Military dictatorship

A military dictatorship is a form of government in which a member of the military holds authoritarian control. In a junta, power is shared by several military leaders. It may be different from civilian dictatorship in a number of aspects: their motivations for seizing power, the institutions through which they organize their rule, and the ways in which they leave power. Often viewing itself as saving the nation from corrupt or myopic civilian politicians or from civil disorder, a military dictatorship justifies its position as "neutral" arbiters on the basis of their membership within the armed forces. For example, many juntas adopt titles, such as "National Redemption Council", "Committee of National Restoration", or "National Liberation Committee".

Civil-military dictatorship

The concept of civil military dictatorship was coined to describe the nature of the Uruguayan dictatorship (1973–85) (Spanish: Dictadura cívico-militar).

Historians Gabriel Salazar and Julio Pinto have stressed the hybrid nature of the Chilean military dictatorship (1973–90) and previous and later apparently non-military governments claiming that there is a continuation of civil and military cooperation that excludes the population from meaningful participation in the state affairs calling this a de facto civil-military dictatorship.

National Reorganization Process

The National Reorganization Process (Spanish: Proceso de Reorganización Nacional, often simply el Proceso, "the Process") was the name used by its leaders for the military dictatorship that ruled Argentina from 1976 to 1983. In Argentina it is often known simply as la última junta militar (the most recent military junta) or la última dictadura (the most recent dictatorship), because there have been several.

The Argentine military seized political power during the March 1976 coup, amid violent factional conflicts between supporters of recently deceased President Juan Domingo Perón. The junta continued the Dirty War. After losing the Falklands War to the United Kingdom in 1982, the junta faced mounting public opposition and finally relinquished power in 1983.

Background

The military has always been highly influential in Argentine politics, and Argentine history is laced with frequent and prolonged intervals of military rule. The popular Argentine leader, Juan Perón, three times President of Argentina, was a colonel in the army who first came to political power in the aftermath of a 1943 military coup. He advocated a new policy dubbed Justicialism, a nationalist policy which he claimed was a "third way," an alternative to both capitalism and communism. After being re-elected to the office of president by popular vote, Perón was deposed and exiled by the Revolución Libertadora in 1955.