Great Britain versus Argentina. A contribution to the economic and political context of the Falkland war in the 80s of the 20th century

Abstract The author's bachelor thesis analyses the effects and extent of the impact of the Falklands War on the government and the popularity of Prime Minister Margaret Thatcher in the United Kingdom. The main focus of the study is whether Britain's victory in the war was one of the main factors that helped the Conservative Party win the 1983 general elections. These elections kept Thatcher as Prime Minister for another term. During this term, she thoroughly established a departure from the previous form of the 'welfare state' with a reduction in the power of trade unions, large-scale privatisation and general liberalisation of the state and economic policy that has gone down in history as Thatcherism. The analysis results confirmed that the British victory in the Falklands War raised the popularity levels of both Prime Minister Thatcher and the Conservative Party. The Falklands War was probably not the main reason for the Conservative Party's victory in the 1983 elections, but it was the main reason for its overall success. The thesis demonstrates that the war, often described as 'unnecessary', had far-reaching effects on Argentina, where the military regime collapsed in defeat, as well as on Britain, which undertook a path of economic, social and foreign policy based on liberalism and traditional values as we know them today.