Book Review, Popular Politics in Bolivarian Venezuela

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The Media and Power in Postliberal Venezuela
The Legacy of Chávez for the Debate on Freedom of Expression
by Anthony Petros Spanakos and Mishella Salomé Romo


The Bolivarian process in Venezuela provides scholars two immediate and ongoing challenges. First, unlike many other efforts to democratize, it is a case that is deliberately nonliberal. Second, its emphasis on the popular will has often been in tension with the outsized role of the leadership of Hugo Chávez and the use of state resources to advance interests shared unevenly in a heterogeneous coalition. In other words, scholarly explanations find support for both bottom-up and top-down explanations. These challenges are especially important given the decline of oil prices, the shift from Chávez to Maduro, and the intensification of political conflict in the past three years. The four books reviewed here offer valuable contributions to these questions and provide insight into the current political crisis in Venezuela.

CONTINUE READING THE FULL INTRODUCTION HERE

New LAP Issue! The Legacy of Hugo Chávez

The Legacy of Hugo Chavez

by Daniel Hellinger and Anthony Petros Spanakos

Table of Contents

Following his death in March 2013, Hugo Chávez left a significant legacy, but one that is highly contested. It could hardly be any other way given the level of polarization in Venezuela and scholarship about Venezuela. Too often discussion of Chávez paints him and the political movement he led with little subtlety in Manichean or hagiographic terms. The purpose of this special issue is contribute to a better understanding of the possibilities and limits of the Bolivarian project, ranging from democratic innovations to economic experimentation, from alternative economic integration to the role of charisma in revolutionary politics. Contributions include analysis of what it means to be a citizen in a post-neoliberal democracy in Venezuela; the extent to which Chavismo achieved a real redistribution of socio-economic and political power in Venezuela; lessons for other countries dependent upon extraction; what sort of domestic political and economic institutional structures have been developed under Chávez’s government, and how these affect the question of succession and future governability; the sustainability of the Bolivarian project since the decline in oil prices; and the relationship of Venezuela with the United States and other Latin American countries.

Listen to the Podcast!

Tomas Ocampo, Outreach Coordinator for Latin American Perspectives, interviews issue editors Daniel Hellinger and Anthony Spanakos about LAP issue, "The Legacy of Hugo Chávez," published in January 2017. CLICK HERE to listen to the podcast! Podcast is also available in SPANISH! Listen here.  You can also listen to past podcasts by clicking here!

Abstract, The Contribution of Hugo Chávez to an Understanding of Post-Neoliberalism

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The Contribution of Hugo Chávez to an Understanding of Post-Neoliberalism
by Anthony Petros Spanakos and Dimitris Pantoulas


When Hugo Chávez was president, he pronounced the death of many things—the constitution, the old “partyarchy,” Venezuela’s “Fourth Republic,” and the Free Trade Area of the Americas, among others. Since his own death in 2013, scholars, activists, and citizens have contributed to a rich discussion of his legacy. Part of that legacy is an understanding of post-neoliberalism that recognizes its competing and contradictory components, some of them seeking to complement, improve, and reverse neoliberal policies or overcome neoliberal logics and others constituting important remnants of neoliberalism.

Introduction, The Legacy of Hugo Chavez

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The Legacy of Hugo Chávez
Daniel Hellinger and Anthony Petros Spanakos                                                                 


In 1992, Lieutenant Colonel Hugo Chávez failed to replace the beleaguered government of President Carlos Andrés Pérez but succeeded in capturing the hearts and imaginations of a broad swath of the Venezuelan population frustrated by a decade of economic crisis, shifts in the social contract, weakened institutionalized modes of representation, and the consequences of a neoliberal structural adjustment program. El pueblo (the people) found hope in the temerity of the coup attempt and Chávez’s famous “por ahora” (for now).