Women's Citizenship in Peru: The Paradoxes of Neopopulism in Latin America

Description

Neopopulism is a central issue to understand women’s citizenship construction in many countries of contemporary Latin America. As a specific type of political rule based on an unmediated appeal by a powerful state leader to the masses, neopopulism provides both constraints and opportunities for women’s organizations to advance their claims. In Peru, President Alberto Fujimori’s neopopulist politics (1990-2000) relied on a gendered set of strategies and policies that are analyzed in relation to three different sectors of the women’s movement. The findings illustrate that some of the organized women that were most directly mobilized by Fujimori (the poorest) were also those who lost the most during his decade-long rule, while other women in NGOs and parties made more substantial gains. This is the first book-length case study of the gender dimensions of populism that explains the paradoxes entailed for women’s participation and citizenship rights in Latin America.