In this timely book, James Rudolph skillfully examines the political, economic, and social problems that have devastated Peru since the restoration of civilian, democratic rule in 1980. Peruvians almost universally refer to this painful experience with the shorthand phrase la crisis. The coauthor of a score of “country studies” (including the 1981 volume on Peru) prepared by the foreign area studies staff of the American University, Rudolph has lived and taught in Peru since 1986. Informed by firsthand experience, he has synthesized a wide range of Peruvian and English-language sources to produce a solid consensus interpretation of contemporary Peru.
The first half of the book provides geographic, social, and historical background. Rudolph is generally a reliable guide in this survey of Peru’s political evolution, although he adds credence to the now-discredited claim that APRA founder Víctor Raúl Haya de la Torre was cheated out of the presidency in the 1931 election. More important, Rudolph provides an excellent overview and analysis of the 12-year Revolutionary Government of the Armed Forces (1968-80). While maintaining that the docenio produced some benefits, Rudolph finds the proximate roots of the current crisis in the errors of the military regime.
Rudolph explains how the neoliberal economic policies of Fernando Belaúnde (1980-85) failed to replicate the “miracles” touted of them in Chile and Argentina. Instead, Peru was ravaged by climatic disasters, plummeting trade terms, and a dysfunctional austerity program dictated by the International Monetary Fund. Rudolph faults Belaúnde for failing to nip the nascent Sendero Luminoso in the bud, then giving free rein to the armed forces, whose brutal disregard for human rights alienated the peasants but did not stop the spread of the Sendero insurgency. While sabotage repeatedly darkened Lima, the insurgency became entangled with the international drug industry in the Huallaga Valley. Belaúnde passed on to his successor a nearly moribund domestic economy, a suffocating foreign debt, an escalating “dirty war” against Sendero, and a booming drug industry that fostered debilitating official corruption.
Rudolph’s most important contribution is his two-chapter treatment of the 1985-90 administration of Aprista Alan García. The author is sympathetic toward APRA. He emphasizes the extremely difficult challenge García faced and acknowledges the successes of the regime’s first two years. Nevertheless, Rudolph holds García primarily responsible for the incredible desgobierno that pushed Peru to the brink of disaster by 1990. García’s political ineptitude and personal failings brought wrongheaded policies toward the economy and the insurgency; these policies dramatically eroded the quality of life for the middle class and brought incredible suffering to the nation’s poor. Overall, Rudolph introduces readers to the current Peruvian conundrum with both sensitivity and admirable objectivity.
