Gonzalo Banda Lazarte

Accounting for Political Decay in Peru 

Principal supervisor: Professor Paulo Drinot, UCL Institute of the Americas.
Subsidiary supervisor: Dr Nadia Hilliard, UCL Institute of the Americas.

My research seeks to explain why Peru has failed to institutionalise a civic and democratic culture grounded in trust, impartiality, and territorial integration. In other words, why is Peru not only failing as a democracy but also as a cohesive society and democratic society? 

Rather than describing Peru’s situation merely as democratic erosion, backsliding, or political decay, this study develops a diagnostic theory that connects historical, cultural, institutional, and territorial factors into a single analytical framework.

By integrating political culture, institutional design, corruption, and regional fragmentation, the research aims to theorise the structural origins of Peru’s political breakdown. It argues that the crisis is not simply the result of institutional weakness (a top-down failure), but also of the absence of a political community capable of linking citizens and territories through shared norms of trust and democratic culture (a bottom-up deficiency).

PhD funding

• Bicentennial Generation Scholarship, a program administered by the Peruvian Government.

Education

• Master of Public Policy (MPP) – London School of Economics and Political Science (Chevening Scholar) 2022
• MSc Political Science and Government  – Pontificia Universidad Católica del Perú 2018
• BA Law – Universidad Católica de Santa María, Arequipa, Perú 

Awards | Grants | Scholarships 

• Bicentennial Generation Scholarship from the Peruvian Government to pursue the PhD Programme at the UCL Institute of the Americas.
• Chevening Scholarship – UK Foreign, Commonwealth and Development Office (2021–2022) to pursue the Master of Public Policy at LSE.
• Recognised by Ipsos Peru and Semana Económica as one of the most influential political analysts in Peru (2023).

Research Papers

• Banda Lazarte, G. (2025). Repensando la Descentralización a Través de la Reelección de Autoridades Regionales y Locales en Perú: Cuando los Políticos Regionales Pierden Incentivos para Realizar una Mejor Gestión Pública. Revista de Gestão e Secretariado, 16(5). https://doi.org/10.7769/gesec.v16i5.4955
• Banda Lazarte, G. (2025). Análisis de la historia, naturaleza e implicancias jurídicas del Concordato entre el Estado Vaticano y el Perú. Revista de Derecho, 10(1). https://doi.org/10.47712/rd.2025.v10i1.312
• Banda Lazarte, G., & Arias Gallegos, W. L. (2022). Cultura ciudadana y democrática en habitantes de la ciudad de Arequipa, Perú. Persona, 25(1), 117–136. https://doi.org/10.26439/persona2022.n025(1).5564
• Bacigalupo, S., Banda, G., Ossa, M., Palomino, M., & Zarama, M. (2022). A New Proposal for Achieving a Better Mix of Pension Provision in Latin America. LSE–CEPAL Policy Paper.  
   https://zenodo.org/records/7022687

Book Chapters

• Banda Lazarte, G. (2024). La promesa de la democracia al sur. In Quiebre de la democracia en el sur: Cultura y Ciudadanía. Fondo Editorial UCSM.
• Banda Lazarte, G. (2021). ¿Qué quieren cambiar los ciudadanos? Aportes ciudadanos para el debate sobre el cambio de la Constitución de 1993. In Derechos fundamentales. Actas de las IV Jornadas Nacionales de Derechos Fundamentales.

Presentations and Lectures

• Causes and Consequences of the Peruvian Political Crisis, Latin American Centre – University of Oxford (2023).
• Peru’s Continuing Crisis: New Perspectives, David Rockefeller Center for Latin American Studies – Harvard University (2022).
• The Peruvian Presidential Elections, Interamerican Development Bank - Perú (2021).

Academic and Teaching Experience

• Lecturer in Political Science, Universidad Católica Santa María, Peru, 2020 – ongoing
  Teaching: Introduction to Public Policy (2020- 2021), Constitutional Law and Political Institutions (2020 - 2021), State, Economy and Society in Peru (2024).
• Lecturer in Political Science, Universidad Católica San Pablo, Peru, Jul 2015 - 2019
  Teaching: Political Philosophy (2015-2019) and Introduction to Political Science (2015-2019).
   

Media

• I am a columnist for El Comercio and El País, and I contribute articles to Americas Quarterly and other outlets. My political analyses have also been featured in leading international media such as the Financial Times, The Economist, BBC World Service, Bloomberg, CNN, The New York Times, and Foreign Policy, among others.
• Opinion Columns:
  https://gonzalobanda.com/en/opinion-columns.html
• Media Interviews:
  https://gonzalobanda.com/en/press-interviews.html
• Media Coverage:
  https://gonzalobanda.com/en/media-coverage.html