Market Reform in Society : Post-Crisis Politics and Economic Change in Authoritarian Peru

Going beyond the usual state-centric approach to the study of the politics of neoliberal reform, Moisés Arce emphasizes the importance of understanding the interaction between state reformers and collective actors in society. In __Market Reform in Society__ he helpfully focuses our attention on how various societal groups are affected by different types of reform and how their responses in turn affect the state’s subsequent pursuit of reform. As a country characterized by strong state autonomy and widespread disintegration of civil society and representative institutions during the 1990s when Alberto Fujimori was president, Peru serves as an excellent case for examining how collective actors can succeed in influencing the reform process. Arce compares reforms in three areas: taxation, pension privatization, and social-sector programs in poverty alleviation and health decentralization. Differences in the concentration or dispersion of costs and benefits, he shows, affected incentives for groups to form and engage in collective action for supporting, opposing, or modifying the reforms.

Going beyond the usual state-centric approach to the study of the politics of neoliberal reform, Moisés Arce emphasizes the importance of understanding the interaction between state reformers and collective actors in society. In Market Reform in Society he helpfully focuses our attention on how various societal groups are affected by different types of reform and how their responses in turn affect the state’s subsequent pursuit of reform.

As a country characterized by strong state autonomy and widespread disintegration of civil society and representative institutions during the 1990s when Alberto Fujimori was president, Peru serves as an excellent case for examining how collective actors can succeed in influencing the reform process. Arce compares reforms in three areas: taxation, pension privatization, and social-sector programs in poverty alleviation and health decentralization. Differences in the concentration or dispersion of costs and benefits, he shows, affected incentives for groups to form and engage in collective action for supporting, opposing, or modifying the reforms.

Arce (political science, Louisiana State U.) studies the political consequences of neoliberal reform on Peru and their feedback effects on reform processes. Peru, under the autocratic presidency of Alberto Fujimori, epitomized the top-down approach to policy imposition that many believe is necessary for implementing economic policies opposed by unions and other civil society groups, yet Arce finds that even in this ideal case, the imposition of some reforms provided incentives that prompted the formation of societal organizations and other forms of collective action that were able to influence and reshape reform policies. In studying the two-way interaction between state reformers and civil society's collective actors, he argues that the feedback effects of societal responses on reform processes are shaped by such exigencies of the market model as the fiscal health of national economies and the points of institutionalized access available to societal groups. Annotation ©2004 Book News, Inc., Portland, OR

"Going beyond the usual state-centric approach to the study of the politics of neoliberal reform, Moises Arce emphasizes the importance of understanding the interaction between state reformers and collective actors in society. In Market Reform in Society he focuses our attention on how various societal groups are affected by different types of reform and how their responses in turn affect the state's subsequent pursuit of reform."--Jacket