Civilista Party

The Partido Civil (Civilista Party) is Peru's first modern political party, in contrast to the ephemeral nineteenth-century electoral clubs organized only at election times. The Partido Civil, founded by Manuel Pardo (1834–1878) in 1871, represented new commercial and financial elites, but drew on middle-class support. Critical of the country's reliance on guano revenues, the Civilistas sought to modernize and diversify Peru's economy through a combination of laissez-faire economics and the development of a strong state. Pardo built a national political network and became the country's first civilian president (1872–1876). After the War of the Pacific (1879–1883), the party reemerged as the country's most powerful political force during the period of the "Aristocratic Republic" (1895–1919). Despite some middle-class support, the Partido Civil continued to be associated primarily with Peru's powerful commercial and financial groups. The new generation of Civilistas included President José Pardo (1904–1908, 1915–1919), son of the party founder, and Augusto B. Leguía during his first presidency (1908–1912). In 1911 a conservative splinter group left the party to form the Partido Civil Independiente. The Partido Civil declined as the era of mass politics began in Peru during the 1920s and 1930s. Throughout its half-century of existence, the party consistently came to power only through electoral means.

BIBLIOGRAPHY

Basadre, Jorge. Historia de la República del Perú. Lima: Editorial Universitaria, 1968–1970.

McEvoy Carmen. Un Proyecto Nacional en el Siglo XIX: Manuel Pardo y su vision del Perú. Lima: Pontificia Universidad Católica del Perú, 1994.

Muecke, Ulrich. Political Culture in Nineteenth-Century Peru: The Rise of the Partido Civil, translated by Katya Andrusz. Pittsburgh, PA: University of Pittsburgh Press, 2004.

                                          IÑigo GarcÍa-Bryce