"At a time when Peru continues to reel from the impact of COVID-19 and the eruption of corruption scandals involving five former presidents, this book analyses the persistence and the structural underpinnings of underdevelopment in Peru. During the commodities boom of 2004-2011, Peru experienced strong levels of economic growth, bringing poverty down and increasing the middle-class population. In the COVID-19 pandemic, however, the severe lack of structural economic and social improvements has been exposed. With the arrival of the pandemic, hospitals collapsed, oxygen supplies dwindled, and informality rose, with dire consequences for the vulnerable, and for those already working on subsistence wages. Delving into the history of the country, Jan Lust outlines the structural problems that came about following Peru's post-colonial entrance into the world economy, and the subsequent neoliberal extractive development model adopted in the 1990s. Only by understanding Peru's specific political, economic, and social conditions can a path towards development be found. This book will be of interest to researchers working within politics, economics, critical development studies, and Latin American studies"--

Challenging the dependency theory approach to the origin of underdevelopment in Spanish America, this book argues that internal political and economic factors led the nations of the region to become dependent and underdeveloped during the nineteenth century. Dr. Friedman focuses on Peru and Argentina in the aftermath of their wars of independence to show how underdevelopment and dependency resulted from a crisis of the state brought about by the loss of legitimacy of Spanish colonial rule. Class conflicts had been effectively managed by the colonial state; its collapse, Dr. Friedman demonstrates, created conditions of intense inter- and intra-class conflicts, chiefly political in nature, which weak post-independence governments found impossible to restrain. Left with little authority, legitimacy, or control over internal resources, the fledging Peruvian and Argentine states turned to external sources for the capabilities with which to begin the process of consolidating their internal power. By the last half of the nineteenth century, both Peru and Argentina had chosen a course that led to their integration into the international economy as dependent nations.

This book examines how some growing countries are experiencing economic development, while others are falling behind. It addresses the fundamental issues of development strategies by examining country-specific policies that have resulted in success or failure. The author focuses on Peru and makes comparisons with Chile and South Korea, exploring the question of why the latter two countries have been more successful, while Peru has lagged behind, despite bountiful natural resources and the potential to develop into a robust economy. The central question is to understand why some countries achieve economic development, while others face enormous challenges, and fail to do so.

At a time when Peru continues to reel from the impact of Covid-19 and the eruption of corruption scandals involving five former presidents, this book analyzes the persistence and the structural underpinnings of underdevelopment in Peru. During the commodities boom of 2004–2011, Peru experienced strong levels of economic growth, bringing poverty down and increasing the middle-class population. In the Covid-19 pandemic, however, the severe lack of structural economic and social improvements has been exposed. With the arrival of the pandemic, hospitals collapsed, oxygen supplies dwindled, and informality rose, with dire consequences for the vulnerable, and for those already working on subsistence wages. Delving into the history of the country, Jan Lust outlines the structural problems that came about following Peru’s post-colonial entrance into the world economy and the subsequent neoliberal extractive development model adopted in the 1990s. Only by understanding Peru’s specific political, economic, and social conditions can a path towards development be found. This book will be of interest to researchers working within politics, economics, critical development studies, and Latin American studies.

This book presents findings of systematic research into the contested meanings of development and wellbeing from a country, Peru, which has recently experienced both rapid economic growth and deep social conflict.