PERONISTAS AND NEW DEALERS

This work employs a corporatist analytical framework meshed with a comparative approach to examine inter-American relations during the early years of the Cold War. The emergence of Juan and Eva Peron in Argentina provoked a major ideological crisisas Argentina briefly emerged as a rival to U.S. leadership in the Western Hemisphere at the end of World War II. As U.S. leaders were rising to meet the threat of communism in Europe and Asia, in South America, it was peronismo that offered the mostformidable challenge to U.S. hegemony until 1950. By advocating a statist brand of corporatism reminiscent of European fascism and utilizing a populistic appeal similar to that of communism, Peron threatened U.S. efforts to disseminate liberal capitalism, multilateral trade and Anglo-Saxon democracy through its "Inter-American System." The resulting clash was one in which the Truman Administration, recognizing that it could not oppose Peron directly, worked quietly to derail the Peronist experiment without engaging in potentially counterproductive open intervention into Argentine domestic affairs. More than a struggle between two nations, this contest pitted the visions of the New Dealer