From decisionism to consensus? the politics of the second‐generation reforms in Argentina

This article focuses on the institutional and political constraints to the adoption and implementation of second‐generation economic reforms in democratizing countries, specifically Argentina. The principal hypothesis is that these reforms require a different set of political conditions from those that enabled the successful adoption and implementation of first generation economic reforms. Institutional constraints hamper the adoption of second‐generation reforms, due both to their intrinsic characteristics and the context of stability in which the attempts arise. This contrasts with first‐generation reforms, whose nature and the surrounding context of crisis allows governments to overcome the constraints to change by pursuing a decisionist strategy. The separation of powers and purposes embodied in the Argentine institutional structure increases the number of veto points through which a plethora of discordant voices is reproduced. Rather than facilitating consensus on change, the outcome is more likely to be stalemate or lengthy negotiations, in which actors ensure that their private interests prevail. The politics of labour and fiscal reforms in Argentina illustrate the argument. The study has implications for the stereotype of ‘delegative democracy’, of which Argentina is often said to be an example.