Argentine political sciences facing Menemismo. Questions, interpretations and debates

Abstract

The political and economic course led by the administration of Carlos S. Menem, after his assumption in July 1989, meant for the political scientists’ community a stimulus to think about different core problems of the discipline, allowing an enrichment of the political sciences in Argentina in the nineties with new topics of discussion. In this article, we will try to approach two crucial questions that provided the backbone for the academic discussions during those years:  1) the reasons for the active and passive consensus given by a large part of the population, for over five years, to a government that carried out measures traditionally  resisted and that would generate economic costs to wide layers of the society, and  2) the either negative or positive consequences  for democratic consolidation generated by Menem’s administration. In each case, dissimilar responses will be analyzed as well as the epistemological assumptions sustaining those readings.