The Civic-Military Coup of 24 March 1976 as a Turning Point in Argentina's Contemporary History

This article introduces a special issue marking the fiftieth anniversary of Argentina's 24 March 1976 coup, which inaugurated a brutal civic-military dictatorship and a program to reshape the state, economy, and society. Situating the coup within Argentina's long history of cycles of authoritarianism and democracy, escalating political violence, and regional patterns of military intervention, the special issue highlights both continuities and ruptures. The last dictatorship was exceptional in its systematic repression and state terrorism, as well as in its ambitious economic neoliberalization. Bringing together contributions from political, social, economic, and transnational history, this special issue contributes to the historiography on the interaction between domestic struggles and global forces: the regime's evolving relationship with Washington, the role of international financial institutions, the activism of exiles and human rights organizations, and the Cold War in Latin America. It revisits the dictatorship's ideological foundations, institutional reforms, social transformations, and strategies of international legitimization, while tracing the emergence of resistance and the eventual transition to democracy. Together, the essays underscore the long-term legacies of the dictatorship, including persistent tensions in civil–military relations, debates over memory and justice, and the question of the link between authoritarianism and neoliberalism.