Steven Levitsky: Argentina’s history of constitutional reform is in some ways had some negative effects but I think it has allowed it to position itself as in some ways a more democratic regime today than that of the United States.

Alex Lovit: Welcome to The Context, a podcast about the past, present and future of democracy from the Charles F. Kettering Foundation. I’m your host Alex Lovit. It’s election day here in the United States, or at least it is if you’re listening to this on the day this episode releases. The United States is a very politically divided country right now and many of us are anxious about this election, even concerned that our traditions and institutions of democracy might be at risk.

But when this episode goes live we won’t yet know anything about the outcome of the U.S. election. While we’re facing this uncertainty, we thought this would be an opportunity to consider democracy elsewhere, specifically in Argentina. The Kettering Foundation’s mission is to advance inclusive democracies by fostering citizen engagement, promoting government accountability, and countering authoritarianism.

We do this work in the United States but also all over the world. So part of why we think it’s important to pay attention to Argentina is because it’s a democratic nation of 45 million people which has experienced savage authoritarianism and which has recommitted to democracy despite significant economic and social challenges. But there are also lessons that people concerned about democracy in the United States, or in other countries, can learn from the Argentine story.

After all Argentina’s government has a similar structure to the United States. In fact in significant ways it is modeled about the United States Constitution. Argentina and the U.S. also share similar histories of immigration patterns and there are notable parallels in the recent politics of the two countries. You’ll hear about some of that in this episode. But Argentina’s history has also diverged from the U.S.’s in critical ways.

Argentine democracy has been overthrown by military coups and even some of its popularly elected leaders have governed as authoritarians. It has experienced repressive governments who used violence to stifle dissent. While we don’t get into it in this conversation, the United States does bear some responsibility for that. In the name of anti-communism, the U.S. provided economic and military assistance to the most brutal of Argentina’s dictators.

Argentina has maintained a successful democracy for four decades now. There are still problems including a populist right-wing president who may not be fully committed to democratic principles. But there are reasons for hope too. Argentinians have a deep appreciation for and loyalty to democracy because of their experience with authoritarian government. I have two guests today who can help us understand the troubled history and resilience of Argentine democracy.

Roberto Saba is a professor of constitutional law at Buenos Aires University and Palermo University. He is a co-founder of the Association for Civil Rights, an Argentine organization modeled on the American Civil Liberties Union, and served as its executive director for 10 years. He also previously served as executive director of Citizen Power Foundation, Transparency International’s chapter in Argentina.

And he’s also a member of the Kettering Foundation’s Board of Directors. Steven Levitsky is a professor of Latin American studies and government at Harvard University where he’s also the director of the David Rockefeller Center for Latin American Studies. He’s the author of many academic publications and a couple of best sellers which not too many political scientists can say, 2018’s How Democracies Die and 2023’s Tyranny of the Minority, both co-authored with another Harvard professor, Daniel Ziblatt.

He’s also a Senior Fellow at the Kettering Foundation. For people in the United States, or really anywhere in the world, who are worried about the possibility of coups overturning democratic elections or about elected leaders enacting authoritarian policies or about how to build widespread public support for democracy, there’s a lot we can learn from Argentina. Roberto Saba, welcome to The Context.

Roberto Saba: Hi, Alex. I’m very happy to be here. Thank you for the invitation.

Alex Lovit: And Steven Levitsky, returning guest, welcome back to the show.

Steven Levitsky: Thanks for having me, Alex.

Alex Lovit: In this conversation we’re going to be talking about democracy in Argentina. I thought we’d start at the beginning. Argentina declared independence from Spain in 1816 and established its first democratic government in 1853. That Argentinian constitution of 1853 was modeled on the United States Constitution. Although democracy in those early decades was limited with only one or two percent of the population being able to vote, there were multiple organized political parties, competitive elections.

And that 1853 constitution has been amended many times since. Argentina has gone through periods of authoritarian rule when the constitution was basically ignored. We’ll talk about that today. But that same 1853 constitution does remain in effect today. Roberto, you’re a professor of constitutional law. Can you tell us a little bit about why and how the Argentinian Constitution drew on the model of the United States and how much of that basic structure of government continues today?

Roberto Saba: Yes, in fact constitutional framers of the 19th century look at the American, the U.S. Constitution as a model mainly about the way in which government should be organized. We’re also a federal country. We have a national level of government and 24 states. And regarding our presidential system we also look at the Chilean Constitution at the time that was I would say more presidential still than the U.S. Constitution. We have a very strong presidential system.

Regarding rights, we also have a sort of Bill of Rights at the beginning of the constitution that resembles very much the U.S. Constitution. We had a major reform in 1994, but the basic constitution today remains the 1853 constitution with the additions and changes that are introduced in 1994.

Alex Lovit: Steven, you’ve studied Argentinian politics closely and you’ve also written about some of the aspects of the American Constitution that makes the U.S. vulnerable to minority rule. We talked on that back on the very first episode of this podcast. Do you have any comments or thoughts on how this system of government has operated in Argentina?

Steven Levitsky: Well, Argentina has obviously had a long history of regime instability. So although the current constitution builds on the 1853 constitution, Argentina has experienced multiple periods of states of exception in which the constitution was either de facto or de jure set aside. But Argentina for both good and bad has undergone much more constitutional reform than the United States. The U.S. Constitution is one of the world’s hardest to amend.

And in our most recent book, Tyranny of the Minority, we criticize a number of basically 18th-century legacies that other democracies have reformed away, one of which is electoral college. Argentina in the 1994 reform that Roberto mentioned eliminated its electoral college. It was the last presidential democracy on earth other than the United States to have an electoral college and it got rid of it. Argentina also got rid of lifetime tenure for Supreme Court justices, another place where the United States is really an outlier in the world.

And so Argentina’s history of constitutional reform is in some ways had some negative effects but I think it has allowed it to position itself as in some ways a more democratic regime today than that of the United States.

Alex Lovit: Well, if there’s some history of Argentina drawing inspiration from the United States perhaps the United States should draw some inspiration from Argentina as well. As you mentioned there Argentina has gone through a number of periods of democratic instability and authoritarian rule. In the early 20th century it was one of the wealthiest countries in the world with incomes comparable to the United States and Europe.

It had a functional democracy after 1912 with full participation for native-born adult men. And then in 1930 the Great Depression happened, and that happened all over the world. It caused political disruption all over the world. And what happened in Argentina is that that democratic government was replaced by a military coup. And then that started the next half century of difficult history in Argentina where there would be five additional coups of the military overthrowing political leadership.

I’m not going to attempt to go through all of that complicated history, but can you help us understand were there factors that made Argentina vulnerable to military encroachment on democracy or are there factors in general that make countries more vulnerable to that?

Steven Levitsky: We don’t know a lot about why militaries originally intervene. This is something the United States is very blessed never to have had a coup because one thing that’s clear is military intervention begets military intervention so one of the best predictors of military coups is having had a prior military coup. So Argentina’s step in 1930 and then again in ‘43 sort of began a pattern that’s very common in regimes both in Latin America and elsewhere where you get a pattern of recurrent military intervention.

The United States was very fortunate to avoid that. But in the 20th century what really stood out in Argentina, and the problem that took really half a century to figure it out and resolve, was how to deal with Peronism, with a political party that at least initially was not entirely democratic but could win any election and was unacceptable to part of the country, particularly the military and economic elite.

So when you have a political party that’s the largest in the country and that can win any election and yet is unacceptable to a key part of the political establishment, you’ve got a very, very difficult formula. And that was I think ultimately the source of so much instability in the mid part of the 20th century.

Roberto Saba: Well, the first military coup, as you said, Alex, happened in 1930. And you also mentioned before that we had a very important electoral reform in 1912. 1912, as you said, voting became universal. Universal at that time was, of course, only for male voters. But it was secret, universal, and that opened the door for the masses to participate in the voting in elections. That was a major change. After that reform the first very popular president was elected in negotiation and because of that reform probably Peronism appeared in our history.

So what I mean is that the 1912 reform was crucial for expanding citizen participation. Until then very few people voted, very few people participated in the electoral system. So one possible explanation about the military intervention in democracy, the coup that started in 1930, is sort of reaction to this popular participation in politics.

That could be one possible aspect or explanation. The other one, at least in Argentina, there are some people that we argue that our hyper presidential system doesn’t create much room for agreements, for minorities to participate in the decision making process.

And when a very strong and powerful president that receives his power from the constitution loses its popular support that creates some conditions for those who are not part of the government to start undermining that government and in the past that could be an explanation for supporting coup d’etat, not only from the military part of society but also by part of society itself. So it’s a complicated issue but I think that this couple of aspects are relevant for our conversation.

Steven Levitsky: So I agree that, I’m not sure that’s the fundamental cause of the problem in 20th century Argentina but there’s pretty good evi– One difference between the United States and most presidential constitutions in Latin America, as Roberto correctly says, is that executives are much, much more powerful in Latin America and that there’s pretty good evidence that that is in fact a source of instability.

Roberto Saba: And you know that since 1983 when democracy was re-established fortunately we haven’t had any attempt of coup d’etat. But that doesn’t mean that we have a very stable democracy. You know in 2001 a president that was in power only for two years was, I mean, kind of forced to resign because of the crisis. And those kind of things are related to what I was trying to—

I agree with Steve, this is not the main reason why governments are weak or could finish before the end of the tenure, but one possibility is that for instance in 2001 the Peronist Party is sometimes regarded as partially responsible for the resignation of the Radical Party president that became very weak and because of that reason had to resign.

Alex Lovit: Well, so we’ve mentioned Peronism, Juan Peron a couple times. Let’s back up a little bit and explain for folks who we’re talking about here. You know speaking of a strong presidential system, a strong president in Argentine history was Juan Peron. He was president from 1946 until he was overthrown by another military coup in 1955 and he was then forced into exile. The Peronist political party was banned from elections. He briefly returned to power in 1973 before he died in 1974.

So if you read Argentinian history and political science, which I’ve been doing some lately trying to get ready for this conversation, people talk not only about Peron but also Peronism. I’ve always kind of struggled to understand—and I understand that the political party went through a lot of evolution in later history—during Peron’s life does Peronism have a coherent, consistent ideology? Can you provide a definition of Peronism?

Steven Levitsky: Peron was a classical populist and populists tend to be very ambiguous ideologically. And Peron certainly was very ambiguous ideologically and his movement was very ambiguous, especially while he was alive. There were some common threads that run through Peronism for a while. It was nationalist. It was pro-labor. And it was statist in terms of economic policy. It was closely associated with protectionist industrial policies that emerged in the early and mid part of the 20th century.

But Peronism always had very diverse political and ideological currents. It had right-wing nationalists, many of whom were anti-Semites. It had leftists, it had more middle of the road trade unionists all within them. Peron used to say that Peronists are like cats in the sense that when it looks like they’re fighting they’re actually reproducing.

Alex Lovit: Well, so my other question about Peron is about his relationship to democracy. So if I understand correctly the 1946 elections in which he was first elected were mostly free and fair and, you know, the Peronist Party was a powerful political force in legitimate elections. But Peron also repressed the free press in some cases, fired critical voices in public offices, arrested some political opponents. How do you think about Peron’s relationship with democracy or Peronism’s relationship with democracy?

Steven Levitsky: Peron’s first government was authoritarian. It was not as bloody perhaps as some other regimes have been in Argentine and other countries histories but it was clearly authoritarian from the very beginning. So Peron was elected in a free and fair election but in a way that’s actually it’s similar to many 21st-century elected authoritarian regimes. This is a civilian electoral government that immediately began to crack down on dissent and to tilt the playing field against the opposition.

And so the government that was overthrown in 1955 was a pretty autocratic government. You know when you’re overthrown by the military and excluded from politics you can easily take up the mantle of democracy, and Peron eventually was able to do that. He became more a victim of the authoritarians than the authoritarian. But Peron’s first government was clearly authoritarian. Peronism evolved and I think it had authoritarian elements within it throughout much of the 20th century, certainly in the 1970s.

We saw some of those authoritarian elements in the brief return to power between 1973 and 1976. But at least in my view post-1983 Peronism evolves into a political party that is overwhelmingly committed to playing by democratic rules of the game.

Roberto Saba: The only thing I would add is that in the constitutional reform of 1994 both major parties at that time, the Peronist Party and the Radical Party, reached I would say for the first time in our history an agreement on the constitutional text. Under Peron’s government Peron amended the constitution in a process that is very much criticized in terms of whether it allowed for full participation of the opposition.

But in 1949 Peron amended the constitution, and it was a major amendment, but the opposition considered that it was not a legitimate constitutional reform. Peron was overthrown in 1955. The military government, which was not a democratic government of course, called for a constitutional reform again in order to get rid of Peron’s constitution and to re-establish the 1853 constitution. So now there was a Peronist Party that regarded the re-establishment of the old constitution as a non-democratic, non-legitimate move.

But it was for the first time in 1994 that all parties, particularly the most major party, the Radical Party and the Peronist Party, agreed on the current constitution we have today, which is basically the one that you mentioned 1853 by with other reforms that Steve mentioned also regarding some level, maybe not very much but some level of weakening of the presidential powers, the introduction of a more robust bill of rights, and the recognition of the international human rights treaties as having the same importance, the same authority, as the constitution.

All these major reforms, including the ones that Steve mentioned before, were agreed by the two major parties, and this is the situation in which we are today which is I think a good thing.

Alex Lovit: Well, in a democracy it’s pretty important for everybody to play by the same set of rules and agree to that set of rules. But before we get to the re-establishment of Argentinian democracy in 1983 I want to ask just a couple more questions about what is maybe the darkest moment in Argentinian history, the right-wing military junta that governed Argentina from 1976 until 1983. This period is also known as the dirty war during which the government killed as many as 30,000 political opponents usually without any judicial process.

Roberto, this is a period that is in the living memory for many Argentinians and democracy was re-established in 1983 and has proven fairly resilient for more than 40 years now. How do you think that the experience of that authoritarian rule influenced how Argentinians experienced and embraced democracy in the last 40 years?

Roberto Saba: Yes, very much, Alex, very much. I mean the basis of the new democracy in Argentina were built upon the experience we had in the dictatorship. The first democratic government that was established after the dictatorship in 1983 under the presidency of President Raul Alfonsin made the decision of prosecuting the juntas. It is probably the first time in world history that the courts of the country decide to try former dictators and human rights violations.

I invite everybody to watch the movie 1995, in which the trials are described. And the fact that we started a new democratic process by making it very clear that those who were perpetrating those human rights violations, those who took over the government through violence, were punished, that was crucial for building the new democratic era. Of course it was not easy. I mean, we are still struggling with what to do with those responsible for human rights violations and remembering those trials.

Only the juntas were tried. And later President Menem pardoned those who were punished. And later under Kirchner’s government many other cases related to human rights violations were opened, this time not trying the juntas but all the other military men who were in inferior ranks. So what happened in Argentina between ‘76 and ‘83 is still impacting our political practice and political action. But you’re right I think, that experience is very much the reason why we defend democracy so much.

And that’s why I don’t know if you were going to get talk about the current government, but when the current government is focusing or targeting on some specific right like free speech or freedom of information or other rights, people start becoming very, very concerned.

Steven Levitsky: I think sometimes we don’t appreciate what a dramatic change occurred in 1983. You mentioned six military coups between 1930 and 1976. Argentina was a dramatic democratic underperformer. In the 20th century no democracy had ever lasted more than 14 years. This one has lasted 41 years. And there have been two areas in particular where there has been an almost night and day change that are essential to democracy. One, we discussed the military earlier.

A consensus emerged in Argentina after 1983 that the military would never come back, across the political spectrum a consensus against any invitation to military rule, and secondly, a broad societal consensus behind the defense of human and basic civil rights. Those things had never been systematically protected and embraced across the political spectrum in Argentina and since 1983 they are. And there’s a reason why Argentine democracy has now survived for 41 years.

There has been a solid consensus against military intervention and in defense of basic human civil rights. I agree with Roberto that comes from the experience of the 1970s.

Roberto Saba: Some people, including myself, look at 1983 as a sort of foundational moment of our democracy. I mean comparable to the establishment of democracy after Apartheid in South Africa or the establishment of democracy in Eastern Europe after the fall of the Berlin Wall. It was not just another moment after a military government. And we had six military governments but we never had before something like what happened in 1983.

Alex Lovit: Well, let’s talk a little bit about some of the problems that have afflicted Argentina during this period of democratic resilience. And I would think that inflation would be near the top of that list. In Argentina in 1989, 1990, the inflation rate was somewhere around 2,600 percent on an annual basis. So here in the United States we’ve recently had inflation as high as 9 percent on an annual basis and we’ve been pretty upset about that. But, you know, so we’re talking something really an order of magnitude higher here.

And now in 2024 inflation has been between 200 and 300 percent. First of all, Roberto, can you give our listeners a sense of what that looks like on the ground, you know what’s the experience of trying to manage transactions of everyday life in that context?

Roberto Saba: It’s a nightmare that the whole country gets kind of used to it in the following sense. I mean the fact is that inflation is very high and that forces every union to negotiate salaries almost on a monthly basis. So, yeah, it’s a nightmare you live with this uncertainty about what the cost of things are going to be tomorrow, but, you know, the whole system starts to adapt to live under such conditions. It’s changing a little bit now, but you’re right, I mean we have had a few terrible years in that respect.

Alex Lovit: And let’s talk about Argentina’s current president, Javier Milei, who was elected at the end of last year, to what extent was his election a response to these economic problems?

Roberto Saba: I would say that his election was only related to the economic situation. I think that Milei’s election as president is also responsive to a very profound frustration of many people about the political class, about politicians, about, you know, many reasons can explain why Milei who was an outsider, a person completely out of the political system. He was someone that was hardly known a few months before the presidential election.

He was a house representative for two years, but he was very, very marginal. But I’m thinking of Steve’s book actually, How Democracies Die, and he explains how these outsiders, how people like Milei appear in the political scene. It’s not only because of inflation. It is related, of course, to the economic situation, but it’s something deeper. I think it’s something more related to, also to the frustration of many people about the political system.

Of course COVID had a lot to do with this and the way in which the previous government handled the pandemic. But remember that Milei’s main model is freedom, and freedom is a value that is kind of opposed to the lockdown that we suffered for a long time during the COVID. The reasons why he was elected were beyond the economic situation.

Steven Levitsky: It’s important to put Argentina in a broader comparative perspective here. Political parties and party systems are melting down across Latin America and we are seeing not only anti-incumbent voting but voting against the entire political establishment and the election of political outsiders across the region beginning in Peru and Venezuela in the 1990s right into Colombia and Brazil, Chile, Mexico, El Salvador, really very few Latin America countries have escaped this phenomena.

Sometimes they are outsiders of the left, like in Ecuador and Venezuela. Sometimes they’re outsiders of the right, like Milei. Sometimes they’re more ambiguous, like in El Salvador. But political outsiders who position themselves against the entire system are winning elections almost across the board. And Roberto is right, it’s tapping into a cocktail of frustrations that has to do in part just with poor economic reform that’s going back at least a decade since the end of the commodities boom.

Poor government performance in general, relatively high levels of corruption, certainly perceptions of high levels of corruption, relatively high levels of insecurity, there’s a perception that governments, one after another after another, are failing to do even basic tasks like deliver public goods and protect their citizens. So this general frustration that has been percolating I think was clearly exacerbated by COVID and also by the rise of social media in the last decade, which I think is leading to greater and greater distrust of government and the establishment.

So in the Argentine case the political establishment, the status quo, of the last 15 years had been left of center so it shouldn’t be too shocking that the outsider came from the right. But this is a much broader phenomena that you see across the region.

Roberto Saba: We had another major crisis before, let’s say, the current one, which was in 2001. As I said it created also the conditions for a president to resign, which is something very unusual in presidential systems, where the person steps down before the end of the tenure. And people were at that time, 2001, extremely frustrated with the political leadership. People were in the streets claiming everybody should leave the government, everybody should go away.

There was a strong demand for anti-politics, anti-system. We kind of recovered for a few years after that and then we went back to that frustration. So I think this is something that has been cooked for at least a couple of decades. And, of course, I mean connected to COVID, connected with social media, but it’s something that is coming from a long time ago.

Alex Lovit: And so thinking about Milei in this international comparative context, he draws a lot of comparisons to Donald Trump, you know he’s a right-wing populist, he’s got television experience, flamboyant hair, heavy social media user, you know penchant for culture warrior. And then, you know, it’s not just Trump. There’s also the Hungarian Prime Minister Viktor Orban was a guest at Milei’s inauguration. Milei and Orban have both been guests at the U.S.-based conservative political action conference.

How do you see this coalition of conservative world leaders and what is the U.S.’s role in this international grouping?

Roberto Saba: Well, I mean, I don’t want to talk about the U.S. because I’m not an expert on U.S. politics, but what I read about distinctions between Milei and Trump on the one hand and some similarities too. I think Trump has some economic views that are different from Milei. Milei is an extremely radical libertarian. He believes in, at least in theory, because, I mean, the Milei that is now the president is kind of changing a little bit about that, but he’s a person that is against the state. I mean he hates the state.

He looks at himself as a mole that came to the government to destroy the state. He’s not a nationalist although in the last UN assembly he seemed like more nationalist than he appeared to be before. So there are some similarities and some things they don’t have in common. But I think that Milei has in common with Trump some ideas that are not consistent with democracy. The way he treats the press, he has amended the Freedom of Information Act by decree in order to restrict access to information.

He calls the opposition rats. I mean these are some signs that his commitment to democracy is kind of weak or at least his idea of democracy is very different from the one that we think the constitution defends.

Steven Levitsky: There clearly is an emerging transnational illiberal right of which Trumpism is obviously an important part and Viktor Orban another. I think Milei fits in perfectly into that coalition. He certainly pals around with that group and that is where his greatest political affinities lie. But as Roberto pointed out Milei’s primary emphasis is economics. He’s an ultra libertarian on economics, and that’s what he cares most about. And he does engage in cultural wars, etc., but it has to date been secondary for him.

And for much of the global ethno-nationalist right as I call it, certainly for Trump, it’s the reverse. The culture wars are what matter most and economics are secondary and in many cases there’s a tendency towards a more status move away from the Republican Party’s kind of Reaganite free market policy. So what Milei thus far has cared most about is economic issues and that separates him a bit.

On democracy I agree with Roberto that Milei has shown the same sort of intolerant norm breaking instincts as Trump and other outsiders, Jair Bolsonaro. I think it remains to be seen how much of a threat he is to democracy. I don’t ever recommend that any society elect an outsider with an ambiguous relationship to democracy, whether it be Bolsonaro or Trump or Bukele or Milei, never a good idea to elect one of these guys president.

Thus far I think Milei’s record is mixed and that he has been less unambiguously authoritarian than Trump. Although he may talk one game on Twitter or X, his behavior in practice in dealing with policy and dealing with Congress and dealing with the courts hasn’t been awful. I mean it has been pretty pragmatic after an initial effort to kind of circumvent the whole legislative process. Grudgingly his people have sat down and negotiated with Congress.

And although it is true that Milei began to make Trump-like noises about election fraud prior to the last election, he has yet to engage in the kind of clearly, clearly authoritarian behavior that Trump engaged in after the 2020 election. So I think we have to wait and see again. I’m always, always worried about electing one of these guys president. But so far his governance again, really unlike Trump’s, has remained within the bounds of democracy.

Roberto Saba: I agree with the last point. I mean I think that it’s too early to make very hard conclusions. But there are some signs that are very worrying. There are some decisions that have been made by Congress, at least two and I think it’s not going to be only two, that were vetoed by the president and I think that is something that could become more frequent in practice. It’s true that he has not made any concrete decision to censor free speech.

But the way he [incentivates] people from his group or his party to attack free press is worrying. The way in which by decree he decided to limit access to information that was regulated by law after a long time of discussions in Argentina in 2016 is worrying. So I agree, I mean it’s probably too early to say this is today a very authoritarian government, I agree. I mean we have to wait. But the signs are very worrying at least for me.

Alex Lovit: So as we’re talking about this question of whether Milei has authoritarian tendencies, does his ideological commitment to libertarian principles of small government mean that he won’t be able to develop authoritarian institutions? Is there less of a risk because he won’t build up a state capacity for repression?

Roberto Saba: It’s hard to say. I think that at least in this course the government is articulating a very heavy hand approach. For instance to the issue of crime it’s true at the same time that in order for a government in Argentina to be able to use the force in order to repress opposition it will need for instance the armed forces or the police. And because of the legacy of the times we lived under dictatorship, I think that that’s very improbable.

I’m not saying that it won’t happen, but it’s very improbable. I think that if the government at some point wants to use force for repression, I mean some people would say it’s already doing that. It’s true. I mean he, the government has been implementing some policies that have been very tough on protests already and I’m worried about that again. I mean that’s another sign. But the power of the military in Argentina for instance is very weak. I mean it has never been like this before.

So I’m not saying I’m not worried about that. It could happen. But we need to wait.

Steven Levitsky: I don’t think it’s Milei’s libertarian ideology that will constrain him so much as Argentine institutions and Argentine society. It is true that Milei is less likely to build up a really effective state or party apparatus the way that Viktor Orban has or the way that Erdogan in Turkey did or Chavez in Venezuela. He’s not interested really in governing. I think it’s pretty unlikely that he’ll build any kind of a [dissolent] party.

And so that will to some extent limit some of the damage that he can do or certainly limit his ability to consolidate power. But ultimately I think if you want to understand the limits to Milei they lie primarily in the external constraints. Argentine institutions aren’t the strongest on earth but many of them, including the ones that Roberto pointed to, are quite strong and it’s unlikely that Milei will be able to untether the military and politicize it and use it.

He is not likely to be able to build any kind of a societal consensus, or even a majority, behind an authoritarian project. I hope that I’m not naive in saying that. But I think it’s a taller hill to climb in Argentina than it was in, say, El Salvador Bukele.

Roberto Saba: I’ll also say, I mean, in part influenced by Steve’s work that it will depend a lot on what the other parties do. Milei became the president because a center right party decided to give him his support. And Steve when you speak about the gatekeepers and the responsibility of gatekeepers which is to maintain this kind of outsiders, radicalized outsiders at bay, I think that this is going to be the case in Argentina.

It’s a huge responsibility on the parties called pro of Macri’s government, the government before the last government, it would have a huge responsibility in terms of putting limits to this government. I will give you just one example. One of the main concerns that I have are related to the government attempt to pack the Supreme Court. There are two seats to be covered in the Supreme Court out of a five-member Supreme Court.

And at least one of the nominees is a person that has been resisted by everybody across the board because of his history, of his volatile corruption history. And the [unintelligible] insistent on nominating this person. And it was Macri and his party that said we will not support you in this one and probably because of that reason that nomination may not proceed.

So regarding your question, Alex, I think that the role for the other parties, parties that may be closer to some of the agenda of Milei are going to be crucial for putting limits on this government.

Alex Lovit: Well, I think that’s a good note to end on, which is a note of anxiety about the future of democracy in both Argentina and the United States, hope and the responsibility for actors in both of our countries to preserve democracy. Thank you both for your time and thank you both for this very enlightening conversation, Roberto Saba and Steven Levitsky.

Roberto Saba: Thank you, Alex.

Steven Levitsky: It was a pleasure.

Alex Lovit: The Context is a production of the Charles F. Kettering Foundation. I’m Alex Lovit, a senior program officer and historian with the Foundation. Kettering’s Director of Communications is Melinda Gilmore. George Drake, Jr., produced this episode. If you like the show leave us a rating or a review wherever you get your podcasts or mention us to a friend. We’ll be back in this feed in two weeks with another conversation about democracy.

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