ABSTRACT
Peronism was one of the first international populist phenomena which defined itself as such and became a paradigmatic example for later cases, in Latin America and beyond. The impact of Peronism on international public opinion has been incredibly strong since its first appearance. Born in 1895 in Buenos Aires, where he died in 1974, the young Juan Domingo Perón enrolled in the Argentine army as a cadet. From the initial months of his first government, Perón adopted actions dictated by a strong state-driven logic and aimed at the creation of a welfare state, unprecedented in Argentina. By sticking to the anti-secularist and anti-liberal tones of his electoral campaign, Perón promoted an efficient strategy of collaboration with the Argentine Church, with the only aim of controlling it through its justicialismo. In 1948, Perón made a constitutional reform, which represented a paradigmatic example of the dynamics of advanced institutionalization of a populist phenomenon.
