TY - JOUR
T1 - When voters leave
T2 - Demand-driven dealignment and populism in Colombia
AU - Barrenechea, Rodrigo
AU - Otero-Bahamón, Silvia
PY - 2025/7
Y1 - 2025/7
N2 - Peru is widely regarded as a polity without parties, where political and electoral volatility is the norm. Yet, the country is not unpredictable. Although the protagonists change, Peru has a predictable pattern of voting structured around socioeconomic, ethnic, and territorial cleavages that favor populist leaders who, on many occasions, have won office. This paper examines the electoral coalitions of populist leaders in Peru and shows that they are primarily based on voters from the country’s periphery. Populism appeals to those voters through narratives that vindicate the periphery as the place where the country’s identity resides, while portraying elites from core regions as their victimizers. Even in the absence of political parties that structure electoral competition, this cleavage has been repeatedly activated by different populist leaders, lending a degree of predictability to Peruvian politics. This article makes two contributions, one to the literature on political representation and another to the study of populism in Peru. First, it shows that politicized social cleavages can exist despite the absence of stable political parties representing them. Latent cleavages can be activated by different parties that share similar appeals, in this case populist appeals. Second, it examines the characteristics that populism and “the people” have in Peru: the phenomenon is grounded in the country’s periphery and its antagonism with the center.
AB - Peru is widely regarded as a polity without parties, where political and electoral volatility is the norm. Yet, the country is not unpredictable. Although the protagonists change, Peru has a predictable pattern of voting structured around socioeconomic, ethnic, and territorial cleavages that favor populist leaders who, on many occasions, have won office. This paper examines the electoral coalitions of populist leaders in Peru and shows that they are primarily based on voters from the country’s periphery. Populism appeals to those voters through narratives that vindicate the periphery as the place where the country’s identity resides, while portraying elites from core regions as their victimizers. Even in the absence of political parties that structure electoral competition, this cleavage has been repeatedly activated by different populist leaders, lending a degree of predictability to Peruvian politics. This article makes two contributions, one to the literature on political representation and another to the study of populism in Peru. First, it shows that politicized social cleavages can exist despite the absence of stable political parties representing them. Latent cleavages can be activated by different parties that share similar appeals, in this case populist appeals. Second, it examines the characteristics that populism and “the people” have in Peru: the phenomenon is grounded in the country’s periphery and its antagonism with the center.
KW - Colombia
KW - Desalineación
KW - Elecciones
KW - Populismo
KW - Colombia
KW - Dealignment
KW - Elections
KW - Populism
M3 - Article in a journal
SN - 1815-7238
VL - 21
SP - 97
EP - 122
JO - Taiwan Journal of Democracy
JF - Taiwan Journal of Democracy
IS - 1
ER -
