Populism and International Finance: The Experience of Peronist Argentina, 1973-1976

GARCIA HERAS, RAÚL

Arequipa

Congreso; III Congreso Peruano de Historia Económica; 2017

Asociación Peruana de Historia Económica-Universidad Católica San Pablo-Universidad de San Agustín

The experience of the Peronist populist government that came to power in Argentina after a landslide in general elections held in March 1973 has long attracted scholarly interest in Argentina and abroad. Most of these studies have noted that the Peronist government of the 1970s was forced to overhaul its initial populist policies in order to address increasing economic stabilisation problems and eventually qualify for foreign financial assistance for that purpose. Reference has also been made of the fact that its failure was followed by the last military dictatorship that ruled Argentina in the last century. Yet, though sparsely and with a focus on links with the International Monetary Fund (IMF), only recently have Argentina?s international financial relations during these years received some more detailed attention.In view of this historiographical vacuum, this article is to broaches Argentina?s relations with multilateral lending agencies and international bankers during the Peronist government of 1973-76 which coincided with the collapse of the Bretton Woods era and the onset of a new era in international finance. The main focus are relations with the International Monetary Fund, the WorldBank, and the Inter-American Development Bank. In doing so, drawing on a wide range of primary and secondary sources available in Argentina and abroad. In a first section the early Peronist international financial strategy and its underlying optimism and self-assurance vis a vis national structural problems and the end of the Bretton Woods era are discussed. A second section examines Argentina?s mounting balance of payments problems in the wake of the international crisis of 1973/74 and the government?s gradualist approach to meet them until mid-1975.Thereafter, Peronism?s last-ditch efforts to salvage its government in the wake of a well-known political vacuum and an aggravated macroeconomic situation are broached. The conclusions round off relevant findings on the Argentine macroeconomic stalemate as of early 1976 in order to explain how and why the dictatorship emerging from the military coup of late March that year applied neoliberal policies in which a better-known and radically different international financial relations policy left a deep imprint in the country.JEL Classification: H63, N26, F35, O19Keywords: International Monetary Fund, World Bank, Foreign Debt, Latin America.