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Civil‐Military Relations in Contemporary Argentina

Published online by Cambridge University Press:  28 March 2014

Walter Little
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Extract

THE ISSUE OF CIVIL-MILITARY RELATIONS PRESENTS THE new Argentine government with several problems. One is the structuring of government, that is general staff relations. Moreover the new authorities must take a position in the short to medium term over the question of responsibility for the ‘dirty war’, the plundering of the public purse by the officer corps between 1976 and 1982 and the defeat in the war with Britain. And in the longer term they must confront the wider issue of how to both ‘civilianize’ the armed forces and ‘demilitarize’ civil society.

Type
Articles
Information
Government and Opposition , Volume 19 , Issue 2 , 01 April 1984 , pp. 207 - 224
Copyright
Copyright © Government and Opposition Ltd 1984

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References

1 In 1930, 1943, 1955, 1962, 1966, and 1976. For an overview of this era see Rouquié, A., Poder militar y sociedad politics en la Argentina, 2 vols., Buenos Aires, Emecé, 1978 Google Scholar and Potash, R., The Army and Politics in Argentina, 2 vols., Stanford, 1969 and London, Athlone Press, 1980 Google Scholar.

2 See the seminal O’Donnell, G., Modernization and Bureaucratic‐Authoritarianism: Studies in South American Politics, Berkeley, University of California, 1973 Google Scholar.

3 On this period see W. Little, The Military and the Argentine Working Class, 1976‐81, forthcoming, Latin American Centre, University of Liverpool, and Canitrot, A., ‘La disciplina como objetivo de la politica económica’, Estudios Cedes, vol. 2, no. 6, Buenos Aires, 1979 Google Scholar.

4 Electoral Platform of the UCD.

5 A Quien Votar, Como Votar, Buenos Aires, Ediciones Argentinas 1983, p. 51.

6 Ibid., p. 7.

7 As early as 20 April, Nicolaides, the Commander‐in‐Chief, agreed that the Armed Forces would not intervene again, but warned the politicians to ‘think very hard’ before proposing any reform of the military institution.

8 Over which the Air Force, traditionally very nationalist, took a very hard line.

9 This and the following tables are based upon the electoral platforms of the thirteen leading parties.

10 See for example La Nación, 3 May 1983.

11 See Timmerman, J., Prisoner without a name, Cell without a number, Penguin, 1982 Google Scholar.

12 See La Nación, 29 April 1983.

13 Clarin Internacional, 25 April to 1 May 1983.

14 La Nación, 23 September 1983.