Week 7: Democratic Consolidation

This week’s reading was interesting because it focused on the Peruvian aspect of democratic consolidation. Throughout the 1990s, all Latin American countries were democratic, and Peru was the only one of these countries to experience a regime breakdown. Levitsky and Cameron focus on this breakdown and the aftermath of it. Throughout the 1980s, Peruvian politics was marked by an overall coherent four-party system. This changed with the growth of the informal economy, economic crisis, and the brutal insurgency of the Shining Path guerrilla movement.The political center of Peru collapsed, leaving much of the Peruvian electorate to outsiders. Alberto Fujimori, a political amateur, was able to win the presidency, but later encountered many issues such as hyperinflation and political violence. He did not have a stable party to support him, and eventually implemented an authoritarian regime style in order to survive. This strategy, the autogolpe, was able to succeed because Fujimori successfully rid the country of hyperinflation and was able to capture the leader of Shining Path. Fujimori was unique in that he was the only elected “outsider” or antiparty president in Latin America to be able to rid his country of political and economic crises, unlike leaders in Argentina, Bolivia, and Brazil who experienced failure and were defeated.

Fujimori is also unique in that he established what can be referred to as the “disposable party”. These parties were candidate-centered “independent movements”. Opposition movements were so insignificant that they had almost nothing to do with the eventual collapse of Fujimori’s regime. Independent politicians who were initially anti-authoritarianism abandoned their belief in order to further their individualized political goals, no longer played a role in horizontal accountability. Between 1995 and 2000, Fujimori became more authoritarian. For example, he was able to alter the Constitution in order to be able to run in the 2000 elections. Many Peruvians were opposed to the government’s abuses but the opposition was weak and unable to properly mobilize. Fujimori’s regime collapse because of internal divisions. Fujimori began to become increasingly more complicit in espionage, bribery, and blackmail, and it seemed that the event that led to the collapse of the regime was the release of a video showing Vladimiro Montesinos, the head of Peru’s intelligence service, paying off a transfuga, who were members of the government who switched political parties in order to give Fujimori the majority in the government. If this video had not been released, Fujimori’s regime may have survived.

Peru went through a democratic transition in 2000-2001 when its democratic institutions were reformed. Electoral politics are still candidate-centered and political parties have not exactly rebounded. Political party systems in Venezuela, Argentina, and Colombia are experiencing similar issues.The authors make a very important and interesting point that although parties are essential to the proper functioning of democracies, but they were actually created in order to resolve coordination problems among politicians and to further their own careers. I completely agree with the final point that the authors make: as long as politicians believe they can advance their careers through political parties, these parties will continue to provide democratic services but if that is not the case, then these services are not guaranteed. Political parties are not credible in Latin America today, but I do think that democracy cannot be achieved without them because that leads to political chaos.