Deepening democracy through public deliberation?
= reflections from the province huanta in the peruvian
- Stockholm : Institute of Latin Amercian Studies, Stockholm University, 2009
In recent years attempts have been made to ground deliberatory participation into democratization theory. Leonardo Avritzer, one of the most optimistic proponents of deliberative democracy, states that new democratic practices will be transferred from the societal level to political society in 'deliberative public space', thus consolidating democracy. This article deals with governmental political attempts to anchieve a political process of negotiation and participation within civil society in the province Huanta in the Peruvian Andes. In this respecti, it goes against the wave of idealization and the normative assumptions of deliberative democracy. The study spans the authoritarian period of the former President Alberto Fujimori, 1996-2001, and the subsequent democratic regime of 2001-2006. The article aims to demonstrate that the marginalized strata of the population will not bel able to fully develop the political and economical potentials of the deliberatory political processes unless they are backed by external organizations and state institutions. Rather, these strata will risk being even more exploited than before, when the state's power is abdicated to the benefit of tradtitional individual and collective power-holders.