O’Donnell’s work
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 research on The bureaucratic-authoritarian state.
From his first works, the author used this category to refer to socially exclusive regimes, product of coups d’état with control and repression of the political participation of the popular sectorsin which the main actors in the emerging coalition are technocrats. These technocrats, says O’Donnell, enter 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 in 1964, Argentina in theOnganía and Lanusse dictatorships between 1966 and 1972, the Pinochet dictatorship, which began in 1973 and lasted until 1990 (although it covered its first years), and the similar process in Uruguay. Naturally, the Argentine civil-military dictatorship between 1976 and 1983 also fell into this characterization of bureaucratic authoritarianism.
These technocratic roles would be a consequence of the relationship between State and Society that emanates from the regime. In this way, The relationship between technocratic roles and authoritarian drift seems inevitableThe rise of entrepreneurs comes only when the guarantee of short-term economic and political stability has ensured large injections of foreign capital. The latter could explain (why) foreign investments do not arrive, and (why) constant uncertainty continues to manifest itself.
An alternative conceptualization to O’Donnell’s is that of Jorge Domínguez (1997), written years later, in the midst of the decade of neoliberal economic reforms, through regional democratization. Although not as influential as O’Donnell’s work on the authoritarian bureaucratic State, Domínguez’s work is representative of a generation of Latin American political science researchers who took on the challenge of thinking about the role of technocrats and economic elites in the context of a competitive democratic regime. A Harvard academic, he defines a type of economist, whom he calls “technopols,” who have played an important role in the political life and political and economic liberalization of several countries.
Technopols take on the role of specialists, technicians or scientists who are able to generate and persuade about policies based on their ideas. They become politicians – economists – agents of change, if they are able to understand politics and if they are allowed to be openly “pols”.
The discredit that led economists to their post-De la Rúa and Macri degradation is not an obstacle, but these technocrats are back again…
Apparently they advocate rational policies, they used to be self-proclaimed “professional macroeconomists” who worked in teams. LLA imagines being able to operate through different approaches and contribute its symbols to national life, without philosophical rigor. The truth is that, in just seven months, The shortage of executive skills (lack of management) is precisely the problem. The LLA avenue is ideologically a “one-way” avenue, although with several speed lanes, where vehicles were crossing and composing an inconceivable orthodox-heterodox economic salad.
These “timeless beings” (the technopols) with high technical training, says Dominguez, they have always been there, and have participated in a diversity of cultures and political systems, combining and managing to overcome the tension between their expert knowledge, political skills, administration, and even their passions, in a proportion necessary for the context in which it is required. It is often said that a person is “timeless” when his legacy remains valid even with the passage of time. The adjective “timeless” is usually applied to certain actors, who, despite changes in style and interests, enjoy an incomprehensible continuous recognition (The Messi of finances”, “the most trained economist, MIT graduate”). Seeing the same faces and hearing the same questions from people – How can this guy be back there after all he’s done?
The truth is that the technopols, these public figures, knew how to make the economy, finance, and business something political. Referring to the technopols, Domínguez has in mind, among others, Domingo Cavallo, the patriarch of the majority of the economists present; the technopolsThey have made economic policies acceptable to the public, only to have the convertibility collapse, the fall of a democratically elected government, and the default of the public debt.
The economic-financial dominance that had been experienced, from Peronism and with Menem, had occurred in a context of solid bases of political governability. With De la Rúa and the Alliance it did not work and Macri was supported by the media, the inner circle, and the IMF. It is not very clear how Milei will be supported in the future.It wasn’t very happy to throw a little party and get into a tank with the vice president.
In the midst of a currency rush, the million-dollar question is: – Will it be possible to achieve success in technocratization if the political coalition Milei-Macri-Bullrich breaks down? – Because precisely the technopols in the Ministry of Economy and the BCRA during the dictatorships, and the technocratization of economists, invariably contributed to the crises of governability, financial and social crises in Argentine history.
In the second half of the 1970s, Mariana Heredia identified the juxtaposition of processes and phenomena that made it possible to establish economic specialists as public authorities: inflation, on the one hand, as a phenomenon that went beyond reality, as a kind of scourge; and on the other, bad economic practices and bad political decisions by the authorities.
We have gone through almost 60 years since Krieger Vasena, more than 45 since Martínez de Hoz and, once again, we are trying the catastrophic recipe with substitute actors.. Inflation is not lower than double that of Cristina Kirchner’s worst year, malpractice is strongly denounced even by economists with the same ideology as the official team, all this without taking into account the President Milei’s alarming 10-point drop in popularity.
Critical junctures, social processes of prolonged deterioration can become incremental, involving chains that can mean even stronger hypotheses than 2001. Interlocking research routines allow us to develop hypotheses for debate. It must be said that when we talk about 2001, we are dealing with a restricted and temporary case. It cannot be generalized, but it can be used to establish a starting point for debate.
Back to O’Donnellthe famous political scientist theorized about the depoliticization and domination of politics by the economic-financial, and how this Depoliticization requires a regime that controls the population by forceBut O’Donnell reflected on military dictatorships and today we are in a democracy, beyond certain worrying outbreaks of intolerance and arrogance that are observed with impunity.
Although it is true that repression could be an increasing option, we prefer to think that the inveterate technocrats of 2001 and 2018 (who are in power for the second, third and even fourth time) will be able to foresee the financial, political and social problems that the president faces. The “red circle” conditioned De la Rúa, then Duhalde, Kirchner and later Macri. Milei would not be the exception, precisely, her promotion comes from a more than obvious delegation of large local groups. Guillermo Francos’ idea does not seem like a good one, telling the “red circle”: “It depends on you that Argentines have the economic future that they deserve.”
Director of the Esperanza Foundation. https://fundacionesperanza.com.ar/ Professor of Postgraduate Studies at UBA and Masters in private universities. Master in International Economic Policy, Doctor in Political Science, author of 6 books
Source: Ambito
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