Looking for a New Identity in the Argentinean Army: The Image of the ‘Good Soldier’

Abstract

The military institution is a bureaucratic and hierarchical organization made up by officers trained for the defense of the national territory. From the 1930s to the early 1980s, the Argentinean case shows that the Army’s political participation and intervention have been an essential component of political life. It can also be affirmed that far from being a pressure group exercising its power sporadically, the armed forces can be considered as a power group that has intervened on a permanent basis (de Imaz 1977: 59). This participation, however, has not aligned its members under the same vision. Quite the opposite, it has proven the presence of serious internal divisions which supports the idea that the army can be considered as a political society with its tensions, divisions and re-groupings, its gradual ideological development and, of course, its affinities.