Electoral Aspects of Peronism, 1946-1954

Although it is of importance for any understanding of the Peronist regime as a whole, little is known in detail about the social character of the popular support upon which the regime was based. This state of affairs is not as paradoxical as it might at first seem. In part it is a reflection of the fact that the continued political importance of the Peronist movement has meant that until recently the debate over Peronism has been polemical in nature and that opportunities for dispassionate analysis have been correspondingly restricted. For example, to apologists for Peronism, the popular support that it enjoyed is evidence merely that it represented a profound revolution in social and economic priorities which was fully understood and appreciated by the people themselves. To its detractors it is evidence of little more than the manipulation of the ignorant, corruption of the venal, and coercion of the educated. To both groups it has been a premise for further argument rather than an object worthy of study in its own right.