Between a Populist Rock and a Neoliberal Place: Argentina in Crisis at the Turn of the Century

Abstract

This thesis seeks to examine the political and economic dynamics that culminated in and emerged from the Argentine Great Depression (1998-2002) to analyze the extent to which Néstor Kirchner’s administrated a “left turn.” In the wake of Latin America’s lost decade, Carlos Menem endeavored on a project that blended populist political mechanisms with an orthodox neoliberal project in the 1990s. From this project arose a deep economic and political crisis at the turn of the century. Néstor Kirchner’s heterodox project emerged in the context of the post-crisis Pink Tide. While it constituted a leftward shift, continuities from Menem to Kirchner demonstrate that it also maintained the neoliberal foundation of the economy.