Official statistics, planning and developmentalism in Argentina (1955-1970)

This article studies the statistical bureaucracy as a gateway to the internal tensions and the different temporalities that characterized the building process of the developmental state in Argentina. Firstly, the paper analyzes the consolidation of a statistical regime between 1955 and 1970. It reviews the statistical practices, the structure and orientation of the agency in charge of producing official figures, the composition of its human resources, as well as the ties established with the academic field. The aim of this paper is to explore the hierarchies between bureaucratic agencies within the developmental state, focusing on the links and tensions between the agency traditionally responsible for producing official statistics and the formation of a state technical elite in the developmental state.The research combined techniques of documentary analysis, the tracing of biographical trajectories and interviews. Various sources were used, such as bulletins and statistical yearbooks, ministerial reports, legislation, annals of scientific societies, articles of academic journals and other more popular magazines. From its exploration, we conclude that, in the course of the 1960s, statistics became a specialized knowledge demanded by politicians and technical elites, and at the same time a constitutive knowledge of the developmental state.