Book Review: Fujimori’s Coup and the Breakdown of Democracy in Latin America

• Author: Timothy J. Steigenga
• DOI: 10.1177/0010414004271371
• Published date: 01 March 2005
• Date: 01 March 2005
• Subject Matter: Articles

COMPARATIVE POLITICAL STUDIES / March 2005BOOK REVIEWS

BOOK REVIEWS

Charles D. Kenney, Fujimori’s Coup and the Breakdown of Democracy in Latin

America. Notre Dame, IN: University of Notre Dame Press, 2004. 379 pp. Cloth,

$60.00; paper, $30.00.

DOI: 10.1177/0010414004271371

Timothy J. Steigenga, Wilkes Honors College of Florida Atlantic University

Democratic failures provide political scientists with the best field data to test and

refine hypotheses about the challenges to democratic consolidation. Latin America

has the dubious distinction of providing a wealth of such data. According to Charles

D. Kenney (p. 263), more than one out of six democratically or semidemocratically

elected presidencies ended with democratic breakdown in Latin America between

1960 and 1997. The trend has accelerated since 2000, as elected leaders have prema-

turely exited office in Argentina, Bolivia, Ecuador, Haiti, and Peru. According to a

United Nations Development Programme (UNDP) report (Programa de las Naciones

Unidos Para al Desarrollo, 2004), 55% of Latin Americans polled in 18 countries said

that they would support the replacement of a democratic government with an “author-

itarian” regime if it would lead to economic improvements.

Given the ongoing challenges to democratic consolidation in Latin America,

Kenney’s focus on Alberto Fujimori’s 1992 autogolpe (self-coup) in Peru is both

timely and instructive. Kenney’s central argument is that minority presidencies—

those without legislative majorities or coalition majorities—are at greater risk for

democratic breakdown than nonminority presidencies. He supports this argument

with an in-depth case study of Peru, as well as an analysis of cross-national data from

77 democratically or semidemocratically elected presidencies between 1960 and

1997. Cognizant of the multiple and complex underlying sources of democratic

breakdowns, Kenney concludes that minority presidencies institutionally circum-

scribe the potential for democratic outcomes. Although many economic, political,

and social conflicts may underlie democratic collapses, it is the failure of political

institutions to channel and process those conflicts because of executive-legislative

conflicts that makes democratic breakdowns more likely.

The book is organized primarily around the Peruvian case, with a final chapter

addressing cross-national data and further cases from Latin America. Chapter 1 sets

out the argument and methodology and provides a brief overview of 20th-century

Peruvian politics. Kenney argues that developmental level and economic crisis,

though contributing factors, do not provide a sufficientexplanation for Peru’s demo-

cratic breakdown (pp. 14-15).Chapters 2 and 3 present the story of Peru’stransition to

democracy in 1980, the rise of the Shining Path insurgency, and the economic and

social crises faced by presidents Fernando Belaunde of the Popular Action (Acción

218

COMPARATIVE POLITICAL STUDIES, Vol. 38 No. 2, March 2005 218-228

© 2005 Sage Publications