The "Strong Man" in Latin American Politics

The baron of personality has dim roots in Latin America. The conquistadors, men like Cortes and Pizarro, direct bands of hundreds to the conquest of empires whose subjects numbered in the millions. Cortes' action in burning his ships to veto all retreat after landing in Mexico is typic of the qualities of reckless personal drive that have shaped Latin Ameri faeces politics ever since. Likewise, the military actions of the leadership in the Latin American wars of independence from Spain have been compared to the headlong actions of gamblers, instead than the calculations of chess players (Johnson, 1964, p. 23).

Personality continues to be a dominant ingredient in Latin American politics. The collective leadership of the Sandinista governance in Nacaragua is very much the exception in the region. From Castro on the left to D'Aubuisson on the cover, political movements tend to be reflections of their leaders; in the case of D'Aubuisson, a charismatic dominant propose can remain dominant even when (due to the need to calm down the United States) he is excluded from the formal leadership of the movement he founded.

By no means is D'Aubuisson the extreme example of the force of personality. Juan Peron, though dead for over a decade and a half, continues to be a dominant political variant in Argentina. We must say Peron, non Peronism as a movement, because Peronism scantily exists as a movement in any clearly definable sense. It

The remainder of this information is divided into two main sections, followed by a skeleton conclusion. The first section presents a theoretical discussion of the " starchy man thesis" in Latin American politics. Latin America's history since the Spanish conquest is explored for insights into the historical, cultural, and psychological factors which have apt(p) rise to Latin American personalism. The second section explores the particularised instance of the "strong man thesis" presented by the rise, fall, restoration, and invariable impact of Peron on Argentina.

has no ideology; instead, right flank and leftwing Peronistas have battled one another to a greater extent than once.

Nor  though Peron's second wife ruled for a judgment of conviction in her own name after his death  can we speak of a Peron "dynasty." It is the remembered force of Peron's personality that lends the movement its proceed proponent.

Peron went into exile in Spain, yet Peronism representd on. But it did not live as a unified ideological movement, fragmenting instead into "rightwing" and "leftwing" elements  a fragmentation which continues to remember the Peronist movement. Some "leftwing Peronists" even spoke of "Peronism without Peron" (Snow, 1979, p. 23). It was not clear, however, just what this could mean, beyond populist and nationalist sentiment symbolized by the heroic image of Peron: "It would be difficult indeed to split up any basis for continuity within Peronism other than the figure of Peron himself" (Hodges, 1988, p. 150).

After the Spanish conquest, the native caciques were often maintained in a subordinate role, as "gobetweens" between the Spanish rulers and the rest of the native population. The power of the cacique over his sight was only enhanced by his recourse to the Spanish power structure on the one hand, and his partial ability to arbitrate with that structure on behalf of his subjects.

true that Peron's hold on his pursual  unlike that of

The cacique was more than simply a " chief;
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