Hostname: page-component-586b7cd67f-rdxmf Total loading time: 0 Render date: 2024-11-23T02:24:15.308Z Has data issue: false hasContentIssue false
  • English
  • Français

“Quien Habla es Terrorista”: The Political Use of Fear in Fujimori's Peru

Published online by Cambridge University Press:  05 October 2022

Jo-Marie Burt
Jo-Marie Burt*
Affiliation:
George Mason University
Rights & Permissions [Opens in a new window]

Abstract

Core share and HTML view are not available for this content. However, as you have access to this content, a full PDF is available via the ‘Save PDF’ action button.

Scholarship on the decade-long rule of Alberto Fujimori emphasizes the surprising popularity and support for Fujimori's rule. This essay, which analyzes the politics of fear in Fujimori's Peru, suggests that this presents a partial view of the nature of Fujimori's authority. Drawing on a Gramscian conceptualization of power, it explains how coercion achieved a consensual façade by manipulating fear and creating a semblance of order in a context of extreme individual and collective insecurity. It traces the roots of this insecurity in the economic crisis and political violence of the 1980s and 1990s, and explains how the Fujimori regime manipulated fear and insecurity to buttress its authoritarian rule. This essay also complements existing studies on Peruvian civil society, which point to economic factors, such as the economic crisis of the 1980s and neoliberal reforms, to explain civil society weakness. This paper explores the political factors that contributed to this process, particularly the deployment of state power to penetrate, control and intimidate civil society.

Resumen

Resumen

La literatura acerca de la década de gobierno de Alberto Fujimori enfatiza la sorpresiva popularidad y amplio apoyo a su orden. Este ensayo, que analiza la política del miedo durante su régimen, sugiere que esta observación presenta una visión parcial de la naturaleza de la autoridad de Fujimori. En base a conceptualizaciones Gramscianas de poder, explica como la coerción adquirió un aspecto consensual a partir de la manipulación del miedo y la creación de un orden ficticio en un contexto de extrema inseguridad individual y colectiva. El ensayo halla las raíces de esta inseguridad en la crisis económica y violencia política de los ochenta y noventa, y explica como el gobierno de Fujimori manipuló el miedo y la inseguridad para fomentar su orden autoritario. Asimismo, este ensayo complementa los estudios disponibles sobre la sociedad civil peruana, los cuales enfatizan factores económicos, como la crisis económica de los ochenta y las reformas neoliberales, en la explicación del debilitamiento de la sociedad civil. Aquí en cambio se exploran los factores políticos que contribuyeron a este proceso, particularmente el uso del poder estatal en la penetración, control e intimidación de la sociedad civil.

Type
Research Article
Information
Latin American Research Review , Volume 41 , Issue 3 , October 2006 , pp. 32 - 62
Copyright
Copyright © 2006 by the University of Texas Press

Footnotes

1.

The author would like to thank the anonymous reviewers at LARR, as well as Cynthia McClintock, Philip Mauceri, Julio Carrion, Charles Kenney, and Karen Sosnoski for their insightful comments on an earlier version of this essay. Research for this essay was made possible by grants from the Institute for the Study of World Politics, the Inter-American Foundation, and the United States Institute of Peace. This article is based on a paper presented at the conference, “The Fujimori Legacy and Its Impact on Public Policy in Latin America,” organized by the Dante B. Fascell North-South Center at the University of Miami and the University of Delaware's Department of Political Science and International Relations, Washington, DC, March 14, 2002.

References

Afflito, Frank 2000 “The Homogenizing Effects of State-Sponsored Terrorism: The Case of Guatemala.” In Jeffrey A. Sluka, ed., Death Squad: The Anthropology of State Terror. Philadelphia: University of Pennsylvania Press.Google Scholar
Amnesty International 1989 Peru: Human Rights in a State of Emergency. (August).Google Scholar
Amnesty International 1990 Peru: Attacks on Human Rights Defenders 1988–1990 (June).Google Scholar
Amnesty International 1996 Peru: Summary of Amnesty International's Concerns 1980–1995.Google Scholar
APRODEH (Asociación Pro-Derechos Humanos) 1994 De la tierra brotó la verdad. Crimen e impunidad en el caso La Cantuta. Lima: Asociación Pro-Derechos Humanos.Google Scholar
Atwood, Roger 2001 “Democratic Dictators: Authoritarian Politics in Peru from Leguía to Fujimori.” SAIS Review 21 (2): 155–176.CrossRefGoogle Scholar
Bailón, Eduardo, ed. 1986 Movimientos sociales y democracia: La fundación de un nuevo orden. Lima: DESCO.Google Scholar
Barrig, Maruja 1988 De vecinas a ciudadanes. Lima: SUMBI.Google Scholar
Blondet, Cecilia 2002 El encanto del dictador. Mujeres y política en la década de Fujimori. Lima: Instituto de Estudios Peruanos.Google Scholar
Bourque, Susan, and Warren, Kay 1989 “Democracy Without Peace: The Cultural Politics of Terror in Peru.” Latin American Research Review 24 (1): 7–34.Google Scholar
Burt, Jo-Marie 1994 “La Inquisición Post-Senderista.” Que Hacer (Lima), November/December.Google Scholar
Burt, Jo-Marie 1997 “Political Violence and the Grassroots in Lima, Peru,” in Douglas Chalmers et al., eds., 281–309.CrossRefGoogle Scholar
Burt, Jo-Marie 1998 “Shining Path and the ‘Decisive Battle’ in Lima's Barriadas: The Case of Villa El Salvador,” in Steve Stern, ed., 267–306.CrossRefGoogle Scholar
Burt, Jo-Marie 2004 “State-making Against Democracy: The Case of Fujimori's Peru,” in Politics in the Andes: Identity, Violence, Reform, Jo-Marie Burt and Philip Mauceri, eds. Pittsburgh: University of Pittsburgh Press.CrossRefGoogle Scholar
Burt, Jo-Marie, and Espejo, Cesar 1995 “The Struggles of a Self-Built Community.” NACLA Report on the Americas 28 (4) (January/February).CrossRefGoogle Scholar
Cameron, Maxwell 1994 Democracy and Authoritarianism in Peru: Political Coalitions and Social Change. New York: Palgrave MacMillan.Google Scholar
Carrion, Julio 1998 “La popularidad de Fujimori en tiempos ordinarios, 1993–1997,” in Fernando Tuesta Soldevilla, El juego político: Fujimori, la oposición y las reglas. Lima: Fundación Friedrich Ebert.Google Scholar
Chalmers, Douglas, Vilas, Carlos M., Hite, Katherine, Martin, Scott B., Piester, Kerianne and Segarra, Monique, eds. 1997 The New Politics of Inequality in Latin America: Rethinking Participation and Representation. London: Oxford University Press.CrossRefGoogle Scholar
Comité de Familiares de Presos Políticos de Izquierda Unida e Independientes y el Sindicato de Trabajadores de Editora La República 1985 Presos políticos y derechos humanos: Razones para una amnistía. LimaGoogle Scholar
Conaghan, Catherine 2001 “Making and Unmaking Authoritarian Peru: Re-election, Resistance and Regime Transition.” The North-South Agenda Papers 47 (May), Dante B. Fascell North-South Center, University of Miami.Google Scholar
Conaghan, Catherine 2002 “Cashing in on Authoritarianism: Media Collusion in Fujimori's Peru.” Harvard International Journal of Press/Politics 7 (1): 115–125.CrossRefGoogle Scholar
Corradi, Juan E., Fagen, Patricia Weiss, and Garreton, Manuel Antonio, eds. 1992 Fear at the Edge: State Terror and Resistance in Latin America. Berkeley: University of California Press.CrossRefGoogle Scholar
CVR [Comisión de la Verdad y Reconciliación] 2003 Final Report (Lima: Comisión de la Verdad y Reconciliación). Available at: <http://www.cverdad.org.pe>..>Google Scholar
Degregori, Carlos Iván 1990 Surgimiento de Sendero Luminoso : Ayacucho, 1969–1979. Lima: Instituto de Estudios Peruanos.Google Scholar
Degregori, Carlos Iván 2001 La década de la antipolítica. Auge y huida de Alberto Fujimori y Vladimiro Montesinos. Lima: Instituto de Estudios Peruanos.Google Scholar
Degregori, Carlos Iván, ed. 1996 Rondas campesinas y la derrota de Sendero Luminoso. Lima: Instituto de Estudios Peruanos.Google Scholar
Degregori, Carlos Iván, Blondet, Cecilia, and Lynch, Nicolás 1986 Conquistadores de un nuevo mundo: De invasores a ciudadanos en San Martín de Porres. Lima: Instituto de Estudios Peruanos.Google Scholar
Degregori, Carlos Iván, and Rivera, Carlos 1993 Fuerzas Armadas, subversion y democracia: 1980–1993. Lima: Instituto de Estudios Peruanos.Google Scholar
De la Jara Basombrío, Ernesto 2001 Memoria y batallas en nombre de los inocentes. Perú 1992–2001. Lima: Instituto de Defensa Legal.Google Scholar
Foucault, Michel 1979 Discipline and Punish. The Birth of the Prison. New York: Vintage Books.Google Scholar
Garreton, Manuel Antonio 1992 “Fear in Military Regimes: An Overview,” in Corradi et al., 13–25.CrossRefGoogle Scholar
Gorriti Ellenbogen, Gustavo 1999 Shining Path: A History of the Millenarian War in Peru. Chapel Hill: University of North Carolina Press.Google Scholar
Graham, Carol 1992 Peru's APRA. Parties, Politics, and the Elusive Quest for Democracy. Boulder: Lynne Rienner Publishers.Google Scholar
Gramsci, Antonio 1987 Selections from the Prison Notebooks. New York: International Publishers. 9th ed.Google Scholar
Guzman Bouvard, Marguerite 1994 Revolutionizing Motherhood: The Mothers of the Plaza De Mayo. New York: Scholarly Resources.Google Scholar
Human Rights Watch 1992 Peru Under Fire: Human Rights since the Return to Democracy. New York.Google Scholar
Human Rights Watch 1993 Human Rights in Peru: One Year After Fujimori's Coup. New York.Google Scholar
Human Rights Watch 1995 Peru: The Two Faces of justice. New York.Google Scholar
Human Rights Watch 1997 Torture and Political Persecution in Peru. New York.Google Scholar
IACHR 2005 Caso Huilca Tecse vs. Perú. Inter-American Court on Human Rights. March. Available at <http://www.corteidh.or.cr/seriecpdf/seriec_121_esp.pdf>..>Google Scholar
ICJ [International Commission of Jurists] 1993 Report of the International Commission of Jurists on the Administration of Justice in Peru. Lima.Google Scholar
Izaguirre, Ines 1998 “Recapturing the Memory of Politics.” NACLA Report on the Americas 31 (6): 28–34. (May-June).CrossRefGoogle Scholar
Keane, John 1996 Reflections on Violence. New York: Verso.Google Scholar
Lechner, Norbert 1992 “Some People Die of Fear: Fear as a Political Problem,” in Corradi et al. 26–35.CrossRefGoogle Scholar
Mauceri, Philip 1995 “State Reform, Coalitions, and the Neoliberal ‘Autogolpe’ in Peru.” Latin American Research Review 30: 1, 7–38.Google Scholar
May, Rachel A. 2001 Terror in the Countryside: Campesino Responses to Political Violence in Guatemala, 1954–1985. Athens: Ohio University Press.Google Scholar
McAdam, Doug, Tarrow, Sidney, and Tilly, Charles 2001 Dynamics of Contention. New York: Cambridge University Press.CrossRefGoogle Scholar
McClintock, Cynthia 1998 Revolutionary Movements in Latin America: El Salvador's FMLN and Peru's Shining Path. Washington, D.C.: United States Institute of Peace Press.Google Scholar
McClintock, Cynthia, and Lowenthal, Abraham 1983 The Peruvian Experiment Reconsidered. Princeton: Princeton University Press.Google Scholar
McSherry, J. Patrice, and Mejia, Raul Molina 1999 “Introduction to Shadows of State Terrorism: Impunity in Latin America.” Social Justice (Winter).Google Scholar
Nieto, Jorge 1983 Izquierda y Democracia en el Perú, 1975–1982. Lima: DESCO.Google Scholar
Olson, Mancur 1971 The Logic of Collective Action: Public Goods and the Theory of Groups. Cambridge: Harvard University Press.Google Scholar
Palmer, David Scott, ed. 1992 Shining Path of Peru. New York: St. Martin's Press.Google Scholar
Panfichi, Aldo 1997 “The Authoritarian Alternative: Anti-Politics Among the Popular Sectors of Lima,” in Douglas Chalmers, et al.Google Scholar
Payne, Leigh 2000 Uncivil Movements: The Armed Right Wing and Democracy in Latin America. Baltimore: Johns Hopkins University Press.Google Scholar
Parodi, Jorge 2000 To be a Worker: Identity and Politics in Peru. Chapel Hill: University of North Carolina Press.Google Scholar
Rénique, José Luis 1998 “Apogee and Crisis of a ‘Third Path’: Mariateguismo, ‘People's War,’ and Counterinsurgency in Puno, 1987–1994,” in Steve Stern, ed., 307–338.CrossRefGoogle Scholar
Roberts, Kenneth 1995 “Neoliberalism and the Transformation of Populism in Latin America: The Peruvian Case.” World Politics 48:82–116.CrossRefGoogle Scholar
Roberts, Kenneth 1999 Deepening Democracy? The Modern Left and Social Movements in Chile and Peru. Stanford: Stanford University Press.CrossRefGoogle Scholar
Rochabrún, Guillermo 1988 “Crisis, Democracy, and the Left in Peru.” Latin American Perspectives (15): 77–96.CrossRefGoogle Scholar
Schönwälder, Gerd 2002 Linking Civil Society and the State: Urban Popular Movements, the Left, and Local Government in Peru, 1980–1992. University Park: Pennsylvania State University Press.Google Scholar
Stepan, Alfred 1978 State and Society: Peru in Comparative Perspective. Princeton: Princeton University Press.Google Scholar
Stern, Steve, ed. 1998 Shining and Other Paths: War and Society in Peru, 1980–1995. Durham, NC: Duke University Press.CrossRefGoogle Scholar
Stokes, Susan C. 1995 Cultures in Conflict: Social Movements and the State in Peru. Berkeley: University of California Press.CrossRefGoogle Scholar
Stokes, Susan C. 2001 Mandates and Democracy: Neoliberalism by Surprise in Latin America. Cambridge, UK: Cambridge University Press.CrossRefGoogle Scholar
Suarez-Orozco, Marcelo, and Robben, Antonius 2000 “Interdisciplinary Perspectives on Violence and Trauma.” In Cultures Under Siege: Collective Violence and Trauma, 1–42. Edited by Antonius Robben and Marcelo Suarez-Orozco. New York: Cambridge University Press.Google Scholar
Tapia, Carlos 1997 Fuerzas Armadas y Sendero Luminoso: Dos estrategias y un final. Lima: Instituto de Estudios Peruanos.Google Scholar
Tarrow, Sidney 1998 Power in Movement: Social Movements and Contentious Politics. New York: Cambridge University Press.Google Scholar
Weyland, Kurt 1996 “Neopopulism and Neoliberalism in Latin America: Unexpected Affinities.” Studies in Comparative International Development 31 (3): 3–31. (Fall).CrossRefGoogle Scholar
Youngers, Coletta 2003 Violencia política y sociedad civil en el Perú. Historia de la Coordinadora Nacional de Derechos Humanos. Lima: Instituto de Estudios Peruanos.Google Scholar