Hegemonic Struggles of the Democratic Imaginary Street Protests and the Public Sphere in Peru (1997 - 2006)

In the early XXI century popular mobilizations and street protests have become effective forms of contestation and direct political participation, in response to the deficits of representative democracy. From the streets people exercise their right to dissent by informally vetoing governmental decisions and sometimes ousting elected authorities from power. Popular sovereignty re-emerges in plural fashion overflowing political institutions and redefining the space and dynamics of politics. In Peru, one of the earliest cases, street protests propelled a democratic transition in 2000 but did not pull back after the reinstitution of democracy. On the contrary, the politicization of society grew and expanded steadily and turned into an informal form of political participation; the extraordinary turned into instituted praxis.;Why are social actors mobilizing massively, taking the streets and questioning legally elected governments? Do their turbulent actions democratize the public sphere and deepen democracy or do they foster political instability and unruliness instead? What are the possibilities and challenges that extraordinary politics entail for democracy? The dissertation examines ten years of street protests in Peru (1997 -- 2006) throughout the fall of an authoritarian regime and the reinstitution of democracy. The analysis focuses on the constitution of plural collective subjects and the articulation of diverse, not necessarily converging, types of discourse and action. The main objective is to highlight the ambivalences and complexities of the contemporary democratic imaginary without assuming homogeneity.;The evidence reveals internal tensions amongst a minimalist liberal understanding of democracy, a reinterpretation in terms of popular sovereignty, and a populist authoritarian component. The crisis of traditional party systems, the lack of efficient mechanisms of democratic control, the increasing elitism and alienation of representatives, and the preeminence of bureaucratic, technocratic and financial power expose the shortfalls of representative democracy and the devaluation of the idea of representation itself. As a consequence, people opt for self-representation as their form of political participation, challenging the ruling elite and redefining the contours and dynamics of the public sphere. Counter-hegemony has become the predominant dynamics in a struggle for the reinstitution and reinvention of democracy.