Leader and Vanguard in Mass Society: A Study of Peronist Argentina

The Argentine political system constitutes a type of traditional Latin politics under conditions of mass society. This book examines the mix of advanced industrial technology, regime instability, military and mass participation, and personalismo that characterizes contemporary Argentine politics. It suggests that this mix of traditional and new, of democratic and autocratic elements may become increasingly common as technological advances are achieved in societies with an autocratic political tradition. The Peronist movement is identified by the author as a particularly clear-cut embodiment of this pattern of politics. A Caesarist movement in a technologically advanced society, Perón, the Peronist vanguard, and the working-class mass base are important for Argentine politics and relevant to a number of broadly influential hypotheses concerning political movements and political development. Both the micro and the macro levels of Argentine politics are examined. An interaction model derived from past and present political practices is presented, and the underlying political culture is explored. Using data from a stratified national sample, the author examines the perspectives—identifications, expectations, and demands—of Argentines generally and of Juan Perón's mass following in particular. The Peronist world is described, its size and social composition delineated. Three chapters are devoted to analyzing Peronists' perspectives on the functions and influence of such groups as the military, the Church, landowners, and the trade unions; Peronists' perceptions of government and their relationship to it; and the political demands of the movement. In each of these chapters, Peronists' orientations are related to those of other Argentines. Several important conclusions are presented in the book's last chapter. For instance, the author finds that the Peronist movement was well within the national political culture and asserts that, although it dealt with the concrete "bread-and-butter" issues of daily life and shared a common ideology between leaders and masses, it lacked the radical impulse for destroying the traditional order and, as such, was not an alienated mass movement. In an epilogue, Professor Kirkpatrick comments on developments in Argentina under General Onganía and observes that the chronic instability of Argentine governments results from elite rivalries rather than from deep divisions in mass opinion. This is the 12th volume in the MIT Comparative Politics Series.