ABSTRACT
This chapter examines the political and socioeconomic circumstances that led to the reemergence and gradual consolidation of liberal democracy in Argentina. It explores an interpretive analysis of the country's development throughout this century in order to highlight the causes of political instability and the rise of democracy in the 1980s. The chapter examines the main domestic and international factors that facilitated the current amalgamation of liberal democracy and neoliberal economic policies into a relatively stable political-economic configuration. It analyzes the evolution of the two constitutional administrations since the transition to democracy, focuses on the constellation of political forces, socioeconomic developments, and institutional arrangements that help to explain why and how Argentine liberal democracy has survived for more than ten years. The influential groups that benefited from these policies recognized that without adequate political underpinnings the free market model that they favored was doomed to fail.
