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A Note on Political Incorporation: the Argentine Plan Político of 1955

Published online by Cambridge University Press:  05 February 2009

Walter Little
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Extract

The Plan Político of 1955 casts an unusually direct light on contemporary Peronist thinking about the relationship between legitimacy and mass electoral support. It also provides first hand evidence of the then government's determination to use the electoral process as well as various techniques of incorporation in the creation of a mass Peronist identity. Finished early in 1955 for the forthcoming Governors’ Meeting, it was intended as a political blueprint for the run-up period to the elections that were scheduled for 1957.

Type
Articles
Information
Journal of Latin American Studies , Volume 14 , Issue 2 , November 1982 , pp. 455 - 463
Copyright
Copyright © Cambridge University Press 1982

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References

1 El Plan Político. Resúmen de la Situación Politica y Recornendaciones para la Acción. (Classificado SECRETO) (Ministerio de Asuntos Politicos, Buenos Aires, 1955), 257 pp.Google Scholar

2 Ironically so in view of what happened later that year. It has only one oblique reference to the possibility of the government being overthrown.

3 Once its rhetoric is discounted, this interpretation of the popular character of Peronism makes some sense. For it was through the use of executive power that the union movement became institutionalized and the relative share of income of the working class was raised.

4 Spuriously accurate, the estimates were, respectively, 63, 86 and 34.43 with 1.71 per cent en blanco. Though high, these are reasonable extrapolations of previous electoral trends, always assuming that the movement was still in power. Even in opposition, as successive governments have discovered, Peronism retains its capacity to attract more votes than any other grouping.

5 For example, in the case of Córdoba, of fourteen ‘factores que pueden gravitar en la tendencia del Peronismo’ no less than nine concerned social and economic issues, ranging from cereal price supports to road repairs by way of expanded irrigation projects.

6 As the Plan noted when talking of the evident deficiencies in the municipal government of the Province of Beunos Aires: ‘Este factor es de fundamental importancia puesto que la obra municipal es la que mas conoce el vecino y que mas directamente lo beneficia o perjudica y por ende la mas criticada.’ (p. 45).

7 Speaking of the administration of justice, for example, it remarked that Jurisprudence was ‘contrary’ to Doctrine and urged, ‘… recordando aquello de que un lado de la biblioteca dice Peronismo y el otro antiperonismo, los fallos sólo deben ser dados utilizando el lado Peronista de la biblioteca.’ (p. 20).

8 ‘La propaganda dinámica ataca, promete, preconiza… (pero)… debe explotar los hechos y no dá resultados a menos que se ponga al servicio de la propaganda estática. La propaganda estática, resultado de la soberania de los hechos, es evidentemente más eficaz.’ (pp. 18–19).

9 This was not the first time that the government had altered the electoral system for partisan ends. In 1951 residents of national territories had been accorded the right to vote in Presidential elections.

10 As it admitted: ‘En la ultima elección el Partido Peronista hizo entrega aproximada de 230,000 pasajes a cuidadanos que emitieron su voto en otros distritos electorales’ (p. 18).

11 Gerrymandering was not new either. For example, the Federal Capital had been drastically gerrymandered in 1951 and 1954. For more information on this, see Little, W., ‘Electoral Aspects of Peronism’, Journal of Inter-American Studies and World Affairs Vol. 15, No. 3 (08, 1973).Google Scholar

12 By 1955 it was able to claim: ‘El Pueblo trabaja, practica deportes, se cultiva. Así divididas las entidades se han podido catalogar en número y en su caudal societario, para tener una idea estimativa de la cantidad de ‘Pueblo Organizado’ y de lo que aún nos resta por organizar. Los resultados obtenidos hasta el presente son: Entidades de Trabajo: 10.443 con 5.103.833 asociados, de los cuales el 74.5 por ciento son peronistas. Entidades de Cultura Fisica: 13.822 con 3.152.759 asociados de los cuales el 67 por ciento son peronistas. Entidades de Cultura Espiritual: 3.747 Con 750.000 asociados, de los cuales el 56 por ciento son peronistas.’ (p. 12).

13 The subordinate position of the Party within the movement reflected the latter's étatism as well as its own heterogenous origins. However, it also reflected the quasimilitaristic obsession with order and discipline that was so characteristic of Peron's thinking and consequently of official doctrine. Peron never forgot the divisions that had weakened the Radical Party, but his determination to avoid them led to a rigidity of party structure that was itself a serious weakness. For details on this, see Little, W., ‘Party and State in Peronist Argentina’, Hispanic American Historical Review, Vol.53 No.4 (11, 1973).Google Scholar