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  5. How to Subvert Democracy: Montesinos in Peru

Journal of Economic Perspectives

ISSN 0895-3309 (Print) | ISSN 1944-7965 (Online)

How to Subvert Democracy: Montesinos in Peru

  • John Mcmillan
  • Pablo Zoido
Journal of Economic Perspectives
vol. 18, no. 4, Fall 2004
(pp. 69–92)
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Abstract

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 televisionchannel 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.

Citation

Mcmillan, John, and Pablo Zoido. 2004. "How to Subvert Democracy: Montesinos in Peru." Journal of Economic Perspectives, 18 (4): 69–92. DOI: 10.1257/0895330042632690

JEL Classification

  • D72 Political Processes: Rent-seeking, Lobbying, Elections, Legislatures, and Voting Behavior
  • D73 Bureaucracy; Administrative Processes in Public Organizations; Corruption
  • O17 Formal and Informal Sectors; Shadow Economy; Institutional Arrangements
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