Abstract, From System Collapse to Chavista Hegemony The Party Question in Bolivarian Venezuela

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From System Collapse to Chavista Hegemony
The Party Question in Bolivarian Venezuela
by Gabriel Hetland                                                                 


During the 14 years Hugo Chávez was in office, Venezuela’s party system experienced a 180-degree shift. When Chávez was elected in 1998, Venezuela’s party system had collapsed because of a two-decade-long economic-cum-political crisis. His initial appeal was built, in large part, on his antiparty message, a stance that continued through the first half of his time in office. A series of factors, principally the need for a more cohesive organization to combat an intransigent opposition, led to the creation of the Partido Socialista Unido de Venezuela (United Socialist Party of Venezuela—PSUV) in 2007. The PSUV quickly became Venezuela’s largest party and the linchpin of a new hegemonic system. The contradictions of that system are manifested in the split between the PSUV’s right and left wings, and the hegemony of Chavismo is now in doubt.

Abstract, "Sanitaristas, Petistas, and the Post-Neoliberal Public Health State in Porto Alegre" by Christopher L. Gibson

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Sanitaristas, Petistas, and the Post-Neoliberal Public Health State in Porto Alegre 
by Christopher L. Gibson

Scholars of the post-neoliberal state in Latin America commonly trace universal social policies to ruling left parties and deepened democracy. Yet, such accounts often overlook how subnational politics in highly decentralized democracies like Brazil’s can mediate this relationship. Examining such politics in the Brazilian município of Porto Alegre since 1988 suggests that structural constraints and competing programmatic agendas of Partido dos Trabalhadores (Workers’ Party—PT) governments complicated expansion of the public health sector. The município’s surprisingly modest delivery of such services is traceable to enduring deemphasis on critical dimensions of state building in this sector by several PT administrations and the integration of civil society actors into multiple participatory governance institutions with little power over this process. Even in such contexts, far-reaching participatory democratic institutions are no panacea for fulfilling the universal social policy ambitions of local post-neoliberal states that depend heavily upon high-level political appointees for their effectiveness.