State, Economic Development and New Provinces

The Failure of a State Plan for the Southern Argentina: the Northern Patagonia Corporation (1957-1958)

Abstract

In 1957 and during the military government w as established the northern Patagonia Corporation, an agency w ith broad pow ers and aimed at promoting the economic grow th of the south. In the gestation of the Corporation participated the General Directorate of Military manufactures and the federal auditors in the provinces of Neuquén, Rio Negro, and Chubut. The signing of the treaty has aroused criticism in the conventional gathered in the south, an attitude that w as replicated at the beginning of the constitutional government in 1958 and that meant the annulment of the treaty by the national Congress and the legislatures. The arguments w ere discharged in counterpoint the official intention of mining development w ith the organization given to the corporation that w as considered defenseless of the provincial autonomies and violating the sovereignty provincial.The creation of a corporation designed to manage natural resources in much of the south, w hich has its ow n authorities and a territorially bounded jurisdiction, may be included in development plans designed for the south during the phase state agency. But the partial breach thereof w hich referred to a State little committed to the needs of the south, joined the w arnings related to the timing of Northern Patagónica`s Corporation creation during military rule, the broad pow ers granted to it, the opening given to foreign capital and fear of an administrative structure installation that overlap w ith provincialauthorities and prove a source of conflict, formed arguments that w ere agreed by the arc national leader that caused the annulment of the treaty.