This week we see struggles in the region caused by an increasing influence of the Cold War and the ideologies of the period. What is interesting in many of these cases of violence are the problems of land, along with problems in the rural areas where most of the peasantry was. Also, it seems that these  ideologies were a response to the economic situation of Latin America.

Dawson states that “Latin Americans typically believed their governments were exceptionally corrupt” and I would argue that it is not something particular of the time period, corruption has been a phenomenon in Latin American politics and will continue to be a phenomenon in the near future, and it could be because of the culture that was born around clientelism or even caudillaje, were the minimum was done in order to keep the masses happy.

Another thing I find interesting, especially with the Shining Path is how Latin America has been its own region in relation to the world. It has never really had a story of its own, in this particular case there is Maoist influence in the Shining Path movement. And later there is a move towards neoliberal markets, influenced by the United States and Europe.

This particular period, as Dr. Cameron points out, has installed in the population a sense of violence. Although I would argue that this sense of violence has been replaced not by state violence, but by drug wars and gang violence. The only exception would be Venezuela.