Peru, Between the Organic Crisis and the Captured Political Elites. A Sociohistorical Essay

Resum

The social and political instability that Peru has been going through since December 2022, when former President Pedro Castillo Terrones was removed from office by Congress, is the result of a long institutional crisis that has eroded the Andean country's democracy for at least six years years but which sinks its roots in the neoliberal order established by Fujimori. The process of authoritarian neoliberalization that was consolidated during the mandate of Alberto Fujimori (1990-2000) generated the conditions for the possibility of a fragile, exclusive regime that was susceptible to the capture of private interests. Likewise, at this juncture, structural elements emerged originating from the nineteenth-century state centralization processes that shaped the nation state. This article explores the current Peruvian crisis from a sociohistorical approach to identify the elements of medium and long duration that allow us to understand the specificity of this scenario beyond an eventual analysis. The analysis of the socio-historical conditions that led to the current crisis allows us to notice a set of structural elements related to two critical junctures: 1. the process of state centralization; 2. Neoliberalization through authoritarian means. At the same time, it seeks to show that the criminalization of indigenous and indigenous-campesino communities, the repression of social protest, and militarization constitute self-preservation strategies of the economic and political elites to sustain neoliberal institutions. These strategies are an expression of accumulated layers of violence, racism, and subordination of the Lima ruling classes in the face of the mountainous and jungle communities.