Abstract
The ‘Falklands Factor’ in the UK has a single, clearly defined meaning. It refers to the electoral advantage believed to have been given to Mrs Thatcher and to the Conservative Party by their response to the outbreak of war in the South Atlantic. There is no precise parallel to this in Argentina’s more overtly nationalistic politics. The islands have meant different things to different groups at different times and there is no evidence that they have, as a specific issue, had significant electoral consequences at the national level. The purpose of this chapter is to identify the significance of the issue at various times before and since 1982. It is not its purpose to discuss the history of the claims and counterclaims to sovereignty over the South Atlantic islands. These are reviewed by Peter Beck in Chapter 1 and have previously been analysed both by him and by the present author elsewhere.2 Here it is only necessary to recall that the origins of the Falklands/Malvinas issue, as seen by Argentina, by now have only a distant relation to the known historical facts. The assertion of sovereignty over the islands by Britain in 1833 certainly brought an immediate diplomatic protest from the government at Buenos Aires, but we can legitimately doubt if it remained for long a serious issue in Argentine politics, given that in 1838 the government of General Juan Manuel de Rosas opened negotiations to ask the United Kingdom to buy Argentina’s interest in the islands, an offer which unfortunately the British government of the day turned down.3
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Notes
Peter Beck, The Falkland Islands as an International Problem (London: Routledge; 1988); Peter Calvert,’ sovereignty and the Falklands Crisis’, The Falkland Islands Journal, 1987. For an excellent book-length discussion of the issues see Lowell S. Gustafson, The Sovereignty Dispute over the Falkland (Malvinas) Islands (New York: Oxford University Press, 1988).
Ruth Greenup and Leonard Greenup, Revolution before Breakfast: Argentina 1941–1946 (Chapel Hill: University of North Carolina Press, 1947, reprinted Westport, Conn.: Greenwood Press, 1974), pp. 150–1.)
Juan Domingo Perón, Perón. expounds his doctrine (Buenos Aires, 1948, reprinted by AMS Press, New York, 1973), p. 241.
Peter Calvert, The Falklands Crisis: the. Rights and the Wrongs (London: Pinter, 1982), p. 23.
George I. Blanksten, Perón’s Argentina (Chicago: University of Chicago Press, 1974), pp. 431–2.
Alberto A. Conil Paz and Gustavo E. Ferrari, Argentina’s Foreign Policy: 1930–1962 (Notre Dame, Ind.: University of Notre Dame Press, 1966), pp. 200–1.
Peter Calvert, Boundary Disputes in Latin America, (London: Institute for the Study of Conflict, 1983; Conflict Studies No. 146).
C.f. Michael Charlton, The Little Platoon: Diplomacy and the Falklands Dispute (Oxford: Blackwell 1989). p. 64.
Alejandro Dabat and Luis Lorenzano, Argentina: the Malvinas and the end of military rule (London; Verso, 1984), p. 92.
O.R. Cardoso, R. Kirschbaum and E. van der Kooy, Malvinas: La trama secreta (Buenos Aires; Sudamericana/Planeta, 1983), pp. 17.
Jimmy Burns, The land that lost its heroes; the Falklands, the post-war and Alfonsin (London; Bloomsbury, 1987), p. 49.
Carlos Escudé, La Argentina vs. las Grandes Potencias; el precio del desafio (Buenos Aires; Editorial de Belgrano, 1986); compare Alberto R. Coll,’ Philosophical and Legal Dimensions of the Use of Force in the Falklands War’, in Alberto R. Coll and Anthony C. Arend, The Falklands War: Lessons for Strategy, Diplomacy and International Law (London: Allen and Unwin, 1985), pp. 39–44.
Hugo E. Alvárez Natale, Beagle: de brujos y fantasmas a la decisión final (Buenos Aires; Ediciones Politeia, 1984).
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© 1992 Alex Danchev
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Calvert, P. (1992). The Malvinas as a Factor in Argentine Politics. In: Danchev, A. (eds) International Perspectives on the Falklands Conflict. Palgrave Macmillan, London. https://doi.org/10.1007/978-1-349-21932-2_3
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