ABSTRACT
This chapter analyses presidential debates in Argentina. After describing institutional characteristics of the Argentine political system and summarising the debating tradition in the country, the chapter focuses on the first and the second presidential debates. While the former took place only in 2015 as an initiative supported by the civil society, the latter was held in 2019, the fruit of a legal requirement.
Despite these differences, both kinds of debates had to consider candidates’ political and technical preferences regarding the format of the debate and the subjects to address. In addition, both debates captured the public’s attention and drew the usual criticism that (a) debates are too rigid, (b) they fail to disseminate valuable information because of their lack of concrete proposals, and (c) there are no real opponents but, rather, speakers addressing the audience unidirectionally.
