Argentina 2024: Milei’s Successful and Unsettling First Year

Abstract

This article analyzes Argentina’s politics during the first full year in office of President Javier Milei, a right-wing populist outsider with scant experience and a mandate to reverse a disastrous macroeconomic legacy. It describes the composition of his administration, its political and institutional weakness, and the consequent key role of its (relatively high) level of public opinion approval. This public support –largely based on a sharply declining inflation rate– coupled with a delegative strategy (that he preferred over coalitional presidentialism) allowed Milei to advance a significant part of his liberalizing economic and hard-on-crime agendas. The main consequences for Argentina’s political system have been the disintegration of Juntos por el Cambio and the weakening of Peronism. The bi-coalitional equilibrium (2015-2023) gave way to a more fragmented, denationalized, and personalistic party system. Denationalization trends deepened: many parties govern at least one province, but the national ruling party governs none. At the same time, the party system is becoming more programmatic. Prospectively, the risk of presidential instability is considered higher than that of authoritarianism. The article ends reckoning that Milei’s presidency is likely to reinforce Argentina’s frustrating political economy pendulum, and that his otherwise peculiar administration continues the country’s long tradition of institutional weakness.