The politics of Argentina take place in the framework of what the Constitution defines as a federal presidential representative democratic republic, where the President of Argentina is both head of state and head of government. Legislative power is vested in the two chambers of the Argentine National Congress. The judiciary is independent, as are the executive and the legislature. Elections take place regularly in a multi-party system.
In the 20th century, Argentina experienced significant political turmoil and democratic reversals. Argentina's first episode of democratization started with the 1912 Argentine legislative election and ended with the 1930 Argentine coup d'état. Between 1930 and 1976, the armed forces overthrew six governments in Argentina. Some historians see between military rule and periods of restricted democracy also periods of democracy (1946–1955, and 1973–1976), while other sources only consider the period 1963–1965 as barely meeting the standards of democratic transition.
Following the democratization that began in 1983, full-scale democracy in Argentina was reestablished. Argentina's democracy endured through the 2001–02 crisis and to the present day; it is regarded as more robust than both its pre-1983 predecessors and other democracies in Latin America.
National government The government structure of Argentina is a democracy; it contains the three branches of government.
Executive branch The current Chief of State and Head of Government is President Javier Milei.
Legislative branch
Legislative Branch is a bicameral Congress, which consists of the Senate (72 seats), presided by the vice-president, and the Chamber of Deputies (257 seats), currently presided by Martín Menem of the La Rioja Province. The General Auditing Office of the Nation and the Ombudsman are also part of this branch. Deputies serve for 4 years, while Senators serve for 6 years.
Judiciary branch The Judiciary Branch is composed of federal judges and others with different jurisdictions, and a Supreme Court with five judges, appointed by the President with approval of the Senate, who may be deposed by Congress.
Provincial and municipal governments
Argentina is divided into 23 Provinces, the equivalent of States, and one autonomous district, CABA, inside the Buenos Aires province. Because of Argentina's federal structure, every province has its own constitution, and authorities.
Each province, except for Buenos Aires Province, is divided into departments (departamentos), or districts, which are in turn divided into municipalities. The Buenos Aires Province is different, its territory is divided into 134 districts called partidos, not municipalities.
History Argentina's first government, autonomous from the Spanish Crown, can be traced back to May 1810 and the May Revolution, where an assembly of Argentines, called Primera Junta, took power. Because at the time it was difficult to find the right form of government, and even more difficult to consolidate a Republic, Argentina experimented with different forms of assembly, like juntas and triumvirates. The 9th of July 1816, half of Argentina's provinces signed a declaration of independence. The beginnings of Argentine state building were rough and many provinces refused to answer to a central government and sign the first constitution of 1826. In 1853, after several years of centralist power, a new constitution was passed, this one consolidated, almost fully, the Argentine Nation. Buenos Aires, still refused to be considered part of the country. After the Battle of Pavón in 1861, Buenos Aires set terms for its inclusion in the Constitution and the Republic of Argentina was born, with Bartolome Mitre as the President.
Argentina is an example where institutional instability was established after an initial period of historical contingencies. Some random insignificant historical event favors one set of institutions at the beginning. Organizations became dependent on the framework of current institutions and made further investments to profit, making it undesirably costly to switch to other types of institutions. This means that the other potentially better alternative will be unable to catch up later. Consequently, increasing returns gradually locks the economy (or political institutions) to an outcome that is not necessarily superior. People altered their expectations and stopped investing in the system as the country experienced decades of regime changes after the 1930s, seeing both rules and rule-making processes being repeatedly overturned.
Weakly enforced institutions are by design in some cases for domestic support. For example, anti-abortion was a punitive law in Argentina because many people recognize it as morally legitimate. The government put no resources into enforcing the rules, which allows the middle class to abort pregnancies in private clinics. On the other hand, strong enforcement might undermine the stability of regimes. Between 1930 and 1943, Argentine conservatives maintained power via fraud-ridden elections. After 1943, electoral rules were followed, leading to powerful actors repeatedly modifying the electoral institutions for their benefit.
Liberal state From 1852 until 1930 Argentina experienced liberal government with first oligarchic and then democratic tendencies. From 1852 to 1916 the government, run by the landowning elite, controlled the outcome of elections by committing fraud. This was contested by the rising middle-class and working-class sectors. This fueled the creation of more unions and political parties, including the Radical Civic Union (UCR), which represented the emergent middle-class, and the Socialist Party. In 1912, Law 8871, or the Sáenz Peña Law established universal, secret and obligatory male suffrage, which marked the middle classes entering the government, and displacing the landowning elite. UCR pressured the conservative government to implement the democratic reforms.
Welfare state Since the 1930s coups d'état have disrupted this democracy. After World War II and Juan Perón's presidency, recurring economic and institutional crises fostered the rise of military regimes. In 1930, the elected president Hipolito Yrigoyen was ousted by a right-wing led coup. In 1931 the new government held controlled elections and blocked the participation of Yrigoyen's party. This alleged elections gave way to the Concordancia, a three-party regime. They controlled the Argentine government, through fraud and rigged elections, until 1943. Several factors, including the deaths of the most prominent leaders and World War II, led to another coup that ended the Concordancia regime. This coup was led by the army, which supported the Axis powers, and modeled the new government after Italy's fascist regime. Among the military leaders was Juan Perón, who was in charge of the Secretariat of Labor and Social Welfare. He veered off the path set by the conservative army and set forth to improve the living and working conditions of workers, including giving Labor Unions support and governmental positions. He was jailed briefly, but after mass protests, he became president in the elections of 1946. His regime is known as a populist one, aided by the figure of his second wife, Eva Perón, or "Evita". Their regime produced economic growth and improvements on living and working conditions. It also passed female suffrage (1947), and nationalized the central bank, electricity and gas, urban transport, railroads, and the telephone. After the death of his wife, Perón started losing support. He was ousted in 1955 by another coup. Peronism lives on in Argentina. The next stage of the Social State was one characterized by both economic and political instability. Peron regained power in 1973, but died a year later. His third wife, Isabel, became president. She could not run the country and the military took power once again in 1976.
Neoliberal state Jorge Rafael Videla's dictatorship began in 1976 but fell into decline in 1982 after a defeat in the Falklands War (, 1982), and ended in 1983 with the democratic election of President Raúl Alfonsín of the Radical Civic Union party (UCR). Alfonsín faced significant challenges, including a military uprising, and resigned in 1989, six months before the end of his term, but the country was not in clear danger of becoming subject to a dictatorship again. Carlos Menem of the Justicialist Party (Peronist) served as president for ten years (1989-1999) and made a pact with Alfonsín in order to achieve a 1994 constitutional reform that would allow him to be re-elected. Following a neoliberal program, he ruled until 1999, and then Fernando de la Rúa of the Alianza, led by the UCR, won election. This was the first time that a Peronist president properly finished his term and passed on his charge to another democratically elected president.
De la Rúa mismanaged the 1998–2002 Argentine great depression and resigned on December 21, 2001, amid violent riots. Several short-lived interim presidents came and went until Congress chose Eduardo Duhalde of the Justicialist Party (Peronist) to rule until some sort of social and economic peace could be restored. Duhalde took care of the most critical matters and called for democratic elections, which Néstor Kirchner of the Justicialist Party won (in the first use of the ballotage system). Kirchner took office on 25 May 2003. He did not run for re-election and, in December 2007, his wife Cristina Fernández de Kirchner won the 2007 elections.
Anarchist Movements After gaining independence from Spain, Argentina faced tough questions about the direction to take their new nation state. Conservatives favored a pro agriculture society while liberals wanted to industrialize. Both parties only appealed to the small percentage of Argentine's with voting power. The vast majority of Argentine's could not vote in the 19th century because they did not own land, were not born in Argentina or were women. Thus the anarchist movement became popular amongst the non-elites and proposed reforms to the existing political structure.
Women in the Anarchist movement Women were among the largest group in the anarchist movement. Neither liberals or conservatives found much of a purpose for women in their society in roles other than homemakers. Soon women rejected this idea and proposed reforms that combined working class and feminist struggles into a movement. These women were critical of government because of Argentina's 1870 civil code.
Immigrants in the Anarchist movement In the early stages of their nation Argentina offered wealthy Europeans land in their country to more emulate Europe. Their particular targets were Germans who were protestant. However the most common groups of people the came to Argentina seeking land were poorer catholic Europeans from Italy and Spain. These immigrants could not vote and were discriminated against because Argentina did not have a separation of church and state yet. They quickly became anarchists and spoke out against the church.
Elections and voting
Elections Elections in Argentina have been regular since the reinstatement of democracy in 1983. Because it is a "federal" republic Argentina has national, provincial, municipal and Ciudad de Buenos Aires elections. For legislative positions elections are every two years, and for the executive power and governors every 4.
Apart from General elections and ballotage, Argentines also vote in PASO elections (primary, open, simultaneous, and obligatory elections). This is an instance before every type of election, to decide which candidates will participate in the general elections. Political parties must get at least 1,5% of valid votes to compete in general elections.