Okay everyone, so Pedro Castillo of Peru disposed. Why? This is important for everyone who studies Latin America, theory, and even research methods.
Why? Well, first of all, quick background. Pedro Castillo, a leftist president of Peru, was recently disposed.
He only lasted about a year and a, I don't know what, like a couple months. So what happened? So basically, he was going to dissolve Congress, right? A state of exception, martial law, whatever you want to call it, extra constitutional policy in order to get things done. They were blocking everything he wanted to do, and they were trying to impeach him, you know, a number of times.
The question is, why was he disposed so quickly? And how has other presidents been able to do such things that are a little extra constitutional? let's say a little beyond the constitution.
Fujimori, a president, was able to dissolve Congress in 1992 in Peru. Why? Why was he able to do it but not Pedro Castillo?
Hugo Chavez ran a number of times, changed the constitutional limits to run in Venezuela. Same with Evo Morales, same with a lot of presidents, right? And they've survived. The question is, this is exactly what differentiates us, political sciences and the social sciences, from what you would call like journalistic research.
Well, I don't know, journalistic writing. So, excuse me, the yamba is making me sick. So the thing about this is, why?
That's called variance, variance. And that's extremely important. Why does one thing happen someplace?
and something doesn't happen in another. That's exactly what research methods is all about. And a lot of people might say, well, you know, this is the toughest class to give because you leave and this is the bridge between understanding that political science and the social sciences isn't just journalism. They have certain methods, right?
And we try to be a little scientific. We're going to do quantitative research, et cetera. But Pedro Castillo is absolutely amazing. Why was he disposed of so quickly?
And I'll give you the reasons why. First, there are theories, the selector theory, winning coalition, etc., Bruce Buono de Mesquita and others. But I'm going to give you a quick thing on coalitions.
You have to have certain, for the lack of a better word, winning coalitions in order to do such policies, to carry out. these policies. So when you look at Fujimori, when he was able to do the autogolpe, that is the self-serving coup that he did, he had the military on its side.
He had great popularity. He had a lot of civil society. In fact, like 90% of the population actually supported it.
So he had all these coalitions, right? Maybe some he didn't like, universities, students, etc. The same with Hugo Chavez, people don't know, was very popular at the time. The economy was doing well. He had the military on his side.
He had universities on his side. He had banking, which people don't know about, on his side, construction on his side, the poor people on his side, et cetera. So he was able to keep on running and running. Same with Evo Morales, although he was finally overthrown.
But for many years, the economy was so good, he had a broad range of coalitions on his side. The military is very, very important, obviously, in these countries. So the question is, why was Pedro Castillo overthrown in Peru and not other presidents? Or at least, why was Pedro Castillo overthrown so quickly?
Easy. He had no coalitions. It was the weirdest and, with all due respect, dumbest move I've ever seen in Latin American politics. This is a guy that came in with a very small percentage of the vote. He beat Kiko Fujimori, which wasn't that popular.
She keeps running to try to be president. So he was kind of a candidate that snuck his way in. He didn't have any real support. He didn't have support by the military.
He didn't have broad-based support by civil society. He didn't even have universities. He didn't have the industrial elite, which is important, banking, any kind of area.
that would help support him. Now, these areas are obviously the military is one of the most important. He didn't have anything, right? Fujimori had a full congress of his supporters. This guy had the opposite.
So this is one of the reasons why research methods is important. The question is, why does something happen in one area like Fujimori, the former president of Peru in the 1990s, was able to run three times, have a coup, dissolve Congress, etc., whereas Pedro Castillo failed miserably. So... the reason why is you have to study these coalitions within these countries and to say to yourself, oh, okay, Pedro Castillo didn't have these coalitions.
So as a result, these coalitions didn't support him when he said he was going to dissolve Congress. In fact, it was the opposite, the military, the Congress, civil society, even the lefty university students who usually are in a coalition with center-left governments were like... This is bad. We're not supporting it at all.
So basically everyone did it. Now, I understand his supporters now are crying, oh, this is racism. You know, he's poor. He's indigenous from, you know, this area.
I'm not denying that there's racism in politics, but I don't think this is the reason why he was overthrown. I think the reason why is it's just a weird situation where a man with no real strong coalition of support, particularly from the military. the industrial elite, the banking elite, and all the elites, right, that can hold you together. He didn't have any of that. I mean, Maduro of Venezuela doesn't have a lot of popularity in Venezuela, but he has the military on his side.
In fact, I would say Vladimir Padrino, the head of the military in Venezuela, is the real president of Venezuela. You need these coalitions, right, in order to sustain power. and Pedro Castillo didn't have any. And that's an important question of research methods.
So a lot of people, I know, you know, a lot of people say, why do I have to take this course, et cetera? But that's what social sciences is, because I'm going to use this not only for Latin America, but for research methods to understand that we're not just going to report Pedro Castillo was overthrown. We want to know why. And not only why Pedro Castillo was overthrown, but why was Fujimori able to survive? And then you can start basically.
generalizing these different theories, right, to other areas. So we can study like Venezuela, Peru, Ecuador, then Vietnam. We could go on and on beyond culture, beyond country, beyond, you know, just language, everything.
And we can apply these theories to a broad base. So if I can understand why Pedro Castillo was overthrown, you know, maybe I can understand why another president in Asia was overthrown or others. You know, there's just a lot of. theory there, but that's what research methods is about.
So we ask a basic question, why was Pedro Castillo overthrown so quickly, whereas like Fuhi Mori and others were not. And that's what research methods is about. And it's very important for Latin America. And since I haven't been to Peru, but I've been to neighboring Ecuador, which fought Peru, I have a Ecuadorian Yama.
Well, I don't know if it could be from Peru. We don't know where she or he is from. When I was in Ecuador, I took that picture. So the point here is research methods is very important.
They can ask very interesting questions. And the overthrow of Pedro Castillo is actually a very interesting research question. Why was Pedro Castillo recently the president of Peru overthrown so quickly, whereas other presidents are not?
So take care, everyone. And I hope you're staying safe, safer than Pedro Castillo, because I think he's going to be in jail for a long time.