Paper short abstract:

The Peruvian economy is heavily affected by the end of the commodity super-cycle. Instead of trying to diversify its economy, the Peruvian governments are deepening the country’s dependency on the export of its mineral resources and investment in the mining sector.

Paper long abstract:

The Peruvian economy depends for its growth principally on the export of its mineral resources and investment in the mining sector. The fiscal contribution of the mining sector enables the country to finance its increasing social expenditures. In the context of diminishing export values for the country's mining products, we argue that the natural consequence of the current Peruvian development model is to further the same development model based on the extraction of natural resources. This consequence is explained on the basis of what we have termed the political economy of unsustainability. On the one hand this concept helps to understand the country's political and economic dependence on the world economy in general and on transnational mining capital in particular, on the other hand it contributes to a comprehension of the national structures and the correlation of class forces that impede a radical change of the current unsustainable development model.