| Series |
A Brookings Latin America Initiative book |
|
Brookings Latin America Initiative book.
|
| Note |
Includes bibliographical references (pages 163-179) and index. |
| Contents |
New lessons from the Chavez revolution -- Power grabbing in democracy and the rise of a hybrid regime in Venezuela -- Economic policy and the oil honey pot -- Institutional resource curse: seizing political control of PDVSA -- Soft-balancing and social power diplomacy: Venezuela's new foreign policy and its contradictions -- Hybrid regimes and populism in Venezuela and beyond. |
| Summary |
This work is a study of the Venezuelan revolution headed by Hugo Chavez, first elected president in 1999, with emphasis on how Chavez took a frail but still pluralistic democracy and turned it into a semi-authoritarian regime, achieving political transformation at great cost to the country's institutions, including its oil industry. He was able to accomplish this because of spectacularly high oil income and widespread electoral support. This book illuminates one of the most sweeping and unexpected political transformations in contemporary Latin America. Based on more than fifteen years' experience in researching and writing about Venezuela, the authors have crafted a comprehensive account of how the Chavez regime has revamped the nation, with a particular focus on its political transformation. Throughout, they take issue with conventional explanations. First, they argue persuasively that liberal democracy as an institution was not to blame for the rise of chavismo. Second, they assert that the nation's economic ailments were not caused by neoliberalism. Instead they blame other factors, including a dependence on oil, which caused macroeconomic volatility; political party fragmentation, which triggered infighting; government mismanagement of the banking crisis, which led to more centralization of power; and the Asian crisis of 1997, which devastated Venezuela's economy at the same time that Chavez ran for president. It is perhaps on the role of oil that the authors take greatest issue with prevailing opinion. They do not dispute that dependence on oil can generate political and economic distortions, the "resource curse" or "paradox of plenty" arguments, but they counter that oil alone fails to explain Chavez's rise. Instead they single out a weak framework of checks and balances that allowed the executive branch to extract oil rents and distribute them to the populace. The real culprit behind Chavez's success, they write, was the asymmetry of political power. |
| Subject |
Venezuela -- Politics and government -- 1999-
|
|
Venezuela -- Economic policy.
|
|
Venezuela -- Foreign relations -- 1999-
|
|
Chávez Frías, Hugo.
|
| Alt Author |
Penfold-Becerra, Michael.
|
| Standard # |
9780815704973 paperback alkaline paper |
|
0815704976 paperback alkaline paper |
|
