The Meaning of Alan García: Sovereignty and Governmentality in Neoliberal Peru

This paper draws on Foucault's distinction between sovereign power and governmentality, and on subsequent theoretical developments of that distinction by, among others, Agamben, Butler, Wendy Brown and Aiwha Ong, to explore a key aspect of the neoliberal ‘revolution’ of current Peruvian president Alan García. I argue that García's instrumental conflation of political and biopolitical enemies in his denunciations of those who oppose his revolution reveals both how his project of rule is inherently racialized (and racist), premised as it is on the overcoming of indigeneity, and why, for this very reason, despite its apparently novel neoliberal veneer, it is best understood as the latest iteration of the myriad elite projects of rule enacted against the population that have characterized Peruvian history.