National Autonomist Party (PAN)

The National Autonomist Party (Partido Autonomista Nacional, PAN) completely dominated politics in Argentina from 1880 to 1916. Even though the opposition was not legally hindered from participating in elections, the PAN won all presidential elections and the great majority of congressional elections during those years. The PAN has been analyzed from various points of view. The Left has seen it as an oligarchic government whose social base was the landowning class (some writers include the business and finance classes as well) that obtained a monopoly on power by appropriating the coercive mechanisms of the national state that had been strengthened during these years. The PAN has also been seen as the inland provinces' political reaction to the traditional power of the province of Buenos Aires. In conquering the dominant province and its resources, however, the inland provinces soon came under the control of the national government once it had consolidated state resources and used them as instruments for controlling and disciplining provincial governments.

Subsequent interpretations, in keeping with political processes occurring within the party, tend to portray the party as a set of competitive and dynamic alliances to share national power. With no degree of internal organization whatsoever or any formal or informal agreements for choosing candidates for elected office (not even for the presidency), the party evolved a political practice of internal competition among those aspiring to national power. In this way, national politics was divided among a series of coalitions, which were continually being reformulated, with a constitution exclusively based on the struggle for power-thus family ties, party traditions, religion, or ideologies did not appear to be relevant at the time that support was needed. Instead, its leaders displayed great pragmatism toward politics and a negative view of political parties and politics itself. The PAN, understood as a set of competitive coalitions among different provincial and national leaders to generate support for presidential candidates, demonstrated great flexibility that would allow the party to adapt and survive for over three decades. But this flexibility was also at the core of its main weakness, because by not organizing or structuring itself internally, it was not able to form stable bonds on the local, provincial, or national levels or a defined strategy or ideology. This weakness allowed the opposition to triumph in the presidential elections for the first time in 1916, subsequent to 1912 when universal male suffrage became obligatory and the vote became secret, and the party did not know how to adapt to the new rules of play.

See alsoArgentina: The Nineteenth Century .

BIBLIOGRAPHY

Alonso, Paula. "La política y sus laberintos: El Partido Autonomista Nacional entre 1880 y 1886." In La vida política en la Argentina del siglo XIX: Armas, votos y voces, edited by Hilda Sábato and Alberto Lettieri, 277-292. Mexico and Buenos Aires: Fondo de Cultura Económica, 2003.

Botana, Natalio. El orden conservador: La política argentina entre 1880 y 1916. Buenos Aires: Editorial Sudamericana, 1977.

Rock, David. State Building and Political Movements in Argentina, 1860–1916. Stanford, CA: Stanford University Press, 2002.

Romero, José Luis. Las ideas políticas en Argentina. Buenos Aires: Fondo de Cultura Económica, 1975.

                                         Paula Alonso