Politics in Argentina, 1890-1930: The Rise and Fall of Radicalism

by David Rock

Overview

This study is concerned with the forty-year period before 1930, when Argentina experienced rapid economic and social growth broken only by the First World War. The Radical Civic Union appeared in the 1912 elections and in 1916 its leader, Hipolito Yrigoyen, became President. Dr Rock discusses the origins and course of this experiment in representative government, and the distribution of power and political benefits under the new system in the light of the society created by the growth of the primary export economy: how it came about that the established political elite ceded control to the Radicals; whom they represented and towards which groups they directed their attentions. The work also deals with the methods of organization and mobilization used by them in a complex urban environment to develop and uphold their political support. It examines in some detail the class conflicts of the wartime period, the strikes whereby the workers sought to guard against the erosion of their wages by inflation, and the counter-mobilization of elite and middle-class groups, most notably in the bloody 'Tragic Week' of 1919.

Product Details

ISBN-13:	9780521102322
Publisher:	Cambridge University Press
Publication date:	03/12/2009
Series:	Cambridge Latin American Studies , #19
Pages:	328
Product dimensions:	5.51(w) x 8.50(h) x 0.75(d)

Table of Contents

1. The components of Argentine society, 189–1914; 2. The oligarchy and institutional reform, 1880–1916; 3. The rise of Radicalism, 1891–1916; 4. The workers and their politics in Buenos Aires, 1890–1916; 5. The first Radical government, 1916–22; 6. The strikes, 1916–18; 7. The Semana Tragica; 8. 1919; 9. Postscript to the first presidency, 1920–2; 10. The Alvear interlude, 1922–8; 11. Yrigoyen's second presidency, 1928–30; 12. Perspectives.