POLITICAL SCIENCE IN ARGENTINA Arturo Fernández SAAP

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1 POLITICAL SCIENCE IN ARGENTINA Arturo Fernández SAAP The first part of my reflections is aimed to justify the continuity amongst the political thought, derived from social action, and its philosophical and scientific projections. The political thought has been related to ideologies since the beginnings of the modern era. It can be said that those representations of reality are linked to the social dynamics which generated capitalism; because of that the presence of the ideologies and their conditionings are unavoidable in social sciences activities, particularly in peripherical countries with problems of social integration. I. POLITICAL SCIENCE AND IDEOLOGIES 1. The political thought and its relationship with Political Science In the first place, the political thought is previous to Political Science; it is actually as old as the human beings reflecting about themselves, that is to say living in unequal societies where there are power structures. The ideologies have been inseparable of the evolution of political philosophy. Political Science appears as a consequence of the instrumentation of the scientific method in the studies about the different aspects of social reality and, therefore, it tries to reveal what really forms that reality. However, it cannot do without the political thought that nourishes it, or without philosophy. In the first place, the history of political and social ideas is an unavoidable object of analysis for a solid development of scientific knowledge. Then, the central problems that philosophy raises, even though they cannot be tackled with the methodology of Political Science, must be known, debated and perhaps analysed by their theoreticians. The philosophical field projects itself historically and thematically in the political theory; there is a hazy differentiation between some philosophical issues and the analytical proposals of a discipline such as Political Science Initially we will verify that scientific knowledge is not the only kind of human knowledge, and it can be defined as the progressive discovery of the objective laws which regulate nature and society. In this sense, science completes the sensorial and intuitive knowledge that any human being can reach when observing the surrounding phenomena. The scientific knowledge achieves a significant social relevance as far as it implies a certain degree of social control, and it has important economic and political effects. However, along thousands of years humankind history has advanced and made progress guided by pure sensorial knowledge and by intuitions such as survival. That is why it cannot be specifically stated that human evolution is subject only to the scientific knowledge development.

2 Nor can we argue that science is something new and exclusively from the past three centuries. In fact, it is the result of the search that human beings have been carrying out to unveil the laws of nature, in order to be able to control them and thus overcome the fears and calamities that stemmed from the blind dependence imposed by that unknown and, somehow, hostile nature. Without falling into an economic mechanism, we mean that knowledge emerges and develops as a combined result of the growth of the productive forces and social fights which promote that growth. History shows that science allows us to understand and improve the various technologies that affect production, and that this is both a cause and effect of profound social and political change, as happened with the scientific and technological revolution of the eighteenth century, expressed in the so-called "industrial revolution". Scientific knowledge is a social process by which reality is reflected in the human thought, its aim is to achieve an accurate reproduction of the objective reality, that is the "objective truth", and that this type of knowledge comes from the discovery of the laws which truly explain the observed phenomena, thanks to the use of the scientific method. Therefore, for the existence of scientific knowledge it is necessary to form a theoretical body that is related to a given object and has internal and external consistency. Obviously, the sciences that study nature (the matter and its forms of movement) were the first to be developed and the ones which have reached a higher degree of theoretical precision. There is no identity between the individual who observes reality and the subject studied by them, for that reason the political-ideological contamination is lower. In the same way, nature, even if it is in motion, is not determined by the immediate social history. As for the social sciences and psychology, they are studying the human being and must face the challenge of empirical comparison, from the unavoidable link between subject and object (the man who studies the social reality is immersed in it), its explanations are profoundly conditioned by the historical and social context and the ideological pressures. Method is the way to follow, in thought and practice, the necessary steps to develop a new theory or, at least, to verify a hypothesis derived from a pre-existing theory. In this sense, method is "the way" to go for scientists in order to investigate the facts. A theoretical paradigm is supported by a logically and structurally appropriate method to deploy it. This expresses interdependence between theory and the way to investigate the facts. There can be no method without a theory to lead it, but the theory needs the method for its construction and its further development. These general considerations are fully applicable to the social sciences, in which today there is a general agreement that the methods can neither substitute the theory nor do without it, and that they can not be replaced by techniques or the absence of them.

3 However, in the natural sciences the theoretical - methodological paradigms occur over the time, as far as one of them shows to be more understanding and explaining than the historically earlier paradigm. In social sciences there are several methods, each of them referring to a particular social theory and favouring certain investigative techniques at the expense of others. The plurality of theoretical-methodological does not complement but offers explanatory contradictory visions of the studied social subject. This diversity is true, at least, for two reasons closely linked to each other: a) The verification of social theories is ultimately developed through the empirical observation of them and it is entrusted to history. This is the development of the main theoretical - methodological paradigms. There are also middle-range theories about social phenomena limited in time that could escape this general assertion. In this sense, the social theories themselves are five or six major theoretical - methodological paradigms that lost credibility after the technological revolution that the world is living. b) The global social and explanatory theories can be classified among those which justify the existing society and try to perpetuate it through "adjustment" methodologies; and those which propose to reform the existing social order and seek to transform it through "rupture" methodologies. This division or tearing of the social theory seems to correspond to the basic social division that historically exists in every kind of human community: a dominant and satisfied class and a dominated and unsatisfied class. Therefore, the analysis of the scientific validity of the social study methodologies leads to the evaluation of the theoretical project. Similarly, the relevance in the application of certain techniques should be judged on the basis of the theoretical - methodological paradigm that is being deployed in a particular social research. It seems unrealistic to claim a theoretical - methodological overcoming of the current conflict in social sciences, in the presence of a world split up into satisfied ruling elites and unsatisfied dominated social classes, ethnic groups and nations. For these reasons, I conclude that Political Science, as a part of the universe of social sciences, is conditioned by the ideologies that inspire various theoretical - methodological approaches tending to maintain or to change the present order. Moreover, studies about the power and the State are necessarily very sensitive to the existence of the ideologies they are based on, as it results from the analysis of the history of modern and contemporary political thought. 2. The concept of ideologies that have influenced over the evolution of Political Science I tend to conceptualize ideology as an ideological process, describing it in relation to the mechanisms of genesis of the phenomenon under study. Accordingly, I can state the following concept of ideology: it is a process that appears as a series of collective

4 representations and a system of collective performances whose main aspects are directly related to the economic and political structures. This concept implies: a) that ideology is a social entity, in which the appearance -representations and ideological attitudes- is related to the economic and the political issues; therefore, what should be of concern to specialists in the subject is to untangle that relationship, much more than the individual thought; b) that the ideological structure is in a dynamic interrelationship with the economic and political structures. Therefore, I will talk about ideological process as an appropriate word to define ideology, meaning that it is in a permanent state of exchange with the social context; c) that the practice or the ideological process is the transformation - which is operated in the social consciousness- of the economic and political practice. Those economic and political realities, which have their primary function on the work process and the social organization, are combined in the different discourses and particularly in the political one. Once clarified the meaning given to the word ideology, I will present the main ideologies that grew in the nineteenth and twentieth centuries and have conditioned Political Science. 3. The political ideologies in Argentina The political ideologies in Argentina, as in Latin America, are partly the expression of the growing integration of the area to the world market and the development of the capitalist production mode to the inside of each country. In this sense, they are the result of the conflict capital-work, with the typical imbalances of an economic development subsequent to the centre of the system and depending on the same. On the other hand, those ideologies reflect the national issue, as in the rest of the contemporary world. But "nation" in Latin America is an entity arising from the anticolonial struggle (against Spain, Portugal, France ) and then subjected to the subtlest but not less humiliating neo-colonial domination, mainly economic. From this dependent "nation", looted and sometimes humiliated, comes an anti-imperialist nationalism typical of the so-called Third World, which also develops in Asia and Africa, with particular strength after a) As a consequence of the capitalist development, the political ideologies in Latin America reproduce the great contemporary tendencies: the evolution of liberalism, the changes of labour ideologies (anarchism, marxism, social democracy ) and the emergence of fascism and social christian positions, derived from European social conflicts. b) The national and popular ideologies to which we are going to refer to, arise as a nationalist reaction against underdevelopment in the region. It was particularly strong in

5 Argentina around the specific growth, fall and everlasting peronist political organisation but it was not an isolated case. Virtually every one of the Latin American countries ( the main exception is Uruguay ) had national and popular movements emerging between 1920 and 1950 as a response to the complex social economic and political crisis of the world capitalist system, which disrupted the agricultural-miner-exporting model imposed by the liberal elites at the end of the past century. For that reason, these ideologies are characterized by the following features: -they express the interests of the social sectors which are not agricultural-minerexporters; for example, the bourgeoisie, the middle classes and the working class, gathered in an alliance of classes that was not exempt from conflict; they had industrialist projects to achieve the modernisation of so different countries. -they form an internal political structure in which the charismatic figure of the founding nationalist leader prevails; -they propose non-alignment and struggle against the dominant countries, particularly those which develop the economical neo-colonialism of the past century. So far, there are features which are common to the national and popular ideologies, but their expressions are extremely varied and changing in each country in which they have developed, because this kind of ideology tries to adequate with great elasticity to the socio-historical environment. Thus, it prefers to talk about national and popular "ideologies", as many as the countries that have gone through this political-ideological experience. It should be emphasized that the major Latin American masses began to participate democratically in the political life of their countries through the movements and parties that embraced the popular nationalism; they were based on large social coalition overtaking.. From this non-exhaustive list of "ideological-political forms" we can understand that they were numerous and rich and have influenced regional and national Political Science. In Argentina s case, there were three periods of great influence of political thought linked to different ideologies: - between 1830 and 1900 liberal ideologues became political leaders and created the social elite that constructed a successful modern country at the end of 19 th century -between 1900 and 1945 academic lawyers and philosophers develop the basis of political

6 knowledge with democratic and pluralistic concepts derived from the construction of the liberal State in Nevertheless these concepts were losing connection with reality after the world economical and political crisis of On the other hand, the society was impregnated by various political and ideological streams that discussed the major national and social issues, largely derived from the triumph of conservatism inside the dominant elite that was strange to the majority interests. In this elite, the heirs of the Generation of 1880 organizers of the national State had swept aside the sectors that were more sensitive to the growing social demands. - The irruption of peronist movement and national popular ideology led to a major divorce between an ideological thought which addressed the essential issues of political life during sixty years and the production of an isolated intellectual production in universities, where the nationalist or socialist figures who could raise their objections to the social elites were very few. Academic Political Science begins strongly linked to Sociology that is developed after 1958; it was an excellent period of intellectual creation but peronist reality was not explained correctly nor accepted until 1970, This would come to a growing estrangement between the influential political leadership (including the military one) and the field of scientific thought. It is true that political action transcends the analysis of any branch of Social Sciences, but a split as the one described weakens the social and political actors and discredits the academic activity. These problems are not solved yet in Argentina. II. TOWARDS THE CONSOLIDATION OF POLITICAL SCIENCE AS A DISCIPLINE AND AS A PROFESSION IN ARGENTINA The consolidation of Political Science as a discipline and as a profession began slowly with the difficult transition to democracy which started in Without a political democracy, there is hardly any capacity of development in social sciences; and this especially happens in the case of Political Science. For instance, in dictatorships it is not possible to carry out socio-political surveys, whether because the State bans or controls them, or because the people are afraid to answer what they really think and believe. With regard to the advances that began to consolidate Political Science, we enumerate the main facts: 1. The contribution to the adaptation of the theory of democracy during the transition after the military dictatorship. It is possible to mention that this contribution was mainly made by Argentinean political analysts who remained in the country and others who had to emigrate to Mexico. This theoretical frame had limitations which, twenty years later, arise with clarity; but it meant an approach between the academic production and the world of politics, after many decades of more or less distance. 2. The international and soon national recognition of Guillermo O Donnell s work. With him Argentinean Political Science entered in the academic world. It derived, in the first place, from his accurate definition of bureaucratic-authoritarian State, which has been

7 accepted as a precise description of the military dictatorships during the seventies in Latin America and other regions. Moreover, that concept had been elaborated at the beginning of those years; if it had been taken into account by significant social and political actors, it would have modified behaviours and it might have saved a lot of suffering. On the other hand, O Donnell moved to Brazil in 1980 and then travelled to the United States in Once there, he went on researching on the subjects of the transition of authoritarianism to democracy and democracy itself. He was named president of the International Political Science Association (IPSA) and this fact smoothed the way, so that Buenos Aires could be the host of its Fifteen Worldwide Congress. Later, his works became compulsory formation texts in almost all of the Political Science courses in Argentina. 3. The teaching-learning of Political Science has been gradually extending and improving. New degree careers were created in twenty public and private universities after 1983, so that there were forty of them by the end of Among them we can mention the career that started up at the University of Buenos Aires in 1986 with students. On the other hand, almost thirty post-degrees (masters and doctorates) started to work permanently or for terms. They include specialties of the discipline: Political Science, International Relations and Public Administration. The former degree careers made efforts to update their curricula and train their teaching staff. It first happened in Rosario and Mendoza and so far it has become a generalized concern, stimulated by the institution of a national system of university evaluation, regulated by the State. Finally, a noticeable polarization is being registered in some very expensive private universities whose professors are very well paid... and the other universities. Regretfully, the effect of this phenomenon does not imply a healthy academic competition, as regards to the level of their programs of degree and post-degree. 4. The presence of political analysts has increased, not only in public positions but also in the private area. Not all of the graduates are working in activities related to their discipline, but there is a higher social recognition of this profession. Likewise, there are more political analysts working in politics. 5. The Argentinean Society of Political Analysis (Sociedad Argentina de Análisis Político SAAP) was created in 1982 because the former Argentinean Association of Political Science had decreased. Until 1985, both institutions coexisted under the recognition of IPSA, but then the latter ceased definitely. The SAAP has organised the 1991 World Congress in Buenos Aires and eight National Congresses twice a year since 1993; it has approximately four hundred individual associated members. In 2000, an Argentinean Association of Public Administrators was created as well. This tends to reinforce the reach and profile of the profession as an academic discipline.

8 In 1999 it was created an Argentinean Association of Public Administration s Studies that organised National Congresses twice a year since International Relations has an increasing and number of students and scholars but it has not developed a separated Association. 6. Although the majority political parties and other social actors do not resort to the academic support and there is still a substantial difference between the speech and the practice, the policy-makers and the social scientists respective positions have approached. Many political analysts are requested to give their opinions in debates about issues of national interest. It does not mean that their opinions are listened to... On the other hand, the crisis in politicians credibility and the multiplication of groups of young people interested in the public issues leads to foresee very different scenery from that in the twentieth century. Part of that scenery is the amount of excluded people in Argentina today, which leads to the conformation of a dual society. To face this situation, the political actors and the political studies are contributing with few solutions. Actually, in the past few years they can only warn about the serious consequences of this social reality, which jeopardizes the achievements of democratic coexistence in the past decade. 7. More than 100 political researchers and analysts started working for public and private universities after 1983; therefore, about forty of them integrate a scientific sub-area formally recognized in the National Scientific Council. This fact has increased the amount of researchers, as well as the system of economic incentive for the teaching career. Giving an opinion about the quality of this considerable number of new contributions and production of knowledge would be hasty. There is a tendency to work in a team and to make an important number of publications to accomplish the requirements of the different systems of evaluation. Contradictorily, the pay that researchers get for their job, especially the youngest ones, is under their expectations, to such extent that the possibility of replacement for the generation that has to retire in the following years is uncertain. The same problem is faced by the teaching staff researchers who work for public and private universities, a major number of internal and external scholarship holders and doctorates, all of whom constitute a critical mass, formed in less than twenty years with mainly public resources. 8. Since 1983, more than five theoretical lines have been developed; they reproduce, more or less originally, those generated in the United States, Europe and other countries in the region: (a) the neo-institutionalism finds in the case of Argentina a State with serious deficiencies which gives a fertile land to verify its fundamental hypotheses (Mario Serrafero); (b) the comparative perspective has outlined a new matrix of relationship between the society and the State, having assumed the aim of the Statecentric model and the appearance of an increasing role of societies and the sub-national realities (Marcelo Cavarozzi); (c) the theory of the democratic transition has been centered in the difficulties for the consolidation of the process in Argentina and the forms

9 to strengthen it through social mechanisms like the governmental audits (Guillermo O Donnell); (d) the approach of the rational choice has outlined diverse attempts to understand the complex relationship between economic and political actors in countries like Argentina (Carlos Acuña); (e) the concept of Populism has been recovered as a way to make politics for low sectors, before the difficulties of a classist explanation (Ernesto Laclau); (f) the neo-marxists critical approaches (Atilio Borón) has been developed in Latin America Social Sciences Council (CLACSO). This diversity is accompanied by the phenomenon of the separated tables that Gabriel Almond described, characterized by little theoretical debate between the scholars or the students that take different positions. 9. There are important areas of vacancy in Political Science research that can be identified: a) the research of Comparative Politics has not enough development; b) There is not relevant research on Political Psycology c) Thematically, we need to foster interdisciplinary studies which can give an account of the complexity of the present political phenomena, to accumulate resources in political theory and to inform about the sub-national matters (researches about local issues ) and supra-national issues (analysis of regional integration processes). b) Institutionally, the absence of an academic institution for the political scientists -willing to carry out a permanent reciprocal and loyal criticism of their production- to meet, and therefore, the necessity to generate new places of encounter and political discussion forums of interest for the best specialists. Likewise, more institutional centres should be created in order to guarantee the generation of independent knowledge and to recruit young researchers who are now in their formation process or have recently graduated from different national and foreign institutions of remarkable excellence. Where is going Argentina? was the main theme of 8 th National Congress of Political Science (Buenos Aires, November 2007). This open question implicates the development of our discipline and its future.

10 As regards the transference of results in Political Science, the research in the discipline could be helpful for politicians, civil servants and social leaders. In addition to the institutional strengthening, in the present circumstances the State reform and the design of a foreign policy are the areas which would require more specific inputs from Political Science. The exercise of public opinion surveys and polls was solid; this multidisciplinary though closely linked to Political Science- activity has become a potential source of work for political scientists and other social scientists. Edgardo Catterberg (who passed away very young) and Enrique Zouleta Pouceiro were political scientists who formed prestigious consulting groups in public opinion. They have also been organized by well-known sociologists such as Miguel Mora y Araujo, Julio Aurelio, María Braun, Graciela Rohmer, etc. The increasing quality of their services has generalized the use of surveys by most of the social and political actors; and, on the other hand, some of these pollsters are frequently asked by the mass media and the private companies. The ideological spokesmen who criticized the dependent liberal State in the twentieth century are still believable as far as Argentina does not solve its basic social problems. Their alternative proposals have failed, whether because they did not reach the power or because they were not able to change the underdevelopment and dependence structures. Today those criticizing ideological speeches or new proposals of change are listened to less enthusiastically. The Political Science environment and that of the general academic world can not and must not repeat the mistakes of the past: to misunderstand our own reality and to study issues that are strange to the deep social problems in our national essence. Every social scientist should have in mind that Raúl Scalabrini Ortiz or Arturo Jauretche understood the social needs of their time quite better than their colleagues from the academic world; they both acted accordingly at the time of giving solutions. It should not happen again in the twenty-first century crossroads, which are different from those in the past but always lead to the right of every human being to live in a free and fair society. Therefore, there was not and there will not be a neutral or objective Political Science; the power and its forms are studied to criticize their abuses and to make changes or, otherwise, they can be justified and falsified. This alternative is an old option that every political scientist or group of scientists have practised and will have to continue doing so.