Peru’s Precarious Democracy

Max Cameron

Poli 332

Military Regime, 1968-80

• Land reform

• Social movements

Embattled Democracy,1980-1990

• Democratization

• Prolonged People’s War

Violence and Hyperinflation

• Coordination problems

Rise of Fujimori

• Elected 1990 as “outsider”

• Autogolpe in 1992

Autogolpe: Definition

• Close congress

• Suspend constitution

• Sack courts

• Rule by degree

• Call for referendum

• New constitution with wider executive powers

Delegative Democracy

• Electoral democracy without the separation of powers

• 70 percent of Peruvians supported Fujimori

• Only 14 percent believed separation of powers necessary for democracy

What is the Separation of Powers?

What is the Separation of Powers?

What is the Separation of Powers?

What is the Separation of Powers?

What is the Separation of Powers?

Lenin’s “X”

Texts Coordinate Collective Action

Quipus

• Incas coordinated

empire with quipus

Atahualpa

• Spaniards used scripture

to justify colonialism

Denial of Literacy to the Indians

• Efforts to control printed material in Europe were less successful than in the New World

Democratic Caesarism

“Constitutional

caudillos”

Leguia Bolivar

Manuel Gonzales Prada• The “clique of Creoles and foreigners who

inhabit the strip of land between the Pacific Ocean and the Andes do not form the real Peru; the nation is made up by the Indian masses spread across the Eastern slopes of the mountains. The Indian has dragged along at the bottom level of civilization for three hundred years, as a hybrid with the vices of the barbarian without the virtues if the European. Teach him only to read and write, and you will see whether or not in a quarter of a century he will rise to the dignity of a man.”

Jose Carlos Mariategui

• Peru a “country in which Indians and foreign conquerors live side by side but do not mingle with or even understand one another. The republic feels and declares its loyalty to the viceroyalty and, like the viceroyalty, it belongs more to the colonizers than to the rulers. The feelings and interests of four-fifths of the population play almost no role in the formation of the national identity and institutions.”

Sendero Luminoso• Emerged from Velasco’s land reform

• Sought to create a “people of the book”

• Use of armed propaganda

• Party as a total organization

• How was such an

organization possible?

Fujimori, 1990-2000

• Return of the constitutional caudillo

• Collapse of party system

• Façade of law

• Re-election

Collapse of a Hybrid System

¡Soy inocente!

Garcia Today (2006 - )

• Does he respect the separation of powers?

Bagua

Conclusion

• Separation of powers is linked to reading and writing and the use of text to coordinate collective action– Not an Anglo-Saxon idea– Not only about limiting power– Not an obstacle to use of state for social

ends