McGuire 1997

McGuire, James W. 1997. Peronism without Perón: unions, parties, and democracy in Argentina. Stanford, Calif: Stanford University Press.

• Chapter 1: Peronism, Party Institutionalization, and Democracy
• "Peronism is a strong collective identity, but weakly institutionalized as a political party. ... Those who have spoken for the Peronist movement, beginning with Juan Perón himself during his 1946-55 presidency, have repeatedly insisted that Peronism is a national movement committed to real democracy, not a political party preoccupied with formal democracy." (1)
• the plebiscitarian leader and the trade unions have always been the core
• "The leaders and members of a national movement, by contrast, think it desirable, and potentially feasible, to establish full ad permanent control of the polity." (4)
• and power can be won in many different ways, electorally or otherwise
• union leaders are not very devoted to the party, meaning they don't have as much at stake for the survival of democracy (5)
• suggestion that the level of party institutionalization is heavily dependent on its origins, and Peróns didn't want or need a strongly institutionalized party (14-15)
• Augusto Vandor tried to create a peronist pary not centered on Perón, but Perón allied with those marginalized by Vandor, and Perón's candidate beat vandor's in the 1966 governor election in Mendoza (18-19)
• this first cycle of routinization ailed, and the specter of Perón's growing power led to military coup (19)
• the second cycle of (attempted) institutionalization came after Luder lost the 1983 election, led by the Renovation wing, Menem had ambiguous but existent ties with the old wing, so the 2nd attempt also failed (19-22)
• this study contends Perón's and Menems unwillingness to institutionalize the party was a big cause PJ never institutionalized (22)
• union leaders were key to both party building movements and the groups that thwarted these movements (26)
• "struggles among Peronist unionists, along with the power-preservation and power-enhancement interests of Peronism's plebiscitarian leaders, have contributed to Peronism's weak party institutionalization.
• Chapter 7, the rise and fall of renovation peronism
• Alfonsin's presidency helped the isntitutionalization of the PJ, for three reasons
• the military had lost legitimacy, so there was a feeling democracy would be around a while (187)
• public opinion seemed to favor adn support political parties (instead of, say corporatism) (187-188)
• Radical Party gained some legitimacy as well, didn't look liek the party that always lost to PJ or always allowed military to take over (188)
• PJs loss in presidential election of 1983 meant the party had to build party from the legislature, not be headed by a super strong prez (188-189)
• leader of the metalworkers had been major power, leader in the party for this election, loss discredited him
• renewal faction of PJ wanted internal elections, less backroom maneuvering (190)
• in the midterm elections the UCR won 43 to 35%, with the renewal faction of the PJ winning by 2-1 margin
• the July 1984 union reform law helped to democratize unions a bit, even if peronists still maintained a lot of control in elections (192)
• with the PJ 62 unions were old school, wanted to control the party, while the "25" ceded leadership of the party to politicians, but also used more leftist talk, opposing hegemony of the US and transnational capital (192-193)
• 13 general strikes against Alfonsin 
• between 1984 and 88 there wre 2721 local strikes (199)
• general strikes may have been an effort on the part of union leaderhsip to contain, channel protests from the base (200)
• neither the 15 (conciliated with Alfonsin) nor the Ubaldinistas (current in CGT) saw the PJ as a useful vehicle for making a mark on politics and society, they wanted to get direct influence on the national executive
• the 15 tried to control the labor ministry
• Ubaldini tried to mobilize unionists with pure economic/societal power to influence the exec (205-6)
• "The "62" liked the tercio because the financial and organizationl weakness of of nonunion Peronism assured them control of nominations in the women's and men's branches of the movement as well as in the union sector." (209)
• Menem did not have the support of hte party but did have the support of the unions (210)
• when Menem won presidential primary in 1988, renovadores lost power in the PJ (211)
• Menem's style reflected Peron's a bit, willing to disregard the rules
• "Above all, Menem defended the notion that Peronism was, first and foremost, a national movement, not a party preoccupied with democracy..." (212)
• for the 15 Menem's victory gave them a chance to get power that their weakness in the CGT and the PJ had long denied them (215)
• left Ubaldini forced to pursue general strike strategy against a peronist, not a great idea
• Chapter 8 free=market reform and political shenanigins
• some peronist leaders opposed Menem's reforms, but most went along with them thansk to the many inducements involved (216), these, of course, meant declines in union membership and deterioration of finances, as well as a new limit on the right to strike
• by 1995 when the growth had slowed, many unions now wanted to oppose menem, but the reforms had already progressed far enough tht there was litlte chance of stopping them (217)
• Menem's rule by decree deinstitutionalized the PJ and, despite runnign fiar elections, did many things that udnermined democratic consolidation
• Menem's economic reforms, content and impact
• Menem's economic reforms were implemented in bad ways, especially privatization which broke most of the UN's "Seven Sins of Privatization", especially the use of discretionary/nontransparent procedures (220)
• currency overvaluation meant wages went down while productivity rose (221)
• main cost was a huge surge in unemployment (223)
• mainly caused by massive layoffs, wage cuts in public sector, capital repalcing waged laborers, and increased import competition (223)
• unions:
• employment dropped in public and private sector, so membership dropped (223-4)
• curtailed right to strike (224)
• collective bargaining was decentralized a bit (by decree, law never quite made it out of congress) (224-5)
• also a decree to reform obras sociales, though labro leaders fought off real reform (226)
• union responses
• union leaders had differing responses to these reforms, from strong opposition to cooperation with tepids of both
• actual responses simply came about because union leaders were very autonomous and just ended up responding differently to conflicting imperatives (protect union versus be loyal to PJ) (226)
• turf battles also played a role (227)
• CGT splits when menemists (allied, oddly enough, with anti-menemists) try to get Ubaldini out of Sec gen position in 1989 (228)
• surprisingly, some of the more combative "25" union leaders became menemists (230)
• when Menem went after the obras sociales, CGT reunited (though with lots of internal conflicts remaining) to fight this (231)
• and the same time the leaders of the state workers ATE and teachers CTERA broke to form the CTA
• CGT called for a General strike in in 1992, but it was weakly attended, and afterwards they adopted a conciliatory tone, whcih didn't win them much (231-232), CTA was combative of all Menem's reforms (232)
• when Menem went after obras sociales in 1993/4 CGT called for a general strike, but called it off after neogtiations were started
• MTA, within CGT, was more combative and untied with CTA for some general strikes and protests against obras changes in 1994 (233)
• CGT acquiesced to Menem because reforms were pretty good, in some instances, for the economy (234-5)
• also menem was head of PJ, adn workers supported the PJ (235)
• hyperinflation had been rough, so fixing it made workers OK with other things (236-237)
• also, privatizations were new opportunities for unions to make money (237)
• suggests decline in normal strike activity was because telephone workers lost a showdown strike (a la PATCO), and economic growth then made future strikes less likely (240-241)
• The Deinstitutionalization of the PJ


• Menem bypassed the party in filling government posts and picking candidates for office, increased isolation of party leadership from government and party members (241)
• internal elections continued, but above meant that party was more deinstitutionalized that insti'ized
• during Alfonsin, everyone had to try and gain power through teh legislaturem, but with Menem everyone could skip legislature adn go straight to the top (241-242)
• Menem imposed lots of extraparty candidates (243)
• "menem thus desintitutionalized the PJ in part by ignoring and then capturing and subordinating a party leadership whose ties to party members, union chiefs, and provincial presidents were in any case tenuous at best." (248)
•  Menem and democratic institutions
• "Some conditions became more propitious for the development of a principles commitment to democracy during Menem's first term in office. Menem presided over six years of electoral activity, proposed or backed legal and constitutional reforms that increased the resilience, fairness, and relevance of certain democratic arenas and procedures, and reduced the level of overt military contestation.
• Against these credits, however, one must weigh Menem's manipulation of electoral rules, bypassing of congress with executive decrees, stacking of the supreme court, tolerance for administrative corruption, lackadaisical respo0nse to physical attacks on journalists critical of the government, and pardons of military officers convicted of human rights violations." (252)
• On the one hand, Menem's policies may grow the national pie, making it easier to settle claims for distribution (260)
• on teh other hand, the party is now less able to actually channel distributive claims, meaning the outcome could still be conflict of distributional issues (261)
• Chapter 9: conclusion
•  weak party institutionalization encouraged union leaders to express their demands through strikes and protests, not the party or elections (262)
• also meant unions weren't devoted to democratic institutions, meaning they didn't necessarily always oppose military dictatorship
• the party became dispensable in union leaders' eyes
• the argument of this book is that, like the rural elites who controlled votes of peasants, the working class leaders could mobilize enough votes to dominate politics, and thus was uninterested in creating strong political democracy (263)
• union power and democratic consolidation are not necessarily at odds, but strong unions can increase distributive conflict and wield a stronger ability to sway political system, meaning democratic consolidation can come down to the level that union leaders want democratic consolidation (266)
• at times union power can have ambiguous results for the poor, who may bear the costs of the creation of a privilege working class
• 1980s union density data (268)
• the strong labor movement from 1955-1983, coupled with weak parties, meant that the labor unions contributed to a strong distributional conflict without any institutional ways to channel it, which created instability (270-271)
• why is it a problem that democracy is not institutionalized? it makes crises and nondemocratic responses to these crises more likely (281)
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