Reality and model in the origins of the Argentine institutional configuration

Abstract

In view that the lack of institutionalization that characterizes contemporary Argentina could have their roots in a specific way of crafting the constitutive rules of the political system, this article analyzes the thought of Alberdi and, by way of contrast, of Sarmiento. The process of nation building, founded in symbolic images as that of the desert, implies a decision about the value of the past, of their current human resources and of a feasible vision of economic development. Although Alberdi’s theory is based on a historicist way of thinking, his decisions would imply the imposition of a pre-established model that would not respect the essential characteristics of the Argentine reality at its foundational stage.