Georgetown Journal of International Affairs, Volume 7, Number 2, Summer/Fall 2006

CIAO DATE: 08/07

Georgetown Journal of International Affairs

Assessing Fujimori's Peru
Rachel K. Brickner

Excerpt

Rachel K. Brickner is a lecturer in political science at McGill University. Her work explores the participation of unionized women workers in organizations that promote women's rights in Mexico.

With the invaluable assistance of his intelligence adviser, Vladimiro Montesinos, Alberto Fujimori succeeded in dissolving Peru’s congress, rewriting the constitution, stacking the judiciary with supporters, and paying off much of the media, all for the goal of staying in power. Catherine M. Conaghan’s book, Fujimori’s Peru: Deception in the Public Sphere, is the remarkable account of the dismantling of Peruvian democracy during Fujimori’s ten-year rule (1990-2000).

At its best, Fujimori’s Peru is a page-turning political thriller, something few academic writers can boast of producing. It examines the power dynamic between the state and the entities that make up the public sphere. In particular, it highlights the ways that a too-powerful state can render the public sphere, and consequently democratic governance, irrelevant or non-existent. As such, it is a welcome contribution to the burgeoning literature on both the challenges to democratic consolidation in Latin America and elsewhere and the importance of a vibrant public space in helping to achieve democracy.

In 1990 Peru was in crisis. The guerrilla movement Sendero Luminoso (Shining Path) was carrying out acts of terror and violence in both rural and urban areas, and the government seemed incapable of putting a stop to the group. Moreover, the economy was in shambles, with annual inflation reaching 7000 percent. Peruvians were ready for a change in leadership, and in that year’s presidential election they threw their support behind Alberto Fujimori. Fujimori was a political outsider—before the election he had been the rector of the National Agrarian University of La Molina—a credential he trumpeted during the campaign. He presented himself as a man of the people, opting to drive a tractor or ride a bicycle during campaign appearances in contrast to his main rival, novelist Mario Vargas Llosa, who preferred an armor-plated Volvo and bodyguards.1

Upon his election, Fujimori delivered: the leader of Sendero, Abimael Guzmán, was captured on 12 September 1992, and Fujimori’s program of neoliberal economic reform helped spur economic growth and rein in inflation.2 Fujimori’s goals, however, soon shifted to staying in power, and with the help of Vladimiro Montesinos, the head of Peru’s National Intelligence Service (SIN), he set about disabling democratic institutions in order to make it happen. The first step in the process was Fujimori’s 1992 autogolpe, or self-coup, in which he dissolved Congress, disbanded regional legislatures, and shut down the Supreme Court and the Tribunal of Constitutional Guarantees.

As Conaghan notes, the 1990s represented a new era: no longer would the United States or Peru’s Latin American neighbors embrace an authoritarian government, even if it supported certain policy objectives. In this new era, democratic institutions had to be upheld, at least on the surface level. So, after the self-coup, Fujimori and Montesinos restored the façade of democracy, reestablishing important democratic institutions such as periodic elections, a unicameral legislature, and a new constitution. Moreover, they recognized the importance of maintaining the appearance of a democratic public sphere, including a free press. But they correctly reasoned that given Peru’s importance as a partner in combating narco-trafficking, the appearance of democratic institutions would be sufficient to appease international observers. The intention was to stay in power, and this meant subverting democratic institutions and the public sphere when they got in the way.3

Conaghan analyzes Fujimori and Montesinos’s dismantling of democracy and their eventual downfall through the lens of the public sphere. Borrowing language from German theorist Jürgen Habermas, she refers to the public sphere as a “wild complex,” the unregulated space outside of the administrative apparatus of the state in which the media, civil society, and other non-state public actors communicate ideas that can become the basis for public policy.4 Her aim is to show how this “wild complex” became a target of corruption and intimidation in the Fujimori-Montesinos reelection efforts, but also how it helped to bring Fujimori down in 2000, after a constitutionally questionable third run...

1 Catherine M. Conaghan, Fujimori's Peru: Deception in the Public Sphere (Pittsburgh: University of Pittsburgh Press, 2005), 17.
2 Fujimori’s economic shock therapy, or “Fujishock,” as it is known, helped to reduce inflation (to 4.7 percent by 1992), spur foreign investment, and increase tax revenues. However, Peruvians were hard hit by the Fujishock. For example, higher consumer prices contributed to dramatic increases in poverty. For discussion of Fujimori’s economic policies, see Bruce H. Kay, "'Fujipopulism' and the Liberal State in Peru, 1990-1995," Jounal of Interamerican Studies and World Affairs 156, No. 2 (1996); and Susan Stokes, "Democratic Accountability and Policy Change: Economic Policy in Fujimori's Peru," Comparative Politics 29 (January 1997).
3 Conaghan, Fujimori's Peru, 10.
4 Ibid., 12.