The Peruvian Labyrinth: Polity, Society, Economy

This is the third collection of essays published over the last twenty-five years in an effort to provide a broad overview of contemporary Peru. Inspired by the Revolutionary Government of the Armed Forces (1968–80) and its ambitious reforms, Abraham Lowenthal edited The Peruvian Experiment (1975). Lowenthal and Cynthia McClintock followed up with The Peruvian Experiment Reconsidered (1983). Both were distinguished contributions. This volume (with a foreword by Lowenthal and McClintock) is less successful, having greater variability in the quality of the individual essays, lacking the tight focus of the earlier volumes, and underplaying the key element in the Peruvian labyrinth during this period.Editors Maxwell A. Cameron, of Carleton University in Ottawa, Canada, and Philip Mauceri, of the University of Northern Iowa, sought to “provide a synthesis” to guide “students, researchers, policy makers, human-rights activists, and the interested public … through the complex maze of social, political, and economic changes that have taken place in Peru” (p. 9) during the 1980s and 1990s. Most of the eight topical essays (all original) follow the volume’s basic format, addressing the themes of institutional change, relations between the state and society, and democratization. While relatively little attention is devoted to the troubled presidencies of Fernando Belaúnde and Alan García, most of the pieces focus on the administration of President Alberto Fujimori and attempt to explicate its authoritarian nature. The foreword by Lowenthal and McClintock introduces this theme by comparing the Fujimori regime with that of General Juan Velasco Alvarado (1968–75).The editors, both political scientists, provide a brief introduction and a conclusion and also contribute individual chapters: Mauceri surveys the “Transition to ‘Democracy’ and the Failures of Institution Building” during the period 1977–92, from President Remigio Morales Bermúdez’s efforts to extricate the armed forces from the government to Fujimori’s “self-coup”; Cameron’s chapter on “Political and Economic Origins of Regime Change in Peru” focuses on the first two years of the Fujimori regime and the reasons for the “self-coup.” Political economist Carol Wise addresses “State Policy and Social Conflict in Peru”; historian Christine Hunefeldt examines the “Rural Landscape and Changing Political Awareness” from 1969 to 1994; Carmen Rosa Balbi, a sociologist, discusses “Politics and Trade Unions in Peru”; political scientist Francisco Durand writes on the “Growth and Limitations of the Peruvian Right”; anthropologist Carlos Iván Degregori contributes “After the Fall of Abimael Guzmán: The Limits of Sendero Luminoso”; and political scientists Kenneth Roberts and Mark Peceny explore “Human Rights and United States Policy Toward Peru.”Since the return of civilian presidents to the Palace of Pizarro in 1980, the research bloom for social scientists has largely faded from the Peruvian rose. Only the Shining Path insurgency has attracted much attention in recent years. Indeed, nothing has so profoundly affected the nation as the deadly war between Sendero Luminoso and the security forces. As always, Senderologist Degregori’s essay on insurgency leader Abi-mael Guzmán is insightful, but it is a postscript. The volume lacks an overview of this tragic, era-defining struggle. Nevertheless, The Peruvian Labyrinth provides a useful primer on Peru since the departure of the “new generals,” and on how their handiwork has been largely undone. To explore more deeply the Sendero Luminoso tragedy, readers might well begin with Shining and Other Paths: War and Society in Peru, 1980–1995 (1998), edited by Steve J. Stern.

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