Urban Poverty, Political Participation, and the State

A foremost authority on contemporary Peruvian politics, Dietz examines how the poor in metropolitan Lima responded to volatile political changes and deepening economic crises between 1970 and 1990. He draws his detailed longitudinal study from four extensive surveys conducted in six urban settlements during those years. . . . Dietz indicates that neither the military dictatorship, which ruled Peru from 1968 until 1980, nor subsequent civilian governments effectively met expectations in these communities to provide material goods and essential services. He demonstrates that the failure of leaders and groupings across the political spectrum to address such needs led not only to increased self-help strategies to solve infrastructure problems but also to diminished direct political involvement among settlement neighbors.

The analysis is rich and multilayered . . . The rare, if not unique, longitudinal perspective on the urban poor makes this bok especially useful to political scientists interested in political participation and democracy. It is required reading for Peruvianists and specialists in urban politics in developing societies.

Through sustained and careful empirical analysis, Dietz has made an important contribution to political science; by focusing on electoral and nonelectoral participation, he provides a uniquely political optic through which to view the transformation of Latin American urban politics over the last three decades. It is a work to be studied, debated, replicated, and extended. It will certainly contribute to the continuing interest in understanding the problem of the urban poor in Latin America.

Dietz succeeds in producing a rich analysis of both informal and formal participation.