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Democracy without Parties? Some Lessons from Peru
Abstract
Thirty years on from Peru's return to democracy in 1980, the country's record with democratisation has been chequered. Not only was the process of 'consolidation' reversed in the 1990s under the Fujimori government, but the degree to which durable linkages have been established between state and society is very limited. More than in most countries of Latin America, the party system has failed to fulfil the representative role allotted to it in the literature, a role that cannot easily be assumed by other sorts of institution. It is therefore an important case study for those concerned with the more structural obstacles to the development of representative politics. The article seeks to look at some key issues affecting party development: the chimera of consolidation, the persistence of clientelism and patrimonialism, the interaction with social movements and the significance of political culture.
... Los movimientos obreros y las élites civiles en las ciudades y la agitación política en el campo ejercieron presión sobre el régimen de Morales. En este punto, el movimiento social peruano, liderado por las fuerzas legales de izquierda, pugnaba por establecer formas institucionales para canalizar sus demandas (Crabtree, 2010). La solución vino de arriba, cuando los grupos de élite tradicionales concluyeron que "sus intereses serían mejor servidos en democracia" (Avilés, 2009, p. 70). ...
... De derecha a izquierda, todas desplegaban claridad ideológica, estructuras nacionales, bases sociales y raíces de carácter histórico. Su capacidad para acumular hasta el 90 % de los votos totales durante esa década reflejaba su indiscutible hegemonía política (Sánchez, 2008;Crabtree, 2010). En este caso, los canales de representación política que se abrieron con la Asamblea Constituyente de 1979 estimularon la institucionalización del sistema de partidos peruano. ...
... La crisis institucional creada por el régimen de Fujimori, junto con el conflicto interno, la crisis económica, el hostigamiento político a la oposición y la corrupción del sistema electoral en favor de los candidatos fujimoristas, contribuyó a la desarticulación del sistema de partidos peruano y al creciente protagonismo de las Fuerzas Armadas en la política peruana (Crabtree, 2010;Burt, 1998). Así como en el caso colombiano, la crisis del sistema de partidos y de presentación se reflejó en la alta volatilidad electoral. ...
La fragilidad de la democracia en el Perú y en Colombia está íntimamente ligada a los procesos de violencia política —y viceversa— experimentados por ambos países durante la segunda mitad del siglo pasado. Este ensayo hace un repaso histórico de las transformaciones sociales y políticas que desencadenaron dos de los episodios más violentos de la historia latinoamericana, enfatizando el rol de los movimientos campesinos y urbanos, las organizaciones políticas alzadas en armas, las fuerzas armadas y los partidos políticos. El análisis político de estos procesos se sostiene en una lectura crítica sobre la heterogeneidad de las sociedades peruanas y colombianas, el impacto de las reformas estructurales de corte neoliberal al final de la Guerra Fría y la recuperación del papel del Estado en el establecimiento e implementación de reformas institucionales que faciliten la resolución de conflictos en democracia.
... Entrada la década de 1980, se observa una dinámica estructurada del sistema de partidos en relación a la oferta política a nivel nacional. Esencialmente cuatro partidos políticos articularon la arena política nacional: Izquierda Unida, Partido Popular Cristiano (PPC), Acción Popular (AP) y el APRA (Tanaka 1998;Kenney 2003;Crabtree 2010). Entre ellas concentraron más del 90% de la votación nacional en las elecciones presidenciales de 1980 y 1985. ...
... Además, la comunicación de masas, principalmente televisiva, había reducido los incentivos de construcción partidaria (Levitsky y Cameron 2003: 23-26;Zavaleta 2014). En ese sentido, el terreno perdido por los partidos políticos sería difícilmente recuperable, marcando el contexto de una "democracia sin partidos" (Tanaka 2005;Crabtree 2010). ...
Este artículo se presenta como un aporte a los estudios sobre el sistema de partidos peruano a escala subnacional. Se propone y discuten los hallazgos de una medida -Indicador de Enraizamiento Agregado (IEA) - para el análisis del sistema de partidos en los ámbitos locales y regionales. Para ello se explora el enraizamiento de las organizaciones político-electorales ganadoras de municipios provinciales y gobiernos regionales en el período 1963-2014. Hacia la última elección del período (2014) la evidencia indica que el enraizamiento a escala provincial y regional es débil pero con signos de una recuperación progresiva. Asimismo, a través del IEA se evalúa parcialmente el nivel de institucionalización del sistema de partidos subnacional.
... Party-switching, access to free media, "party substitutes" (free agents), the success of local-based parties, and legislation that bans immediate legislation have prevented the development of strong parties (Zavaleta, 2014;Levitsky & Zavaleta, 2016). Indeed, the absence of political parties -noted by so many observers of Peruvian politics (Levitsky & Cameron, 2003;Tanaka, 2005;Crabtree, 2010) -has a pernicious consequence for representation because it disconnects presidents from voters, depriving them of their right to punish presidents' policy switches and their bad performance in office (Vergara & Watanabe, 2016: 153). Perhaps the most important "cost" of this absence is that voters have no chance "to vote retrospectively" (Zavaleta, 2014: 147). ...
This paper analyzes the trend of democratic attitudes in Peru using data from the AmericasBarometer. It finds that democratic attitudes in Peru are consistently low, when compared to regional means. The paper also shows that the proportion of respondents holding democratic values has decreased in the last decade or so. We attribute this decline to the growing dissatisfaction with the performance of the political system. We trace this discontent to presidential failures to deliver on promises of greater social inclusion and the growing political dysfunction driven by the obstructionist role of the fujimorista party in Congress. The failed presidency of Pedro Castillo, who disappointed even his own supporters, and the feckless behavior of a Congress riddled by particularistic interests, deepened this discontent, and brought Peru’s democracy to the brink when Castillo tried to shut down Congress. Consequently, citizen dissatisfaction with the performance of democracy has decreased even further.
... His campaign defeated the Right-wing candidate, former leftist, writer, and intellectual Mario Vargas Llosa. However, right after his victory, Fujimori approached the military, the Catholic Church, and a group of orthodox economists and technocrats previously related to right-wing and liberal groups, sealing a durable alliance between the three of them (Crabtree, 2010;Tanaka, 1998). This alliance signals the main pillars of his regime, and reveals his priorities: the war against the guerrilla groups (which the military conducted without ethical considerations nor proper control from political authorities), a profound economic liberalization and restructuring, and the search of sources of legitimacy (Faison, 2001). ...
Massive social unrest broke out in Peru and Chile in recent years. In both countries, the constitutional issue was central in the articulation of protests. However, elite reactions to these movements were different. In Chile, political institutions sought to accommodate the popular demands, launching a process of constitutional reform that attempted to appease discontent redirecting it to institutional politics. Whereas in Peru, the political elite was unable to agree on a process of constitutional revision. The “estallido social” of 2020, which led to the ousting of President Merino, re-emerged two years later with more intensity in the aftermath of the failed coup d’état attempted by President Castillo. To understand these different responses to mass social unrest, this article proposes a theoretical framework grounded in historical institutionalism. The main argument is that authoritarian regimes are critical junctures that produce enduring legacies in the power configurations of the polity. Legacies will vary depending on two aspects: whether authoritarianism consolidates a power basis, and how these regimes end. Different socio-political legacies favored distinct elite reactions and approaches to the threats posed by popular movements. To illustrate this argument, the article draws on previous studies and provides preliminary evidence. Overall, the article contributes to political sociology by integrating critical junctures and outcomes of social movements literature.
... La breve mayoría congresal con la que contó Fuerza Popular en el congreso no pudo poner fin a esta dinámica, en tanto esta mayoría congresal fue desde el inicio sumamente impopular y por tanto limitada en su poder. La ausencia de lazos estables entre una mayoría de ciudadanos y los partidos, constantemente señalada como una debilidad de la democracia peruana(Levitsky & Cameron, 2003;Tanaka 2005;Crabtree 2010), es también la razón por la que esta no ha caído.La democracia por defecto peruana, ya de por sí un equilibrio precario, se ha precarizado aún más como resultado de tres asuntos. En primer lugar, del uso inédito de las armas nucleares de la constitución (la vacancia presidencial y la disolución del congreso) a lo largo del quinquenio pasado. ...
RESUMEN Con un gobierno de transición y en medio de la pandemia del COVID-19, Perú celebró elecciones el 2021. Si bien la aceleración de la vacunación permitió ganar mayor estabilidad social y económica, la tendencia a la inestabilidad inicia-da en el quinquenio pasado continuó durante los primeros meses del gobierno de Castillo. Un outsider sin partido ni soporte político alguno se enfrenta a una oposición radicalizada pero impopular, y que ha normalizado la amenaza de vacancia presidencial. La democracia se sostiene en el empate entre estos actores débiles: una democracia por defecto.
ABSTRACT With a transitional government and in the midst of the COVID-19 pandemic, Peru held general elections in 2021. Although the acceleration of vaccination made it possible to at-tain more social and economic stability, the trend towards instability that began in the past five years continued during the first months of Castillo’s administration. An outsider without a party and without political support faces a radicalized but unpopular opposition, which has normalized the threat of presidential vacancia. Democracy persists as a consequence of a tie between these weak actors: a democracy by default.
... After two decades of political violence between the State and left-wing terrorist groups and the fall of Alberto Fujimori's authoritarian regime in 2000, Peru restored a precarious democracy in a deeply divided society with fragile social institutions and a general crisis of political representation (Barrenechea & Sosa, 2014;Cotler, 2013;Crabtree, 2010;Dargent, 2009;Levitsky & Cameron, 2003;Tanaka & Vera, 2007;Vergara, 2013). Nevertheless, the democratic transition coincided with a boom in the economy. ...
This article analyzes two digital-native journalistic shows created during the pandemic and hosted from Madrid by Peruvian journalists: La Encerrona [The Confinement] and Sálvese Quien Pueda [Every Man for Himself]. In a context of political instability (with four presidents within a year), social turmoil, a devastating public health crisis, and a highly polarized presidential election in the Bicentenario (the 200th anniversary of the independence of the country), these digital projects counterbalanced the poor performance of mainstream media, which was accused of partisanship and polarization, of firing critical journalists, and of promoting disinformation and disseminating “fake news.” Contrastingly, these entrepreneurial journalistic operations offered alternative contents, perspectives, and sustainability practices within a hybrid alternative media model of production that combines professional experience with editorial and financial independence and a DIY mentality. Through interviews with the creators/hosts of the shows and content analysis, this article examines how the context of national crises (in terms of public health, democracy, and information) demanded new voices to fill the gaps left by traditional media, while at the same time reconfiguring the relation with audiences in multiple platforms.
... In particular, scholars point out to the party system as plainly inefective, unable to aggregate and communicate political ideas and to hold delegates accountable according to programmatic lines. The existing parties are barely rooted in society, which has motivated several scholars to speak of Peru as a "democracy without parties" (Crabtree, 2010;Levitsky, 2013;Levitsky & Cameron, 2003;Tanaka, 2005). ...
... This is a phenomenon not specific 2 For alternative perspectives regarding the extent of party system 'freezing', see Franklin, 1992 andShamir, 1984. Exploring the neglected dimension of the economic vote to any region, with weak party institutionalization noted in Latin America (e.g., Mainwaring, 1999;Mainwaring and Torcal, 2006;Crabtree, 2010), South Africa, where single-party dominance persisted after democratization, thus complicating democratic consolidation (e.g., Giliomee, 1995;Randall and Svåsand, 2002), and in Central and Eastern Europe (e.g., Bielasiak, 2006;Tavits and Letki, 2009). ...
While much ink has been spilled as to how economics impacts election outcomes, existing scholarship has concentrated on the valence model, which focuses on assessments of incumbent administration’s handling of the economy. Recently, however, there has been an appreciation that economic voting is multidimensional. Nonetheless, the impact of positional economics – voters’ views of economic policy – on the vote remains less explored, especially from a cross-national perspective. In this contribution, we examine the impact of economic policy preferences regarding income redistribution and spending preferences on the vote in 32 states. Using the Comparative Study of Electoral Systems Module 4 data and hierarchical models, we show that voters’ economic policy preferences directly impact vote choice in many states. We also show that positional economic voting is more likely to take hold in mature democracies. However, support for the idea that ideological polarization contributes to macro-diversity concerning positional economic voting is mixed at best. Our research breaks new ground regarding positional economic voting and highlights how context impacts the extent of positional economic voting.
... The goal, as she found out, was to flaunt the candidate's campaign resources to demonstrate that she would have a chance of winning. It is likely not a coincidence that Perú also has an open-list PR system, compulsory voting, and weak (more accurately non-existent) party labels (Crabtree 2010;Levitsky and Cameron 2003). As Borges (M. ...
The central argument of this dissertation is relatively counterintuitive: increases in income do not necessarily cause decreases in clientelist voting. A decline in clientelist voting—voting based on individualized, voluntary, and asymmetric transactions with politicians—requires the presence of another factor: a viable alternative to clientelist politicians. This, in turn, hinges upon institutional factors, particularly the effective number of parties of a given country. In countries with many different parties and candidates, increases in income will not affect levels of clientelist voting.
I draw on a variety of data to support my claim, including non-participant observation and interviews from the 2014 electoral campaign in Brazil, as well as Brazilian survey data, cross-national expert surveys on clientelism, and natural experiments using experimental trials of income transfer programs to pinpoint the effect of income on clientelist voting.
... The evolution of party linkages partly explains, therefore, the small size and low frequency of student protests in Peru: weak linkages with parties in the opposition did not contribute to the size of student mobilizations; the weak linkages with ruling parties, meanwhile, allowed protests but did not generate them in the absence of widespread student grievances. The Peruvian party system has been defined as an "inchoate" party system since the 1990s (Mainwaring & Scully, 1995), and the country is considered to be a "democracy without parties" (Crabtree, 2010;Levitsky, 1999;Tanaka, 2005). National parties, with the exception of PAP, 129 have over time disappeared from the national stage. ...
Latin American college student protesters have been historically a force to reckon with. Scholars have argued, however, that the introduction of neoliberal policies would discourage mobilization. Yet, some of the most liberalized higher education systems in the region have witnessed relatively frequent and massive mobilizations in recent years. What explains variation in the frequency and size of student mobilizations in Latin America?
To answer this question, I propose a theory of student mobilization that considers explanations based on both social grievances and political opportunities. I argue that, in order to understand the effect of these explanations on protests, mobilization must be disaggregated into two of its main dimensions: the frequency of mobilizations, and the size of protests. The reasons that explain the frequency of protests may not adequately explain the size of individual mobilizations, and vice versa. I claim that social grievances, caused by neoliberal policies, have a positive effect on mobilization. More specifically, the expansion of higher education to include working class students, and the increase in private expenditures, increase both the frequency and size of protests. Meanwhile, political opportunities have an effect on mobilization through student-party linkages – the level of organizational, programmatic, and personalistic connections between political parties and students. I argue that stronger organizational linkages with ruling parties have a demobilizing effect on frequency, but that stronger linkages with the opposition can increase protest size.
I use a mixed-methods, multilevel research design to test the theory. At the regional level, I use an original dataset of more than 4,700 protest events to carry out quantitative analyses of student protest frequency and size in Latin America. At the country level, I draw evidence from comparative case studies of student mobilization, higher education policies, and student-party linkages in Chile and Peru. Finally, I carry out a quantitative analysis of a 2012 Chilean survey to test the theory at the individual level. This quantitative and qualitative evidence drawn from different levels of analysis supports the theory’s expectations.
... The country has experienced acute economic crises, violent internal insurgence in the 1980s and partly 1990s. The political environment since the reestablishment of democracy has been populated by weak political parties (Crabtree, 2010) and changes in the ideologies of ruling groups. In the 2000s, however, the country has experienced one of the highest rates of economic growth in South America and internal conflict has been drastically reduced. ...
... In a society deeply divided by inequality, exclusion and ethnic and social discrimination (Matos Mar, 1987;Nugent, 1992;Portocarrero, 1993;Flores Galindo, 1994;Vargas Llosa, 1996;CVR, 2004;Thorp, Caumartin and Gray-Molina, 2006;Thorp and Paredes, 2010;De la Cadena, 2011) and governed by weak institutions and a discredited political class (Dargent, 2009;Cotler, 2013;Vergara, 2013) the democratic transition also exhibited the endemic crisis of political representation in the country. In a 'democracy without parties' (Levitsky and Cameron, 2003;Crabtree, 2010) the gap between the State and society was not closed after Fujimori, evidencing the weaknesses of the institutions (shown in the low approval of political leaders). The media also tapped into this discontent. ...
This article explores how Peruvian sensational and spectacular media served the authoritarian discourse of Alberto Fujimori's government (1990–2000), and how TV infotainment evolved under democracy after 2000. Through interviews with producers and hosts of the TV shows and by reviewing specific episodes and media events, this article analyses five of the most representative Peruvian infotainment TV shows of the last two decades in Peru. Building upon a theory on media spectacle, infotainment and tabloidisation, this research shows how an increasing process of media hybridity–the blending of journalism, entertainment, politics, and popular culture–has challenged traditional notions of journalism and has become a prevalent strategy of new political communication forms in Peru, connecting with the global trend towards political infotainment in the media.
... La multiplication des écrits a par ailleurs favorisé l'éclosion de paradigmes ou de propositions assimilées, de programmes de recherche voire d'étendards méthodologiques. Il existe néanmoins un risque de surinvestissement de certains objets institutionnels qui peut conduite à une vision « déflationniste » des institutions : le vide ou l'excès théorique de certaines propositions, de R Re ev vu ue e i in nt te er rd di is sc ci ip pl li in na ai ir re e d de e t tr ra av va au ux x s su ur r l le es s A Am mé ér ri iq qu ue es s Une grande partie des sciences sociales, et sans doute la quasi-totalité de la sociologie politique péruvienne (Cotler, Grompone, 2000 ; Degregori, 2001 ; Cotler, 2000 ; Lopez, 1989 ; Manrique, 2002 ; Matos Mar, 1984; Tuesta, 1995), s'accorde aujourd'hui pour dire que les institutions (Murakami, 2007) et les partis politiques (Tanaka, 2005 ; Crabtree, 2010 ...
L'ouverture des sciences sociales au raisonnement institutionnel depuis les années 1980 (multiplication des travaux, des programmes de recherches, etc.) a permis de repenser les manières d'aborder les institutions. Dans le cas péruvien, les études sur l'État se sont multipliées en parallèle des critiques sur la crise de la représentation et du système politique en place : corruption, crise des partis traditionnels, affaires rocambolesques, privatisation des postes électoraux, campagnes électorales vides de tout débat de fond, etc. Cet article se fait écho de ces débats en revisitant les racines institutionnelles de la crise de légitimité qui frappe la démocratie et la classe politique péruvienne. En s'appuyant sur les acquis de l'institutionnalisme historique, il déconstruit les étapes et les modifications à l'origine des transformations de la démocratie péruvienne entre 1980 et 1992 en tant que cadre normatif, référence cognitive et univers de représentations. Il montre tout particulièrement que la crise de la démocratie péruvienne s'explique par une mutation des formes institutionnelles de la représentation politique.
... 32 The literature shows that "the Peruvian party system decomposed to a degree that surpassed even the most notorious party systems in Latin America", 33 "parties are little more than electoral vehicles. They lack any real presence in society", 34 while the absence of party coherence facilitated regular changes in allegiance as occasion demanded and allowed greater scope for petty egotism and for office to triumph over principle. 35 In such contexts of low party system institutionalization, actors have strong incentives to activate recall referendums and call for new elections. ...
Between 1997 and 2013, more than 5000 recall referendums were activated against democratically elected authorities from 747 Peruvian municipalities (45.5% of all municipalities). This makes Peru the world's most intensive user of this mechanism of direct democracy which is designed to remove elected authorities from office before the end of their term. What are the reasons for this extensive use of recall referendums in Peru and, more importantly, what consequences do they have in terms of democratic legitimacy and government efficiency? This paper sets out to answer these questions by comparing the Peruvian case against the background of other countries in the Andean region. It proposes an explanation for the intensive activation of recall procedures through the combination of two factors: first, the features of the institutional design of the mechanism, which affect the probability of a successful activation of recall referendums, and second, the degree of institutionalization of political parties, which influences the incentives of political actors to gain power between regular elections.
... Iniciamos este artículo señalando que el gobierno de Humala, incluido el 2013, era la expresión más reciente de una brecha entre Estado y sociedad que ha sido difícil de cerrar para todos los gobiernos democráticos que se sucedieron luego de la caída del gobierno de Alberto Fujimori. Esta democracia sin partidos (Tanaka, 2005;Levitsky y Cameron, 2003;Crabtree, 2010), en la que el descontento con las instituciones políticas se ha vuelto crónico, parece sostenerse hoy en el buen momento que atraviesa la economía peruana gracias al boom de las materias primas. Sería este buen momento el 45 Este grupo tuvo en común tan solo la candidatura de Pedro Pablo Kuczynski en 2011, por lo que la división de esta bancada era esperada desde el momento de su elección (ver Barrenechea, 2011 que evitaría una escalada mayor del descontento, que hoy se manifiesta principalmente en encuestas de opinión en las ciudades y en constantes pero inconexos episodios de movilización social en el campo. ...
This paper is a review of the main political events of 2013 in Peruvian politics. Peru is a democracy without parties sustained in a weak state, which limits the capacity of politicians to establish stable linkages with citizens, but has not had serious consequences for the stability of the political regime. On the one hand, this discredited, fragile and fragmented political elite coexists with an influential economic technocracy, strengthened by the good economy performance of recent years. On the other, this gap separating state and society makes the surprising (and precarious) Peruvian stability coexist with signs of discontent among urban sectors which reject the political system and are besieged by insecurity; while, the existence of fragmented episodes of mobilization in rural areas show the flipside of economic growth sustained in the boom of commodities.
El presente artículo tiene como objetivo examinar el convulso período 2016-2021 en el Perú, caracterizado por un fuerte choque entre el poder ejecutivo y el legislativo y que derivó en una elevada inestabilidad institucional. Metodológicamente, se combina el análisis de indicadores habituales de la actividad legislativa y ejecutiva, así como del sistema de partidos, con el estudio normativo del sistema presidencial peruano, distinguido por una evidente parlamentarización a raíz del diseño constitucional. Por ello, se analiza el impacto de esta combinación, en especial en estos dos poderes, en cuanto a gobernabilidad y cooperación. Véase la salida anticipada de dos presidentes de la república y otros tres que ocuparon brevemente la jefatura del Estado, así como el cierre temporal del Congreso y un verdadero cuestionamiento de la continuidad democrática. Finalmente, se discute la actualidad y encaje de la literatura existente en torno a los riesgos del presidencialismo en contextos de gobierno dividido y de hostilidad entre instituciones. Como resultado inesperado, se anticipa la incapacidad de los principales actores para imponerse por su propia debilidad partidaria, acrecentada por el diseño parlamentarizador de la variante peruana.
El presente trabajo propone una interpretación de las transformaciones que viene experimentando la representación política en el Perú a partir del estudio del triunfo electoral de Pedro Castillo. Sostenemos que dicho triunfo electoral evidenciaría la preponderancia en el Perú de la representatividad como lazo político, basada en la identificación por similitud sociológica, en un contexto de desconfianza y crisis de representación política. Esta preponderancia mostraría los límites de la política representativa en el Perú. El análisis se basa en una interpretación de los sentidos que configuraron la relación entre Pedro Castillo y sus votantes durante la primera vuelta electoral de las elecciones generales del 2021.
This article formulates a theory of expert knowledge utilization in patrimonialist administrative traditions characterized by politicians’ predominance over bureaucrats. The argument is that in these weak institutional contexts acquiring “expert knowledge” enables politicians to control key bureaucratic functions that facilitates rent extraction to fund their campaigns, and in doing so, they eventually and circumstantially produce some positive welfare outcomes. My findings show that tenured politicians employ expert knowledge to expand their control over previously unknown administrative regulations, temporarily building capacities that enables them to (re)direct budgets to policy areas that report electoral gains, and sometimes incurring in collusion. In contrast, newcomer politicians often fail to take advantage of expert knowledge transferred given their inexperience in office hence producing less welfare outputs. This article sources evidence from a knowledge transfer program designed by the Peruvian central government to enlighten local politicians in the country’s fight against children stunting. Evidence combining a time-varying semiexperimental analysis (Panel DID) and in-depth interviews with regional and local politicians, as well as high level civil servants, largely confirm my theoretical claims.
The chapter tracks the evolution of six Peruvian traditional (APRA, Partido Popular Cristiano, Accion Popular) and newer electoral vehicles (Fujimorismo, Partido Nacionalista Peruano, and Frente Amplio) during the post-2001 democratic era across three dimensions of institutionalization: institutional autonomy, internal coherence, and social rootedness. The evidence here presented shows Peruvian electoral vehicles to lack autonomy from their founders or leaders. They are socially uprooted and their linkage with society is essentially personalistic in nature. Peru’s electoral vehicles’ inter-temporal track record is invariably one of institutional involution over the past two decades, in good measure for reasons endogenous to their constituent traits of origin.KeywordsParty institutionalizationParty coherenceSocial rootednessInstitutional autonomyElectoral vehicles
Neopatrimonial exercise of power, combining ruler appropriation of resources with ruler discretionality in the use of state power, remains present to varying degrees in contemporary Latin America. Building on an extensive literature, this article provides a delimited conceptualization and measurement of neopatrimonialism for 18 countries in the region and examines the effects of neopatrimonial legacies on poverty with cross-national quantitative analysis. The study finds that higher levels of neopatrimonialism have a significant, substantive impact on poverty levels, controlling for other relevant demographic, socioeconomic, and political factors. It confirms the importance of a cumulative record of democracy for poverty alleviation, while the analysis indicates that neopatrimonialism limits the effects of the political left in power on poverty reduction.
Dentro del actual contexto de reforma del sistema político emprendida por el Congreso de la República, este trabajo señala la inexistencia de organizaciones políticas institucionalizadas como su principal nota característica y, por ende, el más importante aspecto a mejorar. Para ello, se plantean dos propuestas hasta ahora olvidadas por las iniciativas legislativas en trámite: la reorientación del ámbito participativo de los «movimientos políticos» a fin de permitir el reingreso de los partidos políticos al ámbito político regional; y la necesidad de implementar la reelección presidencial inmediata no solo como mecanismo de exigencia de responsabilidad política en el modelo presidencial, sino como importante instrumento de renovación partidaria interna.
This introductory chapter presents a theoretical proposal to explain the patterns of institutional state construction during the recent commodity boom in Peru. To do so, this chapter is organized into five sections. The first one describes the new cycle of economic development based on natural resources and the main conflicts/tensions that it has produced in Peru. The second section documents the significant institutional state change produced in the country during the boom thanks, we argue, to the abundance cycle. This section shows how some institutions have emerged to manage the (distribution of the) benefits of resource extraction, while other institutions have emerged to manage the (distribution of the) cost of resource extraction. These institutional developments have different timing, and some are considerably more contested than others. The third section introduces the research questions and literature that explain the relevance of resource abundance cycles for institutional state development. The fourth section, the main one of this chapter, presents the arguments developed in conjunction with our findings. We propose that three dimensions explain these different pathways of institutional development in resource-abundant Peru: (a) preceding power distribution of state and society actors, (b) historical repertoires (legacies) of state and society action, and (c) the entrepreneurship of actors embedded in transnational networks. This framework aims to provide a comparative road map for similar analysis in Latin American countries affected by the recent commodity boom. The final section describes the book’s methodology and organization.
The election of Ollanta Humala in 2011 did not lead to a radical break from neoliberalism as many expected. His administration continued and deepened Peru’s conservative political and economic regime, its “low-intensity democracy.” His lack of a shift has been attributed to electoral dynamics, his leadership style, and the weakness of political parties. However, these readings overlook the structural impediments to any left government in Peru and Humala’s readiness to adapt his politics to this neoliberal reality. The power of Peru’s neoliberal political elite, the United States, economic groups, and transnational capital have all helped to constitute a structure of elite rule strong enough to prevent a radical shift.
La elección de Ollanta Humala en el 2011 no condujo a una ruptura radical con el neoliberalismo, a diferencia de lo que esperaban muchos. Su administración mantuvo y profundizó el régimen político y económico conservador del Perú, su “democracia de baja intensidad”. La falta de cambio se ha atribuido a la dinámica electoral, su estilo de liderazgo y la debilidad de los partidos políticos. Sin embargo, estas interpretaciones ignoran los impedimentos estructurales existentes en Perú para cualquier gobierno de izquierda, así como la predisposición de Humala a adaptar su política a esta realidad neoliberal. El poder de la élite política neoliberal del Perú, los Estados Unidos, los grupos económicos y el capital transnacional han ayudado a construir una estructura de poder elitista lo suficientemente fuerte como para prevenir un cambio radical.
Abandonment has become a performative idiom in Andean Peru, where it retains its purchase despite the investments of the state. Local development is tied to the desire to be governed. In spite of prolonged state presence, the villages’ relationship to authorities is continuously and persistently figured as one of abandonment: villages are abandoned because someone is deliberately holding them in such unfortunate conditions. To figure abandonment in village politics is to draw on this idiom as an effective means of both communicating the historical experience of governance and putting forward morally grounded claims to local authorities. The idiom of abandonment is therefore both effective and affective as a critique of governance and a claim to citizenship.
In 2009, Jaime Bayly, one of the most influential Peruvian TV journalists, announced that he wanted to be the first bisexual, impotent, and agnostic president of Peru. He launched an atypical electoral campaign, fueled by his irreverent and popular TV show El francotirador (The Sniper). Bayly’s yearlong virtual campaign increasingly gained importance and local and international media coverage. He even polled at 10% in Lima, the capital city, but he ultimately dropped out of the race a few months before the elections. This paper analyzes how Bayly constructed his ambiguous and contradictory media persona during his 30-year media career and how he capitalized on its political appeal in his electoral run while revealing social tensions in contemporary Peru. His intense, controversial, and sometimes transgressive life in the media is read as a symbol of how entertainment replaces other argumentative and informative forms of political communication in Peru, a deeply divided society with fragile social institutions, precarious democracy, and a discredited political class. Bayly’s life in the media also illuminates how massive media spectacle became a contested arena to negotiate political power both during and since President Fujimori’s authoritarian regime (1990–2000). Finally, this research connects the “Bayly phenomenon” to part of a global trend towards satiric infotainment as a consequence of spectacle.
This paper is a review of the main political events of 2013 in Peruvian politics. Peru is a democracy without parties sustained in a weak state, which limits the capacity of politicians to establish stable linkages with citizens, but has not had serious consequences for the stability of the political regime. On the one hand, this discredited, fragile and fragmented political elite coexists with an influential economic technocracy, strengthened by the good economy performance of recent years. On the other, this gap separating state and society makes the surprising (and precarious) Peruvian stability coexist with signs of discontent among urban sectors which reject the political system and are besieged by insecurity; while, the existence of fragmented episodes of mobilization in rural areas show the flipside of economic growth sustained in the boom of commodities.
From 2000 to 2010, Bolivia and Peru underwent similar processes of political decentralization toward the meso level of the government. Three elections later in Peru and two in Bolivia, the ability of national political parties to articulate interests differs markedly between the two countries. Peru tends toward fragmentation with national parties incapable of participating or successfully competing in subnational elections, while in Bolivia, the Movimiento al Socialismo (MAS) – and other parties to a lesser extent – are increasingly capable of participating and winning subnational offices. This paper argues that, despite having undergone very similar institutional reforms, the difference between the cases can largely be explained by two “society-side” variables: the caliber of the political ideas in debate and political social density. The substantive quality of ideas in debate and a greater political social density have been crucial to the Bolivian trend, while their absence has lessened the possibility of anything similar occurring in Peru. In general terms, the article sheds light on the social conditions that favor party-building in a context of decentralization reform.
Peru, in contrast to neighbouring Bolivia and Ecuador, has neither an important indigenous party nor a strong indigenous movement. Nevertheless, in recent years a growing gap has emerged in the voting patterns of indigenous and non-indigenous areas. This article maintains that this gap has developed because some Peruvian politicians, including Alberto Fujimori, Alejandro Toledo and Ollanta Humala, successfully wooed indigenous voters with a combination of ethnic and populist appeals. Like traditional populist leaders, they denounced the political elites, focused their campaigns on the poor and presented themselves as the saviours of Peru, but also forged ties to indigenous leaders, invoked indigenous symbols and embraced some ethnic demands. Although neither Fujimori, nor Toledo, nor Humala self-identified as indigenous, they successfully presented themselves as more ethnically proximate to the indigenous population than their main competitors, who represented the white Lima elite.
Political parties have performed such a diverse array of representative and governing functions that it is difficult to conceive of democratic politics in their absence. Indeed, even many authoritarian regimes have used parties to mobilize popular support, penetrate and control civil society, staff the government with political loyalists, coordinate the policymaking process, and implement public policies. Under the autocratic rule of Alberto Fujimori, however, the Peruvian electorate and political entrepreneurs alike dispensed with party organizations to a degree that is virtually without parallel among modern, competitive political systems. Despite the retention of a competitive (though not fully democratic) regime in the 1990s, neither government officials nor opposition leaders were able to secure political support by resurrecting or constructing party organizations, and many did not even bother to try. At the presidential level, the electoral arena was reduced to a battle between contending personalities, and the nation's political fate hinged on their strategic whims and the ebb and flow of their popular appeal. Traditional parties were relegated to the margins of the national legislature, while a bewildering variety of independents, regional fronts, and ad hoc coalitions or groups won elections to municipal governments and the Chamber of Deputies (Cotler 1995; Levitsky and Cameron 2003; Planas 2000; Lynch 1999b; Tanaka 1998; Kenney 2003).
Electoral rules played a critical role in the dramatic upset victory of Alberto Fujimori over Mario Vargas Llosa in the 1990 Peruvian presidential election. Key features of the Peruvian electoral system—a majority runoff format at the presidential level, high district magnitudes, open list PR, and simultaneous candidacies—influenced the strategies of politicians, the dynamics of the campaign, and ultimately the outcome. This case demonstrates that under a majority runoff format some politicians and voters can redirect their first round support in anticipation of second round alternatives. The impact of strategic campaigning and voting may be amplified where the race for second place is tight or partisan attachments are weak.
Populism has traditionally been defined as a cumulative concept, characterized by the simultaneous presence of political, economic, social, and discursive attributes. Radial concepts of populism offer a looser way of spanning different domains. Criticism of modernization and dependency theory, which assumed tight connections between different domains, and the emergence of new types of personalistic leadership that lack some traditional attributes of populism have made cumulative and radial concepts of populism problematic. Populism can be reconceptualized as a classical concept located in a single domain, politics. Populism can be defined as a political strategy through which a personalistic leader seeks or exercises government power through direct, unmediated, uninstitutionalized support from large numbers of followers.
The most telling criticism of political culture theory is that it has coped very inadequately with political change. There is a good reason for this: the assumptions of the political culture approach in fact lead to the expectation of continuity. But continuity can be reconciled with changes, though only changes of particular kinds. The nature of political changes consistent with culturalist assumptions and with the culturalist expectation of continuity are here specified by hypotheses about (1) the effects of changes in social context, whether “normal” or involving abrupt discontinuity, and (2) the effects of attempted revolutionary transformation.
Political parties are critical to Latin American democracy. This was demonstrated in Peru, where an atomized, candidate-centered party system developed after Alberto Fujimori's 1992 presidential self-coup. Party system decomposition weakened the democratic opposition against an increasingly authoritarian regime. Since the regime collapsed in 2000, prospects for party rebuilding have been mixed. Structural changes, such as the growth of the informal sector and the spread of mass media technologies, have weakened politicians' incentive to build parties. Although these changes did not cause the collapse of the party system, they may inhibit its reconstruction.
This article evaluates structural, institutional, and actor-centered explanations of the collapse of the Peruvian party system around 1990 and its surprising partial recovery in 2001. It begins by describing the changes in the dependent variable, the emergence, collapse, and partial resurrection of the 1980s Peruvian party system. The next section examines the argument that the large size and rapid growth of the informal sector undermined the party system and led to its collapse. The author shows that the evidence does not support this argument. The article then examines changes in the electoral system. The author demonstrates that, contrary to theoretical expectations, the changes in the electoral system do not correlate with the observed changes in the party system. The final section shows that performance failure by political elites, including corruption in government, was more important than social cleavages or electoral institutions in the collapse and partial recovery of the party system.
Latin American populism is generally associated with the
developmental stage of import substitution industrialization; it is
thus widely presumed to have been eclipsed by the debt crisis of
the 1980s and the free market reforms of the neoliberal era.
However, the leadership of Alberto Fujimori in Peru suggests that
new forms of populism may be emerging despite the fiscal
constraints of neoliberal austerity. This new variant of populism
thrives in a context where economic crisis and social dislocation
undermine traditional representative institutions, enabling
personalist leaders to establish unmediated relationships with
heterogeneous, atomized masses. Political support can be
cultivated through populist attacks on entrenched political elites or
institutions, along with targeted but highly visible poverty alleviation
programs. This new form of populist autocracy complements the
efforts of neoliberal technocrats to circumvent the representative
institutions that are integral to democratic accountability. The
Peruvian case thus demonstrates that populism has been
transformed rather than eclipsed during the neoliberal era and that it
should be decoupled theoretically from any particular phase or
model of economic development.
DELEGATIVE DEMOCRACY Guillermo O'Donnell Guillermo O'DonneU, an Argentine political scientist, is Helen Kellogg Professor of lnternational Studies and Academic Director of the Kellogg Institute of International Studies at the University of Notre Dame. His books include Modernization and Bureaucratic-Authoritarianism (1979); Bureaucratic-Authoritarianism: Argentina, 1966-1973, in Comparative Perspective (1988); and, with Philippe Schmitter and Laurence Whitehead, Transitions from Authoritarian Rule (1986). Here I depict a "new species," a type of existing democracies that has yet to be theorized. As often happens, it has many similarities with other, already recognized species, with cases shading off between the former and some variety of the latter. Still, I believe that the differences are significant enough to warrant an attempt at such a depiction. The drawing of neater boundaries between these types of democracy depends on empirical research, as well as more refined analytical work that I am now undertaking. But if I really have found a new species (and not a member of an already recognized family, or a form too evanescent to merit conceptualization), it may be worth exploring its main features. Scholars who have worked on democratic transitions and consolidation have repeatedly said that, since it would be wrong to assume that these processes all culminate in the same result, we need a typology of democracies. Some interesting efforts have been made, focused on the consequences, in terms of types of democracy and policy patterns, of various paths to democratization. I My own ongoing research suggests, however, that the more decisive factors for generating various kinds of democracy are not related to the characteristics of the preceding authoritarian regime or to the process of transition. Instead, I believe that we must focus upon various long-term historical factors, as well as the degree of severity of the socioeconomic problems that newly installed democratic governments inherit. Let me briefly state the main points of my argument: 1) Existing Journal of Democracy Vol. 5, No. 1 January 1994 56 Journal of Democracy theories and typologies of democracy refer to representative democracy as it exists, with all its variations and subtypes, in highly developed capitalist countries. 2) Some newly installed democracies (Argentina, Brazil, Peru, Ecuador, Bolivia, Philippines, Korea, and many postcommunist countries) are democracies, in the sense that they meet Robert Dahl's criteria for the definition of polyarchy. 2 3) Yet these democracies are not -- and do not seem to be on the path toward becoming -- representative democracies; they present characteristics that prompt me to call them delegative democracies (DD). 4) DDs are not consolidated (i.e., institutionalized) democracies, but they may be enduring. In many cases, there is no sign either of any imminent threat of an authoritarian regression, or of advances toward representative democracy. 5) There is an important interaction effect: the deep social and economic crisis that most of these countries inherited from their authoritarian predecessors reinforces certain practices and conceptions about the proper exercise of political authority that lead in the direction of delegative, not representative democracy. The following considerations underlie the argument presented above: 3 A) The installation of a democratically elected government opens the way for a "second transition," often longer and more complex than the initial transition from authoritarian rule. B) This second transition is supposed to be from a democratically elected government to an institutionalized, consolidated democratic regime. C) Nothing guarantees, however, that this second transition will occur. New democracies may regress to authoritarian rule, or they may stall in a feeble, uncertain situation. This situation may endure without opening avenues for institutionalized forms of democracy. D) The crucial element determining the success of the second transition is the building of a set of institutions that become important decisional points in the flow of political power. E) For such a successful outcome to occur, governmental policies and the political strategies of various agents must embody the recognition of a paramount shared interest in democratic institution building. The successful cases have featured a decisive coalition of broadly supported political leaders who take great care in creating and strengthening democratic political institutions. These institutions, in turn, have made it easier to cope with the social and economic problems inherited from the authoritarian regime. This...
Journal of Democracy 13.1 (2002) 5-21
In the last quarter of the twentieth century, trends in seven different regions converged to change the political landscape of the world: 1) the fall of right-wing authoritarian regimes in Southern Europe in the mid-1970s; 2) the replacement of military dictatorships by elected civilian governments across Latin America from the late 1970s through the late 1980s; 3) the decline of authoritarian rule in parts of East and South Asia starting in the mid-1980s; 4) the collapse of communist regimes in Eastern Europe at the end of the 1980s; 5) the breakup of the Soviet Union and the establishment of 15 post-Soviet republics in 1991; 6) the decline of one-party regimes in many parts of sub-Saharan Africa in the first half of the 1990s; and 7) a weak but recognizable liberalizing trend in some Middle Eastern countries in the 1990s.
The causes, shape, and pace of these different trends varied con-siderably. But they shared a dominant characteristic -- simultaneous movement in at least several countries in each region away from dic-tatorial rule toward more liberal and often more democratic governance. And though differing in many ways, these trends influenced and to some extent built on one another. As a result, they were considered by many observers, especially in the West, as component parts of a larger whole, a global democratic trend that thanks to Samuel Huntington has widely come to be known as the "third wave" of democracy.
This striking tide of political change was seized upon with enthusiasm by the U.S. government and the broader U.S. foreign policy community. As early as the mid-1980s, President Ronald Reagan, Secretary of State George Shultz, and other high-level U.S. officials were referring regularly to "the worldwide democratic revolution." During the 1980s, an active array of governmental, quasi-governmental, and nongovernmental organizations devoted to promoting democracy abroad sprang into being. This new democracy-promotion community had a pressing need for an analytic framework to conceptualize and respond to the ongoing political events. Confronted with the initial parts of the third wave -- democ-ratization in Southern Europe, Latin America, and a few countries in Asia (especially the Philippines)--the U.S. democracy community rapid-ly embraced an analytic model of democratic transition. It was derived principally from their own interpretation of the patterns of democratic change taking place, but also to a lesser extent from the early works of the emergent academic field of "transitology," above all the seminal work of Guillermo O'Donnell and Philippe Schmitter.
As the third wave spread to Eastern Europe, the Soviet Union, sub-Saharan Africa, and elsewhere in the 1990s, democracy promoters extended this model as a universal paradigm for understanding democ-ratization. It became ubiquitous in U.S. policy circles as a way of talking about, thinking about, and designing interventions in processes of political change around the world. And it stayed remarkably constant despite many variations in those patterns of political change and a stream of increasingly diverse scholarly views about the course and nature of democratic transitions.
The transition paradigm has been somewhat useful during a time of momentous and often surprising political upheaval in the world. But it is increasingly clear that reality is no longer conforming to the model. Many countries that policy makers and aid practitioners persist in calling "transitional" are not in transition to democracy, and of the democratic transitions that are under way, more than a few are not following the model. Sticking with the paradigm beyond its useful life is retarding evolution in the field of democratic assistance and is leading policy makers astray in other ways. It is time to recognize that the transition paradigm has outlived its usefulness and to look for a better lens.
Five core assumptions define the transition paradigm. The first, which is an umbrella for all the others, is that any country moving away from dictatorial rule can be considered a country in transition toward democracy. Especially in the first half of the 1990s, when political change accelerated in many regions, numerous policy makers and aid prac-titioners reflexively labeled any formerly...
During the 1990s Peru's Alberto Fujimori and Argentina's Carlos Menem were the two main political successes of Latin American populism. Both completed two successive presidential terms, a unique accomplishment in the continent, and overcame the political instability that previously beset their nations. Scholars who analysed these and other contemporary regimes concluded that Latin American populism was flexible and resilient enough to adapt to a radically different environment from that of the 1930s and 1940s, when it had emerged as a major force. Some political scientists labelled as ‘neopopulism’ the newer variant of populism in the context of globalisation and widespread acceptance of neoliberal policies. These scholars stressed two salient features of neopopulism that contrasted with ‘classical populism’ of the 1930s and 1940s: its social base consisting of members of the informal economy, as opposed to the organised working class; and its implementation of neoliberal policies, as against the model of import substitution and state interventionism.
This article examines the record of the Peruvian human rights ombudsman between 1996 and 2001, seeking to explain its relative effectiveness under conditions of semi-authoritarian government. It suggests that this can be attributed to three factors: (i) the robustness of the institution's foundations; (2) the capacity of the first appointee and personnel, and; (3) the ability of the institution to build alliances which were able to enhance accountability. Drawing on O'Donnell's theory of a new generation of horizontal accountability mechanisms - that is, appointed, as opposed to elected, institutions - it argues that the human rights ombudsman occupied a distinct position in the Peruvian political system during this period that allowed it to interconnect different actors and arenas of accountability.
The resignation of Alberto Fujimori as president of Peru and the convening of fresh elections for 2001 invites a reassessment of the strengths and weaknesses of the Fujimorato. Fujimori's was a hybrid regime, an uneasy admixture of democratic and autocratic elements. While following prescribed election timetables and tolerating certain opposition, this was an authoritarian government. Grounded on a pact with the armed forces and involving a concentration of presidential power, its support was organised along populist lines that took advantage of the weakness of political parties. However, as the regime's demise suggests, the tension between democratic and autocratic elements could never be properly reconciled.
Following scandals concerning extensive corruption, electoral fraud and manipulation by the security services, Alberto Fujimori's authoritarian regime collapsed in November 2000, throwing Peru into political turmoil. A fresh ballot organised in 2001 led to the election of Alejandro Toledo as president. Assessments of the Toledo administration's performance and the health of Peruvian democracy in the post-Fujimori period have been overwhelmingly pessimistic. Recent political developments are analysed to argue that such negativity is mistaken. Apart from recording strong economic growth, under Toledo civilian control over the military and intelligence services has increased markedly. Greater horizontal and vertical accountability has produced a more open polity. Citizen's rights are better secured. Despite ongoing problems, post-Fujimori a process of democratic ‘deepening’ has occurred.
In recent years, important indigenous parties have emerged for the first time in Latin American history. Although some analysts view this development with trepidation, this essay argues that the indigenous parties in Latin America are unlikely to exacerbate ethnic conflict or create the kinds of problems that have been associated with some ethnic parties in other regions. To the contrary, the emergence of major indigenous parties in Latin America may actually help deepen democracy in the region. These parties will certainly improve the representativeness of the party system in the countries where they arise. They should also increase political participation and reduce party system fragmentation and electoral volatility in indigenous areas. They may even increase the acceptance of democracy and reduce political violence in countries with large indigenous populations.