Transcript Peru`s Precarious Democracy

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
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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
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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
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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