The book’s epilogue provides a succinct theory of Hispanic Technocracy. Next, it reflects on the gap between the ways the Hispanic Technocrats narrated their ideology and what came to pass once they took office. Last, the epilogue touches on the issue of collective memory, that is, on how the book’s protagonists and their ideology are remembered today in Spain, Argentina, and Chile.

The chapter explores the attenuation of Hispanic technocracy as an ideology amid a combination of national crises and a global wave of democratic transitions. It addresses how the Hispanic technocrats sought to thwart their country’s democratization processes (Spain); to preside over them, thereby producing a democracy in name only (Chile); or to influence a new military regime to reuse their ideological formulas (Argentina). As such, the chapter dispels any existing historiography that credits the book’s protagonists with intentionally or inadvertently advancing their country’s democratization.

The chapter is concerned with 1950s Argentina and how its fascists sought to develop their own version of Hispanic technocracy to neutralize Juan Perón’s grip over politics, which translated into an inability to integrate Argentina’s economy into the global financial system. The chapter gives full attention to an association named the Ateneo de la República and its nexus with General Juan Carlos Onganía. The chapter also briefly examines the state model Onganía sought to enact once having taken power dictatorially and clarifies the nature of his relationship with Franco’s Spain.

The chapter focuses on how Chile’s conservatives rallied in opposition to the country’s popular mobilization of the 1960s. At its center is a group of authoritarian thinkers named the “Gremialistas.” Buoyed by the ICH and Opus Dei apparatuses, this group was responsible for devising an ideology akin to that of technocratic Spain and, subsequently, stood at the forefront of the opposition to Salvador Allende’s government. In turn, it served as the ideological backbone of Augusto Pinochet’s dictatorship, thereby defining its neoliberal economic model and constitutional frameworks.

The chapter discusses the transition of Franco’s Spain from a semi-autarchic fascist dictatorship to an authoritarian technocracy in the late 1950s, which was led by a Catholic society named Opus Dei. It was during this period that Spain underwent its so-called economic miracle. The chapter explores Opus Dei’s ideology, its symbiotic relationship with Franco, and how it operated in Latin America via soft power methods.

The introduction presents the book’s object (Hispanic-technocratic ideology) and subject (Latin American conservatives), and elaborates on key historiographic concepts, including fascism, post-fascism, corporatism, and neoliberalism. In turn, it discusses the book’s historical framework, namely the Cold War, and equips the reader with a straightforward theoretical toolkit for discussing the concepts of “ideology” and “mythology,” as well as their differences.

The chapter delves into the significant collaboration of Spanish, Argentine, and Chilean fascists and traditionalists in the 1950s, particularly within the confines of the Institute of Hispanic Culture. This collaboration, despite its ultimate failure, marked a critical transitional phase between interwar fascism and the technocratic ideologies of the 1960s, laying the mythological foundations and networks that would later shape the book’s protagonists.