Argentina: Anatomy of a Crisis Foretold

Abstract

As 2002 came to an end, the Argentine economy seemed to have touched bottom after contracting more than 10 percent. But a robust recovery during 2003 will be blocked by many of the same forces that helped create Argentina's economic catastrophe: the hard-line stance of the IMF, the muddle that is Argentine politics, and a dispirited and politically disaffected populace.

Ambivalent consequences of social exclusion for real-existing democracy in Latin America: the example of the Argentine crisis

“…This view of Latin American neo-populism as being ambivalently connected to democratization and neo-liberalization, has been proposed by Roberts (1995) and Weyland (1996). 19 It is impossible to go into the details of the economic crisis here (Pastor and Wise 2001;Corrales 2002;Starr 2003;Teunissen and Akkerman 2003;Wolff 2003b). Suffice to say that with the spread of financial crises from Asia to Brazil and the devaluation of the Brazilian currency in 1998 the Argentine economy, with its currency fixed one-to-one to the US dollar (in as in any case unsustainable currency board system), came under intense pressure.…”