This article examines decentralized government initiatives that social democrats faced at the municipal level in Argentina during the period known as "semi-democracy" (1958-1966). In order to analyze this situation, we consider as particularly suggestive some warnings regarding the necessary revision of the tendency in favor of decentralization and conviction about the virtues of civil society that guided argentine historiography during the democratic transition. In this regard we want to investigate the tensions associated with these decentralized initiatives, that expressed new forms of popular participation while at the same time they stressed rationalization and efficiency as central principles to guide government action. Between production and reception of these proposals became evident the coexistence between a progressive face and a neoconservative one in Social- Democrats´s historical course.