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Abstract

La presente investigación se ocupa del estudio del fenómeno del escándalo político en el Ecuador, durante la etapa histórica comprendida entre 1979, año en el que se reinstaura el régimen constitucional luego de un periodo de dictaduras que se prolongó por casi una década, y el año 2005, cuando el sistema político saltó en pedazos con la rebelión de los forajidos y la caída de Lucio Gutiérrez. Partiendo de la hipótesis desde la cual los escándalos políticos no son un resultado automático derivado de la gravedad de las transgresiones que los originaron (sean reales o ficticias), sino que reflejan el balance de poder subyacente en la dinámica política, aborda siete casos de entre los más prominentes en la política ecuatoriana (denominados affaires) durante el mencionado marco temporal. Se pregunta cómo, porqué ocurrieron, y qué incidencias tuvieron en la dinámica política ecuatoriana, buscando que las respuestas a estas cuestiones sirvan para profundizar en la comprensión de la historia política reciente del Ecuador, especialmente en lo referente a la relación entre la política y los medios de comunicación, el funcionamiento de los mecanismos de control político, y el deterioro integral del sistema político que condujo finalmente a su colapso en abril de 2005.

This thesis addresses the impact of political scandal in Ecuadorian recent history. More precisely, the investigation undertakes the analysis of seven major political scandals that occurred in the Ecuadorian political field between 1979 and 2005, and tries to determine how their occurrence may have had affected or even "shaped" Ecuadorian politics, contributing, in the long run, to the formation of a weak political system that progressively lost its legitimacy and collapsed in 2005. The investigation conceives "political scandal" as a particular type of political phenomenon (deeply related but essentially different from the one of "corruption") that takes place in the public sphere and can be understood as a battle for the public opinion in which reputation of the political agents is at stake.1 Given that reputation is the main source of political legitimacy, this kind of phenomenon can have sometimes very deep impact in the political system in which they appear, therefore it's study is relevant and might help to reach a better understanding of how political systems work in general, and specifically for the case of Ecuadorian recent history, it may help understand why and how the project of creating a modern political system based in a modern party politics that was born in 1978-79 failed. The main objective of this investigation is to provide new insight to Ecuadorian recent political history by following a line of investigation that has not been explored in depth before in the country, hoping that it will provide better understanding of the country's recent political history, especially on those aspects (like the relationship between politics and media, the workings of the institutional mechanisms designed to process political wrongdoing and guarantee political responsibility, among others) that are crucial to what is called "political transparency".