Catterberg updated: changes and continuities in Argentine political culture 40 years after the restoration of democracy

Abstract

What was the state of public opinion in the context of democratic recovery? What were the predominant imaginings around the political system and the power actors in the context of the transition to democracy? What social expectations governed after the authoritarian collapse? In a context of profound political and social realignments, Edgardo Catterberg (1989) offers a precise cartography of the political culture of Argentines in the context of democratic opening. Now, what changes and continuities are there in Argentine political culture 40 years after the democratic recovery? What answers do the questions raised above have today? To do so, we return to the specialized literature on the subject to detect continuities and ruptures with the present. We contrast the findings of these studies with different public opinion reports: the Social Beliefs Program of the Pulsar UBA Observatory, Latinobarómetro and the Barómetro de las Américas of LAPOP/Vanderbilt University.