FROM PRAETORIANISM TO DEMOCRATIC

INSTITUTIONALIZATION: ARGENTINA'S
DIFFICULT TRANSITION TO CIVILIAN RULE
By Enrique Peruzzotti*

INTRODUCTION

Argentina has had a unique history of institutional instability and mili-

tary intervention in politics. For more than fifty years, Argentineans haVe wit-
nessed a pendulum between civilian and military administrations. Different
types of governments and regimes succeeded one another without having been
able to interrupt a pernicious cycle of institutional deterioration and political
decay. Throughout the period, the military represented a fundamental political
actor that gradually moved from an intermittent type of intervention to a new
and sustained type of military authoritarianism. The return to democracy in
1983 inaugurated a new era of Argentine politics that left behind the times of
institutional instability. While the Argentine democratic regime has not been
exempt from crises, representative institutions have been able to process and
sort out those crises without recurring, as in the past, to authoritarian solutions.
An analysis of the Argentine authoritarian experience can shed some
light on the problems and limitations of military interventionism in politics. The
belief that military regimes could provide a viable shortcut to political and insti-
tutional development proved erroneous: as an analysis of the Argentine experi-
ence with military regimes shows, military intervention in political life not only
proved deceptive as a road to political institution-building but also exacted
important cost^ on the institutional coherence of the Armed Forces. This article
is divided into four sections. The first discusses Huntington's arguments about
the role of the military in developing societies. The second and third sections
analyze the shift by the Argentine military from an intermittent to a sustained
type of political intervention in public life. The last section draws some theore-
ical lessons from the analysis of the Argentine experience with military partici-
pation in politics.
*The author is a professor in the Department of Political Science and Intema-
tional Relations, Torcuato Di Telia University, Buenos Aires, Argentina. Previous ver-
sions of this paper were presented at a conference entitled The Military in Latin America
and Nigeria, Abuja, August 2000, and at the conference Politicas de Defensa: Desafios
Extemos y Restriccwnes Intemas, co-organized by the Woodrow Wilson International
Center for Scholars and the Universidad San Andres, Buenos Aires, September 26, 2002.
Joumal of Third World Studies, Vol. XXI, No. 1
© 2004 by Association of Third World Studies, Inc.

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UNDERSTANDING THE ROLE OF THE MILITARY IN

DEVELOPING SOCIETIES

Huntington's work represents an important starting point for develop-

ing a theoretical framework to account for the problem of military intervention
in politics. Political Order in Changing Societies is one of the most ambitious
attempts to develop a theoretical framework to analyze the problem of institu-
tional instability and military intervention in developing societies. A brief dis-
cussion of Huntington's argument might therefore contribute to shedding some
light on the political role played by the Armed Forces and the shifts in the pat-
tern of military intervention in Argentina.
Huntington presents praetorianism as a result of a developmental lag of
political institutionalization in relation to socioeconomic development and
social mobilization. The result is political mobilization without political integra-
tion. New social and political actors are being mobilized without the simultane-
ous building of political institutions that could articulate and aggregate their
demands. In the absence of mediating institutional mechanisms, social and
political forces confront each other 'nakedly', i.e., their politicization is not
channeled by institutional mechanisms but consists of an unmediated war of all
against all.
Increased civic participation exacerbates political ungovernability, for
it brings new social groups into politics without simultaneously establishing
adequate mechanisms of interest aggregation and intermediation.' The growth
of social differentiation and pluralism is not accompanied by the development
of more complex institutional arrangements that could manage and stabilize the
newly attained degree of social complexity. Violence and de facto social power
fill in the vacuum left by the absence of political institutions. Perhaps the most
notorious aspect of the former is the central role played by the military as an
arbiter of political conflicts. The latter is, however, only the most visible mani-
festation of a broader phenomenon: the unmediated politicization of all social
forces.
Huntington considers the problem of ungovernability as the most char-
acteristic trait of mass praetorianism. In praetorian societies, different forms of
regimes usually follow each other in a "seemingly unpredictable and bewilder-
ing way."2 What distinguishes praetorianism from both authoritarian and demo-
cratic polities is the absence of stable institutional arrangements of any kind. In
the praetorian scenario, feeble political institutions find themselves at the mercy
of unruly and powerful social forces, which 'colonize' the former to advance
their private interests. A "colonized" political system lacks any autonomy from

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societal groups: specific interests and individuals utilize public office for the
promotion of their private and/or corporate interests.^
Huntington considers two main political roads to institution building:
the first one has the military as the central agent of the process of institutional-
ization. The second one relies on the organizational skills of political parties.
Let us briefly examine some of the problems posed by the military road since it
is the one that concerns us in this article. In his analysis of possible institution-
alizing alternatives, Huntington foresaw military authoritarianism as a possible
solution to the problem of praetorianism. He distinguished occasional military
interventions (an integral aspect of praetorianism) from attempts at establishing
a permanent authoritarian regime:

Intermittent military intervention to stop politics or to suspend

politics is the essence of praetorianism. Sustained military
participation in politics may lead a society away from praeto-
rianism)."*

Huntington's confidence in the military as a potential institution-builder (confi-

dence that was shared by John J. Johnson^ and Guy Pauker,6 among others)
builds both on the particular organizational characteristics of the military orga-
nization as well as on their possession of the monopoly of the means of vio-
lence. It is Huntington's belief that the institution's emphasis on professional-
ism, discipline, hierarchy, and so on immunizes it from politicization. In a prae-
torian context, characterized by generalized politicization, the military appears
as the only actor capable of acting as a neutral depoliticizing power. Only the
military, he argues, is in a position of being able to rally the people behind
shared national goals, for their traditional disdain for politics place them as an
impartial power that stands above politics:

The military... may possess a greater capacity for generating

power in a radical praetorian society... The military can be
cohesive, bureaucratized, and disciplined... The effectiveness
of military intervention stems at least as much from the orga-
nizational characteristics of the military as from its control of
or use of violence... It is thus their superior organizational
capacities that make intervention by the military... more pro-
ductive than intervention by other social forces... Military
intervention, which many people consider to be the source of
the evil in a praetorian society, may also be the source of the
cure.^

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Bureaucratic-authoritarian regimes would illustrate the many quan-

daries of the military road to political institutionalization. In contrast with
past military coups d'etat (which as Huntington rightly observed were an inte-
gral part of the praetorian game), the military regimes that sprouted through-
out the Latin American political landscape in the 1970s viewed themselves as
foundational attempts to establish the institutional basis of a new order that
would stop the chronic problem of praetorianism. The new military regimes
were committed to the restoration of order through the deactivation of civil
society and the normalization of the economy.^ Their policies were oriented
by a common effort at establishing a new polity that would leave praetorian-
ism behind.
Huntington's analysis and concepts shed important light on the prob-
lems of ungovernability, political instability and military intervention that
have dominated Argentina's political life since 1930. In fact, post-Peronist
Argentina represents for Huntington the textbook example of a mass praetori-
an society. More specifically, and in relation to the problem of military par-
ticipation in politics, the Argentine case provides an interesting example of
the multiple caveats and problems that the institution faced as a result of its
involvement in political affairs. In the following sections, I will concentrate
on two distinctive periods:

1. the period of mass praetorianism, in which the military institution exer-

cised a crucial veto and tutorial power in relation to weak civilian
administrations (1955-1966) and,
2. the period of the new military authoritarianism, where the Armed
Forces assumed the reins of power directly (1966-1982).

ARGENTINA 1955-1966: MASS PRAETORIANISM AND

"INTERMITENT" MILITARY INTERVENTION

The period that followed Peron's removal from power was dominated
by the polarizing dynamics set by the previous Peronist regime.^ As Floria
argued in reference to the Peronist experience:

Peron's period was not only the period of Peronism; it was

also the period of anti-Peronism. This polarization, as it was
afterwards called, was the result of the articulation of power
and opposition according to rules that were not shared. There

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were not two parties; there were "two countries": one whose
inhabitants could only conceive of Argentina with Per6n, and
another that could only accept Argentina without Per6n and,
in terms of power, without Peronism.lO

The years 1955-1966 were marked by futile attempts at reconstructing

a political system based on the authoritarian exclusion of the Peronist camp.
The politics of "Peronization" generated their counterpart: the politics of
"deperonization":

[a]s historic Peronism . . . conceived an ideal country without

anti-Peronists, the latter will gradually habituate to think of an
ideal country without Peronists, or with Peronists so dramati-
cally changed in their nature and features, that really suggest-
ed a retum to a pre-Peronist era.''

The politics of deperonization, like past policies of peronization, rested on a

blatant political instrumentalization of legal-constitutional arrangements: Pero-
nism was banned by decree, electoral laws were constantly reviewed and rewrit-
ten for political purposes, elections were canceled if their results were consid-
ered "unsatisfactory,"and so on. Far from solving the institutional crisis, those
measures aggravated the discrediting of political institutions and contributed to
the migration of political conflict to extrainstitutional arenas.
The "Liberating Revolution" that ousted Peron from power suffered
almost immediately from the effects of what I have termed "negative legitima-
cy": the heterogeneous anti-Peronist coalition was not only divided around the
issue of Peronism (between soft and hard liners) but on economic matters as
well. Gral. Lonardi's policy of "neither winners nor losers," aimed at co-opting
Peronist sectors, generated great opposition from the hardliner members of the
coalition, which engaged in a series of illegal paramilitary actions aimed at
purging Peronist elements from public positions. The partition of the anti-Pero-
nist coalition resulted in a fragmentation of state power. Supported by Navy-
related groups, many state officials joined civilian commands in their purging
activities against Peronist-dominated unions, in flagrant opposition to the offi-
cial policy of president Lonardi.12
Lonardi's administration lasted less than two months: a military coup
headed by General Pedro E. Aramburu and Admiral Isaac Rojas (Lonardi's
vice-president) led to the hardliner's control of the state apparatus. The new
administration rejected Lonardi's politics of toleration and moved quickly to
dismantle the remnants of Peronism. After declaring the state of emergency.

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Aramburu dissolved the Peronist party, prohibited the use of Peronist symbols
or Peron's name, and banned members of the Peronist regime from occupying
public posts. A strike in support of Lonardi was rapidly repressed by the mili-
tary, and hundreds of Peronist union leaders were detained. On June 9, 1956,
Peronist military leaders staged a failed coup against the government that led to
the detention and execution of its leaders.
Divided by internal struggles and disagreements over the "Peronist
question," the Aramburu administration called for general elections. With Pero-
nism proscribed, the Radical party moved to center stage. As the only party
with national relevance, the conflict around Peronism that divided Argentine
society at large migrated to its ranks and led to its division in two parties: Radi-
cals "del Pueblo" and "Intransigentes." Between 1958 and 1966, Argentines
witnessed futile attempts at recreating a democratic regime based on the exclu-
sion of the Peronists. The 1958 elections gave the victory to the Union Civica
Radical Intransigente (UCRI) over the Union Civica Radical del Pueblo
(UCRP), bringing Arturo Frondizi to the presidency. Frondizi arrived to power
with the support of Peronist votes, after a pact with Peron that consisted of a
trade of Peronist votes for Frondizi's compromise to lift the political restrictions
against the Peronist party. The pact fostered the polarization of the anti-Peronist
camp and sealed the future of the UCRI administration.
Frondizi's tenure was marked by the absence of governmental authori-
ty against corporate assaults by social groups. Under constant attack from both
the Army and a multiplicity of corporate groups, the administration was con-
stantly forced to reverse its policies in order to "placate" threatening sectarian
demands. During his administration, Frondizi faced 26 military "planteos" or
warnings, seven attempted coups, increasing fractionalization of the Armed
Forces, the UCRP and anti-Peronist political forces' disloyal opposition, and
trade union oppositional mobilization (after he was forced to reverse his pro-
Peronist measures under military threat). In March of 1962, after lifting the
electoral ban on Peronism in a congressional and provincial election that gave a
partial victory to Peronist forces, Frondizi was ousted from the presidency. The
president of the Senate, Jose Maria Guido, who finished the constitutionally
prescribed period under close military supervision, replaced Frondizi. Guido,
pressured by the military, annulled the electoral results by decree, dissolved
Congress and intervened in provincial governments.
During Guido's short tenure, the Armed Force's internal conflicts
reached unprecedented proportions, translating into constant cabinet changes
and even open military confrontations. The two main factions, "legalist" or
"azules" and "gorillas" or "reds," represented sections of the Army and the Air
Force and the Army and the Navy respectively. The factions divided around

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their differing attitudes toward Peronism. The "reds" represented anti-Peronist

hardliner groups that wanted to prevent the reemergence of Peronism by any
means. The Legalists' discourse centered instead on the problem of over-politi-
cization of the Armed Forces, which they believed had seriously affected both
their professionalism and institutional coherence. "Legalists" favored an imme-
diate return to the barracks to preserve the organizational autonomy of the
Armed Forces, swept by the institution's dramatic politicization. After a series
of military crises and rebellions, the warring factions entered into open combat
where "legalist" forces under the command of General Juan Carlos Onganfa
prevailed. The victory led to internal purges within the Armed Forces, resulting
in the removal of notorious anti-Peronist hardliners.
The electoral restrictions to the Peronist party and candidates led to
constant numerous redrawing of the electoral alliances that would compete in
the 1964 election. The political ban now extended to Frondizi, whose prior pact
with Peron made him an untrustworthy candidate. After a series of confusing
marches and counter-marches - which included the division of the UCRI, the
formation of an electoral front under the auspices of Peron and Frondizi and its
disintegration two days before the election, and the last-minute backing of a
Peronist candidate by the small Christian Democratic Party - the candidate of
the UCRP, Arturo Illia, was elected. Illia arrived at the presidency with less than
one fourth of the votes cast (2,500,000) followed by Peronism's blank votes
(1,900,000).
Illia's administration was in check from the moment of its inaugura-
tion. The biggest threats came from the Army, now controlled by the "Legal-
ists" or "blues" (the UCRP was closely connected with the defeated "red" fac-
tion), and from the Peronist-controlled union movement that engaged in a mobi-
lization plan to topple what they considered to be an illegitimate administration.
Surrounded by hostile social powers, Illia attempted to follow a moder-
ate and legalistic path. His administration was characterized by respect for civil
and political rights and the implementation of a discreet populist economic poli-
cy that included some pro-labor measures. The latter did not prevent the
unions from engaging in a destabilizing mobilizational campaign that involved
the occupation of industrial establishments. The "Plan de Lucha," launched in
1964 by the CGT, consisted of the occupation of industrial establishments by
workers, sometimes including taking plant directives as hostages. Between
May and July of 1964, the CGT claimed to have carried out 11,000 takeovers,
which involved the mobilization of approximately 3,900,000 workers.'3
Arturo Illia, following his legalistic convictions, removed all legal
obstacles preventing Peronists from participating in electoral contests. The call
for partial congressional renovation elections in 1965 led to the victory of the

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Peronist list. Within the trade union movement a neo-Peronist faction emerged
under the leadership of Augusto Vandor, which attempted to establish a "Pero-
nism without Peron." In 1966, a provincial election in the province of Mendoza
took place and Peronists and neo-Peronists presented competing lists. Although
a conservative candidate obtained the governorship, orthodox Peronist sectors
outnumbered the "Vandorista" faction by over 40,000 votes, dismissing any
immediate hopes for a more acceptable "Peronism without Peron" and
corroborating, to the disillusion of non-Peronist forces, Peron's hold on the
movement.
The strength displayed by Peronist forces in the two electoral contexts
determined the fate of Illia's administration. For months, the prolegomena of
the military coup were openly discussed by the press, which generally encour-
aged it. Onganfa, the victorious "legalist" leader, appeared as the natural candi-
date of the conspiracy. The formerly maintained legalistic position emphasizing
political abstention and professionalism had now shifted to a politicized pro-
gram that combined elements of the doctrine of national security with a dis-
course on the need for deepening economic modernization. The coup was
widely supported by most social and political forces, including Vandorista trade
union groups that gave a spirited green light to the military conspirators. On
June 28, 1966, the coup took place without major disturbances, in an almost
routine way.

ARGENTINA (1966-1983): FROM "INTERMITENT" TO "SUSTAINED"

MILITARY INTERVENTION. THE EMERGENCE OF A NEW TYPE
OF MILITARY AUTHORITARIANISM

The period between 1966 and 1983 was dominated by a demand for
order that translated into the emergence of a "negative" form of legitimating
input. Legitimacy no longer derives its authorizing power from the fulfillment
of specific normative claims but out of a functional demand for governability. In
contrast with the chronic legitimacy deficit that characterized all administrations
between 1955 and 1966, the three administrations that dominated the period
between 1966 and 1983 enjoyed, at the moment of their inauguration, consider-
able popular support
During those years, the country was torn by a plurality of centripetal
forces that were no longer reduced to the Peronism - anti-Peronism axis. Mutu-
al distrust and disagreements pervaded non-Peronist forces as well, amply illus-
trated in the series of divisions which most of those parties and institutions
underwent:, the Armed Forces were consumed by factional struggles, Radical-

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ism broke into two major parties, Socialist and Conservative parties also went
through intemal breaks, etc. Even the Peronist movement found itself divided
on which attitude to adopt toward the new rules.
The military, headed by Ongania, took power in an atmosphere of rela-
tive popular enthusiasm and support for the new administration. The majority of
the media, which had displayed a total indifference toward the fate of Illia's
administration, warmly welcomed the change. A public opinion poll conducted
shortly after the military intervention showed that an overwhelming 66% of those
interviewed explicitly supported the coup (against a meager 6% that opposed) and
73% believed that the general situation would improve in the near future.''* Such
a demonstration of support contrasted with the low degree of legitimacy con-
ferred to the prior two administrations at their inaugural moments. 15
The support for the authoritarian solution indicated, as O'Donnell has
rightly argued, a "ceiling consensus" on the need for putting an end to what was
now perceived as a destructive pattern of social interaction.'6 After years of
praetorian struggle and ungovernability, the restoration of some authority
became the main priority for a society fearful of its own self-destructive tenden-
cies. The propitious domestic environment was further strengthened by an
external context dominated by the propagation of the doctrine of national secu-
rity and the exportation of counterinsurgency methods by the U. S. that provid-
ed the ideological justification for the new type of military interventionism.'^
The period initiated a series of pompous foundational acts aimed at
regime building that were followed by boisterous regime breakdowns.'8 The
consensus enjoyed by the regimes at the moment of their inauguration proved to
be short-lived. Once a minimum of order was reestablished, the initial capital
of legitimacy deteriorated rapidly. Gradually, society returned to the factional
praetorian struggles both between power holders and excluded sectors, and
among the power holders themselves.
A crucial factor that made possible the "foundational" type of military
regimes experienced after 1966 was the temporary reunification of the Armed
Forces. Under mass praetorianism, social interactions turn into a rule-less and
ruthless struggle of all against all. Thus, the strongest and better-organized
groups had a better chance to play a dominant role. In such circumstances, the
Armed Forces became a central actor, not only because of their control of the
means of coercion, but also -as we have stressed earlier following Huntington-
as the result of their organizational strength. Huntington stresses this point in his
analysis of mass praetorianism:

[t]he military may possess a greater capacity for generating .

order in a radical praetorian society. The military can be cohe-.

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sive, bureaucratized, and disciplined. The effectiveness of

military intervention stems at least as much from the organi-
zational characteristics of the military as from its control of or
use of violence.'^

However, military intervention in political life inevitably leads to the

politicization of the institution. The coup sets into motion a new process of
internal factionalization. The latter is crucial for understanding the dynamics of
regime decomposition. The authoritarian regimes might be partially successful
at "freezing" the situation of societal mass praetorianism, but impotent at con-
trolling the praetorian struggle within their own ranks, usually resulting in an
unscrupulous assault on the state by the very groups that control it. Guillermo
O'Donnell has pointed out this problem when referring to the vulnerability of
the authoritarian state to internal erosion by its own allies:

The opaque assaults of these allies, which are not mediated

through formal channels that would oblige them to present
their demands in terms of broader, general interests, corrode
the continually proclaimed unity, efficiency, and technical
rationality of the state .. ."20

Misunderstandings between coalition members foster a process of frag-

mentation of power that the regime finds hard to contain. The praetorian strug-
gle within the state reawakens the praetorian tendencies in society, opening a
new confrontational period that usually leads to the dramatic decomposition of
the authoritarian alliance. The return to democratic rule via "regime break-
down," so typical of all Argentine transitions, has its explanation in the lack of
state autonomy that encourages limited praetorianism of the dominant groups
within the state and the subsequent extension of praetorianism into civil society
at large. In contrast with other Latin American military experiences, all Argen-
tine authoritarian attempts at reestablishing political unity through authoritarian
imposition from above not only failed to recreate an ordering state power, but
also exacerbated the praetorian political game.^l What remains after years of
pompous foundational rhetoric is not an altered pattern of accumulation or a
consolidated state order but chaos.

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Grai. Onganfa and the "Argentine Revolution"

The difficulties that prevented the authoritarian coalition from initiat-

ing a process of societal recomposition arose to the surface immediately after
the coup that put Onganfa into the presidency. Thanks to his efforts at reorga-
nizing and professionalizing the Army, Onganfa gained prestige among the
three branches of the Armed Forces. Once the re-unification of the institution
was accomplished, the professional ideology turned outward: the Armed Forces,
being the only institution with internal cohesion in a praetorian environment,
attempted to carry out an ambitious process at restoring authority nation-wide.
Onganfa emerged as the natural leader for accomplishing that task. The coup
followed a foundational schema that aimed at restoring social integration by
coercively suppressing the disintegrating forces within society, which Onganfa
identified with political society, in order to reconstruct society along an authori-
tarian corporate schema.
By reentering the political scene, the Armed Forces risked the stagger-
ing new process of repoliticization and factionalization of the institution. How
would they avoid a repoliticization of the institution that would inevitably
undermine their efforts at preserving the internal unity of the Armed Forces at
the forefront? The answer of the coup leaders was to establish an institutional
separation between the military administration and the military institution: "The
Armed Forces neither govern nor co-govern." The formula granted institutional
autonomy to the president. Active military personnel were expressly banned
from occupying high executive positions, which were given to either civilian
technocrats or retired military.22
Despite all efforts to prevent the re-politicization of the military institu-
tion, internal political differences that had remained temporarily "frozen" soon
reemerged.23 Conflicts among internal military factions and between the mili-
tary institution and the president dominated the first months of the Onganfa
administration. By the month of October, the political atmosphere was overrun
by governmental crises and rumors of a possible coup against Onganfa. Under
pressure from the "liberal" sectors of the Army, Onganfa was forced to make
ministerial changes and bring into his cabinet a liberal finance minister. As
with previous praetorian civilian governments, Onganfa avoided a coup against
his administration by relinquishing part of his power to the threatening sector.
In December, the "liberals" obtained another victory by forcing the dismissal of
"professionalist" commander-in-chief Pistarini, who was replaced by one of
their candidates.
The state administration displayed a dualism that reflected the tempo-
rary relations of forces between different military and civilian factions. The

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political posts were in control of "paternalist" groups, while decisions concern-

ing capital accumulation were in the hands of the "liberal" faction and its civil-
ian allies. An atmosphere of mutual distrust and animosity governed the rela-
tionships among competing state elites, where confrontational and obstructionist
practices prevailed.24 The praetorian struggle now took place within the state
apparatus.
The factionalization of the Armed Forces and the permanent conflicts
between the army-commander and the president dominated Onganfa's tenure.
In March of 1968, after new rumors of military "uneasiness" and a possible
coup d'etat, Onganfa replaced general Alsogaray as Army commander. The
decision generated sharp criticisms from Alsogaray, who accused Onganfa of
personalizing state power. The president, the retiring Army commander publicly
denounced, had lost all legitimacy in the eyes of the military.25
The greatest challenge to Onganfa's administration came, however, in
May of 1969 when workers and students overpowered the police, literally occu-
pying the second largest Argentine city, Cordoba, for several days. The event,
unprecedented in Argentine political history, indicated novel (and more violent)
forms of mobilization and protest within civil society. The "Cordobazo" was not
an isolated incident: popular uprisings proliferated in other provincial cities, fol-
lowed by massive union and student mobilizations as well as by the emergence
of guerrilla movements. The combination of new groups and new types of
political action added a sudden destabilizing element to Argentina's praetorian-
ism. The authoritarian state that had tried, borrowing O'Donnell's metaphor, to
build a dam to contain societal pressures by suppressing the multiple channels
of state-society communication that had in the past overloaded the state, sud-
denly tumbled due to an unanticipated accumulation of unmediated pressures
from below.26
General Alejandro A. Lanusse, who replaced Levingston after the lat-
ter's attempt at "deepening" the Argentine Revolution in a populist direction,
conducted the military withdrawal from govemment.27 xhe transitional period
took place in a scenario characterized by a high degree of popular activism and
guerrilla warfare. The radicalizing tendencies of a civil society that was no
longer controllable either by the military or by its traditional leaders convinced
the military of the need to resort to their old adversary, political society, in order
to initiate a necessary process of political demobilization. The move included,
for the first time since 1955, the explicit recognition of Peron and Peronism as
legitimate partners, in the hope that Peron would be able to contain the revolu-
tionary groups within the Peronist movement. Lanusse's original idea was to
promote controlled Peronist participation, but the situation of ungovernability in
which Argentine society was immersed, and Peron's skillful political maneuver-

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ing, made the possibility of a negotiated transition wishful thinking

On March 11, 1973, the Peronist electoral front headed by Hector
Campora obtained 49% of the votes versus 21% for the Radicals 28 Torre and
De Riz graphically describe the "Argentine Revolution's" dramatic finale:

After the ostentatious failure of Lanusse's strategy, the mili-

tary abandoned the government, taking as a consolation a
vision of the old caudillo facing the titanic task that they had
not been able to accomplish: that of constructing a political
order capable of maintaining control over the expectations
and passions unleashed by nearly two decades of frustration
and discord.29

The "Process of National Reorganization"

Peron's charisma and appeasing attitude, and the support he received

trom a political opposition that shared his conciliatory mood, proved to be
insufficient to control the bloody dynamics of a violent civil society His short
third presidential term30 was marked by his inability to placate the intemal prae-
torian tendencies of an heterogeneous Peronist movement that had now expand-
ed to include a broad and contradictory umbrella of tendencies, from far right
organizations to the revolutionary "Montonero" guerrillas. Per(5n was not the
only one undergoing a leadership crisis. The Peronist trade union bureaucrats
were also confronting difficulties in maintaining the loyalty of their bases
where a new plant-based radical leadership fueled mobilizational tendencies at
the factory level.3i With Peron's death on July 1, 1974, the country witnessed
the takeover and privatization of the presidency by a clique leaded by Welfare
Minister Lopez Rega, an obscure and corrupt political figure.
During Isabel Peron's presidency the praetorian struggle reached
unprecedented heights: hyper-inflationary crises and clashes between the
administration and the trade unions were combined with a widespread guerrilla
offensive and the open activities of a state-sponsored anticommunist paramili-
tary group. The state apparatus was torn by centripetal tendencies within the
governing Peronist movement, while political opponents stood impotently wit-
nessing the spiral of violence and ungovernability created by Peronism's inter-
nal divisions. Overwhelmed by the pace of the events and the power vacuum
civil society arrived at a new "ceiling consensus" and anxiously waited for a
much-debated military coup. The latter finally arrived on March 24, 1976.
The military junta that governed Argentina between 1976 and 1983 set
the task of reversing the process of ungovernability by a) carrying out a frontal

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war against society and, b) by attempting to recreate and reinforce state power
and authority. Immediately after taking power, the junta issued a document, the
"Act of the Process of National Reorganization," defining itself as a revolution-
ary constituent power unbound by constitutional norms. The laws declared that
the junta, a collegiate body integrated by the commandant-in-chief of each of
the forces, was the supreme authority of the nation. After the Onganfa experi-
ence, the military regime of 1976 decided to reverse the relationship between
military commanders and executive power that they had established in the 1966
authoritarian experiment in order to be able to maintain control of the political
process. The president was to be designated by the junta and was supposed to
carry out the directives that the latter set out in the different revolutionary
proclamations. Public posts were equally distributed among members of the
three forces.
During the years of "el Proceso," the "privatization" of the state appa-
ratus reached new heights. Public bureaucracy was distributed to military offi-
cers who acted with total discretionary powers. The administration functioned
as an inarticulate aggregation of "feuds" at the hands of groups close to the
spheres of power, depriving the state apparatus of any institutional or bureau-
cratic logic.32 The "privatizing" tendencies even reached the coercive core of
the state apparatus: the war against subversion was carried out by multiple and
uncoordinated repressive groups that operated with total freedom and impunity.
The "dirty war" therefore took on a quasi-private character. Armed bands
engaged in plundering practices whose profits were distributed among the par-
ticipants.33
The glue that maintained the cohesion of the authoritarian coalition
was the subversive challenge. Once the common enemy was defeated, the
internal organizational cohesion of the Armed Forces weakened, re-initiating
the praetorian struggle within the state. The first major conflict among the com-
peting military factions was provided by the need to select a successor to Presi-
dent Videla, as dictated by the institutional act of the regime. The designation
of General Viola, who represented moderate Army groups that intended to initi-
ate a gradual process of political liberalization, stirred great opposition from the
Navy and important groups within the Army. Viola's presidency was short-
lived: in December of 1981, a palace coup displaced him, naming a hardliner.
General Galtieri, to the presidency. Galtieri tried to revive a moribund regime
by militarily occupying the Malvinas/Falkland islands. The military defeat by
Great Britain led to an acid confrontation among the three forces characterized
by mutual recriminations concerning their role in the brief war. As a result of
the departure of the Navy and Air Force from government, the junta was tem-.
porarily dissolved. Amidst the background of regime disintegration, the newly

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 Enrique Peruzzotti/From Praetorianism to Democratic Institutionalization:
Argentina's Difficult Transition to Civilian Rule

designated president, General Bignone, initiated a disorderly transition to

democracy.
The ambitious hopes of the authoritarian coalition never materialized.
The parceling and privatization of state institutions contributed, as in the past, to
the erosion, fragmentation and, eventually, breakdown of bureaucratic authori-
tarianism. It is therefore erroneous and misleading to consider these regimes as
a case of state autonomy.34 Such an interpretation conceals some similarities
between the mass praetorian and authoritarian periods. The model of bureau-
cratic-authoritarianism that dominated the academic debate throughout the
1980s is built upon the hypothesis of an authoritarian reconstitution of state
authority that brings the period of mass praetorianism to an end. According to
O'Donnell, the authoritarian experience represents a perverse reversal of the sit-
uation of mass praetorianism: under mass praetorianism, a strong and anarchical
society dictates its wishes over a weak state, while under bureaucratic-authori-
tarianism a strong and autonomous state imposes its dominion over society.35
Yet, in the Argentine case, the organizational coherence of the Armed Forces
rested on very feeble ground. Once in power, their inevitable politicization led
to their division and fragmentation into competing political factions. The end
result of the Argentine authoritarian experience was not a process of institution-
al differentiation between state and civil society but a radical privatization of the
structure of public power by particular groups.

FROM AUTHORITARIANISM TO CONSTITUTIONALISM.

CONCLUDING REMARKS

What theoretical lessons can be learned from the described Argentine

experience?
First, if military intervention in developing societies stems as much
from pressures and calls of civilian groups and institutions as from military ini-
tiative,36 the analysis of processes of political and cultural innovation within
civil society-like the emergence of new actors, discourses and forms of politi-
cization organized around a demand for rights and the rule of law-can shed
light on developments that can help remove the social bases of military authori-
tarianism and open the way for a solid process of political institutionalization.
In Argentina, cultural innovation eliminated a key element that in the
past had fed the p^^rnicious cycle of praetorianism and military interventionism:
the civilian calls for military intervention. The politics of human rights altered
well-established features of Argentine political culture and introduced a novel
and healthy concern for rights and constitutionalism, which provided normative

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JOURNAL OF THIRD WORLD STUDIES, SPRING 2004

validity to claims for the consolidation of a constitutional form of democracy.^'?

The introduction of a concern for rights and constitutionalism into the Argentine
political culture marks a point of inflexion that left behind a turbulent period of
political instability and disregard for institutions. By privileging constitution-
alism over authoritarianism, Argentine society was able to break with Hunting-
ton's sterile road to institutionalization.
Second, Huntington's assumption that the military, due to their organi-
zational characteristics, are better prepared to ensure political stability and insti-
tutionalization proved not only erroneous but very costly for the military institu-
tion. Military intervention in politics inevitably affects the unity and institution-
al coherence of the Armed Forces, fragmenting them into conflicting factions.
The dramatic discredit and crisis of the Argentine Armed Forces and the alien-
ation of the institution from large sectors of the citizenry shows the high costs
that the military is paying for their politicization.38 In the Argentine case, the
resort to illegal violence further aggravated the institutional crisis of the mili-
tary. The use of illegal means erased the element that distinguishes the military
from criminal, terrorist or paramilitary organizations: the monopoly of legal
violence.
Lastly, while authoritarian polities might provide temporary relief to
the problem of ungovernability, they are poorly equipped to deal with the chal-
lenges of political institutionalization. Only constitutionalism can emancipate
institutions from shortsighted political dynamics, providing them with an
autonomous and coherent institutional logic. A legally constituted state no
longer depends on the will of the military or of any other group, as in authoritar-
ian polities, but on stipulated procedures that prevent the colonization of its
administrative apparatus by specific social and political powers. It is conse-
quently misleading to view constitutionalism as a mere mechanism for limiting
state power, as Huntington did. His statement that in developing societies the
state must be first created only to be limited at a latter stage is erroneous. Such
an assumption, which provides the grounds for his theory of political institu-
tionalization in developing societies, disregards constitutionalism as a tool for
institution-building, not taking into consideration the fact that it is precisely
constitutionalism that simultaneously creates and organizes state power.^^ The
constitutionalization of state power and the development of the state as an insti-
tution represent two sides of the same process, for it is only constitutionalism
that gives birth to the modern legal state.^O Analysis of the challenges and
obstacles to political institutionalization in Third World societies must therefore
abandon Huntington's misleading axis of civic/praetorian polities in favor of a
theoretical framework that clearly distinguishes authoritarian polities from con-
stitutional ones.'*'

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 Enrique Peruzzotti/From Praetorianism to Democratic Institutionalization:
Argentina's Difficult Transition to Civilian Rule

NOTES

1. Huntington distinguishes three levels of Praetorianism according to the scope

of citizenship in each society: oligarchic, radical and mass praetorianism. Oli-
garchic praetorian societies are polities that have not yet made the transition to
mass politics: the political game is still monopolized by notables. In radical
and mass praetorian polities the struggles for citizenship rights have led to the
political incorporation of middle and popular sectors respectively. Samuel P.
Huntington, Political Order in Changing Societies, (New Haven: Yale Univer-
sity Press, 1968), p. 80.
2. Samuel P.Huntington, Political Order, p. 83; David C Rapoport, "A Compara-
tive Theory of Military and Political Types of Polities" in Samuel P Hunting-
ton (ed.). Changing Patterns of Military Politics, (New York: Free Press
1962), p. 73.
3. For different perspectives on the problem of colonization of public institutions
by private powers, see F. H Cardoso, Estado y Sociedad en America Latina,
(Buenos Aires: Nueva Visi6n, 1972); Roberto Da Matta, "A Prop6sito de
Microescenas y Macrodramas: Notas sobre el Problema del Espacio y del
Poder en Brasil," Nueva Sociedad, (number 104, 1989); Guillermo O'Donnell,
"Estado y Alianzas en la Argentina, 1956-76," Desarrollo Economico, (volu-
men 64, 1977): 523 - 554; Enrique Peruzzotti, "The Weimarization of Argen-
tine Politics and State Autonomy," Thesis Eleven, (no. 34, 1993) pp 126 -
140.
4. Huntington, Political Order (1968), p. 243.
5. John J. Johnson, The Military and Society in Latin America (Stanford, Stanford
University Press, 1964).
6. Guy Pauker, "Southeast Asia as a Problem Area in the Next Decade," World
Po/mci, XI (April 1959).
7. Huntington Political Order, pp. 239-240.
8. David Collier, The New Authoritarianism in Latin America, (Princeton:
Princeton University Press, 1979); Guillermo O'Donnell, "Tensions in the
Bureaucratic-Authoritarian State and the Question of Democracy" in Collier,
The New Authoritarianism.
9. For an analysis of the polarizing dynamics of populist democratization in
Argentina, see Enrique Peruzzotti, "Civil Society and the Modem Constitu-
tional Complex. The Argentine Experience," Constellations: An Intemational
Joumal of Critical and Democratic Theory, v. 3, no. 1, April 1997.
10. The quote is from Carlos Floria, cited by O'Donnell in Guillermo O'Donnell,
1978, p. 147.
11. Carlos A. Floria & C6sar A. Garcia Belsunce, Historia Politica de la Argenti-
na Contempordnea. J880-1983, (Buenos Aires: Alianza Editorial 1988) p
164.
12. Marcelo Cavarozzi, "Political Cycles in Argentina since 1955," in Guillermo
O'Donnell, Philippe C. Schmitter & Lawrence Whitehead. Transitions from
Authoritarian Rule: Latin America (Baltimore: John Hopkins University

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JOURNAL OF THIRD WORLD STUDIES, SPRING 2004

Press, 1986), p. 21.

13. Guillemio O'Dontiell, El Estado Burocrdtico Autoritario. Triunfos, Derrotas
y Crisis, (Buenos Aires: Editorial de Belgrano. 1982), p. 77.
14. Guillermo O'Dontiell, El Estado Burocrdtico Autoritario, pp. 65-66.
15. With the exception of the "Revoluci6ti Libertadora" that overthrew Peron,
which was enthusiastically received by anti-Perotiist forces, all the subsequent
administrations until 1966 enjoyed from their very first day in office a very
low degree of legitimacy. As Cavarozzi pointed out, "each government's abili-
ty to survive was in check from the very first moment of it inauguration".
Marcelo Cavarozzi, "Political Cycles in Argentina since 1955," in Guillermo
O'Donnell, Philippe C. Schmitter & Lawretice Whitehead. Transitions from
Authoritarian Rule: Latin America (Baltimore: Johti Hopkitis University
Press, 1986), p. 20.
16. O'Dontiell, 1978, p. 159.
17. For the itifluence of those doctrines in the Argentitie Armed Forces see J.
Patrice McSherry, Incomplete Transition: Military Power and Democracy in
Argentina, (New York, St. Martin's Press, 1997), chapter 2.
18. The military regimes' self-description, "Argentine Revolution" and "Process of
National Reorganization," illustrate their aspirations to act as constituent pow-
ers, i.e., carrying out a de facto process of state-building that could break the
prevalent cycle of political ungovernability and societal anarchy and restore a
common ordering power. For some illustrative speeches of the Military Juntas,
see Brian Loveman & Thomas Davies Jr. (eds.). The Politics of Antipolitics,
(Lincoln, Nebraska University Press, 1989): 194 - 201.
19. Huntington, Political Order, p. 239.
20. Guillermo O'Donnell, "Tensions in the Bureaucratic-Authoritarian State and
the Question of Democracy," p. 311.
21. Enrique Peruzzotti, "The Weimarization of Argentine Politics and State Auton-
omy," Thesis Eleven, (number 34, 1993).
22. Guillermo O'Donnell, Estado Burocrdtico Autoritario. Triunfos, Derrotas y
Crisis, (Buenos Aires: Editorial de Belgrano. 1982), p. 87.
23. O'Donnell distinguishes three major political orientations within the military
institution. The first one was Onganfa's "patemalists" which aimed at implant-
ing an authoritarian, demobilized and depoliticized corporate order. The sec-
ond group was the "nationalists," whose goal was to recreate from above a
national movement, which presupposed mobilizing some popular sectors such
as trade unions. While the patemalists and nationalists' most immediate con-
cem was to recreate social integration, i.e., to engage in a process of "spiritual
reconstruction of the national unity by subordinating sectarian demands and
interests to a shared ideal," the "liberals'" priority was of a more systemic
nature, that is, to restore a pattern of capital accumulation that had been dis-
rupted by the praetorian game; according to O'Donnell, there is no BA state
without the latter's control of the economic policy-making process (O'Donnell,
El Estado Burocrdtico Autoritario, p. 101). In their view, it was necessary to
initiate a frontal attack against an over-mobilized popular sector that they

114
 Enrique Peruzzotti/From Praetorianism to Democratic Institutionalization:
Argentina's Difficult TVansition to Civilian Rule

viewed as representing a major political obstacle to economic development.

Against the corporate notion of class equilibrium present in the paternalist and
nationalist Utopia, the liberals' economic program fomented a confrontational
pattern of class relationships. Both liberals and patemalists saw each other's
policies as an immediate threat to their political goals - the liberal economic
program conspired against political integration, the paternalistic political goals
undermined economic performance - heightening the internal antagonisms of
a dual bureaucratic-authoritarian state. For a description of the different mili-
tary political factions, see O'Donnell, El Estado Burocrdtico Autoritario, pp.
121 - 130.
24. O 'Donnell, Estado Burocrdtico Autoritario, p. 126.
25. O'Donnell, El Estado Burocrdtico Autoritario, p. 237.
26. O'Donnell, El Estado Burocrdtico Autoritario, p. 294.
27. The post-Ongania years dramatically illustrate the weakness and permeability
of the bureaucratic-authoritarian state. In 1971, after the removal of the
fmance minister due to cross pressures from civilian and military groups, the
military junta took the unusual step of suppressing the ministerial position.
From that moment, the ministry functioned according to a unique pluralistic
system composed by all the internal ministerial departments. According to
O'Donnell, this solution was sponsored by president Lanusse himself in order
"to placate everyone by parceling the state apparatus, distributing it-in a type
of reversed corporatism-to 'representative sectors'... the Central Bank was
going to be given away to the financial establishment; the department of indus-
try to a protectionist team favorable to industrial expansion; the department of
labor to elements permeable to the demands of the CGT; the department of
agriculture, to an authentic spokesman of the rural producers ..." O'Donnell,
El Estado Burocrdtico-Autoritario, p. 377. Such a pathetic example of societal
colonization of the state apparatus contrasts with authoritarian illusions of
recreating state autonomy to reestablish a common ordering power.
28. The electoral law, based on technicalities and not on a political ban, excluded
Peron's presidential candidacy. Perdn choose Campora as his candidate, who
campaigned under the slogan "Campora to govemment, Per6n to power".
29. Juan Carlos Torre & Liliana De Riz, "Argentina 1945-1989" in Bethell, Leslie
(ed.). The Cambridge History of Latin America: Latin America since 1930.
Spanish South America. Vol. VIII, (Cambridge: Cambridge University Press,
1991), p. 144.
30. Campora's administration only lasted forty-nine days. New elections were
called in which Per6n was allowed to participate. The formula Juan Per6n-
Isabel Per6n obtained an impressive 62% of the votes.
31. Juan Carlos Torre & Liliana De Riz, "Argentina 1945-1989."
32. Oscar Oszlak, "Privatizaci6n Autoritaria y Recreaci6n de la Escena Publica" in
Oscar Oszlak (ed.) Proceso, Crisis y Transicion Democrdtica/1, (Buenos
Aires: Centro Editor de America Latina, 1984)pp. 39-40.
33. CONADEP, Nunca Mas. The Report of the Argentine National Commission
on the Disappeared, (New York: Farrar Straus Giroux, 1986), p. 375ff.

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JOURNAL OF THIRD WORLD STUDIES, SPRING 2004

34. Isidoro Cheresky, "Democracia y Autoritarismo en los Capitalismos Dependi-

entes. Bases para un Projecto de Investigaci6n. Los Casos de Argentina y
Brasil," Revista Mexicana de Sociologt'a, (v.42, no. 3, 1980), pp. 1071-1103.
Guillermo O'Donnell, "Corporatism and the Question of the State" in James
Malloy (ed.). Authoritarianism and Corporativism in Latin America, (Pitts-
burgh: University of Pittsburgh Press, 1987), p. 60; Juan Carlos Portantiero,
"Economia y Politica en la Crisis Argentina: 1958-1973," Revista Mexicana
de Sociologia, (number 3, 1978); Ricardo Sidicaro, Ocho Proposiciones sobre
los Regimenes Autoritarios de Argentina, Chile y Uruguay, (Buenos Aires:
Cuadernos de Ciencias Sociales, U.B.A. 1986), p. 11; William C Smith,
Authoritarianism and the Crisis of the Argentine Political Economy, (Stanford:
Stanford University Press, 1989), pp. 5-6.
35. Guillermo O'Donnell, "Corporatism and the Question of the State," p. 56.
36. Felipe Aguero, "Las Fuerzas Armadas en una Epoca de Transici6n: Perspecti-
vas para el Afianzamiento de la Democracia en America Latina" in Rut
Diamint (ed.) Control Civil y Puerzas Armadas en las Nuevas Democracias
Latinoamericanas, (Buenos Aires, Grupo Editor Latinoamericano, 1999); J.
Patrice Me Sherry, Incomplete Transition: Military Power and Democracy in
Argentina, p. 290; Alfred Stepan, The Military in Politics. Changing Patterns
in Brazil (Princeton, Princeton University Press, 1971); Alfred Stepan,
Rethinking Military Politics. Brazil and the Southern Cone, (Princeton, Prince-
ton University Press, 1988): 128-9.
37. Enrique Peruzzotti, 'Towards a New Politics: Citizenship and Rights in Con-
temporary Argentina," Citizenship Studies, (Vol. 6, Number 1, 2002); Enrique
Peruzzotti "The Nature of the New Democracy. The Delegative Democracy
Argument Revisited," Joumal of Latin American Studies, (volume 33, part 1,
February 2001).
38. For a recent analysis of some of these problems see Rut Diamint, "Crisis,
Democracy, and Civil Military Relations in Argentina," paper presented at the
Conference Rethinking Dual Transitions: Argentine Politics in the 1990s in
Comparative Perspective, Wheatherhead Center for Intemational Affairs and
David Rockefeller Center for Latin American Studies, Harvard University,
March 20-22, 2003.
39. Stephen Holmes, "Precommitment and the Paradox of Democracy" in Jon
Elster & Rune Slagstad (eds.). Constitutionalism and Democracy, (Cambridge:
Cambridge University Press, 1988).
40. Carl Schmitt, Teoria de la Constitucion, (Madrid: Editorial Tecnos, 1982), p.
66.
41. Enrique Peruzzotti, "Modernization and Juridification in Latin America. A
Reassessment of the Latin American Path" Thesis Eleven, (number 58, 1999).

116