Suchergebnisse

A growing literature in comparative Latin American Politics highlights how policy feedback effects help explain the resilience of neoliberal reforms in the region. These works emphasize private actors/interest groups to explain neoliberal policy continuity. Nonetheless, given their focus on continuity, these works do little to explore other instances in which neoliberal feedback cannot preclude change. This paper presents an instance in which powerful private actors favored by neoliberal reforms were incapable of resisting change. An Act of the Peruvian Congress adopted in 2016 opened the door for individual pensioners to withdraw up to 95.5 percent of all their accumulated savings at the point of retirement. Ensuing reforms approved by Congress during the COVID-19 emergency (2020–2021) further weakened private administrators of these pension funds (AFPs). The case shows how the conflicting interests between private service providers and future pensioners make the service providers vulnerable; a divide also found in other neoliberal reforms. (JPLA/GIGA)

AbstractThe Peruvian Constitutional Tribunal (CT) is currently an independent institutional actor in Peru's politics. By comparing and contrasting the recent history of the CT and two previous 'cases' of 'failed' constitutional courts – the CT's role during the Fujimori regime and its predecessor, the Tribunal of Constitutional Guarantees – the article tests several theories that aim to explain the emergence of independent courts in democracies. The three cases provide evidence in support of theories that highlight the importance of political pluralism as a necessary condition for the emergence of independent courts, but the cases also show that an institutional design that 'mirrors' this pluralism is crucial to attain this outcome. The importance of these political and institutional factors suggests that it is too soon to be optimistic about the likelihood that the present CT can maintain its independence in the future.

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