Resumen
The growing scholarship on policy change in Latin America has not yet studied the cases of economic change the region has experienced in the previous decades. This is the gap this article seeks to address, while focusing on the Argentinean case. It will study the different moments of change in economic policy that took place between the last military dictatorship and the government of Néstor Kirchner, including the governments of Raúl Alfonsín and Carlos Ménem. The focus will be on trade policies and their instruments. We contend that these changes happen following a pattern of punctuated equilibrium. However, the theory that fits best with the economic policy changes in Argentina is Multiple Streams Theory. The role of the policy entrepreneurs and the policy windows created by the successive economic crises constitute key elements to explain the fit between the significant shifts in economic policy during the last decades in Argentina and Multiple Streams theory.