Of Wild and Cultivated Politics : Conflict and Democracy in Argentina

Abstract

Democratic theorists have argued that it is possible to sustain and nurture democratic culture by

facilitating democratic interpersonal behavior.2

For nations undergoing democratic development, the related question is whether it is possible to plant

and cultivate democratic culture in settings where it is relatively unfamiliar, its appearance has been

infrequent and its roots, even in the context of a formal democratic regime, may be shallow, indeed. Can a

wild, violently conflictual, and nondemocratic culture gradually metamorphose toward restrained, democratic

methods of political interaction and conflict resolution? This question lies at the heart of this essay.

To address this issue I have chosen a setting where the move from nondemocratic political patterns

and history toward democratic behavior constitutes one of the longest steps any democratizing nation has

faced: the example of Argentina. Known for violence and harsh authoritarianism, Argentina today boasts

nineteen years of democratic process, even in the face of crisis. If Argentina can move from so harsh a

past toward a democratic present, then we gain some sense of the possibilities of cultural change in other

settings that have less brutal histories to overcome.

The Argentine example, of course, is still a political process underway, an incomplete and unconsolidated

democratic transition. In Argentine politics one can still see wild and savage vestiges of authoritarianism

struggling side by side with newer varieties of political and social behavior including mutual respect, dialogue,

softened perceptions of “the other” and declining self-righteousness about any particular position. For that

reason it offers an opportunity to look at the process of cultural change while major change is still occurring.

This essay is an exploratory study of one aspect of political culture in Argentina, what Marc Howard

Ross has called “the culture of conflict.”3

It uncovers patterns and changes in cultural uses and understandings of violence, violent conflict, and

authoritarian political methods in Argentina.

The essay uses historical comparison and contemporary data framed within theory about conflict to

suggest some reasons why certain patterns of conflict developed historically in Argentina and why cultural

change may be underway today.