A COMPARATIVE STUDY OF DEVELOPMENT DURING THE ARGENTINE AND CHILEAN JUNTA

Abstract

The purpose of this study is to understand why Argentina and Chile, countries in the same region that in some years were concurrently rule by two superficially similar regimes (the most recent Argentine junta known as the Ultima Dictadura and the Chilean junta headed by Augusto Pinochet), had such divergent development outcomes and left their democratic heirs with greatly differing mandates and political cultures. This work attempts to further understanding of the Chilean economy’s success and Argentina’s continual struggles by comparing the countries’ most recent juntas regimes on the basis of their initial mandates, how they acted upon those mandates and how successful each regime’s policies were. This paper makes heavy use of interviews with and publications by members of each regime in order to gauge implicit and explicit regime original objectives. In determining the outcomes of the regime’s effect on macroeconomic indicators or the country’s political culture, secondary sources were used alongside the application of basic principles of political science. This study concludes that the most recent Argentine junta played a major role in hampering growth and sowing future political instability enough to allow Chile to surpass Argentina on indicators of economic wellbeing such as GDP per capita or HDI. The Argentine regime’s restrictive and autarkic economic policies, belligerent foreign policy and anti-legalist nature stunted 3 growth and made future governments of any regime type less credible and less capable of governance. Meanwhile Chile’s program of market oriented reform and export focused trade policy coupled with a generally legalist dictatorship that left the judiciary and financial organs independent of the executive empowered experts to make smart decisions on macroeconomic policy. This paper will contend that the prime drivers of Chile surpassing Argentina in terms of GDP per capita were Chile’s export supports, Argentina’s continued attempts at import substitution and the anti-legalist nature of the most recent Argentine military dictatorship and its long-run effects on Argentine political culture.