Impacts of Former Military Dictatorships on the Female Presidents of Brazil and Argentina

• Main Author: Hall, Theodore
• Format: Others
• Published: Scholarship @ Claremont 2016
• Subjects: Argentina; Brazil; Cristina Kirchner; Dilma Rousseff; Media Law 25.552; Petrobras Scandal; Latin American Languages and Societies
• Online Access: http://scholarship.claremont.edu/cmc_theses/1234; http://scholarship.claremont.edu/cgi/viewcontent.cgi?article=2325&context=cmc_theses

In this paper I compare two female presidents in Latin America, Argentina’s Cristina Kirchner and Brazil’s Dilma Rousseff. Both have had major policy actions they have taken during their time in office that have meet with resistance from the elite members of society who were either happy under the military dictatorships that recently ruled that nations, or are unhappy that their Presidents are trying to change the way thing are. I look at two examples in particular, the first is Media Law 25.552 in Argentina which sought to break up the media conglomerates that held a monopoly on the media, the second, the scandal involving the state-run oil company of Brazil, and subsequent protests and how the elites are using those protests to call for President Rousseff’s resignation, due to their dislike of her social programs to help the poor. For both presidents, they face many difficulties in getting their legislation through and this paper examines the difficulties that exist due to the former military regimes in each nation.