How to Subvert Democracy: Montesinos in Peru
Open accessAbstract
Which of the democratic checks and balances–opposition parties, the judiciary, a free press–is the most forceful? Peru has the full set of democratic institutions. In the 1990s, the secret-police chief Montesinos systematically undermined them all with bribes. We quantify the checks using the bribe prices. Montesinos paid a television-channel owner about 100 times what he paid a judge or a politician. One single television channel's bribe was five times larger than the total of the opposition politicians' bribes. By revealed preference, the strongest check on the government's power was the news media.
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- Authors
- McMillan, J., & Zoido, P.
- Affiliations
- Stanford University (US)
- Venue
- Journal of Economic Perspectives
- Publisher
- American Economic Association
- Published
- 2004-11-01
- Volume
- 18
- Issue
- 4
- Pages
- 69-92
- ISSN
- 0895-3309 (ISSN-L)
- OpenAlex
- W3121152934
- Cited by
- 475
- References
- 26
- Citations by year
- 2026: 9 · 2025: 25 · 2024: 19 · 2023: 18 · 2022: 25 · 2021: 33 · 2020: 36 · 2019: 16 · 2018: 17 · 2017: 16 · 2016: 24 · 2015: 26 · 2014: 27 · 2013: 21 · 2012: 30
- FWCI
- 83.05
- Type
- journal article
- Language
- en
- Open access
- green
- doi.org
- Locations
- The Journal of Economic Perspectives (publishedVersion)
- SSRN Electronic Journal (acceptedVersion)
- RePEc: Research Papers in Economics (submittedVersion)
- Econstor (Econstor) (submittedVersion)
- Topics
- Social Sciences › Sociology and Political Science › Corruption and Economic Development
- Social Sciences › Political Science and International Relations › Politics and Society in Latin America
- Social Sciences › Sociology and Political Science › Media Influence and Politics
- Keywords
- Montesinos, Peruvian military dictatorship, political corruption, bribery, opposition parties, judiciary, freedom of the press, television stations, revealed preference, political institutions
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