More than forty years have passed since the democratic recovery The initial enthusiasm seems to be fading. According to Latinobarómetro 2023, 18% of the Argentine population would prefer an authoritarian regime, five percent more than in 2020, and 15% are not interested in the political regime in which they live. The Americas Barometer (LAPOP) confirms this trend: Democratic support has fallen 22% since 2008. It seems that democracy is slowly eroding.
What is perceived is the system’s inability to do this deliver tangible resultss, which has become his greatest weakness. In Argentina, democracy guarantees rights but not effectiveness. It ensures free elections but not sustainable public policies.
Democracy has been sought since 1983 dismantle the authoritarian bureaucratic state of the dictatorshipTo. However, another distortion became entrenched in this process: the co-optation of the state by the ruling parties. What was born as democratization ultimately led to patrimonialization in the spirit of Max Weber. Every government – some more, some less – He staffed the public apparatus with his own militants or relatives, most of the time without evaluating their merits.
The result was an oversized and unprofessional state in which institutional endogamy, lack of competition and clientelism became normal practice.
This dynamic can be observed in the nation state and especially in the provincial and municipal states, where the state became the main source of employment and power. The result is large, expensive and inefficient states that ultimately weaken the democratic faith they were supposed to uphold.
And when a state is gripped by partisanship and acts only for its own benefit, the demand to shrink it ceases to be ideological and becomes transversal. Citizens do not reject democracy or the state, but they reject the way both are administered.
That is why the adaptation promoted by Milei finds support. It is true that it has focused on the national level, while the provincial and municipal structures – where much of public spending and state employment is concentrated – remain virtually intact. The political-administrative hypertrophy of Argentine federalism is the root of state inefficiency; This is where clientelistic practices are most continuous and consistent.
Norberto Bobbio claimed that the Achilles heel of any modern democracy is its effectiveness. He was right. Argentine democracy has not lost its legitimacy: Lost credibility due to ineffectiveness And that loss was not a product of authoritarianism but of his own poor performance.
In order to reopen the debate about the effectiveness of democracy, the size, role and professionalization of the state must be reconsidered. Break institutional endogamy and rebuild trust through results. The discussion is not between a large or a small state, but between an effective state and a useless state.
Argentine democracy is in danger not, as in the past, because of the possibility of a coup, but rather because of the indifference caused by its inefficiency. Their crisis is not one of legitimacy but of performance. Unless it proves again that it serves to improve people’s lives, it will continue to exist, but as an empty form, borne more by habit than conviction.
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