Peruvian Labyrinth: Polity, Society, Economy, The

Maxwell A. Cameron and Philip Mauceri, eds. The Peruvian Labyrinth: Polity, Society, Economy. University Park: Pennsylvania State University Press, 1997. Notes, bibliography, index, 272 pp.; paperback $19.95.

Peru's fascinating and complex politics has attracted much attention from the scholarly community since the late 1960s. It all began with the military takeover of October 3, 1968. This produced the "Revolutionary Military Government," which carried out extensive social, political, and economic reforms before running afoul of internal divisions, a terminally ill head of state, multiple projects that ran far ahead of the government's ability to pay for them, and the inherent contradictions of trying to generate a "fully participatory democratic society" under centralized military government control.

Scholarly fascination with Peru continued with the return to democracy between 1977 and 1980. This process included high levels of support for Left, mostly Marxist parties competing with revitalized traditional counterparts; and the enthusiastic participation of the entire electorate for the first time, with the enfranchisement of illiterates.

Over the course of the 1980s, democratic processes elected an opposition party that also failed--quite spectacularly-to deal with the country's growing economic and social problems and drew blame-quite correctly-for making matters even worse. In addition, the obvious contradiction between open, if flawed, democracy and the growing Maoist insurgency of Sendero Luminoso also generated much attention and multiple explanations. The country turned to an "antiparty" alternative in 1990 in the election of political neophyte Alberto Fujimori. His dramatic autogolpe of April 5, 1992, set off the progressive recentralization of power in the office of the presidency. He drew massive popular support as his government brought an end to hyperinflation, a dramatic reduction in political violence, and significant economic growth in the context of reinsertion into the international economy and wholesale domestic economic liberalization. Throughout these events, scholarly analyses increased apace.

Among many worthy studies over this 30-year period, none has been as comprehensive or insightful as the "Peru trilogy": The Peruvian Experiment (1975), The Peruvian Experiment Revisited (1983), and now The Peruvian Labyrinth. Each volume compiles much of the best scholarship of the period, usually field research-based, with little overlap among the contributors to each volume.

Credit for this remarkably successful enterprise goes to the 35 contributors, of course, but particularly to Abraham F. Lowenthal's vision; his successful sponsorship of the conferences at New York's Center for Inter-American Relations (now the Americas Society) for volume 1 (in which this reviewer participated); and his guidance as founding director of the Latin America Program of the Woodrow Wilson Center for Scholars in Washington (with the crucial assistance of Cynthia McClintock) for volume 2. Credit should also go to editor Sandy Thatcher, who oversaw the production of all three books, the first two at Princeton University Press and the latest, as editor-in-chief, at Pennsylvania State University Press.

Max Cameron and Philip Mauceri have upheld most ably the high standards of Lowenthal and McClintock with their own carefully crafted contribution. Their eight chapters by nine authors-none of whom appears in previous volumes (though McClintock and Lowenthal provide a surprisingly substantive eight-page foreword)-cover most of the salient issues of Peru's latest foray into democratic politics and its multiple crises. The chapter titles reflect the range of their concerns: "Transition to 'Democracy' and the Failures of Institution Building" (Mauceri), "Political and Economic Origins of Regime Change: The Eighteenth Brumaire of Alberto Fujimori" (Cameron), "State Policy and Social Conflict" (Carol Wise), "Rural Landscape and Changing Political Awareness" (Christine Hunefeldt), "Politics and Trade Unions" (Carmen Rosa Balbi), "Growth and Limitations of the Peruvian Right" (Francisco Durand), "The Limits of Sendero Luminoso" (Carlos Ivan Degregori), and "Human Rights and U.S. Policy" (Kenneth Roberts and Mark Peceny). These chapters reflect the core themes of the book: institutional change and disintegration, a crisis of social representation and state power, and a fully participatory democracy simultaneously characterized as "one of the most notorious violators of human rights in Latin America" (p. 5).

The authors find the explanations for Peru's turmoil under democracy in various places. One is the nature of the transition back to democracy itself, between 1977 and 1980, which put in place a military-inspired reformist constitution in combination with conservative civilian elite political control. Another is the failure of the Left to build political institutions, and a third is the rapid growth of an informal economy, which tended to undermine the party system. The search for alternative economic development models failed because of poor policy choices and bureaucratic limitations; successive governments also failed to understand the complexities and variations among the peasantry, which also suffered disproportionately from terrorist violence. Organized labor was progressively weakened through Sendero's challenges and the Fujimori government's antiorganization policies. Business elites, by contrast, rallied behind Fujimori's neoliberal reforms to provide him with a significant source of support. Sendero, meanwhile, had the ability to capture and channel "the rage of excluded groups in a deeply racist and impoverished society" (p. 8). Finally, the government's massive human rights abuses undermined its ability to win the support of the peasantry, even in a formally democratic context.

What is remarkable, given such a plethora of problems and challenges, is that the current government of Peru has both successfully consolidated its political control and built an economic alternative capable of achieving the country's longest period of sustained economic growth since the early 1970s. The editors and most of the contributors here, however, remain guardedly pessimistic about Peru's capacity to achieve either routinized and consolidated democracy or growth with equity for the country's long-suffering population.

In sum, Cameron and Mauceri have edited a thorough and satisfying analysis of recent Peruvian politics, a most worthy successor to the earlier volumes. For this reviewer, The Peruvian Labyrinth should be required reading for all who wish to understand the myriad complexities of the contemporary politics of Peru.

David Scott Palmer Boston University

Copyright Journal of Interamerican Studies Fall 1998
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