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Speaker: Pablo Whipple, Associate Professor of History at the Pontificia Universidad Católica de Chile; DRCLAS Custer Visiting Scholar
Moderated by: Erin Goodman, Director of the Weatherhead Scholars Program, Harvard University
Unlike other countries in the region that gradually transitioned from colonial to republican judicial systems, the Peruvian State made an effort since its first constitution to create a professional judiciary independent of political power and nationally reaching.
Its materialization, however, was not possible during the period studied due to political, material, and human incapacities. Despite this, the insistence of the Peruvian State to form a nationally reaching professional judicial system affected key aspects of state formation during the nineteenth century, like the legitimacy of its judiciary and its independence from political powers. As a result, the judiciary ended up being dominated by political influences and corruption while also generating pockets of informality that, over time, became characteristic of the Peruvian judicial system.
This investigation pay special attention to the trajectories and careers of more than 700 professional judges within the country and, through them, reconstructs their judicial practices and the development and spatial expansion of nineteenth-century Peruvian judicial bureaucracy.
Pablo Whipple is an Associate Professor of History at the Pontificia Universidad Católica de Chile where he teaches Latin American and Peruvian history. He has a PhD in History from the University of California Davis (2007), and was the chair of the History Department at the Universidad Católica de Chile between 2016 and 2021. He is the author of La gente decente de Lima y su resistencia al orden republicano. Jerarquías sociales, prensa y sistema judicial durante el siglo XIX (Instituto de Estudios Peruanos, Centro de Investigaciones Barros Arana, 2013), where he studies Peruvian elites during the nineteenth century. His current project focuses on the study of corruption within the Peruvian judicial system, paying special attention to the trajectories of judges and lawyers during the development and expansion of nineteenth century judicial bureaucracies.
Erin Goodman directs the Scholars Program at the Weatherhead Center for International Affairs at Harvard. Prior to joining the Weatherhead Center in spring 2021, she coordinated research initiatives at the Consortium for Advanced Studies Abroad (CASA), and worked at Harvard for 15 years, most recently as associate director for academic programs at the David Rockefeller Center for Latin American Studies (2014–2018). Erin is the co-editor of three volumes centered on historical and collective memory, including Reflections on Memory and Democracy with Merilee S. Grindle (Harvard University Press, 2016). She earned an EdM in International Education Policy at the Harvard Graduate School of Education and a BA in International Relations at Wellesley College.