Relative distances to the heart of things. The making of Peronist authority through the secret reports of the Special Affairs Division

Abstract

This article describes instances of the incessant work of creating, sustainingand transforming the bonds of authority in Peronism during its first decade. To do so, ittraces, through the secret reports of the delegates of the Special Affairs Division of thePress and Broadcasting Secretariat, changes of scale produced by the actors themselves forpractical purposes. At first, the article explores the importance of the scale adjustmentspromoted by the provincial Peronists in their trips to Buenos Aires and in their contactswith high government officials. In a second moment, it attends to the reflexivity of thedelegates of the SAD as articulators of scale to operate as mediators between the life ofthe places and the nation. In a third moment, it explores modes of “disobeying by obeying”that can be detected by disarming an idea of absolute scale and opposing a relative scale.The investigation shows how Peronists created, disputed and transformed the scaleson which action in progress should be located, producing at the same time a Peronist’authority that was more centralized and vertical as a consequence of these procedures.