After Neoliberalism in Argentina: Reasserting Nationalism in an Open Economy

Abstract

Argentina’s economic collapse in December 2001 is seen as perhaps the most emblematic evidence of the failure of neoliberalism to provide sustainable and equitable economic growth in the developing world. That crisis, however, provided a turning point out of which an alternative project of political and economic governance has developed. The search for post-crisis governance has meant a new and more dynamic role for the state in the pursuit of growth and social stability in the context of a model that I term “open-economy nationalism.” It is built on the basis of a new nationalist rhetoric that recalls the welfare state and the import substitution era of the 1940s yet remains committed in important respects to open markets and export-led growth.