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The Socio-Economic Determinants of Popular-Authoritarian Electoral Behavior: The Case of Peronism*

Published online by Cambridge University Press:  01 August 2014

Lars Schoultz
Lars Schoultz*
Affiliation:
University of Florida
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Abstract

In several highly mobilized Third World societies, rising levels of working-class political activism seem to have encouraged the development of political movements which are both popular and authoritarian. This popular authoritarianism melds intensive political mobilization of previously excluded social sectors with political structures which severely limit these groups' ability to affect public policy. Much of the research on popular authoritarianism has attempted to explain the phenomenon by identifying the socioeconomic determinants of popular-authoritarian electoral behavior. In an effort to clarify the relative merit of contending explanations, this study uses data from the prototypic case of Argentine Peronism to test six common hypotheses and then to construct a model which optimizes the explanatory ability of five major socioeconomic variables. The results indicate that an area's rate of industrial growth and the size of its working-class population account for more than four-fifths of the variation in Peronisi electoral behavior that can be attributed to socioeconomic variables.

Type
Research Article
Information
American Political Science Review , Volume 71 , Issue 4 , December 1977 , pp. 1423 - 1446
Copyright
Copyright © American Political Science Association 1977

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Footnotes

*

I wish to thank Héctor Iturregui, Sara Cháves, and Osvaldo Frechou of the Secretaria Electoral in Buenos Aires for their assistance in data collection and Jane Volland Schoultz, Federico Gil, John Martz, Peter Smith, Peter Snow, Susan Kay, Glenn Parker, and three anonymous readers for valuable comments on earlier drafts. Financial assistance was provided by the Fulbright-Hays doctoral dissertation fellowship program and the Miami University Faculty Research Committee.

References

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8 Germani, , Estructura social de la Argentina, p. 260 Google Scholar. [My translation.] The Spanish: “Así, mientras con anterioridad a 1946 las correlaciones computadas no revelan la existencia de partidos con electorado homogéneo desde el punto de vista de su composición ocupacional.…”

9 Snow, , “The Class Basis of Argentine Political Parties,” pp. 163–64Google Scholar. The Córdoba study is that of Huerta Palau, Análisis electoral de una ciudad en desarrollo. Supporting the Germani-Snow thesis is Gallo, Ezequiel (h.) and Sigal, Silvia, “La formación de los partidos políticos contemporáneos: la UCR (1890–1916),” in Argentina, sociedad de masas, by Telia, Torcuato S. Di et al. (Buenos Aires: Editorial Universitaria de Buenos Aires, 1965), p. 163 Google Scholar.

10 Two parties (the Partido Salud Pública and the Unión Republicana) received only nominal electoral support and have been excluded from all computations.

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12 Partial listings of this legislation may be found in Dorfman, Adolfo, Historia de h industrial argentina (Buenos Aires: Escuela de Estudios Argentinos, 1942), pp. 194–96Google Scholar; Fayt, Carlos S., La naturaleza del peronismo (Buenos Aires: Viracocha, 1967), p. 91 Google Scholar. The PS was not the only party with an interest in labor and welfare legislation, for their minority status in Congress indicates that each bill became law only with the help of members of other political parties.

13 Ranis, Peter, “Electoral Systems and Party Competition: The Case of Argentina,” unpublished manuscript, Department of Political Science, The State University of New York at Stony Brook, n.d., p. 10 Google Scholar.

14 Butler, David J., “Charisma, Migration, and Elite Coalescence: An Interpretation of Peronism,” Comparative Politics, 1 (04 1969), 433 CrossRefGoogle Scholar. See also Telia, Torcuato S. Di, El sistema politico argentino y la clase obrera (Buenos Aires: Editorial Universitaria de Buenos Aires, 1964), pp. 10, 13 Google Scholar; Dennis, Alfredo Parera, “Apuntes para una historia del peronismo,” Fichas, 2 (10 1965), p. 13 Google Scholar; Geltman, Pedro, “Mitos, símbolos, y héroes en el peronismo,” in El peronismo, by Cárdenas, Gonzalo et al. (Buenos Aires: Carlos Pérez, 1969), p. 123 Google Scholar; García-Zamor, Jean-Claude, “Justicialismo en Argentina: la ideología política de Juan Domingo Perón,” unpublished manuscript, Department of Government, University of Texas at Austin, n.d., pp. 5–6 Google Scholar; Germani, Gino, Política y sociedad en una época de transición, p. 324 Google Scholar; Fayt, , La naturaleza del peronismo, pp. 70, 86 Google Scholar; Carri, Roberto, Sindicatos y poder en la Argentina (Buenos Aires: Editorial Sudestada, 1967), p. 48 Google Scholar.

15 An example of the former problem is found in Germani's, “El surgimiento del peronismo: el rol de los obreros y de los migrantes internos,” Desarrollo Económico, 13 (10–12 1973), 435–88CrossRefGoogle Scholar. The methodological and theoretical content of Germani's article has already received substantial comment. See Smith, Peter H., “Las elecciones argentinas de 1946 y las inferencias ecológicas,” Desarrollo Económico, 14 (07–09 1974), 385–98CrossRefGoogle Scholar; Kenworthy, Eldon, “Interpretaciones ortodoxas y revisionistas del apoyo inicial del peronismo,” Desarrollo Económico, 14 (01–03 1975), pp. 749–63CrossRefGoogle Scholar; Donghi, Tulio Halperín, “Algunas observaciones sobre Germani, el surgimiento del peronismo y los migrantes internos,” Desarrollo Económico, 14 (01–03 1975), pp. 765–81CrossRefGoogle Scholar. The latter problem of subjective classification can be partially overcome by careful selection of a limited number of cases as, for example, in Snow's, “The Class Basis of Argentine Political Parties,” pp. 165–66Google Scholar.

16 Special care must be taken when comparing these data with those from the 1942 election, for a radical realignment of parties occurred prior to the initial Peronist victory when virtually all of Argentina's established political parties confirmed Charles Dudley Warner's observation about strange bedfellows by uniting against Perón in the Unión Democrática.

17 Kirkpatrick, , Leader and Vanguard in Mass Society, p. 94 Google Scholar.

18 Kirkpatrick, , Leader and Vanguard in Mass Society, p. 96 Google Scholar.

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20 Kirkpatrick, , Leader and Vanguard in Mass Society, p. 97 Google Scholar. Peter Snow has used aggregate data to confirm the existence of substantial Peronist support in the middle class. See “The Class Basis of Argentine Political Parties,” p. 166.

21 Rubenstein, Juan Carlos, “El peronismo y la vida argentina,” Fichas, 2 (12 1965), p. 7 Google Scholar.

22 Whitaker, Arthur P., Argentina (Englewood Cliffs, N.J.: Prentice-Hall, 1964), p. 107 Google Scholar. See also Fillol, Tomás Roberto, Social Factors in Economic Development: The Argentine Case (Cambridge, Mass.: MIT Press, 1961), p. 83 Google Scholar; Dennis, Parera, “Apuntes para una historia del peronismo,” p. 13 Google Scholar; Geltman, , “Mitos, símbolos, y héroes en el peronismo,” p. 103 Google Scholar; Germani, , Política y sociedad en una época de transición, p. 324 Google Scholar.

23 It is important to note that this study specifically avoids any discussion of the political influence of rural-urban migration. There are no reliable data on migrants during the early Peronist years and, unfortunately, the more reliable data on migrants from later periods (as, for example, the individual-level sample from the 1960 census) do not provide information on political behavior or attitudes. Since the census contains only information on interprovincial migration, aggregate data correlations between migrants and Peronism are a matter of heroic guesswork.

24 Among the many studies linking industrialization to Peronism are Fayt, , La naturaleza del peronismo, pp. 92–93 Google Scholar; Whitaker, , Argentina, p. 149 Google Scholar; Carri, , Sindicatos y poder en la Argentina, p. 36 Google Scholar; O'Donnell, , Modernization and Bureaucratic-Authoritarianism, p. 56 Google Scholar; and Alejandro, Carlos F. Díaz, Essays on the Economic History of the Argentine Republic (New Haven, Conn.: Yale University Press, 1970), pp. 112–13Google Scholar.

25 It is difficult to determine the extent to which all industrial establishments are included in these data. By law all industrial firms must report their activity to the census bureau, but it is probable that many of the smaller establishments fail to do so.

26 Kaplan, Marcos, Economía y política del petróleo argentino (1939–1956) (Buenos Aires: Praxis, 1957), p. 34 Google Scholar; Telia, Guido Di and Zymelman, Manuel, “Etapas del desarrollo económico argentino,” in Argentina, sociedad de masas, pp. 184–86Google Scholar; Fayt, , La naturaleza del peronismo, p. 70 Google Scholar; Carri, , Sindicatos y poder en la Argentina, p. 36 Google Scholar; Germani, , Política y sociedad en una época de transición, p. 324 Google Scholar; Geltman, , “Mitos, símbolos, y héroes en el peronismo,” p. 123 Google Scholar; Scobie, James R., Argentina: A City and a Nation (New York: Oxford University Press, 1964), p. 187 Google Scholar.

27 Guilford, J. P., Fundamental Statistics in Psychology and Education, 4th ed. (New York: McGraw-Hill, 1965), pp. 400–01Google Scholar. See the Communication from Pfotenhauer, David, American Political Science Review, 68 (03 1974), pp. 205–06CrossRefGoogle Scholar.

28 Pandolfi, Rodolfo Mario, “17 de octubre, trampa y salida,” Contorno, número 7–8 (07 1956), pp. 21–28 Google Scholar; Kaplan, , Economía y política del petróleo argentino, p. 34 Google Scholar; Fayt, , La naturaleza del peronismo, pp. 92–93 Google Scholar; Whitaker, , Argentina, p. 149 Google Scholar.

29 A massive literature now exists to confirm the relative satisfaction of rural-urban migrants. See Nelson's, Joan M. somewhat dated but excellent Migrants, Urban Poverty, and Instability in Developing Nations (Cambridge, Mass.: Center for International Affairs, Harvard University, 1969), pp. 15–20 Google Scholar; and Cornelius, Wayne A.' comprehensive “The Political Sociology of Cityward Migration in Latin America: Toward Empirical Theory,” in Latin American Urban Research, Vol. 1, ed. Rabinovitz, Francine F. and Trueblood, Felicity M. (Beverly Hills, Calif.: Sage Publications, 1971), pp. 95–147 Google Scholar. Speaking in terms more general than those of economic satisfaction, perhaps our contemporary understanding of the political impact of cityward migration is best described in the final paragraph of Cornelius, ' “Urbanization and Political Demand Making: Political Participation among the Migrant Poor in Latin American Cities,” American Political Science Review, 68 (09 1974), p. 1146 CrossRefGoogle Scholar.

30 It is probable that the working-class districts' decreases between 1935 and 1941 stemmed more from population growth than from actual wage cuts, as migrants continued to flood into parts of Greater Buenos Aires and exert downward pressure upon wages per capita.

31 And, because they have been aggregated, we further assume that they tend to bias upwardly the individual-level relationship with the Peronist vote. See Gehkle, C. and Biehel, K., “Certain Effects of Grouping upon the Size of the Correlation Coefficient in Census Tract Material,” Journal of the American Statistical Association Supplement, 29 (1934), 169–70Google Scholar; Yule, G. Udny and Kendall, Maurice G., An Introduction to the Theory of Statistics (London: C. Griffin, 1950), p. 311 Google Scholar.

32 The format for Table 15 is a modified copy of Table 1 in Nie, Norman H., Powell, G. Bingham Jr., and Prewitt, Kenneth, “Social Structure and Political Participation: Developmental Relationships, II,” American Political Science Review, 63 (09 1969), 812 CrossRefGoogle Scholar.

33 Inkeles, Alex, “Participant Citizenship in Six Developing Countries,” American Politicai Science Review, 63 (12 1969), 1137 Google Scholar; Inkeles, Alex and Smith, David H., Becoming Modern: Individual Change in Six Developing Countries (Cambridge, Mass.: Harvard University Press, 1974)CrossRefGoogle Scholar.

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36 Not everyone shares this evaluation of the data's reliability. See Germani, , “El surgimiento del peronismo,” p. 437–38Google Scholar.