What the people want: State planning and political participation in Peronist Argentina, 1946-1955

Journal of Latin American Studies

Volumn 37, Issue 1, 2005, Pages 81-108

  Elena, Eduardo ^a  

^a PRINCETON UNIVERSITY   (United States)

Author keywords

[No Author keywords available]

Indexed keywords

NATIONAL PLANNING; PLANNING SYSTEM; POLITICAL HISTORY; POLITICAL PARTICIPATION; POLITICAL SYSTEM;

ARGENTINA; SOUTH AMERICA; WESTERN HEMISPHERE; WORLD;

EID: 15044343951     PISSN: 0022216X     EISSN: None     Source Type: Journal    
DOI: 10.1017/S0022216X04008569     Document Type: Article

References (81)

1. Zulema described herself as an 'empleada', although it is not clear wether she was a domestic worker or another type of employee. Archivo General de la Nacion (AGN), Colección del Ministerio de Asuntos Técnicos (MAT), Legajo 307, 13024. I have identified the authors of letters by their first name to protect their identity. In translating the letters into English, I have also standardised the unconventional spelling and grammar used by some petitioners.
2. For a useful overview of the historiography on Peronism, see Mariano Plotkin, 'The Changing Perceptions of Peronism,' in James P. Brennan (ed.), Peronism and Argentina (Wilmington, 1998), pp. 29-54.
3. The letters examined in this article are drawn from the Ministry of Technical Affairs collection at the Argentine Archivo General de la Nación. This body of government documents from Perón's planning ministry was opened to the public only in the early 1990s. Historians of Latin America have made ample use of public correspondence, but popular letter-writing has rarely been made the main subject of analysis. For letter-writing in other populist regimes, see W. John Green, Gaitanismo, Left Liberalism, and Popular Mobilization in Colombia (Gainsville, 2003).
4. Joel Wolfe, 'Father of the Poor or Mother of the Rich? Getulio Vargas, Industrial Workers, and Constructions of Class, Gender, and Populism in São Paulo, 1930-1954,' Radical History Review, vol. 58 (Winter 1994), pp. 80-111.
5. For an excellent analysis of the genres of public letter-writing, see Sheila Fitzpatrick, 'Supplicants and Citizens: Public Letter-Writing in Soviet Russia in the 1930s,' Slavic Review, vol. 55, no. 1 (Spring 1996), pp. 78-105.
6. James C. Scott, Seeing Like A State: How Certain Schemes to Improve the Human Condition Have Failed (New Haven, 1998), p. 4.
7. Other key works on state planning include: Paul Rabinow, French Modern: Norms and Forms of the Social Environment (Cambridge, 1989).
8. Gyan Prakash, Another Reason: Science and the Imagination of Modern India (Princeton, 1999).
9. James Holston, The Modernist City: An Anthropological Critique of Brasilia (Chicago, 1989).
10. In addition to the comparisons with European fascism, Peronism is most often analysed as an example of Latin American populism. In this analysis, I avoid engaging at length with this vast literature to explore new interpretive directions, but my approach to studying planning and participation could apply to other classic populists (such as Cárdenas or Vargas) and even leftists such as Castro.
11. Stephen Kotkin's work on Stalinism offers a fruitful model for considering this dynamic. Stephen Kotkin, Magnetic Mountain: Stalinism as Civilization (Berkeley, 1995), pp. 22-3.
12. Within the field of Latin American history, scholars are reconsidering the intricacies of popular support for and participation within authoritarian regimes. See, for example, Richard Lee Turits, Foundations of Despotism: Peasants, the Trujillo Regime, and Modernity in Dominican History (Stanford, 2003).
13. The article limits itself to the national government, placing aside the larger issue of provincial and municipal governments' planning efforts. in some cases, notably Buenos Aires province, the government mirrored national planning with its own three-year plans. But most planning activity and propaganda was concentrated at the national level.
14. República Argentina, Plan Quinquenal del Presidente Perón, 1947-1951 (Buenos Aires, n.d.).
15. This element of disorganisation and improvisation was somewhat inevitable in light of the enormous goals set forth by the Plan. Despite the regime's corporatist pretensions, the lack of experience of the Peronist top brass - a collection of military officers, ex-union officials, and a handful of dissident industrialists - added to these problems. Over time, Peronist authorities took measures to centralise policymaking. Gary W. Wynia, Argentina in the Postwar: Politics and Economic Policymaking in a Divided Society (Albuquerque, 1978), pp. 43-80.
16. For overviews of the Perón government's accomplishments on these fronts, see Juan Carlos Torre and Eliza Pastoriza, 'La democratización del bienestar,' in Juan Carlos Torre (ed.), Nueva historia argentina: los años peronistas (1943-1955), vol. 8 (Buenos Aires, 2002), p. 292.
17. Peter Ross, 'Justicia social: una evaluación del los logros del peronismo clásico,' Anuario IEHS, vol. 8 (1993), pp. 105-24.
18. AGN, Departamento de Fotografía, Caja 1307, Sobre 62, 1973 26.
19. Studies of Peronism and the media include Alberto Ciria, Política y cultura popular: La argentina peronista, 1946-1955 (Buenos Aires, 1983)
20. and Pablo Sirven, Perón y los medios de comunicación (1943-1955) (Buenos Aires, 1984).
21. James has argued convincingly that Peronism represented a 'credible vision' of social change for working-class Argentines. Applying this idea to the context of planning, new social programmes and legal measures helped to ground the lofty promises of state leaders. At the same time, the expansiveness of Perón's planning discourse infused these myriad reforms with a unifying, utopian quality. Daniel James, Resistance and Integration: Peronism and the Argentine Working Class, 1946-1976 (Cambridge, 1988), pp. 7-40.
22. Juan Domingo Perón, Conducción Política (Buenos Aires, 1952), pp. 240.
23. Mariano Plotkin, Mañana es San Péron: propaganda, rituales políticos y educatión en el régimen peronista (1946-1955) (Buenos Aires, 1993).
24. Daniel James, 'October 17th and 18th, 1945: Mass Protest, Peronism, and the Argentine Working Class,' Journal of Social History, vol. 21 (Spring 1988), pp. 441-61.
25. Juan Carlos Torre (ed.), El 17 de Octubre de 1945 (Buenos Aires, 1995).
26. National literacy rates were near 90 per cent by the 1950s. Torre and Pastoriza, 'La democratización del bienestar,' pp. 296-7.
27. Estela de los Santos, Las mujeres peronistas (Buenos Aires, 1983), p. 35;
28. Nicholas Fraser and Marysa Navarro, Evita: The Real Life of Eva Perón (New York, 1996), p. 117.
29. The exact inspiration behind this campaign is unknown. Certainly, no government leader in Argentine history had asked for popular input in this fashion. Yet the world of mass culture suggests a precedent. Argentines in the 1930s and 1940s participated in frequent write-in contests organised by radio stations and magazines, which generated thousands of pieces of correspondence and a flurry of media attention. There is some resemblance between these events and the 'Perón Wants to Know' campaign, and Peronist propaganda-makers at the Subsecretaría de Informaciones, including its director Raúl Apold, had backgrounds in private radio, film, and the press. Hugo Gambini, Historia del peronismo: el poder total (1943-1951), vol. 1 (Buenos Aires, 1999), pp. 403-21.
30. For an account of radio in this period, see Carlos Ulanovsky, et al. Días de radio: historia de la radio argentina (Buenos Aires, 1995), pp. 121-76.
31. In his radio broadcast, Perón noted that additional 'technical commissions' were collecting the input of provincial and municipal governments, private organisations and labour unions. La Nación 4 Dec. 1951, p. 1.
32. The urbanisation demands raised by the letter-writers can be thought of as a form of political participation outside the more familiar electoral arena. Political scientists John Booth and Mitchell Seligson define political participation broadly as 'behavior influencing or attempting to influence the distribution of public goods', and they provide the example of rural communities that petition governments for road improvements. According to the authors, these interactions are particularly noteworthy in nations that have both widespread socio-economic inequality and that have experienced frequent shifts between democratic and authoritarian rule. This definition stretches the conceptual limits of participation perhaps too far, but it does highlight the fact that letter-writing in Peronist Argentina had points in contact with social practices across the region. John A. Booth and Mitchell Seligson (eds.), Political Participation in Latin America vol. 1 (New York, 1978), pp. 6-7.
33. Pablo Gerchunoff and Lucas Llach, El ciclo de la ilusión y el desencanto: un siglo de políticas económicas argentinas (Buenos Aires, 1998), pp. 208-11.
34. La Nación, 4 Dec. 1951, p. 1.
35. These estimates are based on the categories used by the National Archive to classify the correspondence. My sense is that the basic geographic distribution and identity of the petitioners holds true with some variation for other issue categories (such as 'vivienda' or 'educación'). All the letters examined in this paper arrived to the Ministry of Technical Affairs between December 1951 and March 1952. Archivo General de la Nación, Fondo Documental Secretaría Técnica 1 y 2 Presidencia del Teniente General Juan Domingo Perón (1936-1955) (Buenos Aires, 1995).
36. For a classic analysis of the links between collective consumption and grassroots political action, see Manuel Castells, City, Class, and Power (New York, 1978).
37. For the politics of collective consumption in Argentina, see James Baer, 'Buenos Aires: Housing Reform and the Decline of the Liberal State in Argentina,' in Ronn Pineo and James Baer (eds.), Cities of Hope: People, Projects, and Progress in Urbanizing Latin America, 1870-1930 (Boulder, 1998).
38. By the mid-1940s nearly 30 per cent of all Argentines lived in the city and its environs. Margarita Gutman and Jorge Enrique Hardoy, Buenos Aires: histotia urbana de la área metropolitana (Madrid, 1992).
39. AGN-MAT, Legajo 214, 8921.
40. AGN-MAT, Legajo 205, 6401.
41. AGN-MAT, Legajo 12, 8082.
42. In their enthusiasm for planning, popular sector letter-writers shared points in common with more elite provincial groups. As James Brennan has shown, certain factions of industrialists and businessmen from the Interior - especially those from less developed provinces outside the Littoral region - also saw the Peronist state as an ally in decentralising industrialisation and commercial activity. James P. Brennan, 'Industrialists and Bolicheros: Business and the Peronist Populist Alliance, 1943-1973,' in Peronism and Argentina, pp. 79-124
43. There are two notable exceptions: the reconstruction of San Juan city after the 1944 earthquake (which became bogged down with internal disputes) and a cluster of projects in the Buenos Aires suburb of Ezeiza (including an airport, highway, and housing projects). Mark Alan Healey, 'The Ruins of the New Argentina: Peronism, Architecture, and the Remaking of San Juan After the 1944 Earthquake,' unpubl. PhD diss., Duke University, 2000;
44. Anahí Ballent, 'Arquitectura y ciudad como estéticas de la política,' Anuario IEHS, vol. 8 (1993), pp. 175-98.
45. AGN-MAT, Legajo 360, 9046.
46. AGN-MAT, Legajo 112, 7958.
47. AGN-MAT, Legajo 179, 10986.
48. AGN-MAT, Legajo 49, 5896.
49. AGN-MAT, Legajo 12, 8664. It is important to note that the term 'villa' in this time period did not necessarily refer to a shanty-town or villa miseria, but rather a neighbourhood of recent settlement. In some cases petitioners made reference to buying plots of land through real estate agents, suggesting that villa residents were not primarily squatters.
50. AGN-MAT, Legajo 12, 8664. It is important to note that the term 'villa' in this time period did not necessarily refer to a shanty-town or villa miseria, but rather a neighbourhood of recent settlement. In some cases petitioners made reference to buying plots of land through real estate agents, suggesting that villa residents were not primarily squatters.
51. AGN-MAT, Legajo 12, 8664. It is important to note that the term 'villa' in this time period did not necessarily refer to a shanty-town or villa miseria, but rather a neighbourhood of recent settlement. In some cases petitioners made reference to buying plots of land through real estate agents, suggesting that villa residents were not primarily squatters.
52. AGN-MAT, Legajo 205, 11622.
53. AGN-MAT, Legajo 205, 10134.
54. Beatriz Sarlo has examined the fascination of mass reading audiences with popular science and technological subjects in interwar Argentina. These cultural influences also may explain the interest of some petitioners with the technical aspects of planning under Perón. Beatriz Sarlo, La imaginación técnica: sueños modernos de la cultura argentina (Buenos Aires, 1992).
55. AGN-MAT, Legajo 36, 8081.
56. AGN-MAT, Legajo 214, 17201.
57. It is noteworthy that this overlapping of local strategies for improvement and the Peronist version of national planning was not a conscious design of Perón's regime. In terms of public works, Perón rarely acknowledged the efforts of neighbourhood and civil organisations. There was no concerted national effort to include sociedades de fomento within the official framework of the Peronist movement. In this regard, the contrast with labour unions is important.
58. According to official Peronist estimates, approximately half of the economically active population was unionised by the early 1950s, up from just 20 per cent a decade before. Unidades Básicas were divided into male and female branches, under the command respectively of the Partido Peronista and the Partido Peronista Femenino. Louise Doyon, 'El creciminento sindical bajo el Peronismo,' in Juan Carlos Torre (ed.), La formación del sindicalismo peronista (Buenos Aires, 1988), pp. 174-5.
59. AGN-MAT Legajo 12, 8637.
60. AGN-MAT, Legajo 347, 8972.
61. Literally, 'we are dignified enough to have paved roads'. AGN-MAT, Legajo 307, 6607.
62. AGN-MAT, Legajo 320, 1497.
63. AGN-MAT, Legajo 254, 8154.
64. Leandro H. Gutiérrez and Luis Alberto Romero, Sectores populares, cultura y política: Buenos Aires en la entreguerra (Buenos Aires, 1995), p. 159.
65. Luis Alberto Romero, 'Participación política y democracia, 1880-1984,' in Sectores Populares, p. 131.
66. Even in the pre-Peronist period, sociedades de fomento in Buenos Aires city adjusted to undemocratic political environments. Adrián Gorelik has argued that while these organisations offered their members opportunities for democratic experimentation from within, they also formed alliances with city administrations committed to boss politics and exclusionary strategies of urban development. Adrián Gorelik, La grilla y el parque: espacio público y cultura urbana en Buenos Aires, 1887-1936 (Buenos Aires, 1998), pp. 439-49.
67. See also Luciano de Privitellio, Vecinos y ciudadanos: política y sociedad en la Buenos Aires de entreguerras (Buenos Aires, 2003), pp. 105-48.
68. For examples of this phenomenon in European history, see Frank Trentmann (ed.), The Paradoxes of Civil Society: New Perspectives on Modern German and British History (New York and Oxford, 2000), pp. 3-46.
69. Sheri Berman, 'Civil Society and the Collapse of the Weimar Republic,' World Politics, vol. 49 (April 1997), pp. 401-29.
70. Mundo Peronista, 1 July 1952, pp. 8-11.
71. AGN-MAT, Legajo 12, 8676. Legajo 205, 10144.
72. AGN-MAT, Legajo 12, 8082.
73. AGN-MAT, Legajo 161, 11409.
74. Subsecretaria de Informaciones, Segundo Plan Quinquenal, (Buenos Aires, 1952).
75. AGN-MAT, Legajo 205, 6401 and 11623. The second petitioners' requests were eventually added to the province of Buenos Aires's planning registry, according to an internal memo from November 1953.
76. AGN-MAT, Legajo 62, 9886.
77. For a case study of Peronism and clientelism in present-day Argentina, see Javier Auyero, Poor People's Politics: Peronist Survival Networks and the Legacy of Evita (Durham, NC, 2000).
78. On populism and style, see Alan Knight, 'Populism and Neo-populism in Latin America, especially Mexico,' Journal of Latin American Studies vol. 30 (1998), pp. 223-48;
79. Ernesto Laclau, Populism and Ideology in Marxist Theory (London, 1977);
80. Michael L. Conniff (ed.), Populism in Latin America (Tuscaloosa, 1999);
81. James, Resistance and Integration, pp. 7-40.