Doing Politics Differently: Middle-Class Youth and Politics in Contemporary Lima

A Note on Anti-Fujimorism

Fujimorism featured much less strongly among my informants’ political passions in 2015 than in 2010. During my earlier fieldwork, Fujimorism and its legacy took center stage in political debate and sparked both a mass movement against Keiko Fujimori’s presidential candidacy and a new corresponding political identity for those involved in this movement, many of whom identified themselves as “NAKers” (from the movement’s name “No a Keiko”). A similar anti-Keiko movement ultimately resurged in 2016, but during my fieldwork in early 2015 other issues where higher on my informants’ list of concerns.

There are several possible reasons for this discrepancy. First, differences in the framing of the two research projects and their presentation to informants constitute a significant factor: while the posttransition condition and memory politics were central to the 2010 project, they were not in my 2015 research, and these differences shaped the questions I asked and the issues my informants discussed. Secondly, the wider political context may have played a significant role. During my fieldwork in mid-2010 several distinct political events, their exploitation in a politics of fear, and suspicion of collusion between Fujimorism and the incumbent García government triggered memories of Fujimori’s regime in the 1990s. These provided fertile ground for a vibrant anti-Keiko movement to emerge and flourish. However, in early 2015, the political context had changed. While relatively unpopular, then-President Humala was not widely accused of links with Fujimorism, and other political issues, such as transport reform and LGBT rights, took precedence on my informants’ agenda. Because I asked open questions about political problems and did not push any specific issues, Fujimorism did not become a defining thread in my interviews. These different experiences would suggest that NAKerism or anti-Fujimorism constitutes a latent political identity: while it is strong, constant, and principled, its salience is contingent on the issues of the day and the level of perceived “threat.” As the 2016 elections approached, Fujimorism seems to have once again gained urgency in young middle-class people’s minds, redirecting their activism accordingly.

Another important factor seems to be a changing response to the politics of fear historically associated with Fujimorism. As Burt (2007) argues, declining fear of the Shining Path allowed an anti-Fujimori movement to emerge and grow in the late 1990s. My interviews show that by 2010 and 2015 this had evolved into active rejection of fear-mongering strategies. While several of my 2010 informants reported feeling fearful of repression, this did not seem to put them off their activism; instead, some even argued that they were motivated by intimidating discourses and determined to resist them. In 2015 my informants occasionally mentioned intimidation strategies when discussing specific protests. They critically reflected on these discourses and their impact on public opinion and often explicitly distanced themselves from them. Several argued that their generation had moved beyond the politics of fear and was no longer intimidated by references to terrorism. This indicates that my informants were highly sensitive to intimidation as a political tool and ready to react to it: it is no coincidence that the late-2014 protests against a youth labor law used the slogan “The Fear Is Over.”

The politics of fear, reasonably successful in governing dissent in the past, thus seems to provoke unintended reactions in at least parts of a younger generation of middle-class activists, triggering heightened opposition instead of retreat. Again, the changed political context of the two research projects seems to mediate this factor: while in 2010 intimidation strategies were ubiquitous and produced a strong backlash, in 2015 they were much less pronounced. As the 2016 elections drew closer, both intimidating discourses and a revived anti-Keiko movement grew stronger. While my data do not allow me to state that the former caused the latter, my informants’ narratives and my broader observations suggest that these intimidating discourses may have backfired, sparking renewed resistance to Fujimorism.

Being Middle-Class in Contemporary Peru

Before embarking on a discussion of young middle-class politics in Lima, I shall first make some necessary clarifications about the meaning of “middle-class.” Economists, political scientists, and quantitative sociologists often use “objective” indicators such as income measures, consumption levels, and occupational categories to determine the size and existence of a “middle class” (Ferreira et al., 2013; Jaramillo and Zambrano, 2013). Depending on where they draw the line, these studies reach vastly different conclusions (Jaramillo and Zambrano, 2013). In contrast, historians (Carassai, 2014; Barr-Melej, 2001; Parker, 1998; Parker and Walker, 2012; Walker, 2013), qualitative sociologists, and anthropologists (Freeman, Liechty, and Heiman, 2012; Pereyra, 2015; Shakow, 2014) have traditionally taken more constructivist approaches to middle-classness, stressing complex historically and culturally specific class identities, imaginaries, practices, and processes over “hard” categories. Drawing on theorists such as E. P. Thompson, Weber, and Bourdieu, these scholars ask how class is constructed through discourses and practices and how these constructions are used in everyday life, shaping relationships and imaginaries. Class is thus understood not as an “objective” situation but as a shifting position that is socially constructed, contested, and adapted to changing circumstances, although some writers introduce elements of Marxist or Gramscian frameworks to stress processes of hegemony and structural inequality (Barr-Melej, 2001; López and Weinstein, 2012).

While I sympathize with constructivist approaches, the necessity of a “working definition” of middle-classness—a set of criteria that allows the researcher to identify suitable participants—remains. In 2015 I chose to focus on university students and young professionals, thus defining middle-classness along the lines of education and occupation. This choice recognizes the centrality of these criteria in historical and contemporary Latin American understandings of middle-classness (López, 2012a; 2012b; Parker, 1998; Pereyra, 2015; Shakow, 2014; Walker, 2013). While several studies have highlighted the increasing importance of consumption in the cultural construction of class (Arellano, 2010; O’Dougherty, 2002), occupation and education remain important markers of middle-classness in Peru. Furthermore, they are much easier to measure (and less sensitive) than income and consumption. Particularly for young people, education and occupation are also more relevant to their personal aspirations and expectations and thus to their sense of self than current individual or household income. While a focus on education and occupation excludes important parts of the Peruvian middle class, most Peruvians would agree that university students and young professionals are important in it. Finally, while some have suggested that my informants might be better described as “upper-class,” all but two of them identified themselves as middle-class.

The Data

The two studies that inform this article were based on semistructured interviews with 73 young men and women (26 in 2010 and 47 in 2015) covering a broad range of professional and social backgrounds and of political views and practices. The 2010 sample had a strong male bias (21 men and 5 women), reflecting the composition of the political blogosphere at the time. The 2015 sample consisted of 25 men, 21 women, and one participant who identified as “other.”

In 2015 participants were recruited through a range of avenues: some were selected for their outstanding role as activists, while others were recruited via existing contacts, who were asked to suggest suitable participants and establish an initial contact. Several informants then provided further contacts. This mixed approach produced a heterogeneous sample of participants from different family and educational backgrounds and different attitudes toward politics. In 2010 bloggers were selected following an exploratory review of the city’s political blogosphere and contacted directly. Later, the sample grew through participants’ recommendations. This resulted in a diverse sample with respect to individual bloggers’ prominence and political preferences. In both studies most participants lived in Lima at the time of the interview. However, both samples contained several first- and second-generation migrants from other parts of the country. Without being statistically representative, this variety of backgrounds recognizes the increasingly diverse social composition of Lima and particularly its middle classes.

Interviews were conducted in Spanish and translated by me. Names have been changed. Where identifying factors such as membership in a specific organization are revealed, I refrain from attributing quotes to individual informants to avoid the risk of separate quotes’ adding up to a bigger picture that might make them identifiable.

Political Identities: Causes Over Ideologies

My informants were unrepresentative in another aspect as well: in a country where the right has ruled for decades, the vast majority of them could be roughly located to the left of the center on the basis of their political views and concerns. They were generally socially liberal and secular and economically favored a strong state that regulated private activity and provided high-quality services to all citizens. Some were more radical, others more moderate, but in very broad terms they had similar political perspectives on many contemporary problems.

However, political identity was a much more complex issue than this very general observation might suggest, and in this respect they were probably much more representative of their young middle-class peers in Peru and beyond. Many of them strongly rejected the classical categories of “left” and “right,” which they considered meaningless and associated with political ideologies, practices, and cultures they rejected. Others reluctantly identified themselves as left-wing but with many caveats. As in the following excerpt, this rejection of traditional political identities was symptomatic of a general reluctance to assume any strong political identity at all (Daniel, interview, Lima, March 7, 2015):

How would you describe yourself in political terms?

Good grief . . . I can’t stand it when they say “left” or “right.” No, in theory I see it like this: Aaaah . . . if you get involved in politics . . . it’s in order to think about a plurality, right? It’s in order to work for a plurality. But the image that I have seen since I was a child is that there are always two gangs, and in both gangs everything is crap, right? . . . So, maybe if I were in Europe or in any other place on this planet, I could say that I am on the left or on the right, because I think that in those places they do work together in a [shared] space, they respect each other. But where I live, it doesn’t feel right if I tell you that I am right-wing, and it doesn’t feel right if I say I am left-wing. Aaah . . . what’s between those two? I think there is a name if you are in the middle.

Center?

Pffff . . . that also sounds a bit mediocre. Aaah . . . my position is . . . Jeez, how difficult! I’m neither center nor left-wing nor right-wing. No. I wouldn’t know how to answer this question.

How, then, did they position themselves in a contested political field? Instead of traditional political identities, many referred to current political issues, problems, and broad ideological lines that moved them, often pointing out that these issues could no longer be clearly attributed to either side of the classic divide. In consequence, beyond a very general, distant, and hesitant affinity (usually with the “left”), traditional categories had thus become meaningless and useless to them. My interview with Stephanie (Lima, March 5, 2015), a law student involved in politics at her private university, exemplifies this negotiation of political identities through specific issues rather than distinct ideologies:

Let’s see . . . first, with respect to political issues, I do think that I am . . . liberal. I mean issues like . . . For example, I believe that in this country, not even the progres [laughs], the progressives, believe that . . . I mean I do believe in issues like sexual orientation, gender, equality. . . . For example we currently have this debate here, right? The civil partnership issue. And the truth is that there isn’t even a consensus between different sectors of the left, right? So, right, in political issues, I would see myself as more liberal, and in economic issues, I don’t know, I define myself as center-left, in a way, I mean . . . Yes, I tend to agree quite a lot with ideas that are closer to the left, although my education has been center-left, center-right, because I also believe in certain regulations by the state, which should exist, right? For example, when they discussed all these issues around the regulatory body in higher education, there were even some proposals of complete deregulation . . . , which do not even exist in other countries, right? I mean there are regulatory bodies, and their role is understood. Of course, I don’t share ideas of total intervention either, right? . . . But I also think that defining yourself is a bit complicated [laughs]. I mean, I am telling you what I have been involved with and what I draw on to define myself, right? For example, I don’t believe that education should be for profit. So that’s more or less how you define yourself. . . . I mean, I have my personal foundations, but I’m giving you a concrete example so you can more or less come up with a definition, without my having to say it in this way [laughs].

While Stephanie draws on “traditional” categories such as “center-left” and “liberal” in describing her political identity, the language she uses to negotiate these affiliations reveals her hesitation to embrace a clear-cut political identity. She is much more confident when it comes to specific issues she feels passionate about, and she prefers to identify herself through these causes and leave categories to the researcher.

Relationship with Political Organizations

It will come as no surprise to students of Peruvian politics and society that most of my informants also had a distanced relationship with traditional political organizations such as parties and unions. Many of them felt alienated from traditional politics; few were members of political parties, and many felt reluctant to join one. This pattern mirrors processes in other countries, where recent social movements with a middle-class base such as #YoSoy132 in Mexico have explicitly distanced themselves from political parties (Guillén, 2013). Instead, my informants favored alternative forms of organizing and political practice. This uneasy relationship with traditional political organizations was common across my sample and relatively independent of other factors. While the group discussed in the following example is unique in many respects, its struggle with this particular problem was widely shared.

Proyecto Coherencia (Project Coherence) emerged in 2005 as a nonprofit civil association of high-achieving students from seven private and public universities in Lima. Its aim was to “promote debate and analysis of national reality from an interdisciplinary perspective and with the goal of offering viable solutions to national problems”and “debate and reflection among the youth about the role they should play in Peruvian society, in defense of the democratic principles that are the foundation of the rule of law” (Proyecto Coherencia, 2006). Most of the members I interviewed belonged to its founding generation. As the founding generation graduated from the university and entered professional life and younger members joined the organization, Proyecto Coherencia was transformed into a “holding of three sister organizations” (personal correspondence with Julio César Mateus)—Proyecto Coherencia, Gobierno Coherente (Coherent Government) and Universidad Coherente (Coherent University). Some of my informants moved on to Gobierno Coherente, others stayed with Proyecto Coherencia, and some left the project entirely. However, the original Proyecto Coherencia was what they focused on when narrating their own political biographies, and many considered it a formative experience. For this reason, I shall concentrate on Proyecto Coherencia (from here on Coherencia) in this article.

Coherencia’s institutional structure was inconspicuous: legally a registered nonprofit civil organization, it had a governing board, a directorate-general, designated officers for functional areas such as communication and finance, and a statute and regulations. Decisions were to be made by majority vote during a general assembly of ordinary members. Although these features are conservative, Coherencia was in many ways a reflection of its members’ deep unease with traditional politics.

Coherencia engaged in a wide variety of activities, often reflecting its members’ condition, skills, and interests as university students. According to its statute, activities included “carrying out research projects with the goal of contributing to the country’s social development” and “organizing academic, educational, cultural, and artistic activities that contribute to Peru’s development.” In practice, these activities often positioned them vis-à-vis, rather than among, traditional political institutions, demonstrating both their unease with these established organizations and their zeal for transforming political and civic practices. For example, early on they organized debates between university students and representatives of the main political parties. Later, they used a blog to “fiscalize” the García government.

Even their eventual participation in electoral politics reflected their unease with traditional party politics. The group supported different individual candidates in several mayoral and presidential elections (including Susana Villarán and Julio Guzmán ² ) and even placed candidates on their electoral lists (none of my interviewees associated with Coherencia had been a candidate, but several had been involved in campaigning); however, many of the members I interviewed were careful to maintain a certain distance from political parties, and some had left the group following conflicts over associations with political parties. When talking about Coherencia itself, my interviewees often emphasized that it was not a “political party,” using alternative terms like “space” or “movement” instead. One of them explained that Coherencia wanted to—and did—participate in electoral politics but from an alternative, “civil society” position without needing to become a “party.” His detailed discussion of this seeming technicality initially struck me as odd, but I soon realized that not being a “party” was very important. The repeated appearance of this figure in my informants’ narratives was symptomatic of the strained relationship between their generation and traditional political organizations in Peru.

At first sight, this distanced relationship with political parties resembles the antipolitical mind-set discussed earlier. However, my informants’ alienation from traditional politics was more complex than the antipolitics narrative. Crucially, they were neither apolitical nor antipolitical—quite to the contrary: many of my informants were repelled by specific characteristics of existing political parties, ideologies, and culture, not by politics as such. They felt that their generation had moved away from the values and political culture of existing parties. In essence, they were looking for something different. As Claudio, whom I interviewed in 2010, put it, many of them were thus “frustrated politicians” who “couldn’t find a space.” Many of my interviewees associated political parties with rigid hierarchies, outdated ideologies, and moral and political corruption. Expressions such as “fossilized left,” “rotten parties,” “skeletons,” and “rancid wood” were ubiquitous, highlighting a generational gap that was perceived as insurmountable. As in the following example, many of my informants denounced hierarchical structures that kept “the dinosaurs” in charge, marginalizing women and young people (Gabriela, interview, Lima, February 4, 2015):

I have been to meetings of political parties, and the truth is that the verticality bothers me a lot. I am looking for a horizontal space. I hate posts, ranks, and monopolies of speech, people who talk for hours and never realize that others also want to say something, OK? . . . I just hate verticality, I hate it! And unfortunately, the political parties here, even those on the left, are still very vertical. They have those old figures of the left, middle-class men, right? Not a single woman sitting there. . . . And the left in this country won’t change, it’s the same as 30 years ago, 40 years. And I don’t like it, I mean, these kinds of relationships.

They also criticized traditional parties for being “stuck in ideological battles,” unable to deliver practical results. As in the following example, they often contrasted their own desire for change to the ideological dynamics in “traditional” left-wing organizations (Nicolás, interview, Lima, January 23, 2015):

I am very critical of left-wing organizations in Peru, because they are stuck in the politics of the 1970s. They expect politics to adjust to them, but I think that politicians, and in particular left-wing organizations, should make an effort in order to have a little more impact on national politics. . . . I would like a party that is able to pick up demands and transform them into proposals. I feel that somehow parties in Peru, in particular those on the left, turn into megaphones for social demands. They simply try to appropriate them so they can have a discourse that will appeal to society, but they don’t make any effort to understand the real underlying demands and generate a political proposal based on that.

Finally, many of my informants had very strong convictions and values and profoundly rejected political opportunism and corruption, a vice that they associated particularly with political parties and that made them wary of establishing closer links with them. For example, in Coherencia, possible electoral alliances with political parties often sparked conflicts. While some wanted to compromise in the interest of impact, others strongly opposed alliances with “corrupt” parties. These conflicts revealed strong convictions, as well as a certain political individualism. For example, 30-year-old Luisa explained that she had never joined a party because “if I join something I have to agree with E-VE-RY-THING! Absolutely everything. . . . I feel that there is a lot of commitment needed for these things” (Luisa, interview, Lima, February 2, 2015).

Doing Politics Differently

In the face of my informants’ distanced relationship with political parties and generally low levels of trust in political institutions, it would hardly have been a surprise to anyone if they had turned their backs on politics, geared their aspirations toward the private sphere, and become the kind of young people who “did not want to talk about politics, because they wanted to talk about their favorite movie, because they just didn’t want to, because they wanted a new toy” (Felix, interview, Lima, February 24, 2015). Yet this was clearly not the case: they had a strong appetite and many ideas for change and were looking for a way of “doing politics differently,” a phrase that I heard again and again. They felt strongly that, as young, educated, and relatively privileged people, it was their responsibility to bring about the changes they wanted to see. But what exactly did they mean when they talked about a “different kind of politics”? Questions about the specifics of their political utopias naturally produced a range of different accounts, but certain aspects were repeatedly mentioned. Aside from the moral narrative of integrity and coherence mentioned above, I want to highlight two common discourses.

First, egalitarian principles of horizontality, diversity, and equality were widely embraced, particularly among those interested in alternative grassroots forms of organizing such as collectives. Stressing collective, deliberative, and participatory mechanisms of decision making (e.g., assemblies or primary elections), these discourses responded to the criticisms of hierarchy discussed above. One of my informants, who was involved with a feminist collective, described her group as “very much assembly-based, convening people, open, superdemocratic, no hierarchies, . . . lots of collective participation, lots of popular power. Let the people participate, no? Let the people feel close to this project” (Valentina, interview, Lima, February 5, 2015). She pointed out that theirs was “a way of doing politics that is different from the way politics is done in parties,” associating the latter with hierarchies and top-down decision making.

These egalitarian demands are reminiscent of what Fominaya (2014) calls “autonomous approaches to collective action.” Movements with similar approaches have recently flourished in different countries around the globe, including among others Podemos in Spain (which Valentina mentioned as an inspiration) and the Chilean student movement (Grugel and Nem Singh, 2015). Ross and Rein (2014) point out that horizontal structures characterize many social movements in contemporary Latin America, marking a departure from earlier, more hierarchical left-wing organizations. In their emphasis on grassroots participation and horizontality, these approaches resemble earlier “new” social movements on the Peruvian left such as Izquierda Unida in the 1980s. However, a significant difference consists precisely in the rejection of party structures and the associated discipline: while earlier movements, such as Izquierda Unida, were composed of a number of small political parties with clear ideological lines, my informants’ political organizations and movements generally did not have strong links with political parties. Instead, they were loosely organized grassroots groups without institutional hierarchies. Membership was flexible and implied few obligations, as the following account of a collective that specializes in “popular communication” illustrates (Lucho, interview, Lima, March 13, 2015):

[We did] things such as painting murals, filming protests, supporting social organizations who are working with people, and painting murals with them, in a participatory manner. So I was working, and whenever I had time I would go, . . . but not always, because it wasn’t expected either. It was more like, “See if you can come, and if not, maybe you can send someone else.” And I would send my friends, if they wanted to go, and some of them would go. Some would get lost and say, “Listen, are you not coming?” “No, I can’t, I have other things to do.”

Such loosely organized groups were better adapted to the political individualism mentioned above, since it was acceptable to participate on an ad hoc basis depending on one’s interests and resources.

The second discourse is linked to the “postideological” stance mentioned above and reflects a desire for “something new, something different from what exists now, [something that] leaves behind the left-right discourse and abandons traditional [ideas] that people don’t care for” (Ximena, interview, Lima, March 16, 2015). In response to political parties paralyzed by ideological battles, this postideological discourse reflected a pronounced, albeit strongly principled, pragmatism. Many of my informants emphasized the need to “get things done” and produce concrete and—crucially—evidence-based and viable proposals. They believed that skills, knowledge, and evidence could make public policies more efficient and thus help bring about the changes they wanted to see. This perspective reflected their specific interests, perspective, and sense of self as university students and professionals. It often correlated with an approach to politics that stressed professional practice. Many of my informants drew on their professional condition, expertise, and activities when debating ways in which they might contribute to change. The following statement by Lucia (interview, Lima, March 12, 2015), who locates her civic contribution in her professional activities, is an example:

What do you think someone like you can do to change society?

I am doing exactly what I think needs to happen, and at the same time I am doing what I love, which is to create the evidence needed to determine which programs work and which don’t, and to educate the public sector, so that they don’t just understand why evidence-based policies matter but also themselves will want to look for and create this evidence on which to base their decisions. So it’s about generating an appetite for creating the necessary evidence and trying to make them understand its value. So, basically that’s the work I am doing. I have been evaluating projects and getting together with people from government and nongovernmental organizations for two years now, explaining to them what works and what doesn’t and trying to see how this can help them decide which policies to expand and which programs are not cost-effective and should be modified or closed.

This postideological pragmatism clearly distinguishes my informants from earlier generations of social movements on the left, but it would be wrong to dismiss these youths as mere technocrats. Although many of them preferred reform to revolution, their eagerness to leave “tired slogans” behind and make a difference as professionals was grounded in strong political ideals and a clear vision of the country.

In particular, many of them emphasized state responsibility for reducing inequality through high-quality public services, market regulation, and protection for vulnerable populations. They were frustrated by the inability of the “traditional” left to make these demands a reality. “Efficiency” was thus not a euphemism for privatization of public services and a “lean state” but quite the opposite: it was about widening access to and improving the impact of high-quality state services in order to level the playing field and reduce inequality. Miguel, a sociologist working for the state, thus saw his role as “helping to make the state more efficient, so that people who come to ask for a service . . . feel that they are being served. I mean that they don’t come in vain, no? That they come and get what they ask for, that they will be served. . . . One should grow professionally . . . precisely in order to be able to push this state machinery, which is sometimes so heavy, big, and slow, no?” (Miguel, interview, Lima, February 19, 2015).

Political Practices

As I mentioned above, very few of my informants were involved with “traditional” political organizations. Instead, they preferred alternative forms of political practice that reflected the political discourses outlined above. On the “informal” end of the spectrum, an important part of my sample was not associated with any political organization at all but engaged in an ad hoc activism that could nevertheless be very frequent. This “as-and-when” activism could take many different forms, including social media campaigns, marching, creative interventions in public space, and even spontaneously challenging fellow-citizens over their everyday actions (such as littering or cat-calling). These minimally embedded forms of micro-activism often blurred the boundaries between the “political” and the “social” and could target government and “culture” alike. Requiring little commitment to larger organizations, they could be constantly adjusted to individual preferences. In this respect, micro-activism is particularly well-suited to the political individualism and institutional disenchantment discussed above.

One step up from this ad hoc activism, several of my informants frequented small-scale groups and “collectives” with strong autonomist values. A particularly interesting case was the so-called zonas. Around the time of my fieldwork, these territorially based and loosely associated groups of young people emerged in the context of protests against a youth labor law. While I did not study this phenomenon in any detail, three of my informants were involved with their local zonas. They were attracted to the zonas by their culture of dialogue, their decided independence from “traditional” political organizations, and their horizontal organization. Several also highlighted their ability to organize a previously unorganized demographic in a lasting way, helping to overcome the hitherto ephemeral character of protests, in which “young people would go to protest, and then [they would say] ‘OK, we went out to do this, and now we are going home’” (Gabriela, interview, Lima, February 4, 2015). The zonas’ horizontality was a value in its own right, but several of my informants also specifically highlighted its beneficial impact on debating culture: they valued the diversity of opinions and points of view that could come to the surface as a result of egalitarian structures. However, one of them pointed out that in practice the zonas sometimes struggled to live up to these ideals and were prone to more hierarchical logics. Furthermore, Lima’s socio-spatially segregated character and the zonas’ local nature combined to limit their potential for integration and dialogue.

Finally, as I mentioned above, several of my informants took a “professional” approach to politics, feeling that they could best make an impact by employing their professional expertise in government jobs or nongovernmental organizations. This form of political practice was closely linked to their condition as university students and young professionals and thus most obviously reflected their social class.

Conclusion

Focusing on young middle-class people, I have argued that the widespread discreditation of political institutions in contemporary Peru does not necessarily translate into an “apolitical” or “antipolitical” youth. I have aimed to show that my informants maintained a critical rather than negative relationship with politics. Their general rejection of traditional political institutions and identities did not translate into a rejection of politics as such. Instead, they had strong political values, ideals, and ideas for change. They thus constructed a discourse around the notion of doing politics differently and pursued their ideas through a diverse range of political practices. However, these discourses and practices also came with their own problems. In these final paragraphs, I focus on the implications of these discourses for my informants’ ability to achieve substantial change, arguing that several core aspects of their political discourse might compromise this goal.

I have argued that many of my informants were “postideological,” preferring to identify with specific causes and issues of the day rather than “traditional” political identities. Furthermore, I have identified a strong moral discourse that compromised some of my informants’ willingness to make concessions in the interest of a larger collective (as in party discipline). As a result of their postideological identity and strong moral politics, many were reluctant to get involved with “traditional” political organizations or to build lasting alliances that could transcend spontaneous collaborations based on the specific problems of the day. Instead, they displayed a preference for ad hoc activism, on the one hand, and a “professional politics,” on the other. Many of my informants had a still bigger picture in mind, one that operated on the systemic level and referred to a relationship between society, economy, and the state that was fundamentally different from the neoliberal status quo. However, focused on specific issues and pragmatic policies, my informants’ political practices were perhaps not the most conducive to such fundamental change.