Opiniones libres

  A DUAL COUNTRY Short-term orientation, distrust of institutions, the centrality of informal networks, and ambivalence toward legality can no longer be understood as cultural traits specific to marginalized sectors. Above all, they are rational responses to a fragmented social order, now widespread across much of Peruvian society. The key to understanding this phenomenon lies in the very structure of the country. Peru increasingly functions as a dual system, where a formal State—legal, institutional, and often ineffective—coexists with a network of de facto powers that organize economic and social life across vast territories. In this context, informality ceases to be an anomaly and becomes the norm, while illegality emerges as an organic component of economic accumulation. Distrust of the State can no longer be interpreted as a mere cultural prejudice, but rather as the result of repeated experiences of corruption, neglect, and arbitrariness. Community networks, in turn, perform ...

  Peru’s Deinstitutionalization Deepens By Silvio Dragunsky Peru’s crisis no longer appears to be limited to a crisis of government or political leadership. What is now beginning to be questioned is the very capacity of the institutional system to socially integrate a country increasingly fragmented between formality and informality, legality and illegality, the State and parallel economies. In previous articles, I argued that Peru’s institutional crisis is not merely a political phenomenon, but rather the superstructural consequence of the emergence of a new social actor: what, for lack of a more precise definition, we may call “the informal sector.” The 2026 presidential elections probably constitute the clearest expression of this process. The Growing Weight of “the Informals” In Peru, it is often repeated that barely 30% of the Economically Active Population has formal employment and full labor-law protection. However, this statement is usually made without considering its logi...

  La desinstitucionalización del Perú se profundiza Escribe: Silvio Dragunsky La crisis peruana ya no parece limitarse a una crisis de gobierno o de liderazgo político. Lo que comienza a ponerse en cuestión es la capacidad misma del sistema institucional para integrar socialmente a un país cada vez más fragmentado entre formalidad e informalidad, legalidad e ilegalidad, Estado y economías paralelas En artículos anteriores sostuve que la crisis institucional peruana no es un fenómeno meramente político, sino la consecuencia superestructural de la emergencia de un nuevo actor social: aquello que, por falta de una definición más precisa, podemos llamar “los informales”. Las elecciones presidenciales de 2026 constituyen, probablemente, la expresión más acabada de este proceso. El peso creciente de “los informales” En Perú suele repetirse que apenas el 30% de la Población Económicamente Activa cuenta con empleo formal y cobertura plena de la legislación laboral. La afirmació...