As many newly-established democracies, Argentina tried to keep political violence in check, although violence was regarded, for a long time, as a normal component of political relations, and became systematic under the military regime. Actors competing for political power began considering each other as polite adversaries and no longer as absolute enemies. Democratic governments tried to « reconcile » perpetrators of the military repression and their victims. Nevertheless, this democratic process of violence regulation shows weaknesses: violence rose up again at the edges of the political arena, and hostility still rules the relations between the former tormentors and those who survived repression. Mothers and sons of the « disappeared » mobilizations shows that Argentinian democracy did not stamp out enmity.