Argentina's name may mean "made of silver," but oftentimes its economy does not seem as strong as the name might suggest. With yearly inflation reaching almost 60 percent and the country mired in debt, policymakers are grasping for a solution without much success. Meanwhile, many Argentines follow the US-peso exchange rate religiously, yet seem to have little control over its fluctuations. Foreign investors anxiously watching October's general elections flee from the peso every time the leftist candidate surges in the polls, while the currency grows stronger when President Mauricio Macri's government gains support.

At this point, Argentina's economy is intertwined with non-state actors, beyond just foreign investors, and the quandary the country's leadership faces is this: how to balance their competing, often diametrically opposed interests. On one hand, international financial institutions such as the World Bank, the International Monetary Fund, and the Organization for Economic Cooperation and Development exert a significant amount of free-market pressure over Argentina's economic policy, yet Argentina's powerful trade unions also put pressure on the government from below to enact more socialist policies. Balancing these two interests will certainly be a tricky challenge, yet whatever happens will ultimately depend on the election results. Above all, Argentina's economic status reminds the world that, despite the proliferation of non-state actors, state actors still maintain key levels in enacting policies over their countries.