Perón / Vargas Questions of the Day # 1

Daniel W. Blackmon

IB HL History

Coral Gables Senior High

Questions: Perón

• 34 Explain the rise and fall of Juan Perón and evaluate his impact on Argentina. (1987)

Questions: Perón

• 90 Who supported and who opposed Juan Perón in Argentina between 1943 and 1955? (HL) (1990)

Questions: Perón

• 201 What were the causes and characteristics of Peronism? (HL) (1995)

Questions: Perón

• 309 Why did Juan Perón become the dominant figure in the history of Argentina from 1955 to 1971? (HL) (November 1999)

Questions: Perón or Vargas

• 385 In what ways, and with what results, did either Per6n or Vargas pursue populist policies? (HL) (2002)

Questions: Perón or Vargas

• 410 In what ways, and to what extent, were the policies of either Vargas or Perón successful in achieving their aims? . (HL) (2003)

Questions: Perón or Vargas

• 433 Compare and contrast the ways in which Vargas and Perón maintained themselves in power. (HL) (2004)

General

• 260 Compare and contrast the programs of two Latin American leaders in the first half of the twentieth century and assess their successes and failures. (HL) (1998)

General

• 285 “Latin American politics depended much more on personalities than on ideologies in the twentieth century.” Referring to at least two countries in the region show how far you agree with this statement. (HL) (1999)

General

• 335 Analyze the policies of one populist leader in Latin America in the first half of the twentieth century and assess their effectiveness. (HL) (2000)

General

• 361 Assess the domestic (internal) program and policies of one populist leader of Latin America in the period 1900 to 1955. (HL) (2001)

General

• 178 What were the basic economic problems of TWO Latin American countries in the first half of the twentieth century and how did they attempt to solve them? (HL) (1994)

General

• 238 Discuss the advantages and disadvantages of foreign investment in TWO Latin American countries of the period 1900-1950. (HL) (1997)

The Questions

• What patterns do you see in the questions that IB has asked?

Question of the Day # 1

• In what ways, and with what results, did either Perón or Vargas pursue populist policies? (HL) (2002)

Key Terms

• What ways

• What results

• Either

• Populist policies

Definition

• Definition of a Populist regime according to Guillermo O’Donnell: “While there is considerable variation in the degree to which these systems are competitive and democratic, they are clearly ‘incorporating.’

Definition

• They are based on a multi-class coalition of urban-industrial interests, including industrial elites and the urban popular sector. Economic nationalism is a common feature of such systems. The state promotes the initial phase of industrialization oriented around consumer goods.

Definition

• It does so both directly through support for domestic industry, and indirectly through encouraging the expansion of the domestic market for consumer goods by increasing the income of the popular sector.” (Collier “B-A Model” 24)

Definition

• (From Lambert) Parties of the Populist Type

• “Since about 1930, . . . parties running on reform platforms but opportunistic in their actual policy have been in the lead.

Definition

• They tend to rally a heterogeneous backing around a prominent figure who has acquired the reputation of defending the underdog but whose only ideology is nationalism. . . . .

Definition

• .Such parties, bearing the strong personal mark of a political figure, are called populist parties.

Definition

• “The forerunner of this type of movement was Hipólito Irigoyen, who assumed power in Argentina in 1916 with the Radical Civic Union. .

Definition

• “. . Irigoyen then renamed his party . . . Union Cívica Radical Personalista. Irigoyen’s regime was characterized by a strong reaction against the cosmopolitan outlook of the Argentine oligarchic regime, which had given free rein to foreign, especially English, concerns.

Definition

• “His Argentine nationalism manifested itself first by his neutrality in World War I. Another trait of the regime–a basic feature of populism–was ostentatious sympathy for the little man and a show of contempt for the wealthy and the powerful. . . .

Definition

• “After Irigoyen, the Radical Civic Union became a middle-class party and the Peronists became demagogic populists in their place.” (204-205

Definition

• “Like Irigoyen in 1916, Vargas in 1930 found a country dominated by the oligarchy, and, also like Irigoyen, he appealed to nationalism and presented himself as the advocate of the little man.” (205)

Economic Role of Populist Regimes

• “Their most earnest and systematic efforts have been aimed at economic emancipation by means of industrialization. . . .

Economic Role of Populist Regimes

• “The oligarchic regime had been cosmopolitan in its outlook, since the economic interests of the ruling class depended entirely on the exportation of agricultural products, and its culture was that of the European capitals.

Economic Role of Populist Regimes

• “The populists governments wished to alienate neither the entrepreneurs nor the workers, and especially not the middle classes and the military. Nationalism was the one theme on which all of them could agree.

Economic Role of Populist Regimes

• “At that point in Latin America’s foreign relations, nationalism, which primarily economic, meant above all industrialization and nationalization of the large foreign enterprises.

Economic Role of Populist Regimes

• “Although this economic nationalism often inspired measures of demagogic rather than economic value, populist governments undoubtedly started the era of economic development. . . . . The populist regimes broadened the Latin American body politic.” (207)

Political and Social Role of the Populist Regimes

• “”The lack of any economic experience, particularly among military dictatorships of populist inspiration, rendered the best meant programs utterly ineffectual. . . .

Political and Social Role of the Populist Regimes

• For instance, any social policy dictated by opportunism consisted first in courting supporters by multiplying job openings, particularly in occupations most easily controlled by the party and the government: civil service, public utilities, nationalized industries. . . .

Political and Social Role of the Populist Regimes

• In order to bring about and justify the proliferation of posts and show their social usefulness, the populist governments have given in to the temptation to orient labor legislation in a direction that slows productivity. . . .

Political and Social Role of the Populist Regimes

• In order to maintain their popularity among workers and civil servants, the governments have raised the minimum wages excessively, the result being almost invariably an inflation that has cancelled the raise.

Political and Social Role of the Populist Regimes

• These regimes have promoted social progress through featherbedding rather than through higher productivity and salaries. Even though party supporters have been disappointed by the stagnation and in some case the deterioration in living standards, the populist regimes have lost none of their popularity.

Political and Social Role of the Populist Regimes

• The people’s protectors had given evidence of their good intentions, and they can always blame any failures on mysterious plots of political foes and the evil scheming of international capitalism and the United States government.” (208)

Political and Social Role of the Populist Regimes

• “The greatest harm done by the populist regimes throughout Latin America has been to widen the chasm between a chiefly urban advanced society and a chiefly rural archaic one by carrying out reforms in only a segment of each nation.

Political and Social Role of the Populist Regimes

• “Government by the upper class had preserved archaic feudal structures in the rural areas until the end of the first third of the twentieth century.

Political and Social Role of the Populist Regimes

• “The populist leaders who have followed the oligarchy have paid no attention whatsoever to rural society and have left its feudal structure untouched, while their reforms have hastened changes in the advanced urban society, thus broadening the gap between the two societies instead of narrowing it.” (209)

Thesis

• First, let’s look at the evidence and then write our thesis!

Context

• Q & A: “ What events, broadly, are happening world wide (1920-1954) that might influence these two countries?”

Great Depression

World War II

Cold War

Context

• Vargas (1920-1930) [Three groups 10 minutes]

• .Economic

• .Social

• .Political

Context

• Perón (1930-1946) [Three groups 10 minutes]

• .Economic

• .Social

• .Political

Context