Institutional Change and Development in Argentina

ALEJANDRO GRIMSON; ANA CASTELLANI; ALEXANDRE ROIG

Institutions Count

University of California Press

Lugar: Los Angeles; Año: 2012; p. 39 - 59

For a number of authors, Argentina is an example of a peculiar failure in development. Using diverse indicators, its ranking among Latin American nations in the early 20th century is frequently compared with its position in the early 21st century in order to illustrate a process of relative decline. The disparity between the country’s potential (not only its natural resources, but also the educational level of its population) and present-day reality has given rise to an abundant bibliography that delves into Argentine history and the country’s development process, singling out diverse factors to account for this relative decline. The economic devastation perpetrated by the last military dictatorship, the “lost decade” in the 1980s and neoliberalism in the ‘90s are the latest additions to a list that includes inter-sectorial conflict, the absence of a hegemonic socio-economic group after the 1930 crisis, and the ups and downs of the Peronist-anti-Peronist dichotomy, among others.