Coalitions, Institutions, and Sectoral Transitions: The Evolution of Defense Industry Reform in Argentina, 1983–1997

• In Event: Political and institutional reforms in Post-Authoritarian regimes in Argentina, Chile and other Latin American countries

Abstract

In 1983 in Argentina, the military’s ownership and management of a huge defense-industrial complex afforded it vast power through direct action, indirect promotion, and veto guidance. Why did President Carlos Menem (1989–1999) succeed in transferring this sector to civilian ownership and management, while President Raúl Alfonsín (1983–1989) fell short? This paper stresses the balance of coalitional strength between civilians and the military, and the strength of the defense ministry military production bureaucracy. Alfonsín successfully created a powerful defense industry agency, but he failed to widen the radius of his support politically by building alliances with other legislative and political actors. The anti-reform military seized the advantage by forging alliances with its own allies. Thus, while Alfonsín could use the bureaucracy to shift management to civilians, his three separate efforts to shift ownership legislatively all stalled, blocked by the military coalition. Menem, by contrast, crippled the military coalition and assembled a new, pro-reform alliance of Peronists and rightwing parties, then reinforced the military production agency’s power. In turn, the Congress promoted Menem’s policies privatizing military firms, and the agency divested the military of those firms and sold virtually every one. These findings challenge two prevailing views about civil-military relations: that the civil-military balance of power is a product of latent influences deriving from the period of the democratic transition, and that civilian institutional strength is sufficient for successful reforms.

Author

• Collin Grimes, University of California, Riverside