The Argentine crisis in the 90’s. The failure of the neoliberal model

LECHINI, GLADYS; ROMERO PEDRO,

Dakar

Conferencia; Intellectuals, Nationalism and the Pan-African Ideal; 2003

(CODESRIA) Conseil pour le développement de la recherche en sciences sociales en Afrique

In 1989, Carlos Menem arrived to the presidency in a context of a strong hyperinflation, supermarkets plundering, military worries, objections of the Church, deliberative Armed Forces, dissagreeing businessmen and unions in turmoil. Having announced not many concrete political ideas nor a programmatical detailed platform, his campaign was placed in the rather classical style of “Historical Peronism”. But after two periods of government, at the end of the 90’s, Argentina was suffering from one of the most important crises of its modern history. Thus, the aim of this work is to propose some clues for the understanding of what we call "the path from miracle to disappointment". Hereby the present analysis is focussed in the 90´s, since this decade constitutes the peak of the model now under critical revision and allows, consequently, the development of some conceptual tools to approach the varied edges of the “Argentine´s crisis". For this purpose it will be analysed the decade in three dimensions: the political - institutional one, the economic one and the international one, though reality unveils a complex scenery in which all three dimensions are intertwined according to the circumstances.