Dipartimento di Civiltà e Forme del Sapere
Laurea Magistrale in Scienze per la Pace: Trasformazione dei Conflitti e
Cooperazione allo Sviluppo
Tesi di Laurea
The Current Crisis of Venezuela: Before and After Chávez´s
Presidency (1999-2013)
Relatore Candidata Prof. Marcello Mollica Mari Erci Cedeño Correlatore
Prof. Hugo Estrella
Acknowledgements
To Marcello Mollica, whom I had the happiness to have as teacher, and then, the pride of calling him “tutor”.
To God and to my grandfathers, which with him, from heaven, take care of me... Papaviejo and Mamaerci, blessing.
To my family, who still in the distance have supported me in these two years of road, especially to my Zoo, my mother, who is my main motivation and, my brother, that is my pride, you are… ALL.
To my fundamental pillars: Anabel, Vapa, Miri and R, because even though the years pass... you are still here. You make my days.
To the Romano-Pellicanó family, because they cuddled me as one more member when I needed it. To the King, for his coffees full of mountains of foam; to the Angel, who wrapped me with hers wings, as a daughter; to Güilli, for the time he walked beside me and, to Gianfri, who at all times made me feel welcomed.
To Ketty, for believing in me and giving me the opportunity to live these two wonderful years.
To those who, in some way or another, joined me on this adventure.
Summary
Venezuela is currently experiencing the worst of its crises. Food and medicines shortages, the highest levels of inflation, insufficient purchasing power derived from a devalued currency, a situation of collective panic that emerges from the high rates of violence and, a political and institutional delegitimization, are some of the elements that make up the current reality of the country.
Through a historical study that focuses on the presidency of Hugo Chávez as a turning point, we have managed to identify how elements that go back to the beginnings of the creation of Venezuela (first as a colony and later as an independent Republic) have generated dysfunctional characteristics that have survived to this day, and, how this elements, together with the policies emanated by the project of Socialism of the XXI Century, created the conditions for the collapse of the country with the largest oil reserves in the world.
Preface
The objective of the present investigation is to contribute understanding the political, economic and social causes that have immersed Venezuela in its current crisis, through a study of documentary nature, which will be based mainly on bibliographic material, national and international media, and audiovisual and electronic media. The period of study ranges from the invasion of the Spanish crown into American territory in 1492, until September 2017 under the government of Nicolás Maduro.
The thesis will also point to a critical review of the current state of knowledge about the crisis in the South American country, trying to clarify and identify the original elements of the problem.
The motivations that originated the investigation lie mainly in my status as a Venezuelan citizen. I, as a young Venezuelan, have spent most of my years under the government of Hugo Chávez and his successor Nicolás Maduro, both at citizen and professional level, because after my academic studies as a graduate in Political Science from the Central University of Venezuela (2012) I have developed my career in various institutions of the State, which has allowed me, together with the tools learned in the university, to analyze in a slightly more objective way the inside and outside of the current Venezuelan political and economic system.
A second motivation behind the research lies in my stay -for a little more than two years- in the European continent, which has broadened my spectrum of comparative vision and has shown me the lack of academic and popular knowledge of Latin American realities and, in particular, of that which corresponds to this work, the current reality of Venezuela, both in Italy and Spain, places where I developed my study program in Sciences for Peace, first in The University of Pisa (2015-2016) and them, at the University of Barcelona (2016-2017).
An element that particularly caught my attention, is the bibliographical material that I had access to during my research, since most of the material consulted in the various
libraries of the city of Pisa, curiously attends a stance favorable to the Chavez government.
Likewise, one of the main difficulties in the development of the research was the obtaining of updated bibliographical material up to the Nicolás Maduro government due, to a great extent, to the very recent period in question, causing that in the years of study that are coming to 2017 the main source of research were the media.
Índex
Índex of Figures ... 1
Index of Acronyms and Abbreviations ... 2
Introduction ... 4
I. CHAPTER: Conquest of Democracy ... 7
What is Venezuela? ... 8
Colony and Independence Process ... 9
The Caudillos (1830–1935): Before the Anarchy, Necessary is the Tyranny. ... 13
Stercus Demonis ... 15
“The Fourth Republic” or the Republic of Venezuela ... 17
The Transition (1935-1952) ... 17
“The Nationalism” (1952-1958) ... 18
40 years of Power-sharing (1958-1998) ... 19
II. CHAPTER: The Bolivarian Revolution and the Socialism of 21th Century. .. 27
An Overview of Latin America ... 28
The First Chávez: The Third Way (1999-2001) ... 31
A New Constitution ... 34
The Second Chávez: The Bolivarian Revolution (2001-2007) ... 38
Coup d'Etat (2002): Everything 11 has its 13 ... 38
The Missions ... 41
Recall Referendum (2004) ... 43
The New Pluripolar Geopolitics ... 45
Back to the Ballot Box ... 50
The Third Chávez: The Socialism of the 21st Century (2007-2013). ... 51
The Closure of RCTV and the Use of the Media ... 53
The Revolutionary Economy ... 54
A New Social Organization ... 56
Fear and Blood ... 57
A Sick Chávez Goes to Elections ... 60
III. CHAPTER: The Legacy of Chávez ... 65
Chávez is the People ... 65
The "Son of Chávez" to the Presidency ... 67
The Economic Crisis ... 69
The Fall in Oil Revenue ... 69
International Reserves, Control Exchange and Hyperinflation ... 71
Shortage of Food and Medicines ... 73
The Economic War ... 76
Exit, Voice and Loyalty ... 78
To Raise the Voice ... 78
Exit: Migration Movements ... 84
The International Positions ... 85
Is Venezuela a Narco-State? ... 89
Conclusions ... 94
Bibliography ... 104
1
Índex of Figures
Figure 1: Geographical map of Venezuela... 8
Figure 2: Palafito. Zulia-Venezuela ... 10
Figure 3: Cuartel de la Montaña- Caracas... 62
Figure 4: Woman holds in arms a figure of Chávez during his funeral (2013) ... 63
Figure 5: Prayer of Our Father dedicated to Chávez ... 67
Figure 6: Global oil prices 1960-2017 ... 71
Figure 7: Devaluation of the bolívar 2013-2017 ... 73
Figure 8: “Do not get sick, there is no medicine”. Banner used in a strike against Nicolás Maduro (2014) ... 74
Figure 9: Venezuelans making long lines to buy food (2016) ... 75
Figure 10: Venezuelans looking for food scraps among trash cans (2017) ... 75
Figure 11: Young naked with marks of blunt shot shows the bible to police officers in protests of 2017 ... 82
2
Index of Acronyms and Abbreviations
International Organizations:
OPEC: Organization of Petroleum Exporting Countries CIA: Central Intelligence Agency of the United States UN: United Nations
WB: World Bank
IMF: International Monetary Fund SOA: School of the Americas
OAS: Organization of American States MERCOSUR: Southern Common Market FTAA: Free Trade Agreement of the Americas
ALBA: Bolivarian Alliance for the Peoples of Our America HRW: Human Rights Watch
IACHR: Inter-American Court of Human Rights UNASUR: Union of South American Nations DEA: Drug Enforcement Administration Venezuelan Political Parties:
AD: Acción Democrática/ Democratic Action
COPEI: Comité de Organización Política Electoral Electoral Independiente/ Independent Electoral Political Organization Committee
URD: Unión Republicana Democrática/ Democratic Republican Union PCV: Partido Comunista de Venezuela/ Communist Party of Venezuela MVR: Movimiento Quinta República/ Fifth Republic Movement PJ: Primero Justicia/ Justice First
UNT: Un Nuevo Tiempo / A New Time
ABP: Alianza Bravo Pueblo / Brave People Alliance
MUD: Mesa de la Unidad Democrática/ Democratic Unity Roundtable Venezuelan Institutions:
CTV: Confederación de Trabajadores de Venezuela/ Confederation of Workers of Venezuela
FEDECAMARAS: Federación de Cámaras y Asociaciones de Comercio y Producción de Venezuela/ Federation of Chambers and Associations of Commerce and Production of Venezuela
PDVSA: Petróleos de Venezuela Sociedad Anónima/ Anonymous Society Petroleum from Venezuela
AN: Asamblea Nacional-Parlamento /National Assembly-Parliament ANC: Asamblea Nacional Constituyente/ National Constituent Assembly TSJ: Tribunal Supremo de Justicia /Supreme Court of Justice
3 CNE: Consejo Nacional Electoral/ National Electoral Council
CADIVI: Comisión de Administración de Divisas/ Currency Administration Commission
RCTV: Radio Caracas Televisión/ Radio Caracas Television
CEDICE: Centro de Divulgación del Conocimiento Económico /Center for Dissemination of Economic Knowledge
SICAD: Sistema Complementario de Administración de Divisas/ Supplemental Currency Management System
4
Introduction
I was born in a country where people received you with open arms and a guayoyo1,
where there is always space at the table for another one, where your neighbor becomes part of your family and you call a stranger “friend” in just five minutes, a country where you just share everything you have, a country where the smile even in difficult times never misses, a country that has opened its doors to thousands of foreigners, who in its territory formed their home.
That country, rich in resources but even more in its population, is no longer the same, violence reigns in the streets, society was divided in two, the vaunted democracy model that was the most stable in Latin America, today is in question, and the happiness that characterized us, disappeared.
How could such an extraordinarily rich country as Venezuela have fallen into such a deep economic, political and social crisis? How is it possible that being the country with the largest reserves of petroleum proven in the world (Organization of the Petroleum Exporting Countries, 2017), today its population does not have food, medicines or access to basics products? (Human Rights Watch, 2016, pp. 1-13). How could I possibly feel foreign even in my own place? How is my country destroyed? In order to try to understand the current phenomenon we must, in the first instance, dig into the political history of Venezuela and its process of formation as a State, analyze the conquest and development of democracy, determine the features that have characterized the political development of the country in Its various stages and that have acted as catalysts to give rise to the current critical conditions and, finally, to manage the concepts and ideas that permeated within society for these changes to be possible.
In this sense, the research will be divided into three chapters:
5 The first, that seeks to explore the beginning of the political history of the country. We will describe the start and the end of the colonial order; the emergence of the "caudillism", a system based on the popular loyalty (that resembled European feudalism), which appear with the aim of giving answers to this new and unknown stage as Republic and that would last until 1935; a following “transitional” stage, composed by 20 years full of measures with the objective of creating institutional frameworks and, its soon absorption by military components, under a dictatorship that we will call “nationalist” (because its motto was the transformation of the physical environment and the improvement of the moral, intellectual and material conditions of Venezuelans) which would consecrate the country as one of the most solid economies of the time. Finally, we will explore how the first democratic steps were taken under a pact between parties, how a bipartisan system was consolidated during 40 years, how its decay process was, and, what were the consequences of their performance for the country. The objective of this chapter will be basically to understand the beginnings of Venezuela as a State and to sketch how Venezuela worked prior to the emergence of Chávez in power.
The second chapter, that will seek to describe the conditions under which Chávez -a president who would mark a before and after in the history of Venezuela- came to power and ruled for 14 years with a gradual political radicalization in terms of Socialism. The creation of a new constitutional framework; the new dynamics in international relations at the regional and global levels; the establishment of social policies through which he obtained the fidelity and devotion of the masses; the weakening of State institutions; the dysfunctional relationship with the media and with the opposition political parties; the frontal and emotive discourse and, even, the reformulation of national history through his speech, will be some of the elements that will allow us to enter into the process of establishment of the Chavismo. A movement that would turn its leader into a god.
Finally, in the third chapter, we will analyze the consequences of Chávez's political project, after his death. The mourning of a devout population; the rise of Nicolás
6 Maduro to the presidency; the unfavorable international context marked by the fall of oil prices; the disenchantment with leftist governments at regional level and, a complex economic crisis, that have complicated the lives of millions of Venezuelans.
The objective of all the investigation, will be to draw a scheme that help us to understand what have been the historical, political, economic and social causes that have led Venezuela into the worst crisis in its history (since 2013 to our days).
7 I.
CHAPTER: Conquest of Democracy
Introduction
In this chapter, after a brief description about Venezuela, we will explore the beginning of the political history of the country, the brutal invasion of the Spanish crown into America, the progressive establishment of a colonial system in the end of the fifteenth century and, its end, in the first decade of the nineteenth century, with the independence process led by Simón Bolívar2 (1810-1830). Subsequent to it, we will
study how -with the aim of giving answers to this new and unknown stage as Republic- emerges a system based on the popular loyalty to the caudillo3 (a strong man who
possesses large tracts of land and weapons) in exchange for protection and work. This scheme -that resembled European feudalism- would lasted until 1935, with the death of one of the great dictators of Venezuelan history, Juan Vicente Gómez4 (1908-1935).
In the next 20 years, measures as the reduction of presidential period or the legalization of political parties, were developed with the aim of create institutional frameworks. This stage, that we could call "transitional", was soon absorbed by military components, which refused to lose the image of an authoritarian leader as president.
The return of the military forces into the power was led by Marcos Pérez Jiménez5
(1952-1958), who under a program called New National Ideal aimed at eradicating poverty and modernizing the country through the construction of sophisticated infrastructure works and, at the same time, to revitalize the nationalist sentiment of the population, through the establishment and celebration of national dates and the homage
2 Also called "The Liberator" (1783-1830). He was a Venezuelan military and politician who led the
independence of present-day Bolivia, Colombia, Ecuador, Panama and Venezuela and contributed decisively to the reorganization of Peru. His ideas gave rise to the political current of Bolivarianism, a project that aims to the political, economic and social integration of the peoples of South America and whose highest representative was Hugo Chávez.
3 See page 13.
4 He was a dictator and Venezuelan military leader who ruled authoritatively to the country from 1908
until his death in 1935.
5 Political and military Venezuelan that reached the degree of General of Division of the Army of
8 to the precursors of independence. This phase of “nationalism” whose motto was the transformation of the physical environment and the improvement of the moral, intellectual and material conditions of Venezuelans would consecrate the country as one of the most solid economies of the time, and its end, in 1958, would give life to modern democracy in Venezuela.
Subsequently, we will explore how the first democratic steps were taken under a pact between parties, how a bipartisan system was consolidated during 40 years, how its decay process was, and, what were the consequences of their performance for the country.
What is Venezuela?
Located in the northern point of South America, the Bolivarian Republic of Venezuela borders geographically, to the north, with the Caribbean Sea and the Atlantic Ocean; to the West, with Colombia; to the South, with Brazil, and, to the East, with Guyana6. This position makes it a highly tourist country, full of landscapes that range
from paradisiac beaches, sand dunes and snow mountains to, vast areas of forests and rivers.
6 Venezuela and Guyana have held a territorial dispute since 1904 by the so-called Guayana Esequiba,
a territorial extension of 159 542 km that contain large amounts of natural resources, including gold (Ministry of Foreign Affairs of Venezuela).
9 The country possesses a great variety of mineral resources. It has the largest proven oil reserve in the world (being one of the founding members of the Organization of Petroleum Exporting Countries-OPEC), the 8th place of natural gas reserves, the 11th
place in hydric reserves, and, the 10th place in bauxite reserves. Also hold the largest and most stable gold reserve among Latin American countries (15th worldwide) and
possesses greats deposit of other minerals as iron, diamonds, kaolin, barite and manganese, according to the country´s profile made by the Central Intelligence Agency of the United States (Central Intelligence Agency, 2017). It is important to highlight that the biodiversity that Venezuela has, allows it to be part of the list of megadiverse countries, those 17 countries that together hold more than 70% of the planet's biodiversity (United Nations Environment Report, 2014).
Venezuela frames four relevant geopolitical fronts: The Caribbean, which facilitates their access to the Caribbean islands and the Central and North American markets; the Atlantic, which communicates mainly with French islands; the Amazonia (that shares with the big Brazil) and, the Andes Mountains range that limits immediately with Colombia.
Its population density (2015) is 31.519.000 inhabitants, mainly young7 and
primarily concentrated in the capital, Caracas (6 million inhabitants). The currency, is the Bolívar and, despite having a high average income of US$ billions: 371.006 GDP1
(World Bank Group, 2013) and to be considered as a developing country, the International Monetary Fund (IMF) reported that inflation in Venezuela reached to 720.5% in 2016, the largest in the world (Cerra, 2016, p. 2).
Colony and Independence Process
In the third of his travels, on October 12, 14988, Christopher Columbus arrives to
Venezuelan territory, a place populated by indigenous tribes, among which are the
7 0-14 years: 28,2%, 15-24 years:18,8%, 25-54 years:39,6%, 55-64 years: 7,5% and 65 years or more
:5,9% (Central Intelligence Agency, 2015).
8 In Venezuela, October 12 was celebrated as "the day of the race," apologizing to the "discovery of
America" by Columbus, however, one of the symbolic actions of the presidency of Hugo Chávez, was the renaming of this date as the "day of indigenous resistance" with the objective of honoring the defense
10 Pemones, the Wayuu, the Timotocuicas and the Yanomami, although not with a level of organizational development and infrastructure such as those established in Mexico and Peru (Salmoral, 2004).
The process of invasion by the Spanish crown was cruel and bloody, despite the resistance of the original people, control of gunpowder and access to weapons much more sophisticated than arrows and spears, provided a quick conquest to outsiders, which did not take too long to establish their colony9.
Regarding the origin of the country’s name, there are two theories. The first, is the association with the city of Venezia (Venezuela = small Venezia), due to the buildings on the water where the natives lived, the palafitos10, the second one, bets on the
appropriation of a native word Veneci-uela (big water). The fact is “Venezuela” is used for the first time, to refer the nation, in a Mapamundi written by Juan Losa in the year 1500.
Figure 2: Palafito. Zulia-Venezuela
With the aim of organizing the invaded territories, the kings of Spain and the Expedition Chiefs established agreements denominated Capitulations. The first of them
of the territory carried out by some Venezuelan ethnic groups in the period of the invasion (TeleSur, 2016).
9 It is estimated that during the invasion, 60 million Indians were "massacred" in Latin American territory
by the Spanish empire, about 400,000 each year for a century and a half. (TeleSur, 2016).
11 (Capitulation of Santa Fe) determined the division of the riches that were looted of the great deposits of pearls and gold in Venezuelan territory.
Progressively, and due to the natural and mineral resources, the Spanish settlements in the territory were increasing. With them, start a process of "evangelization" by the Catholic Church, which even promoted the migration of African slaves to "diminish" the suffering of the natives11.
In the colonial system, social organization was clearly marked according to the skin color (Haggerty, 1990, pp. 8-12), only Spanish nationals (known as "Spanish whites") could hold senior positions in political, economic and, religious institutions. Not even their descendants, the "creole whites" could replace them, this group could only hold second-level public offices (the great majority of this group dealt with the management of the farms and properties). Then, the “shore whites”, Spanish who settled in the Venezuelan coasts and worked in handicrafts, and finally, on the lowest scale, indigenous and Africans, who were obligatorily engaged in mining and agricultural work and, as slaves. Subsequently, a process of miscegenation (the interbreeding of people considered to be of different racial types) would give life to new social categories and finally, an interracial society12.
It was this second group of the social pyramid (creole whites), which, dissuaded by the ideas of Enlightenment (1715-1789), the admiration of the French Revolution (1789-1799) and the example of the Independence of the United States (1776) together with the frustration of not being able to hold high political positions and also, the obligation to comply with the crown's designs in the commercial exchange of precious
11 Once the process of domination was completed, the natives were subjected to heavy labor until, in
1518, under request of the Dominican friar Bartolomé de las Casas, who advocated for the humanity of the Indians, hundreds of Africans were taken to the country as slaves to replace them. (Angel, 2012).
12 There were 16 main new "races" emerged from the process of miscegenation, however, three are the
most predominant in Venezuela: "mestizo" (product of the union of a Spanish with an Indian), "mulato" (Spanish with an African) and "zambo" (of the mixture between an Indian and an African), (Campos Rivas, 2014, pp. 1-19).
12 stones and agricultural production obtained on their farms (mainly coffee and cocoa) who began to create the independence movement.
After numerous insurrections, to which the lower classes were added and led by Simón Bolívar and, several failed attempts of occupation were perpetrated by Francisco de Miranda13 (1806), the opportunity materialized when the king of Spain, Fernando
VII was deposed under the Napoleonic invasion (1808).
Between 1810 and 1830 numerous battles were fought, initially by the independence of Venezuela and later, by the dream of Bolívar to liberate the countries of the South American region and to unify them in a single nation (what would be known from 1820 to 1830 as the Great Colombia). In this way, Simón Bolívar led and gained the independence of six countries (Bolivia, Colombia, Ecuador, Panama, Peru and Venezuela) replacing the monarchy by the establishment of republics. This period of Venezuelan history has been divided by Venezuelan historiography (Haggerty, 1990) into four parts: First Republic (1810-1812), Second Republic (1813-1814), Third Republic (1817-1819) and The Great Colombia (1819-1830)14.
Opinions on the nature of the independence process are not unanimous. Some claim that independence was an eminently political revolution, since many of its main promoters were from the local aristocracy, who would not be interested in to make radicall changes in the existing conditions of social inequality, so as not to endanger the hegemony to which they aspired. Others think that the initial rejection of the independence process in many of the other social groups (the new mixed races, the indigenous and the Africans slaves) gave it a kind of social revolution, since these sectors wanted a transformation of the social and economic structure that would give rise to a more egalitarian society. The fact is that it was a movement initiated from the
13 Miranda (1750-1816) was an illustrious military considered The Precursor of the American
Emancipation, was participant of the Independence of the United States, of the French Revolution and later, of the Independence of Venezuela. Governed the First Republic of Venezuela as Plenipotentiary Dictator. Within the historical gossip, it is spoken of a supposed romance that maintained the Venezuelan hero with Catherine II of Russia (Araujo, 2011).
13 political and economic elite, which although it rethought the status quo influenced by the international revolutionary context took advantage of social inequalities to join supporters to its cause.
After the separation of the Great Colombia, Venezuela decrees its autonomy and a new era¸ led by the caudillos started.
The Caudillos (1830–1935): Before the Anarchy, Necessary is the
Tyranny.
The political-historical experience of the Hispanic-American republics has been characterized by the presence of strong political personalities, either as an expression of the pure will to dominate to one's own arbitrariness; correlative to institutional weakness and / or the scarce rooting of the norm, or well, inscribed within the current legislation, protected by the predicted "state of exception" in the constitutional texts. After the destruction of the colonial system and the independence process, the situation was not conducive to the development of constitutional governments. Social heterogeneity, absence of consensus and lack of political traditions left the liberal constitutions under considerable pressure and brought the new republics to the brink of anarchy. The decades during which the nascent republics were determined to assume and shape their own destiny, had led to the emergence of personalisms in a manner inversely proportional to the capacity to solve the challenges and problems. There was no time or willingness to fully grasp a reality that did not refer to the political habits of the previous regime, but much less could be generated from the admired model of the "government of law, not of men" so preached in the revolutionary years. The immediacy of the problems was more pressing and overwhelming than the need to discuss the effects of methods. What was urgent was someone who would solve them (Pelayo, 1990).
According to John Lynch (1986):
The caudillo was a regional chief who derived his power from the control he exercised over local resources, through armed clientele, united by personal ties
14 of domination and submission and by a common desire to obtain wealth through the use of weapons [...] When the economy reached a critical point, men were forced to join gangs under the leadership of a boss who promised them a quick and easy booty. The instinct for survival was stronger than ideology (pp. 18-21).
This implied that the national territory, in spite of the establishment of the republic and the adoption of the figure of the President (the greater caudillo), was divided under zones of influence of diverse smaller caudillos whose interests sometimes came into conflict. According to Graciela Soriano (1990):
The caudillism would constitute a possibility of spontaneous political pluralism and possibly feasible as an American answer to the disarticulation with the Spanish Empire, based on the prestige of the chiefs and on the strength of the arms, which, although it served to give immediate answers to a completely new context, initially substituting and, subsequently, postponing the creation and consolidation of governmental institutions as a legitimate source of political-social organization and conflict resolution (p.213).
It is interesting to note that this system of government, at least in Venezuela, was apparently constitutional rather than military. True power was monopolized by the oligarchy15, who required a strong president (a caudillo representing their interests),
who kept the popular classes under control and who fought with the regions. Even though it was a "constitutional" system, it tended to gain power by excluding its opponents and denying freedom of the press. It also controlled judges, who denied fair treatment to liberal-minded subjects.
Also, contrary to what one might think, the revolution of independence did not benefit the popular sectors, with the consolidation of caudillism there was a process of concentration of territorial property that excluded the rural masses. The promises of booty that underpinned this system turned out to be gestures of mere demagogy that allowed the caudillo to act as patron and retain the will of the lower strata.
Venezuela passed through an era of government by the caudillos, which exerted the power by personal goals and benefits rather than national welfare for more than 100
15 years. This period ended with the death of Juan Vicente Gomez (a cruel military dictator who ruled the country for 27 years) and with the massive exploitation of what was the blessing-curse of Venezuela, the oil.
Stercus Demonis
“On the western tip there is a fountain of an oily liquor next to the sea…some of those who have seen it say that it is called stercus demonis [devil’s excrement] by the naturals.” Gonzalo Fernández de Oviedo y Valdés (Abel, 1983) Although the Indians already knew of the existence of this resource, and used it for medicinal purposes, it was not until 1912 that the first oil well was drilled. By 1929, Venezuela was the world’s second largest oil producer, after the U.S., and the world’s largest oil exporter. In fact, between 1920 and 1935 oil’s share of exports went from 1.9% to 91.2% (Tugwell, 1975) this, of course, had an immediate and dramatic impact on the country’s economy, known among economists as “The Dutch Disease”16.
With the increase of oil revenues the country's agricultural sector fell in crisis, the process of industrialization was delayed, and, the mentality of the Venezuelans turned into “rentier” and “clientelistic” (the construction of a dependency relationship with oil rather than engaging in creative entrepreneurial activities). According to Terry Lynn (1997):
In the manner of a petro-State, rent seeking had become the central organizing principle of [Venezuela’s] political and economic life, and the ossified political institutions in existence operated primarily to perpetuate an entrenched spoils
16 This economic disease is caught whenever a commodity brings a sudden increase of income in one
sector of the economy, which is not matched by increased income in other sectors of the economy. The increased sectorial income causes a distorted growth in services and other non-tradable, which cannot be imported, while discouraging the production of tradable, which are imported. The reason for this disparity is that the greater income rapidly raises the demand for imports, since domestic production cannot meet demand quickly enough, and also raises the demand for services, which the domestic market has to supply because services cannot be imported as easily as tradable can. The increased demand for imported goods and domestic services, in turn, causes an increase in prices, which ought to cause domestic production to increase, but doesn’t because the flow of foreign exchange into the economy has caused a general inflation of wages and prices. (Wilpert, 2003).
16 system. Both State agencies and political parties had given up their programmatic roles to become machines for extracting rents from the public arena (p. 184).
The cultural anthropologist Fernando Coronil (1997), also argues that Venezuela’s oil wealth has caused the State to appear to have “magical powers”, to be able to accomplish just about any feat at no cost to the population.
Thus transformed into a petrostate, the Venezuelan State came to hold the monopoly not only of violence, but of the nation’s natural wealth. The State has exercised this monopoly dramaturgically, seeking compliance through the spectacular display of its imperious presence—it seeks to conquer rather than persuade. […] By manufacturing dazzling development projects that engender collective fantasies of progress, it casts its spell over audiences and performers alike. As a “magnanimous sorcerer,” the State seizes its subjects by inducing a condition or state of being receptive to its illusions—a magical State (Coronil, 1997, p. 4).
Another consequence that Venezuela’s oil wealth has had for its political system is that it turned it into what political scientist Terry Lynn Karl calls a pacted democracy. The term pacted democracy describes a democracy which is held together via an agreement among different elite groups. It is a kind of truce among opposing powerful interest groups in the society, so as to maintain their privileges17.
This political configuration that emerges from the presidency of Juan Vicente Gómez, had its highest point in the bipartisan era of the "Fourth Republic", however, its consequences are still in force.
17 In Venezuela this truce took the form of the pact of “Punto Fijo,” where all major parties were
guaranteed access to power in proportion to the voting results. In other words, even if one party won the presidential and legislative elections, it would still be obliged to share the spoils of Venezuela’s oil economy among the other parties, more or less according to the vote results. Under this scheme each of the main parties had guaranteed access to jobs, contracts, ministries, etc. Radical socialist and communist parties were completely excluded from this pact. (Meléndez, 2013).
17
“The Fourth Republic” or the Republic of Venezuela
The Transition (1935-1952)
With the death of Gómez, on December 17, 1935, one of the strongest dictatorships in the history of the country finished, and with it, the caudillista period. After more than three decades of oppression, the process of modernization of the State would be marked by intense ideological debates and political instability.
For fifteen years, the presidents on duty (7 in total), with their advances and delays, worked for a less restrictive State and to give the first steps toward to democracy: At the constitutional level, the first Venezuelan Constitution of democratic court was created in 1947, establishing: a presidential term of 5 years (with no possibility of re-election); the confer of great powers to the Congress (including the possibility of challenging Ministers); the vote as mandatory, direct and universal; the recognition, for the first time, of woman's vote; the guarantee of freedom of expression and demonstration and, the legalization of political parties.
In economic matters, a regulation of the oil activities with a greater participation to the Venezuelan State, was developed. A representative example is the establishment of the so-called Law 50-50 (1948), which divided the profits of oil extraction between the international operators and the State in equal parts.
At the social level, a complex urbanization process stimulated the rural exodus towards the cities and, a modern Labor Law (1936) that expanded the range of benefits to the workers, including the fixing of a mandatory minimum wage and, a social insurance subsidized by the State, was established.
Despite the progressive measures, stability between governments was difficult to achieve and the practice of coups was recurrent. The military power was consolidated again when, in 1952 (after the assassination of the head of state) Colonel Marcos Pérez Jiménez assumed the Presidency, to give life to the most controversial dictatorship, so far, of the Venezuelan political history.
18
“The Nationalism” (1952-1958)
Under the denial of the 1952 electoral results that gave victory to a party of civilian tendency, Unión Republicana Democrática (URD), Pérez Jiménez, representing the military awning decides fraudulently and unilaterally proclaim himself as the President of the Republic (Rohter, 2001).
Pérez Jiménez was a vigorous and energetic dictator. He relied on his skills as an organizer and planner to fulfill his goals. His motto was El Nuevo Ideal Nacional (The New National Ideal) a philosophy that put a higher premium on national unity and material and technological progress than, on political freedom and intellectual and moral improvement. He believed that the Armed Forces—disciplined, trained, and ostensibly non-partisan—could best carry out this mission.
In practice, the New National Ideal consisted mainly of lavish public works projects for Caracas (the capital). The construction of new hotels, office buildings, apartments, and super-highways transformed Caracas into a glittering, modern city. In addition to public construction, Pérez Jiménez concentrated his energies and the nation's money on the armed forces, the mainstay of his regime. Soldiers lived like aristocrats with impressive barracks and social clubs and the latest in military hardware (Cartay, 1999). Along with restoring Caracas and bestowing favors on the military, Pérez Jiménez brutally suppressed political and civil liberties with the aid of his efficient secret police, the National Security Directorate. Academics, politicians, reporters, opponents or anyone considered a “disgruntled person” were tortured and murdered (Abreu, 1985). The foreign policy with Pérez Jiménez took an anti-communist stance and get close with the United States. He also attracted U.S. investment and awarded generous contracts to American oil companies. The United States, under President Dwight Eisenhower, thanked the unsavory dictator by awarding him a Legion of Merit medal, the nation's highest award for foreign personages (The Economist, 2001).
19 In January 23th, 1958, following a plebiscite that sought to legitimize and reinforce the dictatorial regime to the people, to the Army and, to the international community, President Marcos Pérez Jiménez fled Venezuela, driven by the force of a civic-military movement that made the overthrow of authoritarian rule a national cause.
With the overthrow of Pérez Jiménez, begins a second attempt toward the path of democracy. A democracy that, given the initial conditions (the end of a military dictatorship and the recurring coups d'état), could be denominated "agreed".
40 years of Power-sharing (1958-1998)
The resurgence of political parties, the return of opposition leaders from the exile, the freedom of expression in the media, and the democratic opening, reappeared in a country that, despite the modernization in its infrastructure and its economic rise, demanded to be heard.
The main political parties of the country, composed by the Social Democratic Acción Democrática (AD), the Christian Democratic Comité de Organización Política Electoral Independiente (COPEI), the Central Progressive URD and, the Communist Party of Venezuela (PCV), were organized in times of dictatorship, forming together and in clandestine way, the so-called Junta Patriótica (Patriotic Union), which was responsible for promoting reactionary ideas aimed mainly at workers, women and, young people, who would reinforce from the civil wing the military coup perpetrated to Pérez Jiménez (1958).
Secretly and excluding in premeditated way to the Communist Party, representatives of the COPEI, URD, and AD parties went to New York on January 20, 1958 (only three days before the General's flight) and met with the Latin American Chief of Department of State of the United States. From the meeting, the document denominated New York Pact18 antecedent of the Punto Fijo Pact, would establish a
18 The meeting with Maurice Bergbaum, Head of Latin American Affairs from US Department of State
and Allen Dulles, CIA’s Director, was a further demonstration of the influence of the United States in the Venezuela’s political exercise, in this case with the aim of limiting the participation of leftist political parties in the government (which in the decade of the 70 would be known as Condor Operation). Also,
20 series of principles, under which, regardless the political group elected, democracy would develop in Venezuela. Among the main guidelines was the commitment to create and defend a new Constitution, the right to govern respecting electoral results (taking into account the multiple coups perpetrated during Venezuelan political history) and the establishment of a common minimum program with the goal of fostering a stable national coalition.
On December 7 of the same year (1958), the first democratic elections were held, with Rómulo Betancourt representing AD party as the new president, the commitment of tripartite representatives in cabinet and governorates was fulfilled. However, in 1960 URD abandoned the coalition and began the era of national bipartisanship.
The protagonist of this four decades (1958-1998) were the parties. The policy making process included relatively few key players:
- The President of the Republic (of the moment).
- The national leaders of the two major parties (AD and COPEI).
- The leaders of the two peak corporatists interest groups: the Confederation of Workers of Venezuela (CTV for its acronym in Spanish) and, the Federation of Chambers and Associations of Commerce and Production of Venezuela (Fedecámaras)19
- The Catholic Church, in an intermittent but recurring way.
According to Geraldina Colotti (2012) the Punto Fijo Pact´s democracy was a consociational alliance between center-left and center-right involving the Catholic Church and entrepreneurs, but excluding from the government both the military and the communists (p. 11).
US government previously supported Juan Vicente Gómez military’s coup to the ex- president Cipriano Castro, with the goal of obtaining a preferential treatment in the exchange of oil (Parisca Pérez, 2015).
19 All presidents in the period made extensive use of consultative commissions for the design of policy.
Between 1959 and 1989 presidents created 330 advisory commissions (Crisp, 2000). These commissions institutionalized corporatist consultation. Umbrella groups for capital and organized labor were considered partners in decision making who had every right to make their voices heard on virtually every issue. As a result, four groups clearly dominated the commissions: AD, COPEI, CTV and FEDECAMARAS.
21 During the Betancourt administration (1959-1964) groups of leftist guerrillas were formed, claiming the integration of the Communist Party in the government and the recognition of the role played by them in the conquest of democracy, also, diplomatic relations were broken with all non-democratic governments (as Cuba), and the OPEC -which would reconfigure international politics and geopolitical interests in general- was created. Finally, was written a clearly anti-dictatorial Constitution characterized by: 1) the defense of a "formal and representative political democracy", 2) the exaltation of Liberties (expression, manifestation, assembly and worship), 3) the limitation in the field of action of the Army, 4) the preponderance of the political debate in Parliament with the fundamental role of political parties as agents of representation of the popular will, and, 5) the consecration of human dignity as constitutional guiding principle (Maekelt, 1993).
In 1969 the new elections throw as winner a member of the same party (AD), Raúl Leoni, for a period characterized by the promotion and financing of the leftist guerrillas in the country by Fidel Castro (Alves, 2002), the formation of a broad-based government and, the continuity in post-dictatorship stabilization processes.
In the following period, with Rafael Caldera- and the first period of COPEI- an important educational reform was carried out, and an amnesty was agreed with the left armed groups and with the Communist Party, which would help to reestablish diplomatic relations with Cuba.
With the Middle East oil trade interdiction of 1973, world oil prices and, along with it, Venezuelan government revenues, quadrupled from 1972 to 1974. This sudden and sizable increase in government income was historically unique in Venezuela. It allowed the newly elected president, Carlos Andrés Perez, to promise Venezuelans that Venezuela would become a developed country within a few years. His project was known as The Great Venezuela and was supposed to “sow the oil” though a combination of fighting poverty, via price controls and income increases, and the diversification of the country’s economy, via import substitution. Part of this plan was
22 also the nationalization of Venezuela’s oil industry, which became fully nationalized in 1976, with the creation of Petróleos de Venezuela (PDVSA).
To the following period, led by COPEI, the bubble of the Great Venezuela explodes. The inflationary process, the exacerbated public expenditure, the fall of the oil price and the widespread flight of capital brought as consequences an strong economic recession and an abrupt devaluation of the currency, event historically known as Black Friday20 (1983).
With the arrival of the AD member, Jaime Lusinchi (1984-1989) far from any increase in economic matters, international reserves reached their lowest level until the time, generating scarcity of food and, creating the conditions to the economic measures announced by Carlos Andrés Pérez in his second presidential period (1989-1993), which instead of turning around a program of social inclusion, would follow the neoliberal guidelines emanated by the IMF.
The phenomenon of corruption spread in a generalized and uncontrolled way, the wages were deteriorated, in both, public and private companies, and the levels of inflation grew exponentially, these conditions gave life to The Caracazo, as it would be known to a series of violent protests, looting and disturbances deployed between the 27 of February and the 8 of March of 1989 that reached its maximum level with the declaration of suspension of the constitutional guarantees (state of exception) and a brutal repression by the State security forces, which would reach 300 people killed and more than 3,000 missing. Pérez also would face two failed coup attempts (including the one headed by the later President, Hugo Chávez Frias21).
20 For Venezuela, Black Friday represents a milestone that changed its economic history. Until that day,
the stability and reliability that had been characterized by the bolivar since the second decade of the twentieth century, whose last free exchange rate against the dollar, was officially maintained. Since then, the constant devaluation of the bolivar, complications with the payment of the foreign debt, the accelerated deterioration of purchasing power and the implementation of a change control called "Regime of Differential Change" (RECADI) made disappear the exchange rate stability of the Venezuelan currency (Ochoa, 2013, pp. 7-9).
21 After the failed coup, Hugo Chávez became a media phenomenon, after pronouncing his famous
speech in which, wearing its characteristic red beret, recited: Companions, unfortunately for now the objectives we set ourselves were not achieved ... the country has to definitely go a better destiny. I, before
23 The growing levels of disapproval of Pérez's management, his demarcation with the AD party, the absence of new political leaders, corruption rates and, the set of measures that affected mainly the most disadvantaged social classes, resulted in a crisis of legitimacy of the current government and an increase in the popular feeling of distrust in the traditional bipartisan system (1958-1998).
National party leaders had relatively long tenures and almost all were members of Congress with long legislative careers. Inter-temporal linkages among key political actors were strong, in fact, it was very costly for an individual politician to deviate from the cooperative equilibrium of the two-party rule. All votes were counted with raised hands, and, in the few instances in which a party member did not want to follow the party line, his alternate member replace him and voted as accorded by the party. The lack of individual member initiative meant that there were very few incentives to specialize or gain expertise (Monaldi, 2004).
In March of 199322, Pérez is accused of corruption and must, officially, leave the
position. The National Congress designated a “government on duty” while national elections were held, which with a low participation rate bring Rafael Caldera back to the Presidency. At the same time Lieutenant Colonel Hugo Chávez is accused, tried and imprisoned for the military rebellion of 1992. Two years later, he was acquitted by a presidential order and founded the Fifth Republic Movement party, with which he would run for presidential elections in 1998, propagating the idea of the necessity of a re-foundation of the Republic through a Constituent Assembly.
In general terms, we could say that this first period of democracy (1958-1998) was characterized by a high level of cooperation; a low political volatility, low stakes of power and fragmentation and, a limited political competition.
the country, before you, assume the responsibility of this Bolivarian military movement managed to sow its name in the collective imagination.
To see the full speech: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=_QqaR1ZjldE.
22 The voter until 1993 had just one card with the color and symbol of the party and could not split their
24 The existence of a highly centralized, disciplined, and non-fragmented party system, and the fact that interest group concerns were channeled through corporatist arrangements with the peak labor and business associations, allowed the president to conduct policy consultation with a very limited numbers of actors (Monaldi, 2004). The covenants and coalitions are, between the 1958 and the 1998, the main mechanisms of legitimation of political power (Advent Labor-Management, Statement of Principles and Program Minimum Pact, agreement with the armed forces and, the Ecclesiastical Concordat Law). These Covenants granted formality to the agreements established between the main elites in the country, consolidating the partisanship and encouraging the demobilization of public participation in the polis affairs23.
An additional element that promoted the concentration of power in the parties was the inexistence of regional elections. Before 1989, even though the country was formally federal, no regional executive authorities were elected. Governors were freely appointed and removed by the president, they were often personally connected to them and on occasion did not come from the region they governed (Monaldi, 2004).
Eventually, political parties, guided by their elite objectives, failed to represent the interests of the majority, begins a process of de-ideologization and popular questioning with respect to the democratic tendency of political representatives.
Conclusions
In this chapter, we were able to understand the geopolitical importance of Venezuela, a country that is geographically located in a privileged position and has immense reserves of natural and mineral resources, particularly the coveted oil. Its history, as we know it today, begins under a bloody clash of cultures among native indigenous, white western and black African who mixed themselves giving way to a vast process of miscegenation. The colony supposed the establishment of a rigid
23 It was common the use of informal arenas to make agreements and to take national decisions between
parties, instead of the normal parliament discussions. This behavior of disciplined parties provided a structure that enable inter-temporal cooperation.
25 political system, with a high level of hierarchy and determination of roles, with a high sense of loyalty and submission to a figure who, even without a physical presence, held power and was able to maintain order, the King. The social stratum of belonging, the system of powers and restrictions, and the economic activity to be performed, were determined by the skin color. These parameters, which prevented the members of society from rising within the hierarchy, created nonconformities within the population, especially within the Spaniards born in American territory - the Creoles - who, unable to reach large positions, were influenced by ideas of the Enlightenment and, driven by events such as the French Revolution and the Independence of the United States, initiated a powerful independence movement, led by the one who would become hero and liberator of numerous nations and inspiration for later political movements, Simón Bolívar . Venezuela's independence then, emerges as a movement developed by the upper class to increase its privileges, and not, at least in its beginnings, as a movement for the emancipation of the most oppressed sectors of society.
Faced with a new stage characterized by the rupture with the Spanish crown, the absence of institutions of their own and, a population accustomed to the command-obedience system, a Caudillistic Republic emerges. The position of the king, were placed by the heroes of independence and large landowners, who under the control of weapons and the promise of booties, drew areas of influence in the national territory. The immediate solution to daily happenings so, strengthened the personal system and slowed down the gestation of an institutionalized order.
After the death of Gómez, called the "last caudillo", started a process of opening up to modernity (with advances and reversals) composed of three great stages: the "transitional" (1935-1932) with a strong institutional vocation, limited the powers of the president, increased the rights of the citizen (especially those aimed at freedom of expression) and protected workers with super modern laws; The "nationalist" (1952-1958) led by the military leadership that resisted the idea of a government without a strong figure in command. This stage, on the one hand, modernized the infrastructure and economy of the country, and on the other, implemented a dictatorial system that
26 implied: a regression in the institutionalism of the country, the return of the personalism and, the freezing of the citizens’ rights reached until the time. Finally, the third stage, called “the power sharing stage” started in 1958, when a military civic movement leads a coup that would end the dictatorship and least until 1998 with the rise of Chávez. At that time, the main political parties established a system based on consensus, the division of power quotas under the idea of ensuring representation, and, the design of a Constitution that limited the role of the military and prevented the return of personalistic government. This system, whose source of legitimacy was the signing of pacts and alliances between the bipartisan elite (composed of AD and COPEI), the Catholic Church and businessmen, became a closed triangle, inaccessible to independent or external components for 40 years. The economic policy prevailing in this period was dictated by the World Bank (WB) and the IMF, a neoliberalism that caused great losses within the Venezuelan economy. The increased levels of poverty, the scarcity of commodities, the devaluation of the currency, the high levels of inflation and, the social explosion from a population marginalized from decision-making, that had lost faith in their parties and institutions, marked the decline of the power-sharing stage.
Finally, it is evident how the emergence and exploitation of oil brought with it an absolute paradigm shift in the life of Venezuelans. The agricultural economy, based mainly on the cultivation and export of coffee and cocoa, was displaced by the oil industry; National income, began to rely solely on mono-productive income, political leaders used crude to establish social programs based on subsidies and populist measures, habituating the population to receive benefits without major efforts and, turning the State into a bureaucratic machine of great size endowed with almost "magical" powers.
Under this management and institutional chronic crisis of the Venezuelan political system due to the caudillistas features, the corporatist representation, the limited participation of the citizens called just for electoral processes, and the crisis of
27 legitimacy of the traditional political parties in conjunction with an economic fall, new political movements and actors, as Hugo Chávez emerge.
II. CHAPTER: The Bolivarian Revolution and the Socialism of 21th
Century.
Introduction
The Chávez phenomenon comes to power as an historic result not only of a country that was dominated for 40 years by a waterproof bipartisan system, but as the product of a regional context that lived the most damaging repercussions of a war that did not belong to it. In this chapter we will analyze the repercussions of the Cold War (1945-1991) in Latin America, the influence on the political praxis of the region by the United States through the Condor Operation24 (1970-1980) and its subsequent consequence
with the emergence of a new wave of leftist governments, from which Chávez himself would emerge.
This character, who would break with all the traditional schemes of Venezuelan political development and represent the highest level of populism in the history of the country (Arenas, 2007), developed his mandate in several stages, the first, from 1999 to 2001, in which advocated to Anthony Giddens' "third way" proposal (Chirinos, 2013), a government vision with center-left court and working cooperatively with private enterprise. In this first stage, Chávez raises the need to modify the Constitution and thus break with the old paradigm of "representative" democracy, which would have generated a great margin of ostracism in the population (among all evils) and replace it with a democracy that he called participatory and proactive (García Gaudilla & Mallen, 2013), where the people, as sovereign, played an active role within national decisions. This is a Chávez who denies any relationship with Cuba and Socialism, and which highlights the importance of the media in shaping public opinion and the political life of the nation.
28 In the second stage, from 2001 to 2007, with an approved Constitution that strengthens his position, Chávez receives the first signs of rejection led mainly by the business sector that, through a large national strike, separates him from his position for 48 hours. In this stage, begins his strategy of confrontation against the United States and, the geopolitical alignment with authoritarian and "anti-imperialist" governments, which would gain its success through the exchange of oil at preferential rates. In parallel, decrees the socialist character of the government and the relation with Cuba become strengthen. Likewise, the high incomes in the national economy allowed to initiate a series of social programs that would increase his popularity within the national population. It is the peak moment of chavism.
Finally, in the third stage, which covers from 2007 to 2013, we will observe a political system totally attached to the will of its president, the neutral nature of the State institutions become in question, the polarization between affections and detractors of Chávez becomes radicalized, initiates a wave of media closures and, a referendum is carried out in order to eliminate the limit on the number of possible re-elections for the same candidate in the electoral contests in the post of president. Chávez, who had become a sort of Messiah for the masses25, announces that he has
cancer and, under two years of intermittent mandate and a thirteenth electoral victory, he dies, according to official data, on March 5, 2013.
An Overview of Latin America
The repercussions of the Cold War (1945-1991) were felt in Latin America, through the Condor Operation (1970-1980), a program designed by the United States to limit the influence of communism in the region. Under this program the United States orchestrated the establishment of authoritarian and military governments (mainly in Argentina, Bolivia, Brazil, Chile, Paraguay and Uruguay, and sporadically in
25 Following the death of Hugo Chávez, Mahmoud Ahmadinejad (President of the Islamic Republic of
Iran until August 13, 2013) decreed a day of mourning, making him the first non-Muslim personality to receive that funeral honor. Likewise, the Persian ruler gave him the nickname "messiah", which "would return to the land with Christ and Mahdi (Shiite redeemer)". (BBC Mundo, 2013).
29 Colombia, Peru and Venezuela) that lent it ideological fidelity, at the cost of State terrorism practices against any element considered "subversive" to its political line. The program included military training in practices of repression, torture, kidnapping, and assassinations conducted primarily by the School of the Americas (SOA)26, located
in Panama.
According to Garzón Real (2016) the Condor Operation was composed in three phases:
Phase 1 consisted in the exchange of information and cooperation between police and military intelligence to form a data bank and coordinate surveillance of political activists labeled as "subversive". Specific tasks included daily espionage, infiltrations in organizations and wiretaps, among others.
Phase 2 meant moving from information to covert action, surpassing the traditional actions of intelligence agencies, with cross-border operations that spied on, deterred, detained, tortured, interrogated, transferred, assassinated or disappeared at predetermined targets. To this goal, multinational labor teams were formed among the member countries that acted outside any legal framework and used a network of clandestine detention centers in the Southern Cone.
Phase 3 - the most secret of all - involved attacking prominent political leaders who could influence international public opinion against the military regimes of the region. Operations could be carried out within or outside their natural sphere of action, forming special teams with false documentation from member countries and recruiting paramilitary and terrorist forces around the world. (pp. 83-97).
Even after this “tutelage” we will see how, although democracy was consolidated as the dominant political system in most Latin American countries since the second half of the 1990s (attempts at coups d'état have declined, political parties have consolidated themselves as agents of organization and social mobilization and, Parliamentary decisions gained weight over presidential decrees), the military component continues (today) to play a significant role in the daily practices of most countries in the region27. “Yet most Latin American governments have failed to
26 The SOA, also known as School of Killers, was created in 1946 by the US at one of its military bases
located in Panama with the objective of acting as an anti-communist indoctrination center. From that place emerged 10 presidents, 38 defense ministers, 71 commanders in chief of the Armed Forces and, more than 496 accused of crimes and human rights violations. (Romero, 2014, pp. 301-305).
27 Persistent violence from drug traffickers, guerrillas, and paramilitaries wracks Colombia, also, the
30 institute processes to strengthen civilian control even a decade or two after transiting from dictatorship. The level of civilian control, in short, remains week.” (Domínguez, 2003).
At the end of the 20th century, according to Buxton (2014):
US capacity to influence the politics and economies of Latin American countries, including through the IMF, was diminished as a result of factors that included the strengthening of democracy as a global norm (precluding military interventions) and the “rise” of China, Russia and India in the global economy (reducing Latin American dependence on the US and eroding the utility of traditional tools of US influence such as preferential tariff rates). (p. 17) This scenario allowed the rise and spread of a new paradigm of government in the region, a “new Latin American left”, called in this way to differentiate it from the old orthodox leftist parties and from that left that assumed the armed struggle against the State as a method to achieve its goals.
This new left can’t be located in a single guideline, in some cases it will be a social-democratic left, of a reformist character, closer to the European left, but, in general frames, these reformists believed in a balance between market and State, a representative democracy and the need to regenerate the quality of institutions (Arson, 2007).
In other cases we will find a neo-populist left28, with a more transformative sense of
society, where political leadership and social mobilization around the leader will be, very important. A strong anti-imperialist sense and the commitment to a participatory (and not representative) democracy will form two of the ideological pillars of this new
“unconstitutional” in other democratic political system) guaranteed by the constitution. (Domínguez, 2003, pp. 351-381)
28 The public sphere and the intellectual field, in the countries governed by these lefts, replace the Marxist
notion of criticism with the theological concept of apology. Journalists and intellectuals who are subordinate to the ruling political classes in Venezuela, Cuba, Ecuador, Bolivia, and Nicaragua, above all, articulate a neo-populist vulgate according to which politically homogeneous Christian peoples loyally follow their leaders in an age- empire. This vulgarity, at the same time, ignores the enlightened sense of Bolivarian republicanism and the recognition of civil diversity, typical of democracies radicalized by contemporary multiculturalism. (Rojas, 2013)
