Title : Deconstruction without Reconstruction? The Case of Peru (1978-2004)
Working Paper No : 63 (series 1)
Author(s) : Francisco Gutiérrez Sanín
Date : June 2005
[PDF]
Abstract: When Fujimori
fell, all the democrats of the world sighed with relief, and the
majority of them turned their eyes elsewhere. In doing so, they
missed the equally important, though less flashy, second part of
the story: anti-politics easily survived the fall of Fujimori,
and continues to this day. If Fujimori showed that the
preponderance of anti-politics and a critical undermining of the
system of checks and balances could go hand-in-hand, his
successors have demonstrated that it can also coexist with fully
competitive elections. Furthermore, many of the themes,
perceptions, and feelings that fed the Fujimori saga are still
dominant in Peru’s polity.
This in fact involves three questions. First, was the Peruvian
political system actually destroyed by Fujimori? Second, is the
process of destruction of these groups so astonishing? Are we
speaking about the demise of parties proper and of a real party
system, or about loose clientelistic structures with no real
roots in society, that should have disappeared anyway? Third, is
it true that there has not been a full-fledged recovery?
This paper argues that the existence of a stable party system
depends on three crucial capacities. The capacity to maintain a
technological superiority over competitors and new potential
entrants, the capacity to express over long periods preferences
and expectations of relevant social niches, and the capacity to
link both the best ‘political technologies’ available and the
preferences of social groups to a concrete experience of
government. It shows how, in these three senses, the Peruvian DT
parties were critically undermined, and discusses why the
recovery has been so feeble.