Journal of Law and Political Economy

Scholars characterize Latin American resource-dependent countries as “low-intensity democracies” with electoral competition and political rights. In this literature, undemocratic practices like participation exclusion and state repression are marginal phenomena. This article focuses on Peru—a country with many socio-environmental conflicts and a historical global provider of minerals—to understand the relationship between increasing extractive operations, social protests, and the enactment of emergency decrees as a crucial authoritarian feature of extractive states. By analyzing the case study of the “Southern Mining Corridor” and the emergency decrees enacted from 2015 to 2023 to protect mining, the article argues that emergency decrees have been normalized in extractive sites as a form of state control that excludes the political agency of Indigenous movements. Ultimately, the law establishes an unequal distribution of democratic institutions in Peru. The problem is not simply the “democratic deficit,” but the political and economic regime that requires localized authoritarianisms.