Chapter 3 surveys the literature on Argentina’s agrarian elites to show how interpretations of their power have evolved from viewing landowners as a dominant class in the early agro‑export and ISI periods to sharply opposed contemporary readings that see the sector as either politically weak or hegemonic under agribusiness. It contrasts comparative‑politics accounts, which emphasize producers’ limited instrumental power and inability to block high export taxes, with sociological approaches that highlight agribusiness dominance over the productive model, environmental regulation, and the 2008 conflict. The chapter argues that this polarization stems from different definitions of who counts as an agricultural actor, what forms of power matter, and which policy arenas are examined, and it sets up the book’s value‑chain, structurally oriented alternative that explicitly incorporates multinational traders and input suppliers and looks beyond export taxes.