POLITICAL VIOLENCE IN PERU: An Interdisciplinary Interpretive Outline
Peruvian social structure cannot be studied from a Marxist perspective, because it has been characterized by the emergence of social actors with divergent but not always contradictory interests. Nevertheless, considerable political violence has been generated in recent years, and among its causes are: the destruction of the traditional social fabric, false expectations of progress, and disillusionment with imitative modernization. Peruvian society has undergone an incomplete process of democratization, as well as large-scale and intense internal migrations. The popular clamor for a strong government to put an end to the irrational terrorism of the MRTA and Sendero Luminoso contributed to the reintroduction of a semi-authoritarian government in April 1992.