International Political Science Association (IPSA)

23rd World Congress of Political Science

“Challenges of Contemporary Governance”

19-24 July 2014

Montréal. Québec. Canada.

Session: RC13 Democratization in comparative perspective

Panel: Emergency Politics in Democratic Contexts - Session 2

Chair: Dr. Claire Wright

Co-chair: Claudia Heiss

Title of the paper: Argentina in times of Kirchnerismo ¿continuity or

change?

Author: Santiago C. Leiras

Institutional membership: University of Buenos Aires-Argentina

Abstract

One of the main axes of the political discussion in recent years in Argentina has gone

around the project Kirchner´s "rupture or continuity" character relative to that played by the

Menemismo during the 1990s. The radicalization of the political conflict -the conflict with

the agricultural sector in 2008 and the hard confrontation between the executive branch and

the Clarin media group from the 2008 year to present are emblematic expressions- created

the conditions for the radicalization of the intellectual and political debate, being the axis

change/continuity one of the main topics in the discussion.

Indeed, beyond the rich discussion raised around this issue, a claim policy of reorganizing

the state and society is present in Argentina at the beginning of each new political era: what

could represent a process of alternating between different political actors is perceived as the

beginning of a new chapter in history of the republic that comes to constitute a real hinge of

history.

The purpose of this paper is to analyze the changes that occurred during the experiences of

Nestor Kirchner and Cristina Fernandez de Kirchner in power, as well as continuities in

relation to the 1990s.

1. Introduction

One of the main axes of the political discussion in recent years in Argentina has gone

around the project Kirchner´s "rupture or continuity" character relative to that played by the

Menemismo during the 1990s. The radicalization of the political conflict -the conflict with

the agricultural sector in 2008 and the hard confrontation between the executive branch and

the Clarín media group from the year 20081 to present are emblematic expressions-, created

the conditions for the radicalization of the intellectual and political debate, being the axis

change/continuity one of the main topics in the discussion.

In this debate, prominent intellectuals sympathetic to the ruling party -as philosophers

Ricardo Forster (2010a, 2010b), chief spokesman of the group Carta Abierta, Horacio

Gonzalez (2011) or José Pablo Feinmann (2011) - as well as important critical voices -as

sociologist Maristella Svampa (2007) and essayist Beatriz Sarlo (2011), who presented this

view in the publication of his authorship between boldness and calculation. Kirchner 2003-

2010- have been participants among others.

Beyond the rich discussion raised around this issue, a claim of reorganizing the state and

society is present in Argentina at the beginning of each new political era: what could

represent a process of alternating between different political actors is perceived as the

beginning of a new chapter in history of the republic that comes to constitute a real hinge of

history.

In a recent publication the Argentine philosopher Thomas Abraham affirmed:

We are used to the founding myths. Regenerative point is a commonplace then

repeated by each of the national crises (Abraham, 2012)

At the same time, the Argentine philosopher asked himself about the peculiarities of our

political culture:

¿May it be possible that every time a government staff takes in charge a mutation

of the value system is announced?

As if it would exist a zero grade of the culture. Saints, martyrs, excomulgated. A

new epiphany consecrates a new power shift and proclaim a recent victorious in

a cultural battle (Abraham, 2012: 246-247)

So then it's like during the government of Raúl Alfonsín this foundational claim was

present and established the 1983 year as the boundary between democracy and dictatorship,

1 In this context the debate about the role of media took place and the Audiovisual Communication Services

law was passed in 2009.

Dated October 29, 2013, the opinion of the Supreme Court in favor of the constitutionality of Law 26522

(Law on Audiovisual Communication Services) was met. See synthetic version Judicial Information Center: "

La Corte Suprema declaró la constitucionalidad de la Ley de Medios" http://www.cij.gov.ar/nota-12394-La-

Corte-Suprema-declar--la-constitucionalidad-de-la-Ley-de-Medios.html

You can also consult the full version of the judgment in Supreme Court: "Grupo Clarín y otros c/Poder

Ejecutivo Nacional y otros/acción meramente declarativa" Buenos Aires, October 29, 2013.

in the aftermath of a military regime in frank and disorderly retreat after the military

debacle of the Falklands war.

With the Carlos Menem´s assumption in 1989, in the middle of the hyperinflation process

that forced the Raúl Alfonsín´s resignation, the same year 1989 was constituted in the new

Argentinian political hinge and established a continuity between civilians, civil-military,

democratic or pseudo democratic governments as expressions of the same Second World

War statist model.

This inclination to inaugurate a new historical time (Perez Liñán, 2013) will not be absent

during the Nestor and Cristina Kirchner´s experiences, being the 2003 year the turning

point of history hitherto lived. The construction of this new political narrative was framed

in the context of the terminal crisis of Argentina between late 2001 and early 2002.

The purpose of this paper is to analyze the changes that occurred during the experiences of

Nestor Kirchner and Cristina Fernandez de Kirchner in power, as well as continuities in

relation to the 1990s.

In the first part we will approach on the foundational claim during the Raul Alfonsin and

Carlos Menem administrations, as part of the foundational vocation present in the

Argentinian politics after each one of the “terminal crises”.

After introducing this foundational claim, we will point out briefly the genesis of the

kirchnerism and then we will focus on the debate at times of kirchnerism in a second part.

2. The foundational vocation during the Raul Alfonsín´s time.

The democratic political system begins to be the anchor point for the institutional

organization policy with the triumph of the radical formula, Raul Alfonsin- Victor

Martinez, in the presidential elections of October 30, 1983 and the subsequent inauguration

on December 10 of that year. Its establishment was the result of the process of democratic

transition that the Armed Forces began in the aftermath of his government, nor as a result

of his repeated failures than their own convictions.

Indeed, after the military defeat with Great Britain in the Falklands War in the month of

June 1982 a process of transition to democracy, characterized by two central features,

began.

The first of these has been the inability to establish some sort of institutional pact aimed at

defining among political actors the rules of the democratic reconstruction. In this regard,

our country is a good example of what the academic literature in those years was termed as

"Transition by rupture" (O'Donnell and Schmitter, 1989), characterized by the absence of

mutual guarantees between the installed new government and the replaced authoritarian

regime.

After the collapse of the military regime, provoked by the military defeat in the South

Atlantic conflict, the Armed Forces were strongly questioned because of its governmental

and professional performance, being the latter questioned because of its action in this war.

For the foregoing reasons, political leaders found insufficient incentives to negotiate with

the armed forces all the issues related to the agenda of the democratic transition, as it

happened in Brazil, Chile and Uruguay (Stepan, 1988; Garreton, 1987; Gillespie, 1995),

paradigmatic experiences of South America, or the cases of Spain and Italy (Maravall and

Santamaria, 1989; Morlino, 1986, 2000; Pasquino, 2002) seen at this time as examples of

successful experiences of political democratization.

The second feature was the absence of any kind of a party agreement by civil forces that

could have more and better institutional resources to take over the difficult legacy they

would receive from the Armed Forces government (Mustapic and Goretti, 1992)2.

The absence of these agreements put the political forces in open competition with each

other, without prior agreement on the central issues on the public agenda, nor about a form

of power-sharing that was largely independent of the electoral results (Mustapic and Goretti

1992).

The two major political parties in Argentina, the United Cívica Radical (UCR) and the

Justicialist Party (PJ), faced the new democratic situation playing their roles according to

the characteristics of a consolidated democracy rules, while both parties must face the

dilemmas of the democratic transition.

The challenges and demands that the new democracy had to face were substantial then. The

citizen and fundamentally the strategic actors (Coppedge, 1994)3 had to accept the postulate

that the only valid principle of political legitimacy came from the popular legitimacy. At

the same time, the new political regime had the obligation to set rules and procedures for

determining the ways of access to elective office. However, the biggest challenge was to

ensure continuity and institutional validity such that the rules and procedures were accepted

at least by those who were determined as participants in the process by these rules.

Moreover, Argentinian democracy debuted with ethical requirements. Citizens demanded

to clarify the facts and prosecute those responsible for the 1976 coup and the systematic

violation of human rights. The indelible wounds that the process had left in the collective

imagination were decisive for the meaning that a democratic political order had in order to

organize the social life, to channel social conflicts and resolve the political antagonism.

Therefore, ensure freedom of association and information without prohibitions, bans or

2 The commitments made during the instauration of democracy, such as the Pact of Punto Fijo in Venezuela

(1958) or Moncloa Pact in Spain (1977), aimed to reduce conflicts and set limits to political competitiveness

in order to strengthen the commitment of all stakeholders to sustain the democratic institutions. 3 We define here as strategic actors to those groups that have sufficient resources to influence, obstruct and

even oppose the process of affirmation of the political regime power. This definition has been reworked from

what Michael Coppedge meant by strategic actors "who are capable of undermining governance by

intervening in the economy or public order or use certain resources for their own political benefit".

censorship and the citizen participation to strengthen the loyalty to the institutions was a

non-negotiable obligation of officers elected by universal suffrage.

In consequence the '80s was the time of democracy, identified as a non-return time in the

recent past. It is definitely a time of great moral imperatives and large social requirements.

Belief about the goodness of democracy to organize social behaviors and lifestyles and

socially shared meaning that identifies democracy with good governance and as such able

to resolve the multiplicity of problems inherited from the armed forces time is generalized.

The tripod popular legitimacy/ethical imperatives/effectiveness of democracy summarizes

this time and exposes how difficult was to find to Argentinian democracy not to break their

promises that ultimately were his own base4.

A Strong demand linked to claims of substantive justice long delayed due to the

institutional action of the military government, which will lead to a reevaluation of political

democracy as a framework for meeting the diverse and heterogeneous sectorial demands,

existed then in the Argentinian society by 1983. In consequence there was not scope for

Reform and Structural Adjustment policies (Torre, 1998) which could generate the

existence of new "social victims" (Novaro and Palermo, 1996).

This will explain the conviction that posautoritarian reconstruction was exclusively a

political and institutional phenomenon5.

The change of Political Regime was the central

problem of the democratic transition´s political agenda and it was defined as Transition

from Authoritarianism to Democratic Regime. Because of the building a democratic system

of government was exclusively privileged, it was not warned that the process should

necessarily include the reorganization of the economy (Portantiero, 1993; Torre, 1994).

From this conviction a democratic society refunding project was proposed to the society in

the economic –Austral Plan and State Modernization-, institutional -.constitutional reform

proposal6-, administrative–Relocation of the capital city to Viedma- and moral/intellectual -

Raised in the guidelines given by Raúl Alfonsín at the site of Parque Norte on December 1,

1985- plans.

This conviction explained above found his first boundary in the elections held in Argentina

on 6 September 1987. Its main consequences were first, the beginning of the end of the

Alfonsin´s vast project of reform and second the installation of the debate over the

presidential succession with different impacts on the majority parties7.

The economic collapse produced during the 1989/1990 years represented the second limit

and it meant a strong redefinition in the notion of the democratic transition: The reform-

4 See Kerz and Leiras 2004.

5 This strong conviction was present in the social sciences of the time. See Agulla, 1996; Fernández, 2002;

Floria, 1988; Grossi and Dos Santos, 1984; O´Donnell and Schmitter, 1989; Portantiero, 1984 among others.

Newest and of special interest is Bercholc J. and Bercholc D, 2012

6 See Bosoer and Vázquez 2012.

7 See Leiras 2009, 2011.

reconfiguration of State Power metaphor replaced the political change as a definition of the

new political cycle of the democracy.in Argentina.

3. The foundational vocation in the Menemato´s time

The 1990s will show how the logic of the market, which by its nature generates social

inequality, threatens democratic logic. The neoliberal hegemonic discourse flag was the

virtuous circle between economic openness, minimal state and democracy´s promise. More

the economy is open to the world and the state was reduced at his minimal expression and

the democracy make possible the previsibility in all the proceedings, more these virtuous

circle benefits will be shared.

Its consequence was the breakdown of the contract between the market and the democracy,

which characterized the European welfare state and/or our version of the welfare state,

breaking in consequence the virtuosity of that circle described above. The spillover became

a moral postulate and greater material benefits for all had reconverted into profits for a few

and anxieties for many people.

The existence of international forces, imposing severe limits to the nature and type of

economic and social welfare policies, were accepted during the presidency of Carlos

Menem (1989-1999) who faithfully adopted the Washington Consensus guidelines, and

confined their political and economic choices within the parameters set by this consensus;

the dominant belief was: the requirements beyond national borders should be accepted

without questions to ensure success in the action of government.

Because an unavoidable extension of market logic on the democracy took as a kind of

historical determinism, the representative democracy Argentina suffered its own

metamorphosis. The forms of manipulation, that were adopted for the construction of

operating agreements, were developed either under the representative mechanism´s shadow

or practicing forms of cooptation of individual wills in order to incline the debate in a

direction of deliberative resolutions that contributed to the success of the economic

program adopted.

This "transition from statism to market" will also operate in the middle of the building of a

new ideological matrix (Bosoer and Leiras, 2001) of democracy in Argentina based on

three structural axes:

a) A redefinition of the authoritarianism regime and the first period of democratic

rule´s crisis as a final step in the crisis of the state model of economic development

and social regulation, from which the 1983 historical hinge is moved to 1989 as a

true moment of rupture with the past.

b) A reevaluation of the Raúl Alfonsín´s presidential administration, taking into

account the last part of his term, as an administration marked by progressive

weakness in the exercise of power that produces finally the forward delivery of

government five months before the end of their constitutional mandate. This end is

attributed not only to the loss of support and the lack of results of government

policies tested to overcome the situation of emergency but also and especially to the

exhaustion of a larger reformist project, which was questioned from different

sectors of power for whom this political project was a threat.

c) A project of Reconstruction / Redefinition of State Power, with the centrality of

market-oriented policies in its three main dimensions: Ideological (neo

decisionismo) Bureaucratic Functional (Reform State), and Legal (Constitutional

Reform).

All this redefinition took place in the middle of a democratic regime that was developed

under a State of Emergency (Leiras, 2010) which will be invoked permanently during the

last decade; in consequence the appeal will enter at odds with the political narrative´s

foundational claim of the 1990 decade.

It must be highlighted that the presidential succession of 1989 in Argentina took place in a

new context, for the first time since the discontinuous democratic history of this country,

characterized by the transfer of power between different partisan president’s sign. At the

same time, this replacement took place under the most severe economic crisis known until

then, because of hyperinflation that led to the resignation of Dr. Raúl Alfonsín five months

before the end of his presidential mandate –the "resignation" was presented to the

Legislative Assembly on June 30, 1989- and the inauguration, on 8 July of the same year,

by Dr. Carlos Menem.

The balance is ambiguous: The (neo) decisionismo8 demonstrated functional and successful

to resolve a crisis of governance and close the gap between state government, rule of law

and basic contracts of the social and economic structure.

But at the same time, it contained in its core reason their own limitations, which affected

the quality of Argentina institutional democracy itself, as it was his inability to be

institutionalized, resting ultimately on the figure of the plebiscitary leader as the sole source

of the effective decision and the guarantee of the political and economic stability. It found

in the confines of their political power the circumstances which led to power, being

necessary to recreate their support base argument. In Hobbesian terms, out of this principle

the state of nature permanently stalks.

This scenario, far from a normalization of the Argentine political system with a possible

alternation between forces and/or coalitions able to pursue an agenda of consensus and

8

We mean by "neo decisionismo", a model of political decision heavily concentrated in the presidency, a

rethinking and adaptation of the presidential system in the context of a double transition, from

authoritarianism to democracy and the economic statism to the market deregulation and active integration to

the rhythms imposed by the process of capitalist globalization. This new decisionismo is based on a

conception of governance sustained in the prerogatives and the "performance" of the prevailing Executive,

with all its attributes, over the other branches with their attributes and functions. See Bosoer and Leiras (1999,

2001).

However, the experience of the "decisionist kirchnerism" leads to rethink this definition to the extent that

this neodecisionismo allows us to establish a separation between the substantive content of public policy and

the political style. See Perez Liñán, 2012.

dissent, would be the danger of ungovernability and illegitimacy from the moment that

Carlos Menem concluded his presidency. The false prophecy self-fulfilled with the

successive crises produced both during the Alliance government what would happen from

December 10, 1999 as well as during the interim between Peronist governments in the last

days of December 2001 and early 2002, and gave ground with many of the democratic

process assumptions, sustained on the political normalization´s reading:

a) The case of bribery´s in the national Senate that would lead to a public showdown

between the president Fernando De La Rua and his Vice President Carlos "Chacho"

Alvarez; this episode culminated with the latter's resignation on October 6 in 2000.

b) The economic crisis that led to the Domingo Cavallo´s arrival in the Economy

Ministry in March 2001.

c) The unfavorable electoral results of the parliamentary elections in October 2001 for

the ruling, as an expression of a deeper phenomenon of increasing political apathy

in the electoral arena.

d) The political events of December 2001 which resulted in the resignation of

Fernando De La Rua, in the middle of a tragic toll of 30 dead and hundreds of

injured across the country, and the most profound institutional crisis experienced

until then.

e) The abrupt departure from the convertibility with the consequent breaking of the

rules prevailing throughout the 1990 decade macroeconomic game and the

declaration of default on the debt to private creditors during the presidencies of

Eduardo Duhalde and Adolfo Rodriguez Saa respectively.

This "Menemismo and then", its legacy, consequences and projection of this legacy will be

approached briefly below (Baldioli and Leiras, 2010).

4. The genesis of kirchnerism

Because it is hard to understand the emergence of the kirchnerism without referring to the

context of the 2001/2002 terminal crisis, we will approach briefly, in the first place, to the

central aspects of this phase of the Argentinian politics taking as a point of departure the

collapse of the Alliance experience and the transition of Eduardo Duhalde between 2002

and 2003.

Fernando De La Rúa was elected in the presidential elections of October 1999 with a

percentage of almost 49 per cent of the votes as the candidate of a political coalition

(Alianza por la Educación, la Justicia y el Trabajo), between the centenary party, Union

Cívica Radical (UCR) and a political aggrupation constituted by dissident peronist sectors,

FREPASO –Frente por un País Solidario-.

The experience of Fernando De La Rúa began in a context of severe restrictions in matters

of economic resources but also political and organizational resources also; in the beginning

of august 1997 the Unión Cívica Radical and The Frente por un País Solidario conformed

an electoral coalition, in order to defeat the Menemismo –expression of the Peronism

during the 1990 decade-. The success was immediate: the alliance won in the legislative

elections in 1997 and two years later in the presidential elections of 1999.

The internal disagreements produced in the alliance were produced of, on one hand the

absence of rules that allow to process the natural conflicts that could happen in the political

coalition (Serrafero, 2002) as a lack of an internal debate about the bases of a coalition

government and on the other hand the gap between a formal leadership, represented in the

figure of De La Rúa and a real leadership represented in the figures of Raúl Alfonsin and

Carlos “Chacho Alvarez.

The consequence of these disagreements was the existence of chronic crisis in the

administration of the Alliance. From the vice president´s resignation to the own De La

Rúa´s resignation, the alliance was in a permanent crisis of governability.

After the De La Rua´s resignation, a brief and temporary presidency of Adolfo Rodriguez

Saa –who will declare the default of the Argentinian public debt- and successive

institutional coming and going, Eduardo Duhalde was elected by the legislative assembly as

president on January 1st 2002, with the objective of complete the De La Rúa´s presidential

period. The head of the Buenos Aires PJ, at this time, accepted the presidential baton from

his peers in the congress, the same one that citizens denied him through the vote two years

earlier (Abos, 2011), having to resolve from economic to political issues of great

complexity.

In spite of the efforts in economic and social matters in the context of the public

emergency, the social crisis had its manifestation through the Avellaneda incidents that had

serious consequences from the political point of view. Two political activists, Maximiliano

Santillán and Darío Kosteki were killed and 34 persons were hurt by plumb bullet.

Because of this situation, the president Duhalde, in the context of a broad reorganization of

his cabinet, decided to advance the presidential elections, establishing on April 27th

2003 as

date of these elections.

Under these circumstances, the main challenge was to complete the last stage of the

"transition" successfully and ensure, "adequacy" by means of electoral engineering, the

victory of a candidate related to the management of this transition (Baldioli and Leiras,

2012a).

After the failed installation of the presidential candidacies of Carlos Reutemann and José

Manuel de la Sota, Eduardo Duhalde ends up giving his support to the then governor of the

province of Santa Cruz, Nestor Kirchner, with the purpose to face Carlos Menem and

Adolfo Rodríguez Saa in a "Peronist open primary" in the same presidential election.

A smart campaign strategy made possible the entry of Kirchner in the second round.

Indeed, in the presidential elections of April 27, 2003, Nestor Kirchner obtained a 21.99%

of the votes, finishing second behind Carlos Menem, who obtained 24.34 % of the votes.

Table I

Presidential elections in Argentina

April 27th 2003

CANDIDATE AND PARTY VOTES PERCENTAGE

Carlos Menem

Frente por la Lealtad 4.677.213 24,34

Néstor Kirchner

Frente para la Victoria 4.227.141 21,99

Ricardo López Murphy

Movimiento Federal Recrear 3.142.848 16,35

Elisa Carrio

Alternativa por una República de Iguales 2.720.143 14,15

Adolfo Rodríguez Saa

Frente Nacional y Popular 2.714.760 14,12

Others candidates 1.531.527 7,97

blank and impugned votes 214.294 1,08

Source: Georgetown University. Political Database of America (PDBA)

The ballotage would be held on May 18, 2003. Previous surveys indicated an intention to

vote for Governor of Santa Cruz between 60 and 70 % of the electorate. This didn´t mean

an explicit support for the merits of Nestor Kirchner, but a rejection of the possibility that

Carlos Menem ruled the country again. However, the ballotage would not take place: on 14

May the former president Menem, after a long string of rumors and denials, announced his

decision to renounce his candidacy; this declination became Néstor Kirchner automatically

as elected president.

5. ¿Continuity or change? Debate in the kirchnerismo´s time

The response to the crisis during the Menem years, as a real attempt to develop a new

ideological matrix, acquired its expression through a legitimating discourse of high

symbolic efficiency. Such efficacy would emerge from the fact that government relief

occurred in December 1999 did not involve a substantive reformulation of the legal

ideological and organizational assumptions contained in this matrix and present throughout

the 1990s, but rather a ratification and deepening of such program, which remained in force

until present even in a context characterized as "terminal": the 2001 crisis.

However, the rise to power of Nestor Kirchner to the presidency of the nation has been

defined as "an unpredictable and unexpected crack in the evolution of Argentina's history"

by intellectuals sympathetic to the ruling party as the philosopher Richard Forster (Forster

2010a), since the same was the result of the traumatic events of December 2001 and the

collapse of the government of the “Alianza” (Leiras, 2003; Novaro, 2002; Serrafero, 2002).

The pillars, on which was described this Argentina´s “new historical cycle”, would be four:

first, the launch of a new productive development with social inclusion and radical

redistribution of income model, second, an improvement in the quality of democratic

institutions, third the implementation of a policy in the field of human rights that came to

put an end with a cycle of impunity consecrated in the Punto Final and Obediencia Debida

laws enacted under Raul Alfonsin´s administration and Carlos Menem's pardons and finally

the recovery of the role of the state, absent during the '90s.

It must be highlighted that the start of a "new productive cycle" dates from late 2001 and

early 2002 when, under the most serious crisis in Argentina's political history, former

presidents Adolfo Rodriguez Saa and Eduardo Duhalde adopted strategies of drastic

adjustment in the beginning of this new cycle that consisted in the declaring of the default

on foreign debt in the first case and the devaluation of the peso and the “pesification” of the

economy in the second one, carrying out the implementing of the new model´s "dirty

work". After the sharp initial adjustment, the Argentine economy had high recovery rates of

gross domestic product practically until to present.

Table II

Gross Domestic Product (GDP) - Real growth rate (%)

Country 1999 2000 2002 2003 2004 2005 2006 2007 2008 2009 2010 2011

Argentina -3 0,8 -14,7 8,7 8,3 9,2 8,5 8,7 6,8 0,9 7,5 8,9

Source: http://www.indexmundi.com/g/g.aspx?c=ar&v=66&l=es

Moreover, despite the high rates of economic recovery, the empirical evidence does not

accompany references to improving income distribution and social inclusion proclaimed,

holding patterns of similar nature to those of the 1990s:

Table III

Gini index measuring income distribution in Argentina

1991-2010

Year Index Results 1991 46,6

1992 46,5

1993 44,9

1994 46,0

1995 48,9

1996 49,5

1997 49,1

1998 50,7

1999 49,8

2000 51,1

2001 53,4

2002 53,8

2003 54,7

2004 50,2

2005 49,3

2006 47,7

2007 47,4

2008 46,3

2009 46,1

2010 44,5

Average 1991-2001 48.77

Average 2002-2010 48,88

Source: Own elaboration based on World Bank Series

http://datos.bancomundial.org/indicador/SI.POV.GINI

Regarding as the improving of the quality of democracy this claim is difficult to sustain

because, following guidelines established by his predecessors, former President Nestor

Kirchner has sustained the exercise of governance based on the invocation of the

emergency (Bercholc, 2007; Botana, 2004; Quiroga, 2005; Serrafero, 2005) as a principle

of legitimacy , with the corresponding appeal to the use of emergency resources , to the

detriment of their own deliberative processes of representative democracy . Despite

controlling the majority of both houses of Congress, Nestor Kirchner has repeatedly chosen

to use the legislative powers of the executive, through the decrees of necessity and urgency

instead of following the regular procedure provided for the enactment of laws, although

there has been little recurrence, in the case of Cristina Fernandez, to the necessity and

urgency decrees as a tool for political decisions.

Since his inauguration to April 2006, Kirchner has signed 176 decrees of necessity and

urgency -48 in 2003, 63 in 2004, 46 in 2005 and 19 in the first four months of 2006-.

Statistic shows us a medium of 58.66 decrees per year, compared to Carlos Menem´s 54.5

decrees per year, who signed a total of 545 decrees during his ten years in office (Ferreira

Rubio and Goretti, 1996; Zommer, 2006). Anyway, the balance is "favorable” compared

with the first four years of Carlos Menem in which Menem issued 230 emergency measures

(Baldioli, 2003). The final balance shows us 270 decrees of necessity and urgency, being

equally favorable regarding as the Carlos Menem administration.

Table IV

Decrees of necessity and urgency by each president 1983-2011

Presidencia Períodos DNU Meses DNU por Mes

Raúl Alfonsín 10-12-83/

08-07-89

10 67 0,1

Carlos Menem 08-07-89/

10-12-99

545 125 4,4

Fernando De La Rúa 10-12-99/

20-12-01

73 24 3,0

Eduardo Duhalde 01-01-02/

25-05-03

158 17 9,3

Néstor Kirchner 25-05-03/

10-12-07

270 53 5,1

Cristina Fernández 10-12-07

29 42 0,7

Source: Zelaznik Javier (2011)

At the same time, the maintaining of the economic emergency law for a while does not

allow us to affirm that a new era in terms of the quality of democratic institutions has

opened, although as we affirmed above, the recurrence to the decrees of necessity and

urgency as a tool for political decision under Cristina Fernandez’s administration has been

scarce at this stage.

In short, the “kirchnerism” in its different political stages, represent the continuity, for other

purposes rather than by other means, of the decisionist style of government established

during the years of Carlos Menem, ratified and deepened during the Fernando De La Rúa

(1999-2001), Alberto Rodriguez Saa (2001) and Eduardo Duhalde (2002-2003)

presidencies, who succeeded him.

In the field of the human rights, Nestor Kirchner has led to the reopening of the members of

the armed forces´ trial; it was an initiative closed during the years of the government of

Raúl Alfonsín through the "leyes de impunidad" in a context strong corporate pressure and

increased ability to exercise such pressure from the armed forces that currently present-a

paragraph apart deserves clemency for Carlos Menem intentionally compared with such

laws to build that continuity and rupture from 2003 -.

It must be highlighted that the loss of relevance of the armed forces as a powerful factor

during the Carlos Menem administration, product as policies such as the satisfaction of

historical demands of the armed forces -the fight against the subversion- combined with

budget restrictions and a major presence of the armed forces in international missions,

generated favorable conditions to the reopening of the judicial process without the presence

of an actor with great capacity of blockade.

It must be pointed out that the kirchnerista narrative, in this reopening and its

corresponding story, has been omitting central milestones in the search for justice such as

the creation of the National Commission on the Disappearance of Persons-CONADEP, the

investigation by the committee that served as input to substantiate historical judgments to

the military juntas in the complex scenario described and trial of those responsible for the

political direction of the Falkland Islands War.

This vision was manifested during the Nestor Kirchner discourse because of the

inauguration of the Memory Museum on march 24th, 2004:

Things have to be called by their name, and if you allow me here, not as a mate

or a brother of many mates and sisters with whom we shared that time, but as

President of Argentina, I come to apologize in the name of the nation state

because of the shame which represented to be in silence for 20 years of

democracy for so many atrocities (Kirchner, 2004)

In relation to the recovery of the state role in the economy, it has been manifested through

the recovery of businesses and services transferred to the private sector during the 90s.

In this context we may point out the creation of ENARSA –Energía Argentina S.A.- in

2004, and the coming back into the public sphere of the firms Correo Argentino in 2003

and Aguas Argentinas, being this one replaced by another new firm, Aguas y Saneamientos

Argentinos (AYSA) in 2006.

These policies acquired continuity during the Cristina Fernandez administration through

emblematic initiatives such as the nationalization of the pension funds in 2008, Aerolíneas

Argentinas in the same year and Yacimientos Petrolíferos Fiscales (YPF) in 2012.

Anyway we can see the limits of that recovery through acts of symbolic nature, as the

"Once Tragedy" on 22 February 2012, being this "tragedy" a product of the combination of

a pattern of rent seeking business via subsidies, the lack of accountability in the allocation

of these funds and the weakness of the state agencies in charge of regulating privatized or

concession services.

At the same time, the energy crisis, as a consequence of the collapse of the public services

provided by the private firms during December 2013 and January 2014, represents a good

example to question this part of the kirchnerista´s narrative, because put into evidence the

crisis of the pact between the government and the firms who concession theses services.

During the presidency of Carlos Menem (1989-1999) a process of state reform was carried

out in Argentina, in the middle of a social consensus generated by the traumatic experience

of the hyperinflation at the end of the the 80s and the collapse of the provision of public

services at this time in the hands of the national state. Its main consequence was the

reduction of the scope ("size" as it was called at the time) of the state in the provision of

public goods and/or semi-public as well as the weakening of institutional capacity in

regulatory matters, unlike what happened in another privatization experiences such as

Brazil, where the role played by the regulatory agencies in the post-privatization processes

is highlighted.

This process was not substantially altered even in the context of the worst crisis

experienced by Argentina in the period 2001/2002: in the context of THIS emergency, and

in order to temper the effects of the output of the convertibility regime, during the

presidency of Eduardo Duhalde, mechanisms of freezing prices for privatized and/or

licensed public services (as in the case of rail) were established, while a system of subsidies

to most of the major economic groups (old and new), as a compensatory measure of the

consequences of the freezing prices and the devaluation of the Argentine peso, was carried

out too.

These policies were not only confirmed but were deepened during the presidencies of

Nestor and Cristina Kirchner; the scheme previously exposed, consisting of rent seeking

business via subsidies, lack of accountability in the allocation of these funds and weakness

(¿complicity?) of the governmental agencies in charge of regulating privatized or

concessioned public services, was reproduced over the last decade (Leiras, 2013).

6. Conclusions

The purpose of this paper has been to analyze the changes that occurred during the

experiences of Nestor Kirchner and Cristina Fernandez de Kirchner in power, as well as

continuities in relation to the 1990s.

This approach has been made taking into account that the inclination to inaugurate a new

historical time has not been absent during the Nestor and Cristina Kirchner´s experiences,

being the 2003 year the turning point of history hitherto lived. The construction of this new

political narrative was framed in the context of the Argentina terminal crisis between late

2001 and early 2002.

The pillars, on which was described this Argentina´s “new historical cycle”, have been

four: first, the launch of a new productive development with social inclusion and radical

redistribution of income model, second, an improvement in the quality of democratic

institutions, third the implementation of a policy, in the field of human rights, that came to

put an end with a cycle of impunity consecrated in the Punto Final and Obediencia Debida

laws enacted under Raul Alfonsin´s administration and Carlos Menem's pardons and finally

the recovery of the role of the state, absent during the '90s.

After a detailed examination of the principal axes of the Kirchner´s political narration and,

based on the bibliographical, discursive, documentary and presented statistics evidence, we

have reached to the following conclusions:

1. Regarding as the development model, the kirchnerism is a result of shock policies

implemented during the beginning of the millennium and a subsequent recovery in

a context of an upward cycle of the international economy. At the same time it has

not been noticed a substantial improvement in relation to the distribution income

according to the information available at the beginning of the last decade.

2. Regarding as the quality of democracy, the recurrent use of emergency resources,

such as the decrees of necessity and urgency particularly during the presidency of

Néstor Kirchner and the validity of a law of economic emergency since 2002 to

present, does not allow us to hold the idea of a substantial improvement of the

democratic institutional quality in Argentina from 2003.

3. In the field of human rights, although it was auspicious to reopen judgments for

violations of human rights, a series of historical omissions related initiatives such

as the trial of the military juntas or the creation of the CONADEP, in order to

reinforce the idea of 2003 as a new hinge of history, certainly had tarnished the

auspicious search for truth. Furthermore, and as a result not intended by the

reformer, the loss of the armed forces´s political influence, during the Menem

administration, generated very favorable conditions to reactivate the truth trials.

4. Finally, the discourse on the recovery of the role of the state in the last decade, put

into question in critical situations such as the "Once Tragedy", demonstrate the

persistence of patterns of complicity between the public and private sectors in

providing goods and services.

By the way, during the government of Raúl Alfonsín the foundational claim was present

and the 1983 year was established as the boundary between democracy and dictatorship, in

the aftermath of a military regime in frank and disorderly retreat after the military debacle

of the Falklands war.

With the Carlos Menem´s assumption in 1989, in the middle of the hyperinflation process

that forced the Raúl Alfonsín´s resignation, the same year 1989 was constituted in the new

Argentinian political hinge and established a continuity between civilians, civil-military,

democratic or pseudo democratic governments as expressions of the same Second World

War Statist model.

So, the Crisis-Emergency-Political Foundation "non-virtuous" circle appears on a recurring

basis: with the deepening of the crisis, the appeal to the definition of the crisis as an

emergency (institutional, economic and / or social) finds its most favorable opportunity of

production/circulation and it give place to the resurgence of proposals that come to

reinterpret a new political cycle as the opportunity for a radical transformation of the state

and the society; once this cycle is exhausted the arriving of a new crisis and the restarting

of the cycle is open.

The great challenge for the Argentinian democracy consists in avoiding the reissue of the

"non-virtuous" circle.

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