The present paper is a summary of a multi-stage research project on the foreign policy dimension of Argentina's political culture. It includes an incursion into the origins of Argentine territorial myths of national superiority, dogmas, and of chauvinistic self-perceptions. These myths, dogmas and perceptions have contributed to mould the Argentine public's view of the world and of what the country's foreign policy should be. The empirical material analyzed includes a survey of the nationalistic contents of Argentine geography texts from 1879 to 1986, and a survey of the nationalistic, militaristic and authoritarian contents of the official pedagogical doctrines for the primary school from 1990 to 1950.

Underlying this research is an attempt to link political culture to foreign policy, not in terms of a direct casual determinant, but as a factor that makes it possible for certain foreign policy alternatives to appear in a decision-maker's menu of choices. The point is clear when we consider that, for example, in 1982 an Argentine military government that was rapidly loosing what little domestic support it had left, became suddenly popular through the invasion of the Falkland islands, until its inevitable defeat at war. Though a certain bounded political rationality can be ascribed to this act of aggression on the side of the regime, the almost unanimous support it received in Argentina is more difficult to explain, especially if one considers that no economic motivation was ever invoked as a justification for the invasion or for the enthusiasm it generated.

My hypothesis is that a cultural factor was involved in this phenomenon, as an element that made it possible for such an invasion to be in the regime's menu of foreign policy choices. To make the point with a counterfactual example: Canada's political culture would make it impossible for a government to profit domestically from an invasion of the islands of St. Pierre et Miguelon (that have no better reasons for being French than the Falklands have for being British). Hence, the invasion of St. Pierre et Miguelon is not a foreign policy alternative open to a Canadian government, even in the unlikely case that a desperate regime were inclined to such a brinkmanship. Quite the opposite happened in Argentina vis-a-vis the Falklands, basically as a consequence of its political culture. This political culture was generated by decades of school indoctrination that is studied in this paper. It influenced foreign policy not only through territorial irredentism but also through inflated perceptions of Argentina and her position in the world. Culture did not bind decision-makers to certain choices, but culture made it possible for self-defeating choices to be in the menu.

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