Peru's Surprising Left Turn

Steven Levitsky

November 7, 2011

Event Description

The election of left-leaning ex-military officer Ollanta Humala in Peru’s 2011 election came as a surprise to observers. Peru’s economy boomed under market-oriented governments in the 2000s, and it was widely expected that a pro-establishment candidate would win. This talk will seek to explain Humala’s victory and examine future scenarios under the Humala government.

Speaker

Steven Levitsky is a professor of Government at Harvard University. He is the author of Transforming Labor-Based Parties in Latin America: Argentine Peronism in Comparative Perspective (2003), and the co-author (with Lucan Way) of Competitive Authoritarianism: Hybrid Regimes after the Cold War (2010).