, and the reluctance of elected officials to give up part of their freedom of action in policy making. The failure of the technocratic approach to problem solving as used by both authoritarian and civilian regimes leads Smith to conclude that future policies can succeed if the country embarks on a profound democratization of its political and economic institutions that, in turn, can draw public support and legitimacy.
This book makes an excellent contribution to the literature dealing with the Argentine political economy and nicely integrates previous studies by Guillermo O’Donnell and Gary Wynia on the subject. It is well argued, theoretically grounded, and meticulously researched. Although specialists may at times disagree with Smith’s interpretation of the events, nonetheless his can be considered a must-read book for anyone interested in Argentine politics.
