State, Market, and Apathy: The Causes of Wars in Peru, 1980 (original) (raw)
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Georgetown University-Graduate School of Arts & Sciences, 2017
How and why do ordinary people in democratic states participate in violent revolution? This dissertation explores variation in the confluence of civilians' participation in status quo politicsthrough electoral channels and civil society actionand in violent insurgencies that seek to conquer the state. Through a comparative juxtaposition of Peru's Shining Path and the Naxalite movement in India, I argue that an insurgency's particular ideological interpretations and conceptions of membership shape civilian support by influencing everyday social relations between rebels and civilians and changing networks of participation. During war, civilians are agents of political mobilization, and rebels exploit social networks, which draw on historical forms of organization and activism and a long trajectory of political ideas about race, citizenship, and class. I examine people's varied participation in violent politics in three settings: the regions of Ayacucho and Puno, Peru (1960-1992), and Telangana, a region of southern India (1946-51). Where communities in Peru drew on existing political resourcesdiverse networks that expressed peasants' demands for reform and representation, and which emphasized commitment to democratic contestation over armed strugglepeople could choose to resist rebels' mobilizing efforts. Where communities lacked integrated political organization, insurgents implemented violent ideologies by repurposing local networks.
During the 1980s, the Peruvian society was deeply affected by two significant events: a) the economic crisis that ended in recession and hyperinflation and, b) the spread of political violence, in particular in Ayacucho, in the central Andean highlands. Taking this into account, the conditions for the reconstruction and rehabilitation of those areas affected by political violence were reviewed from an economic approach. Therefore, this paper aims to analyze the role of the State in the rehabilitation process of the rural communities in Ayacucho, with special attention on the advantages and limitations of a decentralization program. The analysis was made at the micro and macro levels. For the micro level, asset and vulnerability approach was used, and at the macro level, decentralization was considered to be the main link for the new relationship between the State and the rural communities. As a result of this two-fold analysis, it could be concluded that the simple creation and prov...