ABSTRACT
From the very moment of Peruvian independence, the armed forces have been intimately involved in national politics. Between the 1820s and the 1870s the military--which was little more than an incoherent group of poorly trained adventurers--dominated the executive to the total exclusion of civilian politicians. The military officer felt an obligation to master the intricacies of technocratic roles because of the enlarged responsibilities assigned to the armed forces by the teachings of Center of High Military Studies (CAEM). CAEM succeeded with the arguments in legitimizing a new military intervention in politics, defining such activity as the maximum expression of patriotism. The “new professionalism” was assimilated theoretically by the military elite. Upon taking power and assuming tasks quite alien from its own professional formation, the army encountered great difficulties in overcoming the administrative and technical problems associated with a developmental its approach to governance.
