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This paper focuses on the Peruvian Truth and Reconciliation Commission's PTRC (2001-2003) Thematic Public Hearing on Political Violence and Crimes Against Women, analyzing both the representations of women and the disruptive moments that occurred in this hearing. Through a bricolage of narrative form including vignette, testimony, interpretive analysis, and selections from interviews, this paper explores the cacophony of voices and parallel realities present within the work of the PTRC. An examination of the public hearings, demonstrates how certain figures, such as virgin victim and righteous mother/community leader, are privileged through a human rights framework, overlaid upon the Peruvian national discourse. This examination also illustrates how others figures, such as imprisoned subversive women, are denied the possibility of recognition. This paper underscores the way in which dominant representations of women in the PTRC's national historical narrative impose limitations on a transition to democracy due to underlying exclusionary logics. ..PAT.-Unpublished Manuscript [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

What are the reasons for the participation of indigenous groups in the class based Maoist insurgencies? What are its consequences? Have ethnic participation fuelled the growth of the communist insurgencies after the end of Cold War? This paper explores the questions by looking at three well known Maoist insurgencies in Nepal, Peru, and India that began during democracies with significant participation of the indigenous groups. Peru's insurgency terminated despite reaching a significant height, the Nepali insurgents joined the government, and India's insurgency did not grow as much as in Peru and India but has persisted since the 1960s. The paper analyzes the attitudes and policies of the state and insurgents toward the indigenous groups and the affect of indigenous participation, or the lack of it, on the varied trajectories of the insurgencies. ..PAT.-Unpublished Manuscript [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

This paper focuses on the impact of local civil society organizations on the trajectory of social conflicts under conditions of weak rule of law. Both civil society and rule of law have been presented as potentially key elements for improving governance and facilitating democratic consolidation. However, there is little empirical research on how the two interact in scenarios that are very different from those of the affluent liberal-democratic countries in which the concepts were developed. The case of Peru offers a valuable opportunity for evaluating this relationship, as accounts of 173 social conflicts collected by the Peruvian Ombudsman over the last three years shed light on both the shortcomings of the rule of law and the type of actors involved in articulating popular discontent. The paper finds that the presence of civil society organizations increases the likelihood that complainants will attempt to use legal mechanisms and peaceful demonstrations. However, it also argues that due to the weakness of the rule of law, legal mechanisms usually prove ineffective. For this reason, the presence of civil society organizations is insufficient to curb the recurrent use of violence to solve disputes. ..PAT.-Unpublished Manuscript [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

The article discusses particularism as an important cause of variation in government service provision in Peru. Topics discussed include differences in government service provision within the population of democratic polities, particularistic exchange as an important driver of public service provision and reasons for studying Peruvian local governance as a critical case for the study of particularism.

Through the adoption in June 1991 of the Santiago Commitment to democracy, the Organization of American States (OAS) renewed its pledge to protect democracy in the region and established the institutional mechanisms for doing so. Despite reasonably successful responses to coups and democratic crises in the early 1990s (Haiti 1991, Peru 1992, Guatemala 1993), however, the last ten years (1993-2003) have presented the OAS with more pernicious obstacles to democratic stability in the region, whether among the smaller countries of the region (e.g., the Dominican Republic, Ecuador, Guatemala, Haiti, and Paraguay) or the intermediate powers (e.g., Argentina, Colombia, Peru, and Venezuela). To discern how deep and consequential the organization’s normative commitment to democracy is, this essay examines OAS action (and inaction) to democratic crises in Latin America from 1991 to the present. Utilizing both qualitative and quantitative data, the essay generalizes about when the OAS is most likely to intervene on behalf of democracy and assesses the impact intervention has had on democratic quality and sustainability in the region. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]