Active memory 2001 (fifth part)

The measure covered the Legislative branches, which would have to spend $ 56 million less than a budget of $ 70 million, and the Judicial Branch: $ 19 million below its budget of $ 90 million for the last quarter. Despite the harsh adjustment measures applied (necessary according to Patricia bullrich-another technopol), the imbalance of the $ 1.35 billion that was expected above the deficit agreed with the IMF for 2001, opened reserved enigmas about the possibility of maintaining the deficit zero in 2002, even with the saving of resources obtained through the agreement with the provinces, a successful debt swap, and the push for drastic decisions such as the elimination of the Teacher Incentive Fund.

It’s that the economy is an abstraction in those terms, but they (Cavallo-Patricia Bullrich) were convinced that if they solved these issues, even though the quality of life was already terrible and it was completely destroyed, things would go well.

TECNOCRATS AND TECHNOPOLS

In the studies of Latin American political regimes there is a problematization of the role of technocratic elites in governments. One of the pioneering reflections was that of the Argentine political scientist Guillermo O’Donnell in his well-known research on the bureaucratic-authoritarian state (O’Donnell 1982, 1975). From its first elaborations, the author used this category to refer to socially exclusive regimes, the product of coups d’état that broke the constitutional order, without electoral competition and with control and repression of the political participation of the popular sectors, in which the actors main members of the emerging coalition are the high-level technocrats, both military and civil, inside and outside the state.

These technocrats, says Guillermo O’Donnell, come into close association with foreign capital. The cases that inspired the author in his conceptualization of the authoritarian bureaucratic state were the dictatorship that began in Brazil from 1964 on, Argentina under the Onganía and Lanusse dictatorships between 1966 and 1972, the Pinochet dictatorship, which began from 1973 to 1990 (although O’Donnell’s research covered his early years and not the entire period), and the similar process suffered in Uruguay during those years.

Naturally, the Argentine civil-military dictatorship between 1976 and 1983 also entered the O’Donnellian characterization of bureaucratic authoritarianism. This category was then used to study authoritarian regimes outside of South America, which have included various moments of the Franco regime or the PRI administrations in Mexico. For O’Donnell, the authoritarian bureaucratic model is a product of the promotion of advanced industrialization. In his now classic formulation, the author identifies three crucial moments or dimensions of socioeconomic modernization, which are politically interrelated: (i) industrialization, especially the initial transition towards the production of consumer goods and the subsequent deepening, which includes the production of intermediate and capital goods; (ii) the political activation of the popular sectors; (iii) the growth of “technocratic roles” in private and public bureaucracies.

These technocratic roles would be a consequence of the relationship between State and Society that emanates from the regime. High levels of social differentiation Accompanying industrialization also led to a broadening of the role of technocrats in society, both in the private sector and in the civil and military bureaucracies of the public sector. These technocrats have a low level of tolerance towards continuing political and economic crises, and the high levels of politicization of the popular sector perceive them as an obstacle to economic growth. Among the military, this new technocratic orientation is reflected in what has been called “new professionalism”, aimed at active military intervention in political, economic and social life.

In the authoritarian bureaucratic regime explained by O’Donnell, increased communication between military and civilian technocrats, and the growing frustration of both in the face of existing political and economic conditions, stimulates the emergence of a coup coalition that ultimately establishes the repressive bureaucratic-authoritarian system with the aim of ending the political and economic crisis. In this way, the relationship between technocratic roles and authoritarian drift seems inevitable.

So, O’Donnell concludes, the success of the transition is crucial to that of these systems on their own terms. Which would explain the contrast between the Brazilian experience after 1964 and the Argentine experience after 1966; When the crises prior to the coup are very intense and the new technocratic coalition perceives them as a major threat to the established order, as happened in Brazil, the new coalition is more cohesive and is better able to maintain political control in the face of these internal pressures.

The rise of national entrepreneurs ends up taking place, but only when the guarantee of economic and political stability in the short term has ensured large injections of foreign capital. That was unthinkable in 2001, when yellow trucks paraded along the A002 National Route Teniente General Pablo Riccheri Highway, heading for Ezeiza, the International Airport.

It will continue tomorrow.