Democrats' Mistakes and the Birth of Authoritarian Rule: Ramón Castillo and the Fall of Conservative Democracy in Argentina

LÓPEZ, IGNACIO ALEJANDRO; TACCONE, NICOLÁS

San Francisco

Congreso; LASA 2022; 2022

Latin American Studies Association

On 4 June 1943, a military coup crushed Argentina´s democracy, marking the end of the country´s oligarchic era and "planting the seeds" of Peronism. We leverage this case to shed light on how rulers´ mistakes can operate as a key independent variable in producing regime change. We argue that the former democratic President, Ramón Castillo, provoked an otherwise avoidable democratic breakdown. Specifically, Castillo´s misguided relationships with regime insiders and outsiders unintentionally eroded political stability and triggered the fall of democracy. Until now, agent-based scholarship has fallen short in tracing incumbents´ mistakes and linking them to regime change processes. We test the argument by conducting a within-case analysis of Argentina´s democratic fall in the early 1940s, scrutinizing the president´s errors at five critical events. We conclude by arguing that critical event analysis can help scholars disentangle the role of leaders´ mistakes in other episodes of regime change.