Portal de Periódicos da CAPES

El movimiento nacional-popular: Gino Germani y el Peronismo

2020; Duke University Press; Volume: 100; Issue: 1 Linguagem: Inglês

10.1215/00182168-7993397

1527-1900

Flavia Fiorucci,

Latin American socio-political dynamics

In the last few years, the academic interest in Argentina about the history of Peronism has not receded. The literature dedicated to this political phenomenon has incorporated new topics, questions, and methodologies. At the same time, the history of the social sciences in Argentina has emerged as a prolific area of research. The book under review, written by Samuel Amaral, can be related to these two scholarly undertakings but does not fully correspond to either. In El movimiento nacional-popular, Amaral studies in detail the different interpretations of Peronism given by sociologist Gino Germani over the course of his three-decade career. Germani, an Italian émigré in Argentina when Juan Perón rose to the presidency in 1946, is considered one of the founders of scientific sociology in Argentina. He had a central role in this discipline's institutionalization in the country. His early interpretations of Peronism's emergence have had a long-lasting influence in the academic discussions about the social origins of Peronism and have also been identified as having been used to legitimize the field of sociology in its early stages.Amaral's book deals with Germani's ideas, leaving out other aspects of his work and biography. The study is divided into nine chapters, a conclusion, and an appendix. In the first four chapters, the author chronologically investigates the process of crafting a new category to talk about Peronism. Amaral shows that Germani first referred to Peronism as a form of fascism, but dissatisfied with this categorization—he recognized too many differences between Peronism and fascism—he ended up creating the original category of popular nationalism. Amaral explores the diverse influences from which Germani drew inspiration. He points out that Germani's encounter with the ideas of Seymour Martin Lipset in 1956 helped him to hone his theory. In the fifth chapter Amaral studies the context of ideas amid which the Italian sociologist searched for new concepts to classify nondemocratic political orders. In the last three chapters Amaral investigates the evolution of Germani's approach. The author dedicates an important bulk of his investigation to pointing out the flaws of Germani's thesis and historical interpretations. Among other things, Amaral objects to Germani's imprecise employment of categories such as masses and class, his narrow reading of Argentine history, and his lack of attention to the figure of Perón. Amaral is very critical of Germani's use of the statistical data. Presenting the previous critics' arguments but also using his own analysis of the empirical data, Amaral challenges the viability of one of Germani's most important hypotheses: that Peronism was born from the support of new industrial migrants to metropolitan areas. Amaral's recently published Perón presidente: Las elecciones del 24 de febrero de 1946 (2018), the first volume of a titanic study of the electoral results countrywide in 1946, shows how those who voted for Perón do not match the picture proposed by Germani.One of El movimiento nacional-popular's most interesting aspects is to illuminate how some of Germani's most important questions about Peronism have remained practically unexplored, such as, for example, the causes for Peronism's long-lasting survival or the simple question of who voted for Perón across the country. The book also provides an original and thorough examination of Germani's influence on subsequent explanations of Peronism. The study is very detailed, and all of its arguments are backed with meticulous analysis. This is clearly one of the investigation's virtues but also one of its problems, as it is quite repetitive and too narrowly focused. Even though Amaral decided to concentrate only on the realm of ideas, the book's lack of dialogue with the studies that have investigated other aspects of Germani's work and biography limits its findings and readership. To what measure Germani's ideas about Peronism intersected with his positions on other topics, such as the scientific status of sociology or his changing position in the academic field, is a topic that the author chooses not to discuss.