The Peronist Party and the Division into Branches

• In Event: Critical Junctures and Party Systems: Argentina and the Formation of Peronism

Abstract

This paper reconstructs the early years of the Peronist party’s organizational history, focusing on a mostly unresearched topic: the division into “ramas”. The party’s main problem was to find an organizational formula that would contain the heterogeneous forces, trade unionists and schisms from existing political parties, that came together in 1945. In contrast to Vargas in Brazil and Cardenas in Mexico, Perón proposed a single structure, but as time passed, and after the efforts of three different commanding bodies, it became clear that one unified structure could not contain the social and political diversity of the Peronist base and a new institutional formula emerged: the division in branches. The paper will examine the dynamics of this division and the consequences of the organizational change.

Author

• Moira B Mackinnon, Universidad Nacional Tres de Febrero