Civilista, member of a Peruvian political movement of the late 19th and early 20th centuries that opposed military control of the government. The party of the Civilistas, the Partido Civilista, was founded in 1871 by Manuel Pardo to oppose the corrupt military regime of President José Balta (served 1868–72). Pardo was elected president in May 1872, taking office that summer after a military coup to block his accession failed.
The first civilian president in Peruvian history, Pardo espoused a traditional liberal program of decentralized government, state-supported education, and economic nationalism, but his insistence on reducing the power of the military left the nation unprepared when the War of the Pacific (1879–83) broke out. In 1879 Nicolás de Piérola, another military man, succeeded in seizing control of the government from the Civilistas, but he was turned out by the Chileans in 1881. Piérola began a revolt in 1894 and then was elected president in 1895, serving until 1899. He made an accommodation with the Civilistas, thus initiating a period of relative stability.
José Pardo y Barreda, an able Civilista president, served two terms (1904–08 and 1915–19); he led efforts to enact labour-reform laws, moved forcefully to improve primary education, and oversaw fiscal reforms directed by the treasury minister Augusto B. Leguía y Salcedo, who followed Pardo as president in 1908–12. The Civilista movement waned when Leguía turned his second term as president into a dictatorship (1919–30), thereby increasing the appeal of left-wing political groups.