Civil-Military Relations and Argentine Democracy: The Armed Forces under the Menem Government

Abstract

The past decade marks a watershed in Argentine civil-military relations. The country, an almost classic case of twentieth-century praetorianism, now has an historic opportunity to assert civilian control over the armed forces. This improvement in the prospects for civilian control of the armed forces may not be evident at first since the accession of the current president, Carlos Menem (1989-) was marked by an apparently dramatic retreat in the government's relations with the armed forces. While Menem's predecessor, Raul Alfonsin (1983-1989), pursued a policy which included prosecution of military human rights violators, Menem made an abrupt about-face. He granted a general pardon to those same military officers. However, this trade-off has given the government the freedom to assert a degree of civilian control over the armed forces hitherto lacking in range of important military policies in which the previous government had been largely stalemated by armed forces resistance. The threat of substantial political intervention by the armed forces is now on the wane.