How to Subvert Democracy: Montesinos in Peru

@article{Mcmillan2004HowTS,
  title={How to Subvert Democracy: Montesinos in Peru},
  author={John Mcmillan and Pablo Zoido},
  journal={CESifo Working Paper Series},
  year={2004}
}
Which of the democratic checks and balances - opposition parties, the judiciary, a free press - is the most critical? Peru has the full set of democratic institutions. In the 1990s, the secret-police chief Vladimiro Montesinos systematically undermined them all with bribes. We quantify the checks using the bribe prices. Montesinos paid television-channel owners about 100 times what he paid judges and politicians. One single television channel's bribe was four times larger than the total of the… 
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266 Citations

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