In his 2002 doctoral dissertation at Ohio State University, Lawrence D. Bell writes that the governments that preceded Juan Perón had been anti-Semitic but that his government was not. Juan Perón "eagerly and enthusiastically" attempted to recruit the Jewish community into his government and set up a branch of the Peronist party for Jewish members, known as the Organización Israelita Argentina (OIA). Perón's government was the first to court the Argentine Jewish community and the first to appoint Jewish citizens to public office. Kevin Passmore writes that the Peronist regime, more than any other in Latin America, has been accused of being fascist. But he says that the Peronist regime was not fascist, and what passed for fascism under Perón never took hold in Latin America. Additionally, because the Peronist regime allowed rival political parties to exist, it cannot be described as totalitarian.