Military Rule in Argentina, 1976-1983: Suppressing the Peronists

摘要

Using Robert Dahl's basic axiom that a government will increasingly tolerate opposition if the expected costs of suppressing the opposition increases, the author shows that the Peronist movement became the primary opposition to the military regime that ruled Argentina from 1976-1983. The military engaged in the 'Dirty War' in order to suppress its opposition, principally the Peronists, because the cost; measured in terms of legitimacy; of suppressing them was relatively low at the beginning of the junta's rule. But the cost of suppression increased over time because of the military regime's ruthless suppression of anyone who opposed it, its failed economic policies, and its embarrassing loss of the Malvinas/Falkland Islands War, and thus it had to tolerate its opposition and eventually return power to civilian authority.