ECONOMIC-CRISIS AND THE DEMISE OF THE LEGAL LEFT IN PERU

Economic crises increased poverty and exacerbated social inequality in Latin America in the 1980s but did not empower parties of the Left an d their affiliated social movements. Although the legal Left in Peru i n 1980 was a formidable social and political force, by the early 1990s it was eclipsed by the Shining Path insurgency and the autocratic neo liberalism of President Alberto Fujimori. The crisis undermined the co nditions for class-based collective action and fragmented the social n etworks that sustained the support of the United Left coalition. The U nited Left was also polarized in competing camps as different parties and leaders adopted divergent strategic responses to the national cris is. The collapse of partisan representation created a political void h ighly conducive to new forms of personalist leadership.