Revisiting Argentina 2001–13: From “¡Que se vayan todos!” to the Peronist Decade

Abstract

Explaining how Argentina made the transition from widespread uprising and calls for “¡ Que se vayan todos!” to a capitulation to the national and popular model and its progressively intensive implementation is not an easy or straightforward task. This would merit lengthy examination and multiple layers of analysis but is not what will be done here. Instead I will focus on only some of the key aspects of this phenomenon, namely the changes in the language employed in demonstrations, the ideological disputes and the displacement and expansion of the boundaries of social conflict. The premise for this analysis is the assertion that although the governments of Néstor Kirchner and Cristina Fernández de Kirchner have not undertaken deep political reform as their supporters claim, their administrations can neither be framed as simple continuity with the 1990s in terms of its policy. In fact, the ambiguities and tensions between continuity and rupture (the duality of Kirchnerist discourse), has become the common thread in a political environment in which the core component has become a new version of the national-popular model; a Peronism of the middle classes in the context of the “Commodities Consensus.” This has had profound implications for Argentine politics.