Global
Studies
How Corrupt Politics in South America Affect Citizens
For this project I researched three different countries in South America: Peru, Brazil, and Chile. Each country had different strengths and weaknesses within their political systems and governments. This spiked a serious interest in me because of what I have seen first hand---in person and on the news.
I chose to conduct my research on this specific topic because of my family ties in Peru. For my product, I wrote a short story based off of true events in Peru.
Research:
The first country I researched was Brazil, at the time when I was deciding what I wanted this project to be on Brazil was experiencing attacks on federal government buildings because of Jair Bolsonaro's defeat to Luiz Inácio Lula da Silva, Bolsonaro did not get re-elected as presidents and his supporters decided to storm capital buildings, in an attempt to get militia to form a coup and hopefully "forget" about the transition of power. Brazil is under a federal presidential constitutional republic, a democracy and are currently under a new president, Silva.
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Then Chile, in 2019 they grew with lots of social unrest and political violence/instability. Economically, they were doing okay, but as time went on they have grown more in debt. Like Brazil, Chile uses the same form of democracy, and it is determined that Chile has characteristic of a unitary state.
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Lastly, Peru. Since COVID-19 the government in Peru has been incredibly unstable. The most recent events in 2022, when President Pedro Castillo tried to dissolve congress, his own coup against the government. Luckily congress was able to impeach him before he made matters worse, citizens were still unhappy because of who is now in power, Dina Boluarte. Like Chile and Brazil, Peru has the same government, a unitary state, with a multi-party semi presidential system.
Final Product
Below is a summary of the short story I wrote for this project, this is near and dear to my heart. I talked with family members in Peru to base this story off them.
They have lived in Peru all their lives, the father, Juan Pablo, studied medicine in Chile and became a doctor, in Chile he met his wife, Xiomara, and they moved back to Peru to start their lives together. Juan Pablo has a sister that lives in the United States, when President Castillo was impeached and put in jail, violent protests broke out in the capital of Peru, Lima, where the family lived. He believed that it wasn’t a safe environment for his daughter, and he didn’t want her seeing these events happen at such a young age, so they bought tickets to Connecticut, and decided to stay for 2 months, they came in late December, right before Christmas, their daughter turned 4 the day before they got to Connecticut, he was born right a few months before the covid pandemic had reached to a world wide “lock down”, as a result of that their daughter had little to no knowledge about the real world, as Peru was on complete lock down, people weren’t allowed to leave their houses. Their time in the U.S. made them realize that they could move here and provide a better life for their daughter, but no matter what they do, they won’t be able to escape corruption or violence, that a perfect life for her is only what they make it out to be.