Download This PaperHow to Subvert Democracy: Montesions in Peru
35 Pages Posted: 21 May 2004
Date Written: May 2004
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 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.
JEL Classification: P16, K10, L82
Suggested Citation: Suggested Citation
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