Presidents without Roots: Understanding the Peruvian Paradox

• Author: Alberto Vergara,Aaron Watanabe
• Date: 01 September 2019
• DOI: 10.1177/0094582X19854097
• Published date: 01 September 2019
• Subject Matter: Articles

https://doi.org/10.1177/0094582X19854097

LATIN AMERICAN PERSPECTIVES, Issue 228, Vol. 46 No. 5, September 2019, 25–43

DOI: 10.1177/0094582X19854097

© 2019 Latin American Perspectives

25

Presidents without Roots

Understanding the Peruvian Paradox

by

Alberto Vergara and Aaron Watanabe

Peru’s posttransition democracy presents a paradox: presidents have remained unpop-

ular despite presiding over a period in which democratic institutions strengthened and the

economy grew rapidly. O’Donnell’s work on delegative democracy suggests that the

Peruvian paradox results from weak vertical accountability. Since Peru’s return to democ-

racy, parties and civil society have been too weak to hold elected leaders accountable.

Furthermore, presidents have faced opposition to reform from entrenched neoliberal tech-

nocrats. With no one holding them accountable and little capacity to govern, presidents

have chosen to delegate decision-making authority to technocrats. Even when leaders have

won office on reformist platforms, continuity has prevailed, and citizens have lost trust in

their elected leaders. The origins of the Peruvian paradox and weak vertical accountability

can be traced to the destruction of the institutional and organizational foundations of

democracy in the 1990s under Alberto Fujimori’s authoritarian regime.

La democracia pos-transición en Perú presenta una paradoja: los presidentes siguen

siendo impopulares a pesar de presidir un período en el que las instituciones democráticas

se fortalecieron y la economía creció rápidamente. El trabajo de O’Donnell sobre la demo-

cracia delegativa sugiere que la paradoja peruana resulta de una débil rendición de cuentas

vertical. Desde el retorno de Perú a la democracia, los partidos y la sociedad civil han sido

demasiado débiles para responsabilizar a los líderes electos. Además, los presidentes han

enfrentado la oposición a la reforma de tecnócratas neoliberales atrincherados. Sin que

nadie los responsabilice y con poca capacidad para gobernar, los presidentes han optado

por delegar la autoridad en la toma de decisiones a los tecnócratas. Incluso cuando los

líderes han sido eligidos en plataformas reformistas, la continuidad ha prevalecido y los

ciudadanos han perdido la confianza en sus líderes electos. Los orígenes de la paradoja

peruana y la débil rendición de cuentas vertical se remonta a la destrucción de los cimien-

tos institucionales y organizativos de la democracia en la década de 1990 bajo el régimen

autoritario de Alberto Fujimori.

Keywords: Delegative democracy, Peruvian paradox, Fujimorato, Technocrats

Since President Alberto Fujimori’s competitive authoritarian regime col-

lapsed in 2000, Peru has enjoyed an unprecedented period of economic growth,

increasing state presence, and stable democracy. Despite this auspicious con-

text, the governments of Alejandro Toledo (2001–2006), Alan García (2006–

2011), Ollanta Humala (2011–2016), and Pedro Pablo Kuczynski (2016–2018)

Alberto Vergara is an assistant professor at Peru’s Universidad del Pacífico, and Aaron Watanabe

is a Ph.D. student in the Department of Government at Harvard University.

854097LAPXXX10.1177/0094582X19854097Latin American PerspectivesVergara and Watanabe / Presidents Without Roots

research-article2019

26 LATIN AMERICAN PERSPECTIVES

have endured intense public dissatisfaction. Approval ratings for presidents,

parties, Congress, and the democratic regime itself have often fallen below 20

percent. What explains this “Peruvian paradox” (Levitsky, 2014)? Why do

Peruvians despise their politicians despite Peru’s strong performance in recent

years?

We propose that Guillermo O’Donnell’s (1994) work on delegative democ-

racy helps to explain the persistent unpopularity of Peruvian politicians.

Delegative democracies “rest on the premise that whoever wins election to the

presidency is thereby entitled to govern as he or she sees fit, constrained only

by the hard facts of existing power relations and by a constitutionally limited

term of office” (O’Donnell, 1994: 59). These regimes are weakly institutional-

ized democracies. Political actors respect the fundamental democratic institu-

tions of free elections and general protection for political rights, but these

regimes do not promote accountability. In institutionalized democracies, two

sets of actors hold elected leaders accountable. Agents of “horizontal account-

ability” including ombudsmen, prosecutors, judges, and legislatures have the

legal authority to monitor officials and sanction them for abuses of power. At

the same time, voters, civil society organizations, and political parties provide

“vertical accountability.” These actors can use elections and lobbying to push

politicians to be responsive to society’s preferences. Delegative democracies

combine electoral vertical accountability with a feeble horizontal counterpart.

The absence of checks and balances breaks the representative link between

public demands and policy making. While free and fair, elections become

mechanisms for selecting a supreme authority to whom voters delegate deci-

sion-making power.

Peru’s democracy features a different form of delegation. Rather than voters’

delegating to politicians, Peruvian politicians delegate to unelected techno-

crats, particularly on economic matters. The result resembles delegative democ-

racy: a regime with democratic institutions but without a representative link

between the public and policy makers. However, we diagnose the cause as a

lack of vertical rather than horizontal accountability. While elections empower

Peruvians to choose their leaders, weak parties and civil society limit the pub-

lic’s ability to hold governments accountable. Furthermore, without the sup-

port of mobilized sectors of society and experienced parties, presidents find

themselves alone in their efforts to implement their campaign promises. The

path of least resistance becomes capitulating to rather than challenging the

entrenched technocrats who have controlled policy making since the 1990s.

Thus, presidents who win office promising reform rapidly become protectors

of the status quo. While policy stability has encouraged headline economic

growth, it leaves the public frustrated with political leaders who refuse to lead.

In the following three sections we describe how this arrangement developed

and the forces that maintain it. The first section lays out the Peruvian paradox

in further detail. The second section describes its origins in the 1990s, when

then-President Alberto Fujimori encouraged the collapse of Peru’s party sys-

tem, waged a violent conflict against the Shining Path insurgency that weak-

ened civil society, and implemented drastic pro-market economic reforms by

empowering neoliberal technocrats in the state. These actions demobilized

agents of vertical and horizontal accountability. The third section shows that