Power Bloc Legitimation Strategies in a Dependent Society: The Case of Argentina (2001–2019)

CANTAMUTTO, FRANCISCO JOSÉ

LATIN AMERICAN PERSPECTIVES

SAGE

Año: 2022 vol. 49 p. 163 - 182

0094-582X

Argentina is a dependent country whose incorporation into the world market has deepened in the last decades. The question that arises is how it has been possible to politically legitimize this regressive trend. A study of the combinations of two structural mechanisms of dependency (extractivism and superexploitation of the workforce) with respect to the building of legitimacy shows a shift from a consensual strategy led by the industrial fraction—which seized the opportunity to redistribute land rent—to one centered on the power bloc as a whole in opposition to the popular classes. While extractivism increased throughout the period, superexploitation of the workforce displayed different phases of augmentation and attenuation depending on the power bloc’s political strategies.