What is the political impact of state reform in contemporary Latin America? Are market-oriented reform projects triggering new patterns of political organization? If so, in what areas, under what conditions and with what consequences for the reform process itself? My dissertation will explore these questions by analyzing the political consequences of three important sets of policy reforms in contemporary Peru. The research is predicated on the assumption that the politics of market-oriented or neoliberal reform cannot be understood solely in terms of state-centric approaches; rather, what is required is an interactive approach that addresses the two-way relationship between state reformers and collective actors in civil society. Building on theoretical work in the field of public policy, my central hypothesis is that the political consequences of state reform vary significantly across policy areas in accordance with their distribution of costs and benefits. The results of the research will have important implications for the study of market­oriented reforms in the developing world. First, by exploring the social and political consequences of state reform, I expect to offer fresh insights into the long-term viability of neoliberal reform projects. Second, the study of emerging patterns of political organi­zation in Peru has broad comparative implications for the policy community concerned with the sustainability of democracy in Latin America.