Venezuela – Dimensions of the Crisis: A Perspective on Democratic Backsliding 3031218884, 9783031218880

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Contributions to Political Science

Miguel Angel Latouche Wolfgang Muno Alexandra Gericke   Editors

Venezuela – Dimensions of the Crisis A Perspective on Democratic Backsliding

Contributions to Political Science

The series Contributions to Political Science contains publications in all areas of political science, such as public policy and administration, political economy, comparative politics, European politics and European integration, electoral systems and voting behavior, international relations and others. Publications are primarily monographs and multiple author works containing new research results, but conference and congress reports are also considered. The series covers both theoretical and empirical aspects and is addressed to researchers and policy makers. All titles in this series are peer-reviewed. This book series is indexed in Scopus.

Miguel Angel Latouche · Wolfgang Muno · Alexandra Gericke Editors

Venezuela – Dimensions of the Crisis A Perspective on Democratic Backsliding

Editors Miguel Angel Latouche Political and Administrative Sciences University of Rostock Rostock, Mecklenburg-Vorpommern Germany

Wolfgang Muno Political and Administrative Sciences University of Rostock Rostock, Mecklenburg-Vorpommern Germany

Alexandra Gericke Political and Administrative Sciences University of Rostock Rostock, Mecklenburg-Vorpommern Germany

ISSN 2198-7289 ISSN 2198-7297 (electronic) Contributions to Political Science ISBN 978-3-031-21888-0 ISBN 978-3-031-21889-7 (eBook) https://doi.org/10.1007/978-3-031-21889-7 © The Editor(s) (if applicable) and The Author(s), under exclusive license to Springer Nature Switzerland AG 2023 This work is subject to copyright. All rights are solely and exclusively licensed by the Publisher, whether the whole or part of the material is concerned, specifically the rights of translation, reprinting, reuse of illustrations, recitation, broadcasting, reproduction on microfilms or in any other physical way, and transmission or information storage and retrieval, electronic adaptation, computer software, or by similar or dissimilar methodology now known or hereafter developed. The use of general descriptive names, registered names, trademarks, service marks, etc. in this publication does not imply, even in the absence of a specific statement, that such names are exempt from the relevant protective laws and regulations and therefore free for general use. The publisher, the authors, and the editors are safe to assume that the advice and information in this book are believed to be true and accurate at the date of publication. Neither the publisher nor the authors or the editors give a warranty, expressed or implied, with respect to the material contained herein or for any errors or omissions that may have been made. The publisher remains neutral with regard to jurisdictional claims in published maps and institutional affiliations. This Springer imprint is published by the registered company Springer Nature Switzerland AG The registered company address is: Gewerbestrasse 11, 6330 Cham, Switzerland

Contents

Introduction: Venezuela—Dimensions of the Crisis . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . Miguel Angel Latouche and Alexandra Gericke

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History and Theory Can an Evolutionary Order Be Schizophrenic? Reading Venezuelan Politics from an Institutionalist Perspective . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . Miguel Angel Latouche Ideological Aspects of Venezuela’s Current Divide . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . Guillermo T. Aveledo The Quest for Democracy: Venezuela in the Twentieth and Twentyfirst Centuries . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . Wolfgang Muno and Thomas Kestler

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Domestic Dimensions of The Crisis: Actors, Parties and Problems Multiple Crises of the Venezuelan Party System . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . Héctor Briceño Discretionality and Disarticulation in the Venezuelan Public Administration . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . Julia Alcibiades

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Venezuela: The Military Factor . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 117 Miguel Angel Latouche International and Regional Dimensions of the Crisis The Role of the EU in the Venezuelan Conflict: Why Did Democracy Promotion Fail? . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 129 Susanne Gratius

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From Monroe to Bolívar and Back? US-Venezuela Relations . . . . . . . . . . 145 Alexander Brand and Wolfgang Muno Venezuela, Cuba and United States: Power and Geopolitics in the Great Caribbean . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 169 Ernesto Domínguez López Difficult but Necessary: Venezuela-Colombia Relations Throughout Time—A Historical Depiction of Two Specially Connected Neighbors . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 197 Alexandra Gericke Conclusions: Dimensions of the Crisis and Future Prospects . . . . . . . . . . . 219 Miguel Angel Latouche and Alexandra Gericke

Introduction: Venezuela—Dimensions of the Crisis Miguel Angel Latouche

and Alexandra Gericke

The word crisis gives us the idea of a process of transformation and change of a structural nature. It is, if you will, a transition from one initial state to the next, a process in which something ceases to exist as such and transforms its nature to become something else. In general, these are processes of adjustment to reality, which are full of uncertainty. During a crisis, it becomes difficult to make long-term forecasts. Crises are complex situations that tend to be unstable while reality becomes blurred. Crises take the form of a labyrinth: the paths are multiple, and it is not always easy to find the way out. Sometimes a crisis presents itself as an explosion—a rupture that quickly begins to heal. Occasionally and perhaps most problematically, a crisis becomes a permanent situation. Every crisis implies a rupture of an equilibrium. When we speak of a sociopolitical crisis, we refer to the rupture of collective agreements and to the absence of a “normative normality,” which would allow the construction of a more or less coherent institutional order. In most cases, there is a fracture of society along with a moral breakdown affecting social organization and customs, among other issues. Crises always end up distorting public conversation, thus hindering the possibility of reassembling the political game and constituting mechanisms that allow the construction of new agreements for peaceful and democratic coexistence. We have chosen the idea of crisis as the best way to characterize the political and social situation in Venezuela at the present time and therefore dedicated Rostock’s annual Latin America Day conference, “ROLAT,” which took place in April 2022, to discuss and analyze the different dimensions of the long-standing crisis in Venezuela. Over two days, numerous academics and regional experts came together to exchange views on the current problems affecting the country. M. A. Latouche · A. Gericke (B) Department of Comparative Politics, University of Rostock, Ulmenstraße 69, 18057 Rostock, Germany e-mail: [email protected] M. A. Latouche e-mail: [email protected] © The Author(s), under exclusive license to Springer Nature Switzerland AG 2023 M. A. Latouche et al. (eds.), Venezuela – Dimensions of the Crisis, Contributions to Political Science, https://doi.org/10.1007/978-3-031-21889-7_1

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Among the topics discussed was populism in the military and the accompanying civilian control of the Armed Forces. Debates also included problems in Venezuelan public administration, the ideological foundations of the division, challenges facing the opposition parties, and the crisis of the Venezuelan party system in general. There were additional insights on the topics of the social impact of the predatory state, the search for the lost equilibrium, and Venezuela’s oil policy. Another complex of topics revolved around Venezuela’s diplomatic relations with neighboring Colombia, the USA, the EU, and Cuba, among others. Discussions culminated in a virtual panel discussion during which all speakers addressed the question of whether democracy in Venezuela is (still) possible. The present book seeks to summarize the findings of the ROLAT conference. It touches upon historical and theoretical facts surrounding the case of Venezuela. It also talks about the parties and actors that play decisive roles in the conflict, as well as the role of the military, problems in the public administration and the ideological origin of the split. It furthermore discusses the challenges facing the party system, Venezuela’s oil policy as well as international and regional aspects. The present multilayered case study of Venezuela is complicated and has no claim to be complete. It can merely be viewed as an attempt to understand Venezuela’s current situation as an incentive for a possible next step, which could provide solutions toward a democratic transition. Venezuela’s crisis has been long. Its first symptoms were visible in the 1980s when decreasing oil prices and public debt made the inefficiency of an oil-dependent economic model evident. The definitive breakdown of Venezuela’s representative democracy dates to 1998 with Hugo Chávez taking power and resulting in a process of “normative ruptures” that lasted decades—a fact that has already been recognized in multiple academic works of the 1980s and 1990s while being criticized by the public (see also chapter by Wolfgang Muno and Thomas Kestler). The absence of a “normative normality” was caused by the collapse of the collective agreement, which had allowed the establishment and stabilization of democracy after the end of Marcos Pérez Jiménez’s dictatorship. The Punto Fijo pact—signed in 1958 between the Democratic Action, Copei, and URD political parties—was an agreement for democratic governability, including respect for electoral results. It implied the establishment of a minimum governmental program, the defense of constitutionality, and the constitution of a government of national unity: the Democratic Political Program (DPP, Punto Fijo, 1958–1998), allowed the construction of a representative democracy and its stabilization. During this period, a series of subprograms were instituted that had a direct impact on improving the living conditions of the population. The agrarian reform, for example, allowed the redistribution of land ownership. At the same time, important industrial projects were developed, as well as literacy programs, and expansion of school and health coverage. All of this allowed the stabilization of the Venezuelan society at least until the 1980s, when the first symptoms of the crisis appeared and became terminal toward the end of the 1990s. When the goals of the DPP were achieved at the end of the 1950s, society had developed to the point that the illiterate, rural, and sick Venezuelan population had

Introduction: Venezuela—Dimensions of the Crisis

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Fig. 1 Social evolution and Political Program, own elaboration

been transformed and no longer identified with the foundations of the political program, making its legitimacy decrease. The situation culminated in the Venezuelan civil society going beyond the limits of the program (see arrows in Fig. 1), which consequently generated an institutional rupture, seen in the social overflow of 1989, the so-called Caracazo, and in the attempted coups of 1992. The “last great civic speech” in Venezuelan democratic history took place on January 23, 1998, during a session of the National Congress. Representatives of the executive, the legislative, and the judicial branches, along with the diplomatic corps, met to commemorate the 40th anniversary of the establishment of representative democracy and the fall of the last military dictatorship of the twentieth century. Luis Castro Leiva, an esteemed intellectual and professor at the Central University of Venezuela, revealed in his speech the various dimensions of the historical moment that the republic was experiencing and the challenges of rebuilding democracy and directing it toward the future. With deep republican anguish, Castro Leiva spoke about the dilemmas associated with the “fateful hour” that had started to overshadow Venezuela, namely the problems faced by the democratic institutions and the need to rescue the “republican spirit” that had guided the founders of the democratic project. But the beginning of the crisis could no longer be averted: the events that gave way to Venezuela’s authoritarian transition—represented by the coming to power of Hugo Chavez, the establishment of a populist government, and the “hybridization” of the political system—were not happening by chance. At that historical moment, there was a concrete reality that favored the coming to power of the so-called “Bolivarian Revolution,” which led to a long-lasting multidimensional crisis, which has determined the lives of Venezuelans since at least the 1980s. Without ceasing to recognize the achievements of the democratic system, Castro Leiva raised his voice as a citizen to warn his people against the deep crisis that the country was facing. His discourse talked about the need of rectifying the course, of recognizing the evils that inhabited the republic, of rethinking the dimension and structure of the political system through a new foundational pact that precisely recognized the multiplicity of interests, world views and aspirations that were at play in Venezuela at the time. It was a call to put aside the rebellious adventure, to

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seriously evaluate the set of challenges that the society was experiencing, to put aside particular interests and humbly call for national unity, to listen to contrary opinions, to build agreements, and to fortify the democratic structure of the Venezuelan political system. Castro Leiva’s speech ended up being a call for help in the middle of the desert. Evaluating the past 50 years of Venezuelan history is complex: The country experienced two distinct models of society with two different views about the country’s sociopolitical reality. Those two models—the Democratic Political Program (DPP) on the one side and the Bolivarian Political Program (BPP) on the other—were both unable to define the content of Venezuela’s republican identity. They can be perceived as two realities, or at least two narratives, unable or unwilling to establish constructive public dialogue. Beyond the multiple elements that have characterized Venezuelan reality in the past five decades, the marked differences and visions can be found in its origins: crisis longitudinally crosses Venezuela’s contemporary reality. Whether we consider that it is an omnipresent crisis or a series of successive crises, it has not been possible to reach a stable point of equilibrium, despite the efforts that Venezuelan society has made. On the contrary, the idea of instability and quasi-permanent emergency has characterized the life of at least three generations. Venezuela’s crisis has a multidimensional character, with cumulative effects in which the distorted relationship between the state and society becomes obvious: It responds to the character of Venezuela’s economy, which highly depends on oil revenues. Additionally, there is a deep distortion in the distribution of income. This can also be seen in high levels of poverty and exclusion. The state coopted society while mistrust und dependency were important characteristics of social interaction. This point is crucial if we consider that these elements contributed to the rupture of the social contract, the reduction of political support and the subsequent substitution of democratic institutions since the enactment of the Chavismo constitution in 1999 along with a progressive institutional transformation. Representative democracy was unable to adapt to Venezuela’s transformations and the growing demands of a society that had become much more complex since 1958. This opened the door toward the substitution of the former system by Chavismo since 1999. The public space was coopted and ideologically controlled. Participatory democracy was transformed to give way to a populist system in which popular movements were used to justify both political control over the population and its resources as well as the accumulation of power by the new elite. The exercise of power became hegemonic and based upon a diffuse ideology of the radical left, close to the so-called real socialism, which had been strongly influenced by Cuba (see also chapter by Guillermo Aveledo on this subject). New strategic alliances under Chávez had to be anti-imperialistic. There was the systematic estrangement from traditional partners, in particular the USA and Europe, on the one side and rapprochement with Cuba, Russia, China, among others. Venezuela’s traditionally oil-based foreign policy was used to “export the revolution” or to support governments or ideologically related political movements. In this context, the deterioration of relations with Venezuela’s most important neighbor and main commercial partner Colombia can be highlighted (see the chapter

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on Venezuela-Colombia relations by Alexandra Gericke in this book). Alongside Colombia, Venezuela’s relations with the USA and the EU became more complicated and efforts to promote a democratic transition through the imposition of sanctions have been useless (see chapters by Ernesto Domínguez López, Susanne Gratius, and Alexander Brand/Wolfgang Muno). One of the fundamental characteristics of contemporary Venezuelan politics is referred to as the great crisis of the political parties (see article by Hector Briceño). The ruling PSUV transformed into the maximum expression of clientelism and largely monopolized the public sphere. Additionally, there is a clear erosion of the opposition parties after more than 20 years of political confrontation with the government. Sporadic victories in regional elections or the National Assembly have not been able to solve the long-standing crisis in the party system. Venezuela has become an autocracy based on the figure of Hugo Chavez as a symbol or totem. The late leader’s charisma was the main factor of social cohesion used during his twelve years in power. When he passed away, the government found it necessary to move toward a three-factor power distribution agreement including the executive, the party, and the Armed Forces—a “troika” with each part being essential to the system’s survival. It is important to emphasize here that the Armed Forces have enormous influence and constitute the stabilizing factor of the system (see article by Miguel Angel Latouche on this subject). There are no real mechanisms of negotiation and agreement with forces outside the government but there is evidence of permanent interaction between the executive, the party, and the Armed Forces. This situation has allowed them to define an institutional setting that, although fragile, has been sufficient to guarantee some degree of governability an overly complex political and social situation. In fact, the BPP (see Fig. 2) does represent a small percentage of the Venezuelan people. Nevertheless, many others—almost seven million Venezuelans—have left the country for political or economic reasons. Chavismo managed to survive amid great difficulties that range from important popular demonstrations, conspiracies, and discontent due to the deterioration of living standards. On top of that there is the use of force through limiting freedom of expression and opinion, a reduced autonomy of citizens, the control of both opposition parties and the mass media. All of this contributed to reducing the functioning of democracy. Chavismo achieved this by modifying the political system’s operating structure, not only in terms of constitutional change and revising laws to be able to provide a legal and justificatory framework to the system, but also, by means of changing the political culture and a system of incentives to guarantee a greater concentration of power, the reduction of regional autonomy and the cooptation of public spaces, up to the point that society became part of the dynamics of the state. All the above mentioned happened without any change in the state’s administration. In fact, everything worked and still does under a state of emergency, in which nothing is planned but matters are subject to bureaucratic inertia or to officials’ goodwill. The numerous ministerial changes, for example, reveal high levels of improvisation in the exercise of the public administration (see chapter by Julia Alcibiades for more detail).

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Fig. 2 The limits of the Bolivarian Political Program, own elaboration

With this book, we plan to show the complexities associated with the Venezuelan crisis and its various dimensions. In the following chapters, we present multiple views around a single problem: the need to understand the origins of the problematic situation as a route to the construction of a truly inclusive and functional democratic system. We understand that it is not enough to proclaim the nature of democracy as such. Instead, it is necessary to constantly consider its nature and review its assumptions and operations. Perhaps, one of the worst mistakes of representative democracy in Venezuela was to believe that it was a finished project that did not require structural changes although there was plenty of room for improvement. This mistake prevented the political class from being able to perceive the dimensions of the problem and the associated risks they were confronting. Chavismo has been unable to see Venezuela as a diverse country with multiple opinions and perspectives. After more than 20 years in power, Chavismo can be viewed as an intolerable political project that, by claiming to represent the general will of the Venezuelan people, ends up coopting the exercise of individual freedom. The case of Venezuela is emblematic within the process of political transformation that Latin America is experiencing. This book’s articles intend to present a basic view on the current Venezuelan situation from different angles and theoretical perspectives. That is how political theory joins the historical discussion, the theory of ideas, or the perspectives of administrative science. But here we also find traces of the theory of institutions or more quantitative visions. This methodological variety enriches, without a doubt, the approach that is made toward an extremely complex subject. If there is something that characterizes the current Venezuelan situation, it is precisely

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its complexity—the multiplicity of edges and wrongs that can be found throughout the development of the Venezuelan crisis over the last few years. This book is divided into three parts: The first one is dedicated to reviewing the historical problem and the contractual and ideological ruptures that have problematized the construction of democracy. The second part seeks to review the domestic problem, reflecting upon the causes of the crisis and its impact on everyday life, the role of the actors, and the various dimensions of the political game. Finally, the third part is dedicated to international issues and strategic alliances. Despite diverse views and angles, it is clear to every author that Venezuela has been going through major crises that are far from a resolution. For a long time now, Venezuela has not been able to experience any sort of balance that allows the political system to stabilize, which again negatively affects the life and well-being of the population. The articles presented in this book seek to highlight the parameters of a multidimensional crisis that has been ongoing for four decades: Financial crises have been present since the 1980s, along with Carlos Andres Pérez’s departure from power, after the great shock represented by the social overflow of 1989 and the coup attempts of 1992. Social crises became visible by massive marches against the Chávez government. His two-day departure from power in 2002, the changes in the legislation, the closure of Radio Caracas, one of Venezuela’s main independent TV stations, led to more frustration among the population. It is also worth mentioning a major repression by the Government of Nicolas Maduro: the highest inflation in the world between 2019 and 2020, the shortage of food and medicine between 2015 and 2021, the restrictions on political freedoms, the persecution of opposition parties, the criminalization of protests, and the subsequent departure of more than 7 million Venezuelans, who live in exile now, looking for alternatives to safeguard their lives and their individual liberties. Venezuelans have long been forced to live with uncertainty. This book seeks to show the underlying problems and suggests possible scenarios for a better future. It is an evaluation of the present and a search for democratic alternatives. The reader may think of Jorge Luis Borges’ Aleph—a point in space that houses all other points and when it seems lost there is always hope for a new Aleph—in the case of Venezuela we would hope for a truly inclusive democracy. We thank all authors for their contributions and patience. All articles and views in this book reflect the opinions of the respective authors and not those of the editors. We would also like to express our deep gratitude for the exceptional work of Nitin Arya, who proofread all articles and gave essential feedback on the contents. Without his support this book would not have been possible. We would also like to thank our student assistant Trinidad Almendra Arias Villalobos for double checking all bibliographical information contained in the book. Rostock, August 2022 Alexandra Gericke and Miguel Angel Latouche

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Miguel Angel Latouche is guest lecturer at the Department of Comparative Politics of the University of Rostock, Germany. Alexandra Gericke is Scientific Associate at the Department of Comparative Politics of the University of Rostock, Germany.

History and Theory

Can an Evolutionary Order Be Schizophrenic? Reading Venezuelan Politics from an Institutionalist Perspective Miguel Angel Latouche

1 Introduction In this paper, the idea of schizophrenia is used not as a medical term, but, instead, as a metaphor for a very convulsed social situation characterized by the lack of a coherent order, political confrontation, and social distress. We believe this is a useful way to characterize the complexities of the current situation in Venezuela. To portray the evolution of the Venezuelan political system is a challenge. During the last few years, the country has endured a complicated process of political transformation that not only implies the substitution of the political class, but also the redefinition of the institutional structure. It is widely accepted in the specialized literature that the institutional framework that guides the conduct of politics within a state has a strong effect on human interaction. The modification of social boundaries has the potential to transform the complete system of payments, rewards, and incentives that characterize social interactions. Rules are signals that we use in order to determine the limits of acceptable behavior and within which societies develop not only a reasonable conception about the Good, but also the content of constitutive moral considerations. Individuals are maximizers within the margins of the institutional framework previously established by the society they live in. In general, one will expect institutions to favor the development of cooperative behavior. However, suboptimal endogenous institutional transformations due to power asymmetries, social exclusion, inefficiency, or changes in social preferences tend to modify social boundaries as well as social values. In our argument, we will work with the thesis that a diffuse social order tends to increase the uncertainty as well as the inefficiency of social interaction and exchange; all of this, while reducing social trust, as well as the capacity to make agreements, and, consequently, limiting the likelihood of cooperation. M. A. Latouche (B) Department of Comparative Politics, University of Rostock, Ulmenstraße 69, 18057 Rostock, Germany e-mail: [email protected] © The Author(s), under exclusive license to Springer Nature Switzerland AG 2023 M. A. Latouche et al. (eds.), Venezuela – Dimensions of the Crisis, Contributions to Political Science, https://doi.org/10.1007/978-3-031-21889-7_2

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With this theoretical perspective as our point of departure, we will analyze the current pattern of political development in Venezuela. Chavismo has certainly managed to accumulate power and resources, while at the same time, imposing a total control over the society and the economy. However, despite its evolution toward authoritarianism, the regime has been unable to build a coherent social equilibrium. Consequently, this has produced the presence of a successive crisis that has divided the Venezuelan society and resulted in significant governance problems. We will argue that Venezuela faces a rupture of the Social Contract manifested in the incoherence of its institutional framework and in the need to permanently undermine the foundations of the government and broadening social control. The regime has developed an institutional framework that favors its interests over the interests of society. In order to control public protests, it has increasingly appealed to violence. We can say that under such current conditions, democracy, as a liberal project, cannot function. Despite constant electoral processes, we cannot fully identify Venezuela as a democratic regime. Instead, it should be termed as a Hybrid Authoritarian regime that predates over the society and its resources. This paper is divided into three sections. The rest of the chapter is divided into three sections. In the first, we will consider both the Prisoner’s Dilemma and the Stag hunt metaphors in order to discuss the role of institutions in fostering cooperative behavior. First, to discuss the role of institutions in fostering cooperative behavior, we will consider two metaphors, namely the Prisoner’s Dilemma and Stag Hunt. In the second, we will consider the theory of institutional development as rules and its role in defining social equilibrium, but also, we will consider alongside the problem of suboptimality and asymmetrical institutional development in the case of Venezuela. In the final section, we will study the problem of predatory normativity and its role in the definition of the current nature of the Venezuela political regime.

1.1 The Problem of Social Order Democracy is a cooperative enterprise (Bicchieri, 2006; Landemore, 2020; Rawls, 1971) among individuals that realize that by consciously restricting their individual maximization they can achieve better individual and social results in the long run (Axelrod, 1984; Barragán, 1989). Instead of dividing society between winners and losers, rational players assume that their own well-being depends on the well-being of others, with whom they are willing to share the benefits of the cooperative enterprise (Binmore, 1994). Cooperation entails an act of the will. Those who cooperate understand that such behavior will increase both individual and collective benefits. We must then differentiate between cooperation and coordination. The former is the result of an action advanced by the individuals in the absence of external pressures under the expectation that it will produce a benefit that will be shared be the members of the society. The latter implies an external imposition that obliged the individuals to work with others toward shared aims. The difference may appear to be subtle, but it is substantial for the construction of a democratic social order.

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Evidently, order may take many forms: On the one hand, it can be conceived of as an imposition based on the use of force or ideology, or, as political manipulation, based on traditional distribution of power. In this case, the system will respond to the interests of those who are favored by the distribution of power and resources, and it cannot be expected the support from to be supported by those who benefit less or are simply excluded from social benefits. Order, on the other hand, can be also be the result of a social agreement based on a given conception of justice (Dowding et al., 2006; Rawls, 1971). Social arrangements have, in all cases, distributive consequences that, in a democratic order, are accepted and supported by the majority of the population as long as they are considered free and equal citizens (Rawls, 1971). In this context, it is worth asking who benefits and who does not benefit from the design of a particular social arrangement. It is well known that the specific design of the Prisoner’s Dilemma and the Stag Hunt Game limit the emerge of cooperative behavior, wherewith the parties cannot appropriate the cooperative surplus which ends up affecting their interests. We use this metaphors in order to explain the challenges we face in the construction of cooperative order. Individuals, after all, tend to adapt their own behavior to institutional incentives (North, 1990). In the following pages, we will argue that under the incorrect payment system individuals will adopt uncooperative behaviors even if this affects the well-being of the society. This is crucial in our argument since we presume that one of the most important problems in Venezuelan politics is, precisely, the lack of consensus regarding the performance of the institutional framework and its incentive mechanisms. The Prisoner’s Dilemma describes the situation of two individuals that have been captured after committing a crime. The situation is complex: Police cannot probe their culpability, and, at the beginning of the story (T0), they can only demonstrate misconduct, which will result in a minor penalty. In order to bring these two men to justice, the prosecutor, as an external player, designs a “tricky” game set which allows the prosecutor to induce the prisoners to play in prejudice of against their own interests A series of rules are required so that choices, which the players need to make, are pre-determined. It is then assumed that the prisoners cannot communicate with each other, they have not previously established any agreement or compromise and there is lack of a common morality. In this context, each prisoner will try to receive the best possible outcome through the maximization of his or her individual interests and without considering the possibility of reciprocity.1 The prosecutor makes a proposal to each player separately: Whoever helps the police, betraying his partner, will be released after serving a lesser sentence, and whoever does not, will go to jail for 8 eight years in the case his partner confesses the crime. If both prisoners confess, the value of the confession will be diminished and, consequently, they will both go to jail for 6 six years. The prisoners lack any guarantee about the behavior of their counterparts, they do not have a common history, there are no expectancies expectations for loyalty between them, nor is the shadow of the future likely to fall upon them (Axelrod, 1984). Each prisoner will find that non-cooperative behavior (NCB) is superior to cooperative behavior (CB), so 1

The game is played only once.

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that NCB > CB under the terms previously established by the prosecutor. As we can see, the joint decision of the players could produce three possible solutions: If they cooperate with each other, by not confessing to the police, i.e., CB-CB, they will go free after a very short period of time, which represents a relatively high benefit to both players, let’s say a utility (Ut) of +6 for each. If neither of them cooperates, i.e., NCB-NCB, by confessing the crime, they will both go to jail, wherewith they will receive a negative Utility of –1. But if one of them confesses while the other does not, i.e., NCB-CB, the former will go free and receive the maximal possible utility of +10 while the other will receive a negative Ut of –5. As we can see then, even though CB-CB produces a collective Ut that is superior to both NCB-NCB and NCB-CB, the possibility of betrayal is a powerful incentive toward uncooperative behavior. Therefore, in this case, a non-cooperative equilibrium becomes stable. The Stag Hunt Game (SHG) is a metaphor first introduced by J. J. Rousseau in his Discourse on Inequality. In our times, it has been extensively worked on by Professor Brian Skyrms in a series of articles and books (Skyrms, 1996, 2001, 2004). The parable describes the situation of a primitive society of hunters whose survival depends on the result of the hunt. It is assumed that they can only hunt stags and/or hares. An individual hunter will be able to catch a hare by him- or herself, but to catch a stag requires a collective effort. The A hare will provide enough food for one meal for a single family. On the other hand, however, the stag will guarantee the food requirements of the whole group, composed of numerous families, for several days. Here we can observe an obvious contradiction between individual and collective interests. In this case, we deal with a situation in which more than one equilibrium is available. As we can see, the society can choose between Cooperative (CE) and Uncooperative Equilibrium (UCE). This will be crucial in determining the surviving possibilities of those involved. Defining social equilibrium will depend on the joint action of the players. As in the Prisoner’s Dilemma, they are involved in a strategic situation with distributional consequences. We assume that players tend to maximize their interests when they have the opportunity to do so. In general, they will prefer individual over collective wellbeing (Harsanyi, 1976, 1986). Once the society has decided to hunt a stag, the hunters are expected to join the collective effort and to accomplish the goal with their duties during the hunt: Some will follow the track of the animal, others will stalk it, others will close the possible exits until the animal is cornered and finally killed. If successful, this process will provide the maximum possible utility for this society. But if only one of the stalkers fails to carry out his duties, the stag will run away, negatively affecting collective interest. Why will someone fail to fulfill his obligations? As the game is structured, the player has the possibility to hunt a hare if he has the opportunity to do so, even if it involves potential harm to collective interests. It must be noted that the players have the alternative to individually hunt hares and privately consume them, while desisting from collective action. Let’s examine the utility distribution for each case considering that this game is played multiple times: When all players joined the collective effort of hunting a stag—we presume the absence of free raiding riding and a positive result—each player will receive a utility Ut of +8. When players hunt hares individually, they will receive a utility Ut

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of +2, which represents the competing equilibriums we have above mentioned: CE = +8; NCE UCE = +2. Finally, if one player decides to hunt a hare while the rest tries try to hunt a stag, the former will receive a Ut of +3 while the rest receives a Ut of 0. As we can see, the institutional design has a direct impact on human interaction. After all, the institutional framework is a determining factor in defining the distribution of costs and benefits. In other words, it is within the boundaries set by the institutional framework where a society develops and functions (North, 1990). Morality, traditions, and even historical events are contextualized by institutions and its evolution (Latouche, 2019a, 2019b). Institutions, then, are determinants in establishing the conditions that will favor or not the evolution of cooperation and, eventually, the formation and evolution of a democratic regime, its consolidation, and its permanence in the long run, or its decline and substitution for other alternatives. Regardless of the electoral pragmatics that characterizes contemporary democracy and regardless of the origin of the democratic government, democratic consolidation and even its very stability require favorable conditions for the evolution of cooperative behavior and its reproduction in the long run. Democracy cannot be taken for granted. History teaches us that apparently strong, emergent, and deep-rooted democratic regimes could be assaulted by social protests, inefficiencies, corruption, reduction of support, or lack of confidence that could affect the stability of the political system. This fact reflects entirely the crisis and deterioration of the Venezuelan democracy, once considered among the strongest in Latin America. From a normative point of view, it can be said that the construction of a functional democracy requires a collective effort to willingly participate in the political process by contributing to achieve the goals that have been set within the framework of the institutional framework that the society has adopted as a result of public consensus. This requires the acceptance of diversity and the obligation of accepting pluralism as a fundamental aspect of society. It must be understood that the others have the right to their own visions about society. Other people’s reasons must always be justified and validated as a part of the democratic process. This is only possible when the players are recognized as free and equal individuals, with whom we are willing to establish a conversation and whose motivations and expectations we are prepared to hear and to consider as valid. This refers not only to the need of mutual respect, but above all to the recognition of the other as a valid interlocutor, morally equivalent to us. Other people’s interests and preferences can be perfectly reasonable as long as they are not harmful to others. Their opinions are necessary to construct the Public Reason (Rawls, 1971). The characteristic of social interaction as well as its outcomes will be, then, defined in the context of the social arrangement. The evolution of cooperation requires the development of an institutional framework that favors collective action under the conditions just mentioned. These metaphors illustrate, then, the crucial impact institutional design has in the construction and distribution of social outcomes. In fact, the current crisis of representative democracy can be explained both as a result of underrepresentation of social interests and as a result of institutional failure. In the Prisoner’s Dilemma, the players are obliged to betray each other if they want to avoid the worst individual

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result. In the case of the SHG, there is a very high incentive not to cooperate with the construction of the best possible social result each time the individual players have the opportunity to maximize their net individual benefits. We could deal with non-cooperative behavior in the aforementioned cases by transforming the system of payments associated with each particular decision. This is the equivalent to changing the structure of the game to favor a cooperative result. After all, social decisions are the outcome of the joint decisions of the different players living within society at a given historical moment. We all base decisions in anticipation of the possible behavior of other players within a given range of possibilities. In the case of social choice, such limit is determined by the characteristics of the institutional set and its incentives system (North, 1990). We need to consider that we function within the boundaries of society. Our lives develop next to other individuals in situations of scarce resources (Binmore, 1994). This implies the need for a distributive criterion based on a given idea of justice widely approved and accepted by the members of the society. In the case of the Prisoner’s Dilemma, this will imply the construction of a Meta-game in which the prisoners cooperate with incentives that are independent of the prosecutor. This could be done through the inclusion of positive incentives associated with extra monetary revenues or the external imposition of extra-costs, in the case they belong to a criminal organization that punishes denouncement, or simply by repeating the game ad infinitum. In the case of the SHG, it can refer to the imposition of penalties to anyone who abandoned his or her post allowing the stag to run away. We understand that in a democratic society incentives systems can be established only when they are voluntarily accepted by the majority of the members of the society during the process of determining its structure and the distribution of costs and benefits within it. Democracy requires the construction of consensus and not the imposition of power relations or dependency. It also requires the protection of individual freedoms. One criterion to deal with democratic backlash has to do precisely with the evaluation of the range of freedoms available to citizens and their degree of independence from the government. Without freedom social cooperation is impossible. Freedoms should favor social interactions and must be guaranteed by the institutional framework. Democracy is possible only when the institutions evolve to protect individual action and to collective action at the same time. We have to deal, then, with two processes: on the one hand, the problem of strategic interaction, and on the other, the problem of structuring the decision set.2 The former is generally associated with n-player situations in which each one of them makes interdependent choices. Their choices will produce an outcome that will produce a particular type of a social state (Arrow, 1975).3 From the available alternatives, individual players will choose the alternative that he or she considers better responds to their interests. Once again: The decision set will determine the characteristics of the social game as well as its consequences. To illustrate this point, we need to consider a situation in which each player (A, B, C, D) has the following 2 3

We will do that in the following section. Let’s say for simplicity that these social states could be cooperative or not cooperative.

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ranges of possibilities: A = a, a’, a”, a”’; B = b, b’, b”, b”’; C = c, c’, c”, c”’; D = d, d’, d”, d”’. The combination of the decisions of each party produces an outcome.4 This result will vary according to the courses of action that each party takes. Consider the following: When the parties decide a ~ b’ ~ c”’ ~ d’, a solution X is generated. In the event that they decide a”’ ~ b ~ c”” ~ d””’ the solution will be Y; in the case of a” ~ b’ ~ c”’ ~ d’ the solution will be Z. X, Y, and Z represent social states that are capable of being produced by the players within the logic that fosters the social order and the normative logic that has been built to the extent that the institutions that make up that order evolve. All these decision-making processes, and the construction of the corresponding solutions, occur within the game set (S) that is defined according to the institutional framework. The game set will determine the rules of the game but also the distributional consequences of social interactions. It can favor or not cooperative behavior. As an example, we can consider the following: If ‘S’ is fuzzy (that is −S), it will produce inefficient results that will affect the well-being of the subjects involved in the social game. This, in turn, could negatively affect the stability of the collective arrangement. If, on the contrary, S is designed properly (i.e., +S), with both an adequate incentive system and the corresponding penalties for non-compliance; that is, favoring the wellbeing of those participating in the gambling situation, one could expect cooperative behavior to evolve. In this case, there will be an improvement in the well-being of the players involved. All of this will favor an increase in the function of collective well-being and, eventually, the consolidation of a democratic institutional structure. Norms may or may not reinforce cooperative behavior. The possibility will be determined by the characteristics of S. −S reduces the likelihood of cooperation and the evolution of predation among society members, while +S will foster it. Players will determine, independently of social result, their most efficient strategy according to the perceived characteristics of S. Consequently, there could be situations in which players opt for a generalized uncooperative behavior as they try to maximize their expected utility in the short run, probably because they perceive high levels of uncertainty about the future or because they live in a predatory environment. This will affect social equilibrium and will bring instability to the political system. This situation is depicted, for example, under the logic of the Prisoner’s Dilemma in which the distrustful parties decide not to cooperate even though it implies receiving a less than optimal payoff. The likelihood that they can be betrayed by the other parties ends up producing less than efficient results. It is not enough to design a good social arrangement; it is necessary to guarantee that the results of the different transactions produce fair (short-term and long-term) outputs for those who are involved or are affected by them. Fairness is a crucial normative element of the social arrangement. Without the element of fairness firmly embedded in the system, cooperative behavior will fade. At the same time, without social cooperation, democracy will not last as the current crisis in Venezuela seems to demonstrate. Democracy needs to materialize its promise to its associates in terms of its long run impact on their well-being. There is 4

We assume that all have the same weight in the collective decision. In this case, we do not consider the presence of a “meta-player.”

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a causal relationship between democracy and fairness that has not been sufficiently considered by democratic theory. It seems, however, clear that a regressive distribution of social goods, observable systematic exclusion of particular social groups due to structural injustice, will reduce the likelihood of cooperation for those affected. This, eventually, will negatively affect social equilibrium or reduce its democratic quality.

1.2 Changes in the Institutional Setting Contractualism has assumed that Social Contracts are the result of hypothetical agreements subscribed by the members of a society in an ancient and unreal time (Rawls, 1971). The idea has been used to characterize the normative conditions that are required to establish a well-ordered society (ibid.). In general, few normative conditions are required to constitute a reasonable Social Contract: It must be the result of an agreement that widely considers the interests of the individuals whose lives will be affected and influenced by it; it is necessary to guarantee that the final contract is the result of a voluntary agreement. The contract must be based on impartiality (ibid.) and it must produce mutual advantages for the parties (Gauthier, 1986). According to this perspective, a society is the result of a voluntary covenant that defines its nature, as well as the scope of its interactions and exchanges. At the same time, it helps us to standardize common behavior and responses to common social situations (North, 1990). Social Contract allows the very foundation of society, as it becomes organized according to a set of rules that allows to suppress the condition of violence that men are confronted with in the Hobbesian “State of Nature” and allows the emergence of moral behavior and the structure of social order, as well as its reproduction in the long run and its transformation when required. In this perspective, the Social Contract is only possible before the very existence of society. It can be considered a requisite without which society could not even have existed. In this sense, the contract has not a historical character, it is only a metaphor or an idealization to explain the appearance and evolution of social order. According to Binmore (1994), however, it is possible to consider the State of Nature as the current state of society and consequently to consider significant changes in legislation, constitutional enactment, or major amendments as “contractual momenta” during which the very nature of the institutional order can be transformed. Rules, after all, are regulatory mechanisms that respond to the evolution of social interactions and power distribution. Rules contend society by defining regulation. When regulations are broken, a penalty is imposed over those who are liable. However, society is not static, it tends to transform from one historical moment to the next. This transformation process will impose weights on the institutional framework to the point that it will face two alternatives: It could break as the pressure from society intensifies and overflows (e.g., revolutionary processes such as the French Revolution, the Russian Revolution, or the Cuban Revolution, to mention just a few) or it can change in order to adapt to new social requirements and better respond to new

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demands and complex situations. The rearrangement of the institutional framework must recognize the transformation of society, its values, aspirations, and expectancies. Those need to be considered during the process of institutional design in order to produce a viable response to popular demands, as a new equilibrium is being structured. This requires a period of adaptation and a learning process. In general, new incentives systems are put into place and new criteria of justice are adopted. Institutions as rules must be considered as long-term trajectories that define the evolution of society from the initial hypothetical contract (T0) to the present and, eventually, to the future. They provide us with information and patterns of behavior followed by individuals in their daily affairs. The “contractual momenta” as derivative products must be considered as adjustments that somehow modify the original path determined by the society. These transformations can be exogenous, as a result of external pressures, or endogenous, as a result of the evolution of the society and changes in social preferences or needs. They always represent a breaking point and rearrangement along the evolution of society. They imply, as well, a redefinition in the distributive logic of society, a modification of power accumulation, and the recognition of the resulting winners and losers of the social context. Beyond normative expectations we must acknowledge that institutional transformation results from important shifts in the distribution of power. These transitions tend to increase uncertainty as information becomes less available or distorted, which impacts individuals by reducing their cognitive capacities to foresee the consequences of their choices. Rules become vague until the new institutional framework is in place and a new equilibrium point is defined. In such situations society needs to deal with a crucial dilemma: It must choose, between the multiple equilibria available, the option that better responds to its needs and to a conception of justice previously determined during a Constitutional Process. As such, the main interest of a Constitutional Process is not a question of defining a legislative corpus; instead, it is about determining the very nature of the political association. Theoretically, after a long process of argument building and bargaining, society will adopt the social order that better responds to the common interests of its inhabitants considered as full and equal members of society, in which different groups will be recognized and whose interests will be sufficiently considered as valid and valuable for the society as well as for the coming generations. In other words, in order to guarantee the long-term functionality of the social arrangement, society must choose an equilibrium point that, on the one hand, better allows the maximization of the collective utility function and, on the other hand, guarantees equity in the distribution of costs and benefits. Democracy considered as a plural social order requires the recognition of diversity and contradiction among the social interests of individuals and groups. After all, our societies are complex, globally interconnected, and diverse (Barragán, 1989; Zolo, 1992). Our societies tend to be heterogeneous, open to foreign influence, and culturally diverse. In the case of transitional orders, such as the case of contemporary Venezuelan politics, the moral criteria that the society requires to build a common identity as members of the same population become blurred and the emergence of a (non-)viable or undemocratic equilibrium is likely. This is a very important question in Political Theory. Equilibrium must be

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coherent and stable in the long run if society expects some degree of permanence over time. Coherence and stability become fundamental elements of a stable social structure. The former provides a proper valuation of the antecedents and consequences of strategic decision-making processes. The latter reduces uncertainty by allowing the permanence of payoff systems in the long run. This will lead individuals to determine the possible result range associated with their interactions or exchanges with other members of society and to avoid or reduce negative outcomes. This normative perspective assumes that institutions tend toward optimality. This allows them to reduce transaction costs, to produce public and collective goods, and to reduce uncertainty, among individuals that need to be considered not only as free and equal, but also as valid interlocutors. In this sense, institutions are the structural parameters of society (North, 1990) and will tend toward equilibrium. We will argue, however, that institutions can be suboptimal (Knight, 1992). This supposes a distortion in the parameters that affect the signals available to the players reducing the likelihood of cooperative behavior to evolve. Indeed, a suboptimal institutional arrangement will be characterized by a diffuse equilibrium that not only will be biased to favor particular groups, but also will be likely to reduce the regulative function of rules and to distort or deviate the functionality of incentive systems. In this case, equilibrium is necessarily unstable. The system will not have the capacity to obtain sufficient support to grant it stability and crisis will be permanent. Indeed, the system will need to use its resources to shore up its bases, to gain support by means of subsidies and direct favors and to regularly use force against its opponents. In this case, the survival of the political regime depends on its capacity to build institutions that allow the control of society and mass media, the reduction of freedoms, the centralization of resources, and the use of force to reduce protests and public manifestations (Gandhi & Przeworski, 2007). The current situation of Venezuela demonstrates the perverse consequences of a distorted equilibrium not only in terms of the impossibility to guarantee the evolution of a cooperative social order, but also in terms of instability and the deterioration of the quality of life of the population. The last “contractual moment” in Venezuelan Politics can be situated in the year 1999 after Hugo Chavez electorally won the presidency and almost immediately summoned a National Constituent Assembly to change the 1968 National Constitution. The process was polemic. At that time, a legal procedure to change the Constitution had not been foreseen. Chavez used the electoral legitimacy of his government and his personal charisma to call for a National Referendum and subsequently a national election to choose the members of the National Constitutional Assembly.5 A notable distortion is associated with the electoral results: With only 65% of the votes, Chavismo obtained 95% of the seats,6 while the opposition obtained only 6 assembly members. This means that a significant part of the social and political interests that were present at the time in the political sphere were not represented nor sufficiently considered during the 5

Assembly elections were held in July 2009, just 4 months after the approval referendum. This is just one early manifestation of the “playfield inequality” that has characterized electoral processes during this period.

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constitutional discussion. Those interests were simply excluded or overlooked from the process of political design of the Venezuelan society. The Constitutional Assembly was not only called to write a new Constitution. Its mission was, according to the official discourse, also to design a “new society.” The deputies were vested, by their electorate, with “original power” to transform the rules of the game and to modify the institutional setting. This eventually originated in the radicalization of the political system and a deep social transformation. The Constituent process was oriented toward the conversion of the founding rules of the Republic. In this process, it changed not only the essence of the political system and the political process, but also the distribution of power, and the characteristics of social interaction. In general, the “Contractual Momenta” implied the monopolization of power and resources by Chavismo. Its results have become determinant in defining the characteristics of the society and its evolution during the last twentyfour years and its permanent crisis. It is very interesting to note that after more than two decades in power, Chavismo has been able to accumulate power and survive a large political crisis, to defeat the opposition along several critical moments, and to handle the international crisis by redefining its international strategic alliances. However, it has been unable to make the system stable. Critical moments follow one after another with increased complexity. In a process of learning by doing the government has developed the ability to deal with this somehow permanent critical situation, which has required the use of resources and the appeal to force and repression of the civil population. This has implied a gradual but permanent transition toward authoritarianism that is manifested in the control of resources, the reduction of freedoms, and the persecution of political opponents (Kestler & Latouche, 2021; Latouche, 2019a, 2019b). Chavismo has imposed a non-impartial, uncooperative, and unstable equilibrium that is not based on consensus but instead on the use of force. The institutional framework is suboptimal. It is characterized by a permanent confrontation among political groups and the impossibility to define a common agenda or common goals. Political violence and criminality have reduced social harmony and the deterioration of the economy has produced a migratory crisis with direct effects on Latin America, the United States, and more recently Europe. At the same time, there is a significant increase of poverty and social exclusion. Despite the official inclusive discourse, Chavismo behaves like a private corporation that has colonized the public sphere imposing the particularities of its own vision, which produces biased results that favor the interests of those who are in power and their supporters in the popular classes, while, at the same time, it leaves behind important sectors of the population (Latouche, 2004). This has led to the construction of a hybrid semi-competitive regime based on three crucial elements: the manipulation of electoral processes, the construction of a predatory state, and a permanent attack against pluralism. This produces a situation of abnormality characterized by the absence of social agreements, the lack of recognition, and the incapacity to unify a vision about the country, its situation, and its future.

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1.3 Predatory Normativity According to the United Nations High Commissioner for Refugees (UNHCR), there are currently 5.4 million Venezuelans that are recognized as refugees, over 800,000 are currently asking for political asylum, while many of them are victims of human trafficking, prostitution, violence, and/or aggression. Venezuelans are leaving the country to escape from violence, political confrontation, or poverty. During the last few years, Venezuelans have experienced the deterioration of their well-being, constant protests, persecutions, political control, abuses, shortages, and a substantive reduction of individual freedoms. Individuals have become progressively more dependent on direct governmental subsidies for their survival. Over six million people are enrolled as direct beneficiaries of the “cajas CLAP”, a food stamp program that is used to distribute food among the population along with strong governmental propaganda. This, alongside with other social programs, has become a part of a strong system of social control that the government has implemented to reduce social tension, in particular the tension coming from the poorer sectors of society. Venezuelans have been asked to register in the “Carnet de la Patria” (Homeland Card), a parallel identification system, which contains extensive socio-economic data of holders which is used to pressure public servants and beneficiaries from social programs. The State has grown to intrude into the private life of the population, while the government has increased its control on both mass media and private enterprises. There are serious threats against freedom of expression and there have been reports of inadequate treatment and persecution of journalists. Recently, the Office of the United Nations High Commissioner for Human Rights (OHCHR) opened an investigation into Venezuela’s human rights situation. Civil society organizations have extensively documented abuses, unrightful expropriations, and incarcerations without the proper procedures. The government has implemented several mechanisms to increase its political and military strength as well as its controls over businesses. The State has become openly predatory on both the Venezuelan economy and its society. There has been a high level of appropriation of economic resources to maximize the particular interest of incumbents while reducing the quality of life and freedoms of the general population, which, in many cases, has a limited access to public services (Maselle & Polak, 2001). Corruption, illegal appropriation, and mismanagement have increased inefficiencies and reduced the provision of public goods. On a daily basis, the population must deal with electricity, domestic gas, gasoline and food shortages, and high levels of criminality. In its 2019 Report, the Freedom House Index has classified Venezuela as Not Free. Certainly, during the last 20 years, there has been a complex process of institutional transformation that has changed the rules of the democratic game which has contributed to building of asymmetries in the distribution of power between political and social actors. The “Revolutionary Institutional Framework” is in place openly to favor the interests of the political class identified with Chavismo and its direct and indirect clients. Since the 1999 Constitution was approved, the country has moved toward the construction of the so-called Socialism of the 21st Century, characterized by an

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incremental accumulation of power and control by the government, a militant party organization, and the monopolization of public discourse. Participative democracy has been assumed as a model of political organization, but participation is organized by the party structure, while it is financed and protected by the government. In its strong narratives, Chavismo not only argues in favor of those excluded by representative democracy, but also includes them as active part of the “revolutionary process” (Bruni Celli & Rodríguez, 2017). This supposes, however, a particular interpretation of reality and a clear definition of actors, interests, and objectives, which is reflected in the emerging political class and its hegemonic evolution. The Partido Socialista Unido de Venezuela (PSUV) has surged as a vertical political structure, it manipulates the political spectrum to increase its influence in society by increasing the number of members and by incorporating them in party activities and mobilization. Politics is interpreted as confrontation. During the last two decades, Chavismo has not demonstrated interest in building consensus or finding middle grounds; instead, it has played a zero-sum game with the aim to gain force and resources and to implement a populist criterion of rent distribution. In this context, the opposition has been gradually reduced in terms of its capacities to influence decision-making processes, to access resources, or to implement public policies. This way of understanding politics seems to be influenced by the use of military doctrines. It is important to note that the military has become a very influential “veto player,” both in decision-making and allocation of resources. The military clearly supports the political regime. But even more importantly, police and military forces are commonly used to control public protests. The military commands important ministries and government agencies. The strategic objective of Chavismo is to build the so-called Socialism of the 21st Century. In the process, it has manipulated the system in a way to accrue benefits for itself and accumulate more power. Its supposed aims have been to change social relations, reduce exploitation, and build an anti-imperialist State. However, as part of a “winner-takes-it-all” system, the opposition is perceived as an enemy that must be destroyed or in any case reduced to its minimal expression (Schmitt, 2007). Chavismo has incrementally transformed the institutional structure of society, it has taken advantage of its hegemonic position in the political system to increase its power and domination over the socio-cultural structure of society. A predatory regime tends to define a very particular set of institutions: there are the ones that do not only favor social cooperation, but instead introduce a perverse system of incentives, according to which cooperation becomes irrational. Observing the case under study, we can see, for example, how the transformation of the institutional framework has produced an increase in uncertainty. There are no real guarantees over private property, which reduce the likelihood of private investments. The mechanisms to control criminality are inefficient. Consequently, people must deal with the possibility of violence from unofficial groups and delinquency on a daily basis. The government cannot efficiently provide opportunities, social services nor fairness. People have learned to survive in a very rough environment. After all, humans tend to adapt and function according to negative or positive incentives. The economic crisis has reduced political protests. People have developed support groups and a barter

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system to locally deal with the economic crisis. But in general, they adopt largescale uncooperative behavior. As a derivation of state structure, society has become predatory (Diamond, 2008). Accordingly, the Venezuelan political system cannot be defined as democratic. On the contrary, the Venezuelan political regime has been unable to guarantee an inclusive social equilibrium. It has divided and polarized the society. The regime must permanently deal with high levels of instability and is unable to efficiently respond to social demands. The public administration is reactive, has lost the capacity to plan, reduce inequality, foster economic activity, or even simply provide minimal levels of quality public services such as healthcare, education, or security. Even though we cannot say that the system is based purely on coercion, Chavismo is certainly a political phenomenon enrooted in the society, with a certain level of social/militant support, but it certainly cannot coherently respond to the problem of providing democratic governance. In general, we can say that institutions in Venezuela today are not neutral. They respond to the distribution of power among the members of society favoring the government and its associates and clients. Those with the capacity to influence decision-making or distributive processes will do so in order to promote their particular interests instead of those of the larger population (Knight, 1992). Chavismo has taken advantage of its hegemonic position and the opposition’s structural weakness to transform the very nature of the political system. The institutional framework inherited from representative democracy has been dismantled and substituted. This has changed the distributive logic of the system and redefined its valuative and cultural standards. While representative democracy favored the middle class, Chavismo made a bid for a different type of clientele. It appeals to the poor, which it considers to be excluded from representative democracy and thus unprotected by it. Discursively, the system has identified itself with this population. Alongside, Chavismo has advanced a process of endogenous institutional transformation through redistribution of power. This has reduced checks and balances and demolished the division of powers mechanism which is considered a characteristic feature of a representative democracy. The Executive, along with the Armed Forces and the Party, has become the axis of decision-making and resource distribution, which favors the loyalists and excludes opponents. They have built a winning coalition that has allowed them to endure an overly complex political situation and to profit from it. Incumbents seem to be more preoccupied with their own short-term political survival and private economic benefits than the long-term well-being of the population. In fact, the system can be characterized by its lack impartiality, as the allocation of resources favors the interests and needs of partisans and supporters. We will conclude this section saying that the government has appropriated public goods to privately benefit its members, while its actions have impoverished the society, producing disequilibrium and the exclusion of non-supporters, and, at the same time, reducing the space in which society maneuvers. The system discriminates in favor of partisans. Consequently, there is an unequal distribution of costs and benefits among the beneficiaries Chavismo and those who oppose it, which raises the levels of unfairness structured in the very nature of the political system.

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2 Conclusions The current Venezuelan social order is schizophrenic. Perhaps, one could think that it is natural in the context of a revolutionary process. It is distinctive that in this case the revolutionary process developed after reaching power through elections. Despite the fact that there was no classical revolutionary armed struggle, it represents a genuine confrontation with the old model and its remnants, but it does not imply a revolutionary struggle in classical terms. Nonetheless, it embodies the transformation of the Venezuelan society, the rejection to the old model of representative democracy and the substantive modification of rules and incentive mechanisms. It is interesting to note that in the Venezuelan case the obvious accumulation of power does not signify the total control of society. The Venezuelan political system is authoritarian but it does not resemble the old paradigm of militaristic or revolutionary dictatorship. We face a new phenomenon that must be further studied. The Venezuelan authoritarian regime is a twenty-first-century phenomenon that must be cataloged regarding the recent development of populism. The Venezuelan government has imposed the transformation of the institutional structure, not as a result of the aggregation of plural interests but as a result of a political imposition based on power asymmetries and social control. It has implied the accumulation of power and resources and the control of the society based on a paternalistic use of direct subsidies and in the use of tribunals, police force, and the military as pressure mechanisms. The lack of institutional conditions has reduced social cooperation. In general Venezuelans try to survive in a very complex and adverse situation characterized, particularly in the last few years, by shortages and lack of opportunities. Both the State and the society have evolved toward predation. The former by means of the appropriation of resources and the direct transfer of cost to the people, in particular to those who do not support the Chavismo political project, and the latter by means of developing zero-sum strategies that require the appropriation of benefits and exclusion of others when the opportunity arrives. Institutional signals are blurred, and the opportunity cost of cooperation is too high to be borne. The survival of the Venezuelan political system is based on the construction of a predatory normativity, an unfixed equilibrium that allows the government to accommodate the demands of the moment as they present, but the uncertainty is high and the possibility to plan the future is reduced. In fact, the administration appears to function in an “emergency mode” whose fundamental aim is to survive until the next crisis arrives.

References Arrow, K. (1975). Social choice and individual values. Yale University Press. Axelrod, R. (1984). The evolution of cooperation. Basic Books. Barragán, J. (1989). Las reglas de la cooperación. DOXA. Universidad de Alicante: Cuadernos de Filosofía del Derecho. https://doi.org/10.14198/DOXA1989.6.20

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Bicchieri, C. (2006). The grammar of society. The nature and dynamics of social norms. Cambridge University Press. Binmore, K. (1994). Playing fair: Game theory and social contract. The MIT Press. Bruni Celli, J., & Rodríguez, J. (2017). El discurso de la transición al socialismo de Hugo Chávez (1999–2008). The Journal of Latin American Public Policy and Governance, 1(1), 84–100. Diamond, L. (2008). The democratic rollback. The resurgence of the predatory state. The resurgence of the predatory state. Foreign Affairs, 87(2), 36–48. Dowding, K., Goodwin, R. E., & Pateman, C. (2006). Justice and democracy. Essays for Brian Barry. Cambridge University Press. Gandhi, J., & Przeworski, A. (2007). Authoritarian institutions and the survival of autocrats. Comparative Political Studies, 40(11), 1279–1301. Gauthier, D. (1986). Moral by agreement. Clarendon Press. Harsanyi, J. (1976). Essays on ethics, social behaviour and scientific explanation. Reidel Publishing Company. Harsanyi, J. (1986). Individual utility and utilitarian ethics. In A. Diekmann & P. Mitter (Eds.), Paradoxical effects of social behavior. Essays in honor of Anatol Rapoport. Physica-Verlag. Kestler, T., & Latouche, M. (2021). Populismus und das dritte Gesicht der Macht: Die Institutionalisierung eines personalen Mythos in Venezuela. In W. Muno & C. Pfeiffer (Eds.), Populismus an der Macht. Strategien und Folgen populistischen Regierungshandelns. Springer. Knight, J. (1992). Institutions and social conflict. Cambridge University Press. Landemore, H. (2020). Open democracy: Reinventing popular rule for the twenty-first century. Princeton University Press. Latouche, M. Á. (2004). Programa político y democracia en Venezuela. Elementos para la revisión conceptual. Revista Venezolana de Análisis de Coyuntura, X(2), 11–23. Latouche, M. A. (2019a). Institutions and the problem of social order. Teoria y Politzki, 3, 229–247. Latouche, M. A. (2019b). Venezuela and its labyrinth: Institutional change and authoritarianism in twenty-first-century socialism. Middle Atlantic Review of Latin American Studies, 3(2), 1–26. Maselle, B., & Polak, B. (2001). A model of predatory state. Journal of Law, Economics and Organization, 17(1), 1–33. North, D. (1990). Institutions, institutional change and economic performance. Poitical economy of institutions and decisions. Cambridge University Press. Rawls, J. (1971). Theory of justice. Princeton University Press. Skyrms, B. (1996). The evolution of the social contract. Cambridge University Press. Schmitt, C. (1927/2007). The concept of political. University of Chicago Press. Skyrms, B. (2001). The stag hunt. Proceedings and Addresses of the American Philosophical Association, 75(2), 31–41. Skyrms, B. (2004). The stag hunt and the evolution of social structure. Cambridge University Press. Zolo, D. (1992). Democracy and complexity. Polity Press.

Miguel Angel Latouche is guest lecturer at the Department of Comparative Politics of the University of Rostock, Germany.

Ideological Aspects of Venezuela’s Current Divide Guillermo T. Aveledo

1 Political Ideologies and Languages What do we mean by ideology? While we might consider that ideology encompasses both legitimizing and rationalizing constructs, we do not consider ideology as a manifestation of “false consciousness” as described by Marxist theory, but rather as a worldview with crucial effects on political action. Ideology would be, then, a set of mostly internally coherent and relatively constant ideas and beliefs, which inform a movement, organization, or class of: (1) a particular outlook on the current realities of power (institutions, customs, wealth distribution); (2) a plan of political, social, and/or economic actions to either protect, reform or transform said current realities; (3) the social organization or actor who will lead the movement or class to the said goal. Most ideologies also specify the (legitimate) means whereby the agent will promote its goal (if a polity is open, moderate means are usually preferred; if a polity is closed, more radical means are promoted). In sum, an ideology provides a judgment on the present, a plan for the future, and an agent for the said plan.1 While there have been a number of dominant ideologies in the political processes of the Venezuelan polity, it must be said that an overarching national project has been informed by an amorphous and not wholly consistent republicanism. We must understand republicanism as the ideology that purports that a political community is populated by “the people” or “les citoyens,” who in turn enjoy some manner of 1

For a discussion on the different conceptions of ideology, see Freeden (2001). For a general discussion about ideology and political languages in Venezuelan history, see Aveledo Coll (2016). G. T. Aveledo (B) Department of Political Science, Universidad Metropolitana, Edificio Eugenio Mendoza, Piso 3, Of. 3A2, Campus UNIMET, Terrazas del Ávila, Municipio Sucre, Caracas 1070, Venezuela e-mail: [email protected] School of Political and Administrative Studies, Central University of Venezuela, Caracas, Venezuela © The Author(s), under exclusive license to Springer Nature Switzerland AG 2023 M. A. Latouche et al. (eds.), Venezuela – Dimensions of the Crisis, Contributions to Political Science, https://doi.org/10.1007/978-3-031-21889-7_3

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political, civil, and legal rights inherent to the said condition, including the right to govern themselves through collective political mechanisms and processes which, distinct from but not excluding aspects of direct democratic rule, establish a responsible government derived from that collective, and wherein liberty is associated with these rights and mechanisms. Of course, in any republican context, the definition of “the people” and the “rights of the citizen” are inherently contentious.

2 Ideological Conflicts in Venezuelan History For two centuries, the continuing political conflict of the Venezuelan Republic has been underscored by this changing definition: While there have always been some form of representative and elected institutions, even during the more authoritarian regimes, the expansion of the franchise, and the increased scope of influence of parties, associations, and citizens on government decisions has been a constant demand. Venezuela began its political history as an “enlightened” and “modern” project in the wars of independence, and the establishment of the first Venezuelan republics, including “Greater” Colombia.2 The local elite of criollos revolted against the Spanish authorities to establish a representative republic, but the need for popular support, and the violent disruption of colonial society, upended their hegemony. Ultimately, the new republics had liberal-republican constitutions, while maintaining unwritten rules inspired by estate and racial stratification: A limited definition of “the people” was established, whereby “landed and propertied” citizens of all races were in effect ruled by caudillos of popular extraction and independence wars’ veterans, whose social ascent was due to their military exploits, and whose hold onto power was unstable. This was the era of the hegemony of liberal ideology3 and of the conflicts between the so-called conservative and liberal parties, which vied for power through non-electoral popular mobilization and armed conflicts. Caudillismo and civil wars showed the limitations of the liberal-constitutional republicanism: On the one hand, the system lacked the support of the lower classes—who believed in the political rights theoretically granted to them by successive constitutions—and on the other hand, it was unable to withstand constant local strongmen uprisings. The notion that a responsible citizenry would exercise their rights in a deliberative manner through constitutional mechanisms, which underpinned the liberal era, was belied by this failure. This was the reason for the surge of an alternative ideology. Positivism was understood in Latin America and Venezuela as the embittered abandonment of the “metaphysical tenets” of liberalism (particularly the belief on the rationality of the people and its right to rule) for a more “empirical basis” for political order: Constant civil wars demonstrated that society was disorderly, “diseased” or even “suicidal,” 2

On Venezuelan republicanism’s Enlightenment roots, see Castro Leiva (1985, 1991), Pino Iturrieta (1991), and Carrera Damas (2010). 3 On the history of Venezuelan traditional liberalism, see Urbaneja (1988), Raynero (2001), Pino Iturrieta (2003), and Plaza (2007).

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and therefore, the necessary “cure” was to forego liberty for the sake of order.4 Caudillo rule was in turn redefined paradoxically as both an ill and a boon for stability: If the contention between alternative caudillos in the name of liberal causes was removed, order would be restored by an authoritative and sole ruler: the “César Democrático” or “necessary gendarme,” as per the classic tract by the positivist ideologue Laureano Vallenilla Lanz.5 Both Liberalism and Positivism shared a common notion of governance in regard to the capacity and right of the government to act directly upon social and economic structures: Due to a lack of financial capabilities, as well as a belief either in the inappropriateness of State intervention, or in the indifference of harsh social realities to be moved by well-intentioned statesmen, the early Venezuelan republic became a Nachtwächterstaat by default (Urbaneja, 1978) unable or unwilling to deal with its slow agricultural growth and deep inequalities. This would dramatically change during the “short” Twentieth Century. While the elite’s authoritarian prejudices remained in place, the Venezuelan modern project began to take shape. As the problem of order was settled through the long regime led by general Juan Vicente Gómez, an Andean landowner who defeated traditional liberal caudillos at the turn of the century, society became more peaceful and complex, while also generating new organizations and demanding increasing actions by the State, now enriched by the recently acquired oil rents provided by foreign investment and taxation. This modernization project comprised a developmentalist consensus that negatively judged the backwardness of Venezuelan social and economist structures, and its deplorable conditions of living. By 1936, after Gomez’s death, a process of infrastructure and physical transformation began and was led by increasing State intervention, enabled by its fiscal and technological connection to Atlantic capitalism through oil companies and promoted through redistributive actions of government largesse directed toward economic and social improvements: roads, ports, sewers, schools, hospitals, public housing began to appear in a mostly underdeveloped country. Naturally, the contrasting role of elites and popular classes was the main contention, with the remnants of positivism supporting the idea of a more technocratic, top-to-bottom development (epitomized by general Lopez Contreras’ “Programa de Febrero” 1936). At the same time, more democratic ideologues promoted the establishment of a mass representative democracy led by “the people,” now defined as party voters now universally enfranchised (as established in the revolutionary tract “Plan de Barranquilla” written by Rómulo Betancourt for the Marxist Alianza Revolucionaria de Izquierda in 1931), or autonomous civil society organizations recognized through State corporatism (promoted by the Christian Democratic COPEI led by Rafael Caldera in the late forties), supporting social expenditure through oil income. During the two decades that followed, these changing circumstances imposed a dynamic of coups and countercoups which, notwithstanding elite 4

On Venezuelan Positivism, see Harwich Vallenilla (1990), Pino Iturrieta (1978), Sosa (1985), and Plaza (1996). 5 Vallenilla Lanz published his main thesis in “Cesarismo Democrático: Estudios sobre las bases sociológicas de la constitución efectiva de Venezuela” (1919). Vallenilla’s thought is thoroughly examined in Plaza (1996).

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upheaval, did not change the developmentalist outlook, even during the military regime of the fifties (Carrera Damas, 1988; Lombardi, 1982). By the end of that decade, there was an emerging pro-democracy consensus among the different factions of the elites including the Armed Forces, which toppled the Perez Jimenez military government. Through a sober transitional process, outlined by the seminal Pacto de Puntofijo of 1958, a stable amalgam of centrist parties as well as newly moderate social organizations and interest groups (the Catholic Church, Armed Forces, Business Organizations, Trade Unions) recanted their more extremist political views of the post-Gómez era. Fear of a military restoration and particularly of a Marxist revolution fostered mutual recognition, setting the stage for the era of representative democracy. Mainstream developmentalist and welfarist parties, the social democrat Acción Democrática and Christian democrat COPEI, alternated in power and commanded a vote share between 60 and 90% until 1993. This dominant democratic policy consensus was not received uncritically. For critics from the conservative right, the ruling parties were led by extravagant populists and demagogues, who ran an oppressive interventionist State that thwarted freemarket forces and the work of honest Venezuelans. These mainstream parties were further criticized for overspending and giving in to the electoral pressures imposed by an ignorant populace. Critics from the radical left posited that moderate parties were agents of the “Moneyed Oligarchy,” and while they manipulated the people—defined mostly as the poorest population—with their spendthrift ways and an obedient media landscape, they would ultimately choose the plutocrats over the interest of the general population. Both ideological extremes, which occupied significant portions of the public opinion through an open media landscape, shared the criticism that the ruling elites were both incompetent and corrupt (Aveledo Coll, 2020). It must be noted that these criticisms were levied against the system even during the height of the dominance and electoral support for the moderate parties. By the end of the century, this welfarist-developmentalist project had reached a breaking point. A succession of critical events in economics (such as the monetary crash in 1983, Black Friday), social relations (such as the “Caracazo” riots in 1989), elite allegiance to the system (like in both coup attempts in 1992) signaled the end of an era. A protracted economic crisis put an end to the social advances of the prior decades, and this relative decay was solved neither through a reform of fiscally unsustainable welfarist policies, nor by an unpopular austerity driven market ideology. In the face of public opinion and the electorate, bipartisan politics were either ineffectual or belied the fact that the system was not a democracy. As one noted social scientist put it at the beginning of this century, “politics had gone astray” (Stambouli, 2005).

3 Opposed Ideological Outlooks in Current Venezuela As social or market-driven changes had failed to gain political traction during the nineties, a new ideological critique of Venezuelan modernity gained salience by the

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end of the decade. The nationalist and anti-partisan movement led by former paratrooper Lt. Colonel Hugo Chávez, who had led the 1992 coup attempts, entered electoral politics in 1997 through the Movimiento Quinta República, a loose coalition of anti-system “malcontents” from different extremes of the political spectrum: right-wing reactionaries, military nationalists, left-wing cadres, which won the 1998 presidential election through the charisma of its leader, and a promise of upending the unpopular system. Although the influence of Cuba and far-left politics in the political career of Hugo Chávez was persistent, its left-wing turn was gradual. After facing a number of moderate splits from the MVR at the beginning of the aughts, as well as the coup attempt of 2002 and the technocratic oil industry strike of 2002–2003, Chavismo declared itself exclusively socialist in 2005, promoting a dominant coalition of all left-wing parties in the Partido Socialista Unido de Venezuela (PSUV). Its platform, displayed on its 2010 Libro Rojo (the party manifesto of PSUV), was self-avowedly Marxist, Christian, indigenous, and anti-imperialist. While the 1999 Constitution, endorsed by Chávez, was still a part of the welfarist tradition that the country had promoted since the forties, albeit with increased powers for the presidency as well as significant administrative centralization, the platforms and language of the Chavista administrations channeled the historical critique of the far left against the prior system. While Chavismo did not reject neither republicanism nor democracy, it sought to redefine them through a criticism of former regimes (Aveledo Coll, 2017). At first, criticism about existing democracy rested on contrasting “representative democracy” to “participative” or even “direct democracy.” But as its left-wing turn deepened, this rejection of representative democracy turned into a wholesale rejection of “bourgeois” and “Western-style” regimes, proposing a true “socialist” and “communal” style system, which would forego the limitations of liberal regimes (individualistic bourgeois freedoms, pluralism, separation of powers), and would be a genuine grassroots movement (although these base structures would ultimately be mediated by the revolutionary state) (Salamanca, 2017). Economically, this also meant an increasing role for the State, first as a restoration of the Welfare State against the “neoliberal consensus” of the nineties, but also a general condemnation of “laissez faire” economics and, at the turn of the century, a rejection of the “globalization” dynamics led by the United States, promoting a “multipolar world” whereby the emerging global powers would be recognized. Domestically, the commodities boom of the aughts coincided with a direct government intervention of Venezuela’s national oil industry, which in turn generated a considerable windfall of oil profits, used to further socialize the economy through central planning, consumer subsidies, and the nationalization of the private industry of national or foreign capital. This was encompassed in a more general tradition of populist discourse, and a more specific worldview of dissatisfaction with and rejection of the Western model of civilization. The redefinition of the State’s political and economic role was framed in the populist search of renewed legitimacy through the denunciation of oligarchs, which was in itself an expanding category. Initially, the category included the traditional welfarist parties, but progressively, its meaning expanded to include private

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economic groups, cultural elites, foreign-oriented middle classes, most Venezuelans of European descent, and ultimately non-Chavista voters. The Bolivarian revolution was defined as a rebellion against five centuries of domination by oligarchies, which derived from the European conquest of the Americas. Thus, Chavismo promoted a rejection of modernity as a Western construct, defining new civilizational aims through “ecological socialism,” with paeans to simpler means, rural life, communal housing, rejection of consumerism, and the “historic goal” to save the planet and mankind. This would only be possible with the end of predatory capitalism promoted by the West and its allies (Asamblea Nacional, 2014). In contrast, the opposition to Chavismo mostly defined its aims in negative terms, that is, in opposition to the Bolivarian Revolution. At first, this meant a rejection of statism and authoritarianism, and a reaction against the encroachment of more extreme left-wing projects. This also created an identification of the opposition as the defenders of democracy first against populism and, later, of Cuban-influenced socialism, with elements of class criticism and economic conservatism (González, 2021). It would not be until the 2010s that a new opposition coordination platform emerged led by pragmatic new parties such as Un Nuevo Tiempo, Primero Justicia, Voluntad Popular, as well as the traditional Acción Democrática6 : This was the Mesa de la Unidad Democrática, which was a big-tent coalition of opposition parties, and which aimed to pivot opposition to Chavismo to the political center, focusing on pluralism and democracy through electoral means (Aveledo Orozco, 2014; Jiménez, 2021). This led to the Unidad Democrática’s parliamentary platforms of 2010 and 2015, and even influenced the “Plan País” of 2019.7 In general, this has meant the defense of the multi-class approach of the Twentieth-Century Venezuelan democracy, with a moderate inclination toward the free market (sometimes espousing a social market economy), the defense of federalism and local governments, and a preference for representative government and electoral politics. Chavismo denounced the Unidad Democrática as an extreme-right, neoliberal coalition, disallowing this coalition from participating in elections by the end of the decade. The more overt authoritarian turn promoted by the Bolivarian Revolution under Nicolás Maduro and the failure of the Unidad Democrática to attain power through electoral means have created the perception of an ideological vacuum. For some critics to the right, where a number of new groups have emerged, the traditional opposition failed because it moved too far to the center, playing within the rules of

6

Acción Democrática has mostly remained attached to its nationalist and welfarist tradition as part of its identity, while Un Nuevo Tiempo and Voluntad Popular also claim to be social democratic, with the latter promoting a slightly more technocratic bent. Primero Justicia, self-defined as part of the “humanist center,” has inherited aspects of Christian democrat thought, with a less confessional approach. Nonetheless, these definitions must be taken with caution. 7 The “Plan País” was a comprehensive political program of reform drafted by the National Assembly’s appointed “Interim Government” through 2019, for an announced transitional government. This Plan derived from a technical consultation of different social and economic sectors, but its main directives bore little difference to the Unidad’s parliamentary program. The “Plan País” remains online at https://www.planpaisvzla.com/.

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an inherently evil system of left-wing ideology. From adamant pro-market and rightlibertarian groups like Vente or Rumbo Libertad, this has meant not only a moral rejection of Chavismo, but also the characterization of the mainstream opposition as feeble, with merely a tamer version of Socialism. Another right-wing criticism, selfstyled as “nationalist” comes from groups like ORDEN, which focuses on the cultural rejection of Chavismo’s anti-Western focus. These groups, which have failed to gain significant political traction within the country, have nonetheless sought support from Brazil’s ruling Partido Liberal and Spain’s Vox. Both liberals and nationalists tend to support a foreign armed intervention against the Chavista State, a point on which the mainstream opposition is ambivalent about. On the other hand, the Maduro administration, which faced the effects of the end of the commodities boom of the aughts unprepared, due to Chavismo’s economic mismanagement, has itself turned to a market-oriented economic opening. While the ruling party has not officially rationalized its “right-wing turn” through a political program, but merely through informal interviews, the fact remains that there have been important changes of prior economic policies, particularly the freeing of foreign currency circulation and a dramatic reduction in government spending. These have been, so far, not defended as the new status quo, but rather as temporary setbacks given the economic situation and the effect of international sanctions. This has caused “original Chavismo” as well as former far-left allies of Chavismo such as the Venezuelan Communist Party, to denounce Maduro as a reformer, who is beholden to the new moneyed classes and has failed to live up to Chavez’s legacy. While this traditional left has also denounced, for the first time, the political excesses of the Bolivarian Revolution, it has not abandoned its view of the traditional opposition as an alliance of extremist right-wing imperialists.

4 Conclusions Any political transition to democracy, let alone a functioning pluralistic polity, requires a broad consensus on certain base beliefs upon the said society’s goals and legitimate institutions. The establishment of the most lasting liberal democratic regime in Venezuela implied the abandonment of political encroachment, and the increasing inclusion and recognition of political adversaries within the context of a widely shared political project. This once famed system took a century and a half of setbacks, defeats, upheavals, and concessions over many contentious issues (wealth and status distribution, territorial authority, civil and economic rights, etc.) to be formed, and it proved to be, in the final analysis, a fragile compromise. As things stand today, the probability of an ideological rapprochement between political actors in Venezuela—which consider themselves more enemies than adversaries—seems negligible. Chavismo demands political recognition, which includes an acceptance of its actual practices as “facts of effective Venezuelan democracy.” The government fears that the mainstream opposition will, once it regains its formerly lost power, retaliate

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aggressively and do away with the social and political transformations promoted by the Bolivarian Revolution. Agreeing with its historical enemy might as well mean to renounce its essence. Meanwhile, mainstream opposition parties deem Maduro as a usurper and consider the 1999 Constitution to be limited in its effectiveness. While some sectors of the opposition might agree with some of the recent policy reforms in economic matters made by Chavismo, it sees them as a disingenuous ploy. Moreover, chastised by official repression, and with few capabilities to impose its political goals, it presumes that agreeing to live with an unreformed Chavismo might imply a renunciation of its broader political goals, particularly the reestablishment of a pluralistic, representative democracy. Fringe groups from the left and the right, on the other hand, share a disdain for both the government and the opposition, and are almost equally skeptic toward democratic politics as they have existed, which limits their incentives to participate in a broader pro-democracy coalition. There is a silver lining to these fundamental disagreements. On the one hand, the Venezuelan Constitution, promoted by Hugo Chávez in 1999, has been embraced eventually by most political and social actors as an accepted source of legitimacy. While its application and interpretation remain contentious, its democratic values and charter of rights might still prove to be a tenable starting point. Furthermore, the broad majority of the Venezuelan population, despite its disaffection toward the current elites, still harbors pro-democratic convictions. This belief remains the most important asset in the promotion of democratic change within the country.

References Asamblea Nacional. (2014). Ley del Plan de la Patria: Segundo Plan Socialista de Desarrollo Económico y Social de la Nación, 2013–2019. Fondo Editorial de la Asamblea Nacional Willian Lara. Aveledo Coll, G. T. (2016). Pensamiento político en Venezuela: Metodología y grandes lenguajes. Ontosemiótica, 7, 61–77. Aveledo Coll, G. T. (2017). Los Fundamentos Ideológicos de la Revolución Bolivariana. In D. B. Urbaneja (Ed.), Desarmando el Modelo: Las Transformaciones del Sistema Político Venezolano desde 1999 (pp. 25–51). Universidad Católica Andrés Bello. Aveledo Coll, G. T. (2020). Profetas del Desastre: las críticas ideológicas al sistema democrático venezolano en la década de los setenta y ochenta. Tiempo y Espacio, 73(1), 13–60. Aveledo Orozco, R. G. (2014). Al servicio de la Unidad. Instituto de Estudios Parlamentarios Fermín Toro. Carrera Damas, G. (1988). Una nación llamada Venezuela: Proceso sociohistórico (1810–1974). Monte Ávila Editores. Carrera Damas, G. (2010). Colombia, 1821–1827: Aprender a edificar una república moderna liberal. Universidad Central de Venezuela. Castro Leiva, L. (1985). La Gran Colombia: una ilusión ilustrada. Monte Ávila Editores. Castro Leiva, L. (1991). De la patria boba a la teología bolivariana: ensayos de historia intelectual. Monte Ávila Editores. Freeden, M. (2001). Ideology: Political aspects. In N. Smelser & P. Bates (Eds.), International encyclopædia of the social and behavioural sciences (V: 7174–7177). Elsevier.

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González, Y. (2021). Democracy under threat: The foundation of the opposition in Venezuela. Bulletin of Latin American Research, 40(1), 69–83. https://doi.org/10.1111/blar.13090 Harwich Vallenilla, N. (1990). Venezuelan positivism and modernity. Hispanic American Historical Review, 70(2), 327–344. https://doi.org/10.1215/00182168-70.2.327 Jiménez, M. (2021). Contesting autocracy: Opposition coordination and repression in venezuela. Political Studies, 22(I), 1–22. https://doi.org/10.1177/0032321721999975 Lombardi, J. V. (1982). Venezuela: The search for order, the dream of progress. Oxford University Press. Mall´en, A. L., & Garc´ia Guadilla, M. P. (2017). Venezuela’s polarized politics: The paradox of direct democracy under Ch´a vez. First Forum Press. Partido Socialista Unido de Venezuela. (2010). Libro Rojo: Documentos Fundamentales. Partido Socialista Unido de Venezuela. Pino Iturrieta, E. (1978). Positivismo y gomecismo. Universidad Central de Venezuela. Pino Iturrieta, E. (1991). La mentalidad venezolana de la emancipación, 1810–1812. Eldorado. Pino Iturrieta, E. (2003). Las ideas de los primeros venezolanos. Universidad Católica Andrés Bello. Plaza, E. (1996). La tragedia de una amarga convicción: Historia y política en el pensamiento de Laureano Vallenilla Lanz, 1870–1936. Universidad Central de Venezuela. Plaza, E. (2007). Patriotismo ilustrado o la organización del Estado en Venezuela, 1830–1847. Universidad Central de Venezuela. Raynero, L. (2001). La noción de libertad en los políticos venezolanos del siglo XIX 1830–1848. Universidad Católica Andrés Bello. Salamanca, L. (2017). Las Bases Sociopolíticas del Chavismo: Auge y Caída. In D. B. Urbaneja (Ed.), Desarmando el Modelo: Las Transformaciones del Sistema Político Venezolano desde 1999 (pp. 53–116). Universidad Católica Andrés Bello. Sosa, A. (1985). Ensayos sobre el pensamiento político positivista venezolano. Centauro. Stambouli, A. (2005). La política extraviada: una historia de Medina a Chávez. Fundación para la Cultura Urbana. Urbaneja, D. B. (1978). Introducción Histórica al Sistema Político Venezolano. Politeia, 7, 11–59. Urbaneja, D. B. (1988). La Idea Política de Venezuela: 1830–1870. Lagoven.

Guillermo T. Aveledo is Professor of History of Political Ideas at the School of Political and Administrative Studies of the Central University of Venezuela, and of Political Thought in Venezuela at the School of Liberal Studies at the Metropolitan University.

The Quest for Democracy: Venezuela in the Twentieth and Twentyfirst Centuries Wolfgang Muno

and Thomas Kestler

1 Introduction The quest for democracy is a defining feature of Venezuelan history in the twentieth and twenty-first centuries. While oil wealth has increasingly dominated the Venezuelan economy since the first oil discoveries at the end of the nineteenth century and led to Venezuela having the highest per capita income in Latin America for a time, democratic rules of the game were contested (see also Muno, 2005). First democratic aspirations were seen in the so-called trienio from 1945 to 1948, brought to an end by a coup d’état by a military junta. Another democratic phase started after the flight of the junta’s head, Marcos Pérez Jiménez, in 1958. In that year, the leaders of the main parties agreed on the joint recognition and defense of democracy and on the foundations of future politics in Venezuela in the so-called Pacto de Punto Fijo. Oil wealth and the pact made Venezuela the ‘Switzerland of Latin America,’ outstanding in regional comparison in its prosperity and political stability. But in the 1980s, Venezuela stumbled into crisis and mismanagement when the decline of oil revenues and the beginning of the debt crisis ended the oil bonanza. Presidents Carlos Andrés Pérez (1989–1993) and Rafael Caldera (1994–1999) tried to master the crisis, but contradictions and inconsistencies in crisis management as well as a lack of political support led deeper and deeper into a political and socio-economic crisis (Faust & Muno, 1998). Hugo Chávez Frías, a former putschist, was able to exploit the ongoing sentiment against the political establishment with his movement W. Muno (B) Department of Comparative Politics, University of Rostock, Rostock, Mecklenburg-Vorpommern, Germany e-mail: [email protected] T. Kestler Institute of Political Science and Sociology, Julius-Maximilians-University of Würzburg, Würzburg, Germany e-mail: [email protected] © The Author(s), under exclusive license to Springer Nature Switzerland AG 2023 M. A. Latouche et al. (eds.), Venezuela – Dimensions of the Crisis, Contributions to Political Science, https://doi.org/10.1007/978-3-031-21889-7_4

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Movimiento Quinta República (MVR) and was elected president in 1998. Since then, Venezuelan democracy experienced a continuous decline or backsliding, which accelerated under Chávez’s successor Nicolás Maduro. In what follows, we trace the political and economic development of Venezuela in the twentieth century to critically investigate the historical context that led to the rise of Chavismo and the country’s shaky democracy.

2 On the Way to Modernity In colonial times, the area that comprises Venezuela today was an insignificant, abandoned peripheral region until the end of the eighteenth century, when the cultivation of tropical agricultural commodities, especially cocoa, transformed it into a dynamic export region. Under the leadership of Simón Bolívar, the wealthy indigenous Creole elite, influenced by Enlightenment ideas, became the engine of Latin America’s independence struggles, defeating royalist forces from Venezuela to Alto Peru (on Venezuela’s historical development, see Lombardi, 1985). After the bloody war of independence, Venezuela experienced unrest and civil wars during the nineteenth century. The country vacillated between anarchy and caudillismo and became the prototype of a politically unstable and economically backward Latin American state. Venezuela underwent fundamental changes in the twentieth century. The dictatorship of José Vicente Gómez from 1908 to 1935 developed into the ideal type of a personalist Latin American dictatorship. Gómez exploited Venezuela like his own private hacienda. He became the richest person and largest landowner, brutally suppressed resistance, and banned all political life during the twenty-seven years of his dictatorship. Nevertheless, Venezuela modernized fundamentally in some respects during his regime. Gómez centralized more power by disempowering the regional caudillos. Socio-economically, the country benefited from the increased international demand for oil. As early as the end of the nineteenth century, large oil deposits were discovered in Venezuela, which Gómez now had extracted in return for concession fees by the Anglo-Dutch company Royal Dutch Shell (now known as Shell), and later by the US company Standard Oil. In 1920, the oil production was one million barrels per year. 15 years later, it went up to 150 million barrels per year. As early as 1925, oil ranked at the top of export earnings. In this way, Venezuela had become the second-largest oil producer in the world after the USA; coffee, until then the most important export product, lost its importance in the overall export earnings. The world economic crisis of the 1930s reinforced this trend, as the coffee market collapsed but the momentum of the oil sector was only briefly interrupted. Coffee exports fell by 76% between 1929 and 1935 and the share of agriculture in GDP fell from 34.7% to 18.7% between 1925 and 1936. On the other hand, the share of oil rose from 9.5% to 34.6% (see Thibaut, 1992). This increase in industrial activity, mainly due to the expanded oil production, brought about a rapid urbanization of Venezuela: in 1920, 80% of Venezuelans still

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lived in the countryside; forty years later, the urban population share was almost 80%. Caracas became the undisputed center of the country, and the modernization of the army and extensive infrastructure development ensured control of the hinterland. Government spending increased by 257% from 1920 to 1930. John Lombardi emphasizes the modernizing effect that Gómez’s regime had on Venezuela due to oil exploitation: “Juan Vicente Gómez brought Venezuela into the modern world” (Lombardi, 1985: 17).

3 On the Road to Democracy After Gómez’s death, the political system was liberalized. Under the governments of López Contreras (1936–1941) and Medina Angarita (1941–1945), freedoms of the press and organization were allowed, and the first legal political parties appeared. The most important aspect of that phase was the emergence of the political party Acción Democrática (AD) in 1941, which had a social democratic orientation and at once began a campaign of mass organization. Within four years, the AD succeeded in building up a nationwide organizational structure and assumed a leading role within the emerging trade unions and their umbrella organization, the Confederación de Trabajadores de Venezuela (CTV). In 1945, disputes arose between Medina Angarita and the AD over the speed of the democratization process, leading to a ‘democratic’ coup by the AD in alliance with a group of young officers. A junta under the AD’s founder Rómulo Betancourt arranged elections for the formation of a Constituent Assembly in 1946, which the AD won with 78% of the vote due to its strong mass base ahead of the Christian Democraticoriented COPEI (Comité de Organización Política Electoral Independiente), founded in 1946, and the liberal democratic Unión Republicana Democrática (URD), founded in 1945. The AD also won the first free presidential and congressional elections in Venezuelan history in December 1947 by an overwhelming margin. The hegemonic position of the AD led to criticism from the opposition, the church, and the military, which ended the three-year period of democratic AD-rule, called Trienio, with a military coup in 1948. Among the new military rulers, Marcos Pérez Jiménez prevailed and remained in power until 1958. Economically, Venezuela continued to rely on oil. President Medina Angarita had used the Second World War to enforce Venezuela’s fiscal sovereignty over foreign oil companies, which led to higher state revenues. Pérez Jiménez used these funds to invest in infrastructure development. Yet, as the regime became more autocratic, repressive, and corrupt, the opposition grew, encompassing parties, trade unions, entrepreneurs, the church, and large sections of the military. All opposition parties allied against the regime in May 1957 and founded the Junta Patriótica with the aim of ending the Pérez Jiménez-dictatorship. The opportunity came on New Year’s Day 1958, when an attempted coup by disappointed military officers failed. The Junta Patriótica, supported by trade unions, the church, and business associations, called for demonstrations and strikes, and on January 22, 1958, there was a nationwide general strike

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against the regime. The military refused to take action against the demonstrators and Pérez Jiménez left Venezuela on January 23, 1958. A junta under the leadership of Admiral Wolfgang Larrazábal took power and re-initiated the democratization of Venezuela (see on this and the following Levine, 1978, 1989; Maihold, 1988). Already under the Pérez Jiménez regime, the leaders of the three most important opposition parties, Rómulo Betancourt (AD), Rafael Caldera (COPEI), and Jóvito Villalba (URD), met secretly in New York to plan the post-Pérez Jiménez period together after the experience of the failure of democracy in the Trienio. The party leaders had all been part of Generación del 28, the legendary student movement in Venezuela, which had fought against Gómez in 1928. Excluding the Communist Party of Venezuela (PCV), they finally concluded the Pacto de Punto Fijo on October 31, 1958, in which they committed themselves in principle to democracy and pledged to recognize and defend the results of elections scheduled for December 1958. In addition, the parties involved committed themselves to the formation of a ‘government of national unity,’ as well as to a common minimum program for the new government, which included a new constitution, a long-term development plan, and the introduction of social legislation (see the original text Pacto de Punto Fijo, reprinted in Síntesis 5/1988: 462ff.). In addition, agreements were concluded in 1958 with the trade unions and the business organizations, as well as informally with the armed forces. The subjects of these pacts were not only the political rules of the game, but also the desarrollist, internal market-oriented development model, and the mode of distribution of the oil rent between the different groups. These agreements formed the basis for the constitution adopted in 1961. After the political decline of the URD, a kind of two-party system developed between AD and COPEI. COPEI captured the presidency for the first time in 1969 and the transfer of power went smoothly. AD and COPEI eventually alternated in power in the elections of the 1970s and 1980s, garnering over 90% of the primary vote and almost 80% of the secondary vote (see Table 1). The only noteworthy party that was able to establish itself alongside AD and COPEI was the reformist, democraticsocialist Movimiento al Socialismo MAS (Movement Towards Socialism), founded in 1971, which split off from the pro-Moscow PCV and achieved between 5 and 10% of the vote in parliamentary elections (see Ellner, 1988).

4 On the Way to the Crisis The Venezuelan political scientist Juan Carlos Rey described the political-economic system that emerged in Venezuela after 1958 as a “sistema populista de conciliación,” a populist system of reconciliation (1989). The increasing revenues from oil exports made it possible to engage in the reconciliation of interests agreed upon in the pact. Further, steady economic development took place thanks to the income from the oil exports. By 1960, Venezuela’s GDP per capita was already the highest in Latin America. The oil money enabled a growing system of patronage and subsidies, and an effective and consolidative conflict management was pursued through the

The Quest for Democracy: Venezuela in the Twentieth and Twentyfirst … Table 1 Presidents of Venezuela 1958–2022 and their parties

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President

Political party

Years in power

Rómulo Betancourt

AD

1959–1964

Raul Leoni

AD

1964–1969

Rafael Caldera

COPEI

1969–1974

Carlos Andrés Pérez

AD

1974–1979

Luis Herrera Campíns

COPEI

1979–1984

Jaime Lusinchi

AD

1984–1989

Carlos Andrés Pérez

AD

1989–1993

Octavio Lepage

AD

1993 (Interim President May to June)

Ramón Velásquez

Independent

1993–1994 (Interim President)

Rafael Caldera

Independent (former 1994–1998 COPEI)

Hugo Chávez

MVR/PSUV

1998–2013

Nicolás Maduro

PSUV

Since 2013

Source Authors’ own compilation

agreement of the relevant socio-political actors, the political parties, the business umbrella organization FEDECAMARAS (Federación de Cámaras de Comercio y Producción), the trade union umbrella organization CTV, the military and the church. Andreas Boeckh described the ‘populist distribution coalition’ as follows: Through a multitude of direct and indirect state transfers, of which the direct ones, i.e. the state budget, were usually also instrumentalized by the respective governing party to create party-political loyalties (clientelism), the skillful use of political symbols which had the ‘redemption of the masses’ as their theme, and through comparatively open career paths for the functionaries of the trade unions and peasant associations in the two major parties, it was possible to politically unite the sections of society capable of organizing and to create stable and stability-promoting loyalties towards the political system. (Boeckh, 1988: 643, translation by the authors)

The distribution of the oil rent, on which the dynamics of the non-oil sectors also depended, was taken over by the state. Governments, in a populist manner, engaged in a rather non-productive allocation of these oil rents by redistributing it toward: food subsidies for the population, protectionist tariffs and subsidies for entrepreneurs, support for farmers, high-tech weapons for the military, job guarantees and abovestandard wages for public servants, scholarships, and free schools and universities for students and scholars.

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The oil rent and the etatist-desarrollist economic strategy led to the emergence of a state-led development model guided by a burgeoning bureaucracy with an everincreasing role of the state. Over time, with a state quota of over 60%, this change in the Venezuelan economic system led to its characterization as a ‘mixed economy’ or ‘state capitalism’ (on the bureaucratic developmental state see Sonntag, 1988). The state bureaucracy, in turn, was dominated by AD and COPEI, which through informal agreements allowed the respective opposition party a fair share of the state sinecures. This state of affairs is called partidocracia by Venezuelans: According to their own figures, AD and COPEI together had over five million members (almost half of those eligible to vote), and every fourth Venezuelan in turn received a state salary. In addition to the parties’ occupation of high and middle administrative offices, which was taken for granted, corruption, patronage of offices, and clientelism were widespread phenomena. According to Werz, “the pronounced patronage system is one of the ‘participatory’ and system-stabilizing effects of the Punto Fijo Agreement” (Werz, 1983: 104). The close cooperation between the two state-supporting parties is also referred to by Venezuelans as ‘Guanábana politics.’ The guanábana is a tropical fruit with a green skin and white flesh; green is the party color of COPEI, white that of AD. The Estado omnipotente reached its peak during the first term in office of Carlos Andrés Pérez. While oil rents had been rising slowly but steadily until then, giving Venezuela an economic growth rate of 6.6% per year, the oil price explosion in the wake of the 1973 oil crisis triggered a boom phase during which the state further expanded its influence on the economy. State revenues suddenly tripled, and in 1975/1976, the oil and iron ore industries were nationalized. The oil revenues were to be used to finance large-scale development projects in the basic industries (petrochemicals, aluminum, steel) and energy production (hydroelectric power plants), the material and social infrastructure was expanded, the number of employees in the public sector as well as wages increased, and the level of consumption generally rose (cf. Table 2 on general economic development). Pérez propagated a ‘Greater Venezuela,’ the Venezuelans spoke of Venezuela saudita, of Saudi Venezuela. The petro-dollar boom, combined with a fixed exchange rate of the bolívar (4.3 for a dollar), made Caracas one of the world’s most expensive cities besides Tokyo. Venezuela achieved the world’s highest consumption of Scotch whiskey and imported apples from Europe in large quantities. A broad middle class by Latin American standards emerged, which spent its weekends shopping in Miami, where Venezuelans were nicknamed ‘Damedos’ (Give-me-two). This gluttonous over-consumption soon ended under Pérez’s successor Luís Herrera Campíns. Oil money flowed abroad in luxury consumption and as longterm financial investments, while development projects were financed by taking out cheap, short-term public loans. The drop in oil prices in the early 1980s coincided with the sharp rise in interest rates on the international credit markets. This created a scenario where public enterprises could no longer pay the interest on their short-term loans and Venezuela had to declare itself insolvent in 1983. Oil revenues fell by 18% and 12% in 1982 and 1983, respectively, while external debt doubled from USD

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Table 2 Economic development of Venezuela, 1952–1988 (a) 1952–1988 (average annual growth rates in %) 1952–1973

1973–1978

1978–1982

1982–1986

1986–1988

GDP

6.6

5.9

−0.1

−0.5

4.4

GDP/capita

2.9

2.3

−3.1

−3.2

2.1

Inflation

1.7

8.2

14.8

10.5

28.8

1983–1985

1986–1988

(b) 1970–1988 (1980–1988 average per year) 1970

1974

1978

1980–1982

pricea

1.9

10.5

12.2

27.8

25.9

14.2

Oil exportsb

2.4

10.8

8.7

17.7

13.8

8.2

Total external debtb

n.a

n.a

16.6

31.2

36.8

34.6

Public external debtb

0.7

1.5

6.9

11.5

17.0

25.2

Debt service n.a ratio

n.a

n.a

33.8

28.6

48.9

Oil

a US

dollar/barrel US dollar Source Ashoff (1992: 24–25) b Billion

16.6 billion to USD 32.1 billion between 1978 and 1981 and debt service obligations amounted to USD 13 billion in 1983 (see Table 2). In addition, there was an exorbitant flight of capital (Venezuelan private balances abroad amounted to about 30 billion USD in 1984), which is why the government felt compelled to devalue the currency Bolívar by 300% on Venezuela’s ‘Black Friday,’ February 18, 1983. In order to counteract the recessionary tendencies of the economy, the government of Herrera’s successor, Jaime Lusinchi (AD), relied on an expansive fiscal policy, financed from the surpluses generated in the meantime by the currency devaluation, the currency reserves as well as increasing foreign debt, despite further decline in oil prices (in 1985/1986 the oil revenues fell by almost half). Although the demand-oriented policy brought positive economic growth back to Venezuela at the end of the 1980s, it left the newly elected President Carlos Andrés Pérez with a country on the brink of bankruptcy. The attempts to ‘seed’ oil, i.e., to diversify the economy with the help of the oil rent, had failed. As Terry Lynn Karl wrote: the Venezuelan economy remained highly dependent on oil and therefore, a ‘petrostate’ (Karl, 1997). Until the mid-1980s, oil revenues generated 90–95% of the export earnings and 60–80% of the government’s budget revenues. In addition to the poor economic balance, the “dismal social balance after the oil bonanza” (Ashoff, 1992: 20) was particularly negative. In 1988, per capita income in real terms was almost 10% lower than in 1970. This figure conceals a very unequal distribution of income, massive poverty, and

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social problems that Venezuelas faced. At the end of the 1980s, more than 50% of Venezuelans lived in poverty. Measured by social indicators such as infant mortality, the illiteracy rate, and the school enrollment rate, Venezuela presented an unfavorable picture, especially compared to other Latin American countries which did not accrue such oil revenues. The negative balance of all attempts to diversify the economy and achieve general prosperity for Venezuelans with the help of the oil rent and the bureaucratic stateled development was pointed out as early as 1976 by Juan Pablo Pérez Alfonso, several times minister and co-founder of OPEC, in his book titled, translated into English as, “We are Drowning in the Excrement of the Devil” (Pérez Alfonso, 1976). Less than ten years after the announcement of a ‘Greater Venezuela’ and after a 15-fold increase in oil prices from 1970 to 1981, Venezuelans cynically spoke of the ‘Venezuelan economic miracle’ in view of the highest per capita debt in Latin America, the massive devaluation of the Bolívar, economic stagnation or recession and falling real incomes.

5 Economic Crisis and Attempts of Reform The presidential election of December 3, 1988, was won by Carlos Andrés Pérez, the candidate of the ruling AD, with 52.9% of the vote against his fiercest rival, Eduardo Fernández of the COPEI; the AD again became the strongest party. In the election campaign, both politicians had advocated economic policy programs that pointed to the need for reforms, but without specifying their plans in this regard. Economic positions contradicted other parts of the electoral programs, which is why the economic policy statements were perceived by the public, if at all, only as electoral rhetoric (for an analysis of the 1988 election see Welsch & Werz, 1990). On February 2, 1989, Carlos Andrés Pérez began his second term as president of Venezuela with great pomp, but soon had to realize that the country was almost bankrupt (cf. Ashoff, 1992: 27): – Official foreign exchange reserves were USD 3 billion, with liquid assets amounting to only USD 300 million and short-term liabilities of USD 6.3 billion. – The debt service ratio rose to over 50% in 1988. – The current account deficit reached 9.6% of the GDP in 1988. – The official exchange rate of 14.50 Bolívares per USD contrasted with the unofficial exchange rate of 42 per USD. – In real terms, the interest rate was −15% (1988), which led to capital flight and increased inflation. – Inflation reached high levels of 40% (1987) and 35.5% (1988). – The public sector deficit was 9.3% (1988). In view of this situation, a clear break with the earlier economic policy and the implementation of radical market-oriented reforms, as also vehemently demanded

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by the International Monetary Fund (IMF) from the highly indebted country, seemed the most sensible option for the new president. The first sign of the change in the economic policy was the appointment of ‘technocrats’ to the cabinet. With them, neoliberal ideas of the ‘Washington Consensus’ entered Venezuelan economic policy, and on February 16, 1989, fourteen days after taking office, Pérez announced his government’s new economic policy, el gran viraje, the great turning point, a stabilization and structural adjustment program called el paquete (cf. Ashoff, 1992: 29f.; Naím, 1993a: 52f.). The very short-term shock stabilization program, largely implemented between February 7 and April 1, 1989, included the floating of exchange rates, the abolition of price controls, the introduction of market-based interest rates, reductions in public spending, and price increases on public goods and services, a complete overhaul of the tax system, with the intention of introducing a value-added tax, and the renegotiation of debt repayments with the IMF. The stabilization program was intended as a prerequisite for a structural transformation of the Venezuelan economy in the medium term that included trade liberalization, deregulation of the economic and financial markets as well as the labor market, a comprehensive privatization program, and a reform of social policy. In addition, the Pérez government planned administrative reforms aimed at decentralization. Within a short time, essential parts of the stabilization program were implemented. In 1989, the exchange rate, interest rates, and almost all prices were liberalized, and prices for public services were increased. In August 1990, Pérez successfully achieved Venezuela’s debt restructuring in negotiations with the IMF, halving the debt service ratio. In the same year, the government drastically reduced tariffs, reduced subsidies, abolished import licenses, and liberalized regulations on foreign investment and stock trading. By 1991, various privatization projects had been carried out: The state-owned airline VIASA, several banks, shipyards, hotels, and a state-owned telephone company were sold, further sales were planned. The announced tax reform was drafted, but not implemented due to fierce opposition in the Congress. In social policy, the earlier practice of indirect subsidies, which kept food prices artificially low, was abandoned and replaced by programs of direct poor relief, food aid, and school feeding. In the political sphere, the direct election of mayors and state governors, who had previously been appointed by the president, was introduced. The stabilization program unleashed the intended ‘creative destructive force.’ In 1989, Venezuela experienced the worst recession in its history so far, with a decline in GDP of 8.6%, an inflation rate of 81%, an increase in official unemployment to almost 10% (unofficial figures put the figure twice as high and estimated underemployment at over 40%), as well as a massive loss of purchasing power among the population (incomes fell by 11%, disposable personal income by as much as 14%). This was followed by remarkable growth in 1990 and 1991, although the rise in oil prices in the wake of the Gulf crisis played a significant role. The GDP grew by 6.5% (1990) and 10.4% (1991), making Venezuela the fastest growing economy in the world. The public deficit turned into a surplus, as did the current account deficit, and unemployment fell to 7.8%. Foreign exchange reserves rose again to 13 billion

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Table 3 Economic development of Venezuela (1988–1991) 1988 GDPa

1989

5.8

−8.6

1990

1991

6.5

10.4 0.7

−9.3

−1.1

0.2

Current account balanceb

−9.6

5.0

17.0

3.1

Debt service ratio

50.3

27.3

23.2

27.7

Inflation

Balance of the public

sectorb

35.5

81.0

36.5

31.0

Unemployment

6.9

9.6

9.9

8.7

GDP/capita

3.0

−10.8

4.0

7.8

−3.6

−25.9

−4.4

−5.4

Incomec a Growth

in % b Of GDP c Change in family income from employment in % Source Own compilation according to Ashoff (1992)

USD, inflation also declined, but at 31% (1991) still remained at a very high level for Venezuela (see Table 3). However, the impressive macroeconomic growth stood in contrast to the socially unfavorable development. Then-Minister of Industry Moisés Naím admitted: Despite these positive results, the fulfilment of basic needs suffered from the abolition of subsidies and price controls. Moreover, the reduction in public expenditure and the consequent reduction in the quality and accessibility of public services created additional difficulties for the poor. (Naím, 1993c: 80)

Thus, the seemingly increased labor market figures hide the fact that behind them there were strong income losses, as many workers had lost well-paid jobs and had to settle for much lower-paid jobs. Real wages in 1990 had now fallen below the wage level of 1955. The reform of social policy lagged far behind the needs and expectations, not least for the simple reason that the abolition of subsidies can be decreed with a signature, but welfare measures that only benefit the needy require a state bureaucracy that did not exist in this form in Venezuela until then and that could not be built up quickly and effectively enough. The cuts in the public sector brought public services in housing, health, education, and transport to the brink of collapse, a fact Naím commented on by saying, “Macroeconomic stabilization without running water, working hospitals and a public transport system does not acquire political support” (Naím, 1993b: 171). The abolition of subsidies on food proved to be particularly problematic, leading to a price increase that was even higher than the average inflation rate (cf. Table 4). The loss of income as well as the increase in food prices inevitably led to an increase in poverty, so that in 1991 two-thirds of Venezuelans lived in poverty, onethird even in critical poverty.

The Quest for Democracy: Venezuela in the Twentieth and Twentyfirst … Table 4 Price increase in Venezuela 1989–1991 (in percent)

Overall inflation rate Food inflation

47

1989

1990

1991

81.0

36.5

31.0

103.0

40.0

32.4

Source Own compilation after Ashoff (1992: 45)

6 Political Crisis The first reaction to the reform measures of el paquete came as early as February 27, 1989. A day earlier, petrol prices had been raised by almost 80%, from the equivalent of seven to thirteen cents per liter, and transport prices were to be increased by 30%, to which the mostly private small-scale entrepreneurs who organize bus transport in the greater Caracas area responded by tripling fares to absorb the increased costs. The passengers, mostly from poorer backgrounds, confronted with the increased fares and the refusal of the bus operators to accept legally guaranteed, reduced fares for high school and university students, reacted with protests and riots. The situation quickly escalated. Buses went up in flames, protests spread, and looting occurred. The riots spread to other cities while the police stood idly by or even showed solidarity with the rioters. The spontaneous social explosion was followed by targeted actions by organized gangs and militant leftist splinter groups, whereupon the government called in the military and national guard and declared a state of emergency. The massive use of firearms by the military quickly put an end to the popular uprising but claimed many lives in the poor neighborhoods. The number of deaths varies from 246 official deaths to well over 1000 according to human rights groups. However, this spontaneous popular uprising, the so-called Caracazo, caused great national and international concern, as it signaled the end of the pseudo-stability created by the oil rent, and was widely perceived as the “Latin Americanization” of Venezuela (see Werz, 1989, on the Caracazo in detail, see Kornblith, 1989). Despite these events, Pérez did not change the economic course and stuck to the neoliberal reforms. The government implemented the reform policy quasi singlehandedly by decree and without debate. The relevant political actors, the parties, the trade unions, and the entrepreneurs criticized the reforms at least in part or rejected them in principle but were not consulted and were not in a position to present an organized opposition or even an alternative. Only in particular cases the opposition stood united and resolute, and projects could not be enforced by the government. This was the case with the intended liberalization of the labor market, which was rejected by Congress and the trade unions. In 1990, Congress passed a labor law presented by Caldera instead of the government bill, which Naím criticized as a “relapse into the worst excesses of populism” (Naím, 1993c: 83). In Congress, the split between opponents and supporters of reform cut across the parties. The pro-reformers of the AD, the renovadores (renewers) were supported by a COPEI faction around Eduardo Fernández. Both faced criticism from COPEI founder Rafael Calderas, who became one of the figureheads for the anti-reform opposition. He was supported by like-minded COPEI deputies and the ortodoxos

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of the populist majority wing of the AD, who had already been against Pérez’s candidacy. This wing of the AD was also particularly pro-union, which mutually strengthened union and party opposition. The CTV took a clear stance against economic policies involving layoffs and loss of income. But the corporatist years of populism had left the unions “toothless,” with officials particularly subservient to the AD party leadership and with little support from their rank and file. Although FEDECAMARAS was basically in favor of a market-oriented reform policy, the increased competitive pressure and the sharp drop in domestic demand quickly led to criticism from individual sectors. These conflicts of interest within FEDECAMARAS made it difficult to take a clear political position. No actor from the opposition had presented a coherent and constructive alternative concept to the government’s policy. Moreover, under the impression of the anarchic popular uprising of February 27, 1989, which was not controlled by any political or social group, the political actors held back, probably also in order to not expose Venezuela to the danger of renewed anomic clashes. This weakness of civil society, which was unable to articulate important political interests, led large sections of the population, dissatisfied with government policies, to extend their discontent to all established political actors. The population expressed its continuing discontent in the direct elections of state governors and mayors of urban and rural municipalities, which took place for the first time in Venezuela’s history on December 3, 1989 (on the elections see Welsch & Werz, 1990: 111 et seqq.). The results of the elections were clear: the ruling party AD suffered a clear defeat, the abstention of 55% of the population eligible to vote at the national level, in the capital Caracas even of 70% of the eligible voters (despite an existing obligation to vote!) was understood as a clear protest, not only against the ruling party, but also against all the other political actors in general. Popular discontent was expressed (additionally to the protest vote) in a massive increase in strikes and demonstrations by teachers, hospital workers, university lecturers, students, farmers, pharmacists, police officers, mortgage debtors, public servants, and other sections of the population protesting the severe social and economic effects of the economic policies. In November 1991, a general strike was held by all trade union federations to denounce the cost of the reforms. Despite the opposition and the protests, the government continued to pursue its reform policy, encouraged by its emerging macroeconomic success. Venezuela was already regarded in international financial and economic circles as a successful example of a neoliberal reform policy conducted under democratic conditions. This assessment changed with a coup attempt on February 4, 1992 (for details on the coup attempt see Sonntag & Maingón, 1992). Groups of elite units of the Venezuelan army, led by mid-ranking officers, attempted to take control of the presidential palace as well as several military installations in Caracas and other cities in the country. President Pérez managed to escape and reached a private television station from where he contacted the commanders of the armed forces, the majority of whom were loyal, and was able to address the population, which had been unsettled by the fighting, in a televised speech. By the early hours of the morning, the coup

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attempt was under control; the popular support hoped for by the coup plotters had not materialized, not least because the forces behind the coup failed to bring television or radio stations under their control. Naím spoke of dilettante attempts: One group of insurgents tried to capture a private television station but found that it had moved its broadcasting operations three years earlier. Another group took over the public television station and demanded to broadcast a video addressing the population. The head of the station was able to convince the soldiers that this videotape was in an incompatible format and the transfer was so protracted that loyalist troops had long since taken control of the situation. Another example of almost ridiculous unprofessionalism is that Pérez managed to escape the coup plotters through a back door of the presidential palace. However, the government then made a momentous mistake: In order to persuade the remaining insurgents to surrender, the leader of the coup, Lieutenant Colonel Hugo Chávez Frías, was supposed to call for surrender in a prepared videotape. Instead, shortly before noon on February 4, he was allowed to talk live and nationwide on television. In his speech, he took full responsibility for the uprising, which he declared “unfortunately” a failure (adding “por ahora”—for now) but praised the “good work” of the other participants and called on them to lie down their arms to avoid further bloodshed. He concluded by saying, “New circumstances will arise. The country must finally move towards a better future.” (Reprint of the speech in the daily newspaper El Universal, 5 February 1992). Naím describes the impression the speech left on many Venezuelans as follows: A public figure who admits personal failure and praises the good work of others, who does not waver despite failure and defeat, who stands by his responsibilities and does not try to avoid the repercussions of his actions, was an unusual sight for television viewers who were used to the verbal and political evasions of traditional politicians. But more than anything else, this broadcast image conveyed the possibility of change, of an immediate break with the political and economic schemes that have always held out for the country’s problems. A new face, unconnected to the conventional power structures that had dominated political and economic life, offering to lead the nation back to the promised land of prosperity, equality, and honesty, was a product that, regardless of its packaging, had to be very attractive to the audience. (Naím, 1993b: 150)

The leaders of the insurgents were well-educated officers of the rank of lieutenant colonel (Chávez had started studying political science at the university) who had not concealed their dissatisfaction with the socio-economic and political conditions in Venezuela for some time and had even sought contact with left-wing guerrilla groups, such as the Bandera Roja or the Tercer Camino. They were also personally affected by the economic reforms, which had demanded sacrifices from the military. The standard of living of rank-and-file soldiers, non-commissioned officers, and junior officers of lower ranks had plummeted, and in many cases, they could barely afford rents and health care. By the end of 1991, the Congress had halved a proposal by the Ministry of Defense to improve welfare state benefits as compensation for military personnel (cf. Ewell, 1993: 124). The social explosion on February 27, 1989, which the military had to put down rather reluctantly, the ongoing unrest and demonstrations of the population in the following years, as well as the costs of the reform policy

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experienced first-hand, radicalized and politicized the officers of the Venezuelan military, which until then had been considered exemplary for Latin America in terms of professionalization and civilian control. The group around Chávez, which called itself Movimiento Bolivariano Revolucionario-200, invoked the ideals of the Venezuelan national hero Simón Bolívar to criticize the immense and unprosecuted corruption, the “sale of the fatherland” through the privatization policy and the government’s too lenient attitude in the border dispute with Colombia, the inefficiency of the civil service and, in general, the economic policies that left large numbers of Venezuelans in poverty, and called for the establishment of a civil-military government to renew democracy. These demands were met by the population with great sympathy. Chávez was glorified as a hero especially in the poor neighborhoods and among students. In addition to Chávez’s appearance on live television, there was another remarkable speech on February 4. In the afternoon, all television and radio stations in Venezuela broadcasted a session of the Congress in which all parties wanted to assure Pérez of their support and agree to the imposition of a state of emergency. The widely respected former President Caldera used the opportunity to express disapproval but also understanding for the coup plotters in a speech that would eventually make him the most popular Venezuelan next to Chávez. He also expressed harsh criticism of the government and especially of the economic policy, which he held responsible for the impoverishment of the population and ultimately for the coup attempt. The coup attempt and the speeches by Chávez and Caldera “electrified” the opposition. In the period from February to June, there were 451 demonstrations against Pérez, of which 199 were violent. Neighborhood committees organized civic strikes, which were joined by an entire district. On 10 March, two million Caraqueños voiced their protest by banging on cooking pots and pans and making noise (called Cacerolazo). On April 8, the event was repeated with whistles (called Pitazo). These protests were not organized by any political group and, like the Caracazo on February 27, 1989, were spontaneous expressions of popular protest not only against the government but also against all the established political actors. The parliamentary opposition strengthened its rejection of the government policy, vehemently demanding a revision of the economic policy course and the resignation of the president. It received support from trade unions, sections of the business community, and various sectors and groups of society that had suffered a deterioration of their economic situation as a result of the economic reforms: public servants, teachers, professors, students, professional associations, peasants, etc. The demand for the resignation of Pérez, who was held personally responsible not only for the economic losses but now also for the crisis of democracy, was the lowest common denominator of an opposition that agreed on this. Pérez responded to the attacks with cosmetic corrections to reform policies, several cabinet reshuffles, and a failed attempt to expand the political base of his government. Overall, Pérez showed a nervous vacillation between decretismo and attempts at pactismo to consolidate his government, but the strengthening of the opposition in the wake of the coup attempt had led to a deadlock in politics. The period of political unrest and instability continued with where many assassinations taking place

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alongside the sustained demonstrations. In response, the government intensified its repression. There was a rapid increase in crime, signs of social disintegration, to which the state reacted with increasing disregard for human rights. Overall, signs of anomia increased (see Waldmann, 2021). In this situation, Pérez emphasized his will to continue his term in office until its scheduled end and to stick to the reform program despite the attempted coup. On November 27, 1992, the military staged a second coup, again unsuccessfully (on the November coup attempt see Naím, 1993c: 108ff.). Air force units, commanded by generals and high-ranking officers, attacked the presidential palace and military installations in Caracas and Maracay, but were defeated within a day by troops loyal to the government. Some of the coup plotters fled to Peru, where they were granted asylum. The coup attempt, which according to official figures claimed 500 victims, was significantly different from the coup attempt in February. Information launched by the coup plotters from Peru points to a conspiracy between the generals and highranking figures from the church, universities, and political parties, including AD and COPEI. The aim of the uprising was to establish a civil-military government of “national unity” that would restore peace and order and lead the country back to the path of prosperity. In contrast to the February 4 uprising of junior middle-ranking officers with a clear nationalist-populist impetus, the November 27 uprising had a conservative character. With the coup attempts, the military established itself as a relevant political actor in Venezuela. However, the two rebellions also exposed the internal division of the military into a left-wing populist and a right-wing conservative wing, both critical of democracy, and a wing loyal to democracy. This division contributed significantly to the failure of both coup attempts. A few days after the second coup attempt, on December 6, 1992, regional and local elections were held. Although abstention fell slightly, it still remained very high at over 50%. The clear loser was the AD, which won the governorship in only five states; COPEI won twelve, MAS two. Among the winners was also the small left party LCR (La Causa Radical), which successfully defended the governor’s seat in the important industrial state of Bolívar, which it had surprisingly won three years earlier, and completely unexpectedly won the country’s most important mayoralty in Caracas. Over the years, the LCR had built strong ties with new independent trade unions in the industrial state of Bolívar. This syndicalist link, together with the grassroots democratic views of the democratic-socialist party, gave the LCR a great boost in sympathy (on the LCR, see López Maya, 1994). In the months that followed, the political climate continued to deteriorate—there were assassinations of opposition politicians, for which AD hardliners were blamed, severe student unrests that paralyzed schools and universities, prolonged strikes by teachers and justice workers, the opposition in Congress publicly booing Pérez during a speech—but Pérez continued to steadfastly refuse to comply with demands for his resignation from all sides, and emphasized his intention to remain in office until the coming presidential elections and the handover of office to his successor. The situation culminated in March 1993 when Venezuela’s Attorney General’s Office brought charges of embezzlement against Pérez. He was consequently

52 Table 5 Economic development of Venezuela 1992–1993

W. Muno and T. Kestler 1992 GDPa Private sectora

1993

7.3

−1.0

13.1

−2.1

Inflationa

31.9

46

Public sectorb

−6.1

−6.7

a Growth

in % % of GDP Sources Authors’ own compilation according to Dresdner Bank Latin America b In

suspended from office by Congress and Senate in May, despite vehemently insisting on his innocence. President Octavio Lepage took over until Congress, with AD and COPEI majorities, appointed the respected historian and Senator Ramón Velásquez as interim president in June. During six months in office, the interim government was confronted with the task of controlling political instability and solving economic problems at the same time. While the GDP had grown strongly again in 1992 (7.3%, the private sector by as much as 13.1%), inflation had remained high at 31.9%. The public sector had run a deficit of 6.1% of the GDP (see Table 5). By 1993, Venezuela had fallen into recession. Faced with rising inflation, a public deficit, and a decline in the GDP, the government was forced to act. Congress passed an enabling law in August 1993, the Ley Habilitante, which gave the government powers to implement rapid economic measures without consulting the legislature. With this law, the government was able to implement reform measures such as the introduction of a value-added tax, essentially following Pérez’s economic policy, while the parties in Congress, which had always opposed a value-added tax, did not take responsibility for these measures. The parties had been busy preparing the presidential election campaign since March (on the elections see Molina & Pérez, 1994; Welsch & Werz, 1990). AD and COPEI had their candidates selected in closed primaries, COPEI even held open primaries, open for the whole population. The AD’s nomination was won by Claudio Fermín, former mayor of Caracas, known as a moderate critic of neoliberal policies. He ran a restrained election campaign in which hardly any programmatic statements were made. COPEI sent the governor of the state of Zulia, Osvaldo Alvarez Paz, into the race. Paz, who was considered a candidate of the business community and accordingly had funds at his disposal, started out as a regional politician of integrity and reputation, but hardly won any sympathy among the population as a staunch supporter of neoliberal reform policies. Pérez-critic Rafael Caldera, who had presidential ambitions himself, was disappointed by the outcome of the COPEI primaries. He eventually ran as an independent candidate and rallied a colorful spectrum of small parties from the left (MAS) to the extreme right around him, forming an electoral alliance, called the Convergencia Nacional. COPEI then expelled the party founder from its ranks. Another candidate with chances was Andrés Velásquez of the LCR, governor of the Bolívar state, who

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appeared as an anti-establishment candidate and thus gained great sympathy. Caldera won the elections with 30.5% of the vote, ahead of Fermín, Paz, and Velásquez. Caldera’s victory was surprisingly clear. Velásquez and Fermín, the candidate of the party of the unpopular President Pérez, also achieved a respectable success, while Paz, who had been the favorite in early polls, did surprisingly poor. However, Caldera did not initially have a majority in parliament. The groups supporting him, Convergencia and MAS, won only 50 of 203 mandates and 11 of 50 senatorial seats. The fact that the old parties lost almost 50% of the votes in the presidential elections and almost 30% in the parliamentary elections led commentators to speak of the end of two-party hegemony in Venezuela (Molina & Pérez, 1994: 87f.; Welsch & Werz, 1994: 160). Polls showed that the motivation to vote was mainly to bring about change in economic policy and to punish the established political parties, especially AD and COPEI, as partly responsible for Venezuela’s misery. Caldera not only embodied this desire as a prominent reform critic and renegade COPEI member, but as an experienced politician he also met the need to hand over government power into proven hands, optimally embodying continuity and change at the same time. The Caldera government finally achieved the support of the AD and carried out the promised economic policy change, thus halting the further destabilization of the Venezuelan political system. Venezuelan political scientist Aníbal Romero assessed Caldera’s strategy as follows: Caldera’s anachronistic economic policies – aimed at re-establishing statism and populism – helped to stabilize politics for a while, as they met the wishes of the population and thus achieved the essential support of AD (...), MAS and Caldera’s own party, the Convergencia Nacional. Between 1994 and 1996, the president’s statist and populist policies (exchange rate, price and interest rate controls, protectionism, subsidies and a halt to privatization) worsened the country’s economic situation, but also helped to contain its political crisis. (Romero, 1996)

The deteriorating economic development forced Caldera to return to a reform policy based on the principles of market economy and to start negotiations with the IMF in April 1996 within the framework of the so-called Agenda Venezuela (Romero, 1997). This change of policy direction, contradictions, and inconsistencies in crisis management as well as crumbling political support led deeper and deeper into a political and socio-economic crisis. As opposed to the formerly stable twoparty system, the political situation in Venezuela since the beginning of the 1990s now had the characteristic feature of dissolution and instability of political parties, with high volatility in the vote shares (Levine & Crisp, 1999; McCoy, 1999).

7 The Rise of Hugo Chávez The Venezuelan population rejected the change in economic course just as much as the established parties and politicians who pursued the direction of policy reform.

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In the December 1998 elections, the former putschist Chávez, pardoned by Caldera, was able to exploit the persistent mood against the political establishment with his Movimiento Quinta Republica (MVR) electoral platform and achieved an absolute majority in the presidential elections with 56% of the vote. Chávez’s 13-party alliance, the Polo Patriótico, had already won the congressional elections a month earlier with 37% of the vote. Chávez’s central concerns were political reforms, which were to be achieved through a new constitution, as well as the fight against corruption, patronage, nepotism, and the severe socio-economic crisis, which had by the time of his election plunged about 80% of the population into poverty. Not only the impoverished population, but also the military supported Chávez. The former soldier enjoyed a boost of confidence among the troops: He appointed four former officers to the cabinet, appointed another coup leader as governor of the capital district and filled many administrative positions and commissions with military officers. Chávez’s style of government was defined by decretism. Like his predecessors Pérez and Caldera, Chávez demanded special powers from Congress, a ley habilitante, which allowed him to issue decrees with the force of law without the formal prescribed parliamentary procedure. Congress was initially reluctant to grant these powers to Chávez, who threatened to impose a state of emergency. Demonstrations by Chávez supporters in front of the parliamentary building, as well as the results of polls that gave Chávez a popular approval rating of 80% in this conflict, made the parliamentarians relent. Chávez fulfilled his most important electoral promise and by presidential decree on April 25, 1999, he initiated elections to a Constituent Assembly scheduled for July 25. His supporters won 121 of the 131 seats in the assembly, the traditional parties only 5. The Asamblea Nacional Constituyente (ANC) immediately tried to expand its powers and to reshape the Congress and the judiciary even before a new constitution came into force. A state of judicial emergency was declared, a judicial commission (Comisión de Emergencia Judicial) was set up to review and dismiss judges, and within two weeks, the Congress was gradually stripped of all its powers. In December 1999, the new Venezuelan constitution was adopted in a referendum with 71% approval. It extended the presidential mandate from five to six years and allowed for a one-time, immediate re-election. The Senate was abolished, thus reducing the Congress to one chamber, the National Assembly. The constitution, which was tailored to Chávez, considerably strengthened social and participatory rights, but also the president’s powers. The central bank, for example, lost its autonomy, which it had hitherto enjoyed under the constitution and was subordinated to the executive. A number of social concessions for the people were elevated to constitutional status, such as a right to social welfare and far-reaching protection against dismissal for blue- and white-collar workers, which critics regard as pure, unaffordable populism (on early developments under Chávez, see Bodemer & Nolte, 1999; Melcher, 1999). Chávez’s abundance of power, however, was not so much based on the constitution than on the fact that there was no longer any state body that was not controlled by his supporters. Before its own dissolution, the ANC decreed the dissolution of the

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Congress and the Supreme Court, and appointed a new court, the Tribunal Suprema de Justicia, a new Defensor del Pueblo (Ombudsman), Attorney General and the National Electoral Authority. The legislature was placed in the hands of a committee consisting of 11 ANC members and 10 ANC appointees until new elections would be held. Democratic backsliding in Venezuela had begun.

8 Democratic Backsliding Under Chávez and Maduro Scholars have recently started to conceptualize democratic regression or backsliding in more detail (Bermeo, 2016; Levitsky & Ziblatt, 2018; Svolik, 2018; Waldner & Lust, 2018, see especially for the following Muno & Briceño, 2021). Democratic backsliding does not necessarily lead to democratic breakdown. This may be the worst-case outcome. Backsliding may entail ‘only’ a more fine-grained deterioration of democratic quality (see also Lührmann & Lindberg, 2019). On the one hand, Venezuela is a typical case of democratic backsliding, where democracy eroded slowly and incrementally over time (for more detail, see Corrales, 2020a). On the other hand, Venezuela is special, because its democratic backsliding led to the breakdown of democracy. As Javier Corrales notes, “It is hard to find recent cases of democratic decline anywhere in the world that can match Venezuela’s fall” (Corrales, 2020b: 39). The multiple crises of the political-economic model in Venezuela as outlined here led to the rise of Hugo Chávez. After winning the elections, he implemented his ‘revolutionary’ agenda for Venezuela, starting with the institutional framework and the adoption of a new constitution (Corrales & Penfold, 2011; Ellner & Tinker-Salas, 2007). The ‘re-legitimization’ of the public powers continued with the so-called mega-election of 2000. On July 30, the President of the Republic, the members of the National Assembly, the governors of the States, the Mayors, and the Councils to legislative bodies were elected simultaneously. Six months later, Venezuelans went back to the polls to choose the members of the Municipal Councils and the Parish Councils. In both events, Chávez succeeded in imposing, to differing degrees, his electoral majority over an opposition that acted uncoordinated. This way, ironically, Chávez used the new Magna Carta to advance his control of the political system. He recentralized power and undermined institutional checks and balances by formally legal means. In 2004, Venezuela’s ranking in the Freedom House Index started to decline, and it has continued to decline ever since. By mobilizing the urban poor through a direct, charismatic style of leadership, Chávez in a certain way embodied the reemergence of “classical” Latin American populism. Ideologically, he remained rather vague and inconsistent, integrating a variety of ideological elements into what he referred to as “Socialism of the 21st Century.” The precise content of this term remained unclear: Chávez mixed Marxism, participatory democracy, populism, caudillismo, and even elements of liberation theology with a strong orientation toward Cuba and the Socialist one-party system of Castro. This included the ambition of controlling the complete state apparatus,

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from the judiciary, the education system, and electoral authorities to the public administration in general. A central element of the regime was the use of economic resources to legitimize its revolutionary political project. In order to do so, the regime needed to control the bureaucracy. During the governments of Hugo Chávez and the first three years of Nicolás Maduro, oil exports represented 49.8% of all Venezuelan real exports between 1958 and 2016. This involved the highest prices for oil in history in the first years of the Chávez presidency, resulting in the largest-ever oil boom in Venezuela. With the huge amount of money amassed from the oil revenues, the regime expanded public spending through various mechanisms, including public policies known as social missions. This expansion of public spending helped to reduce poverty from 48 to 27.5% between 1999 and 2007, which was intended to legitimize both the new regime and its undisputed leader. In 2006, Chávez was reelected by a landslide and, after the abolishment of term limits through a referendum, again in 2012, albeit with a smaller margin. The fate of the regime began to reverse with rising inflation and declining oil prices from 2010 onwards. In 2013, Hugo Chávez died of cancer. Despite the democratic backsliding and mounting economic troubles, he still enjoyed widespread support, especially among the poor, throughout his terms. His handpicked successor, Nicolás Maduro, vice-president and interim president after Chávez’ death, was elected on April 14, 2013, with only 50.66% of the votes, although the election was far from free and fair. Maduro made extensive use of his incumbency status to harass the opposition and to manipulate the electoral process. Maduro’s narrow victory in the presidential elections of 2013 showed the electoral weakness of the new government. At first, the government focused on consolidating its power base by enhancing the use of force and legal means against the opposition and dissidence within its own ranks. The armed forces were further built up and positions of command were filled with loyalists. The official party, the PSUV, was subjected to internal purges and turned into a more cohesive tool of mobilization and control. In the December 2015 parliamentary elections, for the first time since 1999, the opposition received a clear majority with 56% of the vote share, thereby achieving control of the National Assembly. To counter this, Maduro used the governmentcontrolled Supreme Court to deprive the legislative body of its powers. In 2016, the regime successfully obstructed the opposition’s attempt to organize a recallreferendum against Maduro. In May 2017, the government called for the election of a National Constituent Assembly, with the aim of building a parallel legislative power loyal to the regime. The first act of the National Constituent Assembly was the dismissal of the National General Attorney, a former ally of Chávez and critic of Maduro’s actions. This move allowed the regime to extend its control over all public powers. Chavismo-Madurismo also systematically subverted the electoral process with the help of the Supreme Court of Justice and the National Electoral Council (CNE). The main strategies applied for distorting electoral competition were the political disabling of the most popular leaders, the illegalization of the most important opposition political parties, the manipulation of the vote through changes and

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redistribution of the electorate in polling stations, the annulment of the elections of the Deputies of the state of Amazonas, and the development of a clientelistic control mechanism based on the issuance of the so-called Carnet de la Patria, which had been introduced to administer the distribution of food and medicine and was used to coerce voters (Salmerón & Salmerón, 2019). The deterioration of the electoral conditions was combined with the harassment, persecution, and dismantling of the opposition (see Briceño & Bautista de Alemán, 2019; Corrales, 2020a). These tactics proved effective for consolidating the regime’s grip on power (Rosales & Jiménez, 2021). The regional and local elections of 2017 marked a comeback for the government. As opposition supporters were repelled from voting by unfair conditions while government supporters could be mobilized through clientelistic ties, the government did surprisingly well and gained 18 of 23 governorships. Bolstered by this success, Maduro called for early presidential elections in 2018. In the face of persistent manipulations and lacking guarantees for electoral transparency, the opposition alliance decided to boycott the election. It refused to recognize the result after Maduro’s fabricated victory. In a bold move, it invoked Article 233 of the constitution, which states that “when the president-elect is absolutely absent before taking office, a new election shall take place (…) And while the president is elected and takes office, the interim president shall be the president of the National Assembly.” On that legal basis, the opposition established an interim government led by Juan Guaidó who happened to be the president of the National Assembly at that moment (Boersner, 2020). However, the opposition failed to muster sufficient popular support and to coordinate the heterogeneous groups and parties in its own ranks. After strong initial momentum and despite international support, the interim government lost ground and disintegrated while Maduro’s position strengthened. Through another rigged election, the government regained control of the National Assembly in 2020. At the same time, it reached some level of economic stabilization through a range of liberalizing reforms which allowed for the de facto dollarization of the economy. Thus, Maduro’s model of a Chavismo sin Chávez finally imposed itself, despite an economic disaster and dismal public support. After 2013, it took Maduro several years to adapt to the loss of the charismatic leader and declining oil prices. Under his leadership, the economy contracted by roughly 80 percent, the oil sector was brought to its knees and inflation reached levels hardly seen in world history. The country was excluded from international institutions and subject to severe economic sanctions. In spite of this, the authoritarian regime managed to consolidate its position successively through a mix of repression, clientelism, the division of the opposition and selective relaxations of state control over the economy. Moreover, it made efforts to keep the personalist myth of Chávez alive and to establish the cult of the defunct leader as a kind of civil religion (Kestler & Latouche, 2022). At the same time, continuing expansion of control over the public and institutional powers of the state, persecution and dismantling of the opposition, and the increase in repression and social controls systematically undermined democracy and continued the process of democratic backsliding, which had started shortly after Chávez’s rise to power. More recently, the elimination of the elected National Assembly marks a turning point toward an authoritarian regime. Freedom House ratings support this

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categorization: Political and civil rights deteriorated slowly but steadily, and, since 2017, Venezuela is rated as “Not Free” (FH, 2022). Nine years after Chávez’ death, the final remnants of democratic institutions are demolished, and critical observers claim that Venezuela has turned into a failed state taken hostage by a criminal gang (Chaplin, 2013; Myers, 2017; Rendon, 2018). However, the picture is more complex. Chavismo-Madurismo exploited the crisis of the 1990s and the democratic deficits of puntofijismo to dismantle the existing institutional order and to establish a hegemonic regime. By now, institutional checks and balances have been completely undermined, and a change of power through elections seems very unlikely. Yet, elections are still held, and recently, in November 2021, in regional and local elections, despite massive manipulations, the opposition could win several mandates (Briceño, 2021). Hence, a categorization of Venezuela as an electoral authoritarian regime would be possible (see on this concept Schedler, 2006). To summarize: The election of Hugo Chávez to power in 1998 marked a turning point in Venezuelan history. After a period of reforms, which failed to put the country’s democratic and economic model on a new foundation, Chávez took office with the promise of a break with the past and a new beginning. However, his ‘Bolivarian Revolution’ more and more turned into a populist-authoritarian regime and Venezuelan democracy entered a path of continuous decline, leading to the final breakdown of democracy and the establishment of an electoral autocracy, based on three pillars: (i) the manipulation of constitutional norms, (ii) the populist (mis)-use of elections, and (iii) the use of oil revenues as a source of political legitimacy.

9 Conclusions Venezuelan democracy emerged after the failure of both, a populist regime dominated by one party during the Trienio and a technocratic military regime. It was based on an elite consensus between the major parties and corporatist organizations, which earned it the label of a ‘pacted democracy.’ This pact started to crumble in the 1980s and it finally broke down in the course of the 1990s, laying the ground for the rise of Hugo Chávez, who in certain ways turned the clock back to the populist era and substituted the ‘feckless pluralism’ of the preceding decades by a hegemonic and increasingly authoritarian model (Myers & McCoy, 2003). We may call it ‘electoral authoritarianism’ (Schedler, 2006), but democratic backsliding made democracy in Venezuela fade away. It seems that the once vaunted Venezuelan democracy was a fair-weather democracy nourished by the oil rent, which worked as long as enough populist crumbs fell for the population. Venezuela was outstandingly stable and relatively democratic compared to regional experiences. Oil wealth contributed to Venezuela achieving for some time the highest per capita income compared to other Latin American countries. However, corruption and mismanagement by the elites led the country into a profound socio-economic and political crisis. Venezuela’s liberal but elitist democracy lost the support of the population, which is now extremely critical of

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liberal democracy and its institutions and instead seeks a way out of the misery in the promises of salvation by new caudillos.

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Levitsky, S., & Ziblatt, D. (2018). How democracies die. Crown. Lombardi, J. (1985). Venezuela. La búsqueda del orden. El sueño del progreso. Critica. Lopez Maya, M. (1994). Venezuela: l’émergence d’un nouveau parti, la Causa R. Problèmes d’Amérique latine, 12: 3–26. Lührmann, A., & Lindberg, S. (2019). A third wave of autocratization is here: What is new about it? Democratization, 26(7), 1095–1113. Maihold, G. (1988). 30 Jahre Demokratie in Venezuela - ein Modell für Lateinamerika? In R. Sevilla (Ed.), Venezuela. Kultur- und Entwicklungsprobleme eines OPEC-Landes in Südamerika (pp. 75–93). Inst. für Wiss. Zusammenarbeit. McCoy, J. (1999). Chávez and the end of ‘partyarchy’ in Venezuela. Journal of Democracy, 10(3), 64–77. Melcher, D. (1999). Venezuela: eine friedliche Revolution. Lateinamerika Analysen und Berichte 23: 212–223. Molina, J., & Pérez, C. (1994). Le Venezuela: les élections de 1993. Vers un nouveau système des partis? Problème d’Amérique latine, 15, 87–102. Muno, W. (2005). Öl und Demokratie – Venezuela im 20. Jahrhundert. In O. Diehl & W. Muno (Eds.), Venezuela unter Chávez – Aufbruch oder Niedergang? (pp. 11–34). Vervuert. Muno, W., & Briceño, H. (2021). Venezuela: Sidelining public administration under a revolutionarypopulist regime. In M. W. Bauer et al. (Eds.), Democratic backsliding and public administration: How populists in government transform state bureaucracies (pp. 200–220). Cambridge University Press. Myers, D. J. (2017). Venezuela: Political decay amid the struggle for regime legitimacy. In H. F. Kline, C. J. Wade, & H. J. Wiarda (Eds.), Latin American politics and development (pp. 217–244). Westview Press. Myers, D. J., & McCoy, J. L. (2003). Venezuela in the gray zone: From feckless pluralism to dominant power system. Politeia, 30, 41–74. Naím, M. (1993a). The launching of radical policy changes, 1989–1991. In J. Tulchin (Ed.), Venezuela in the wake of radical reform (pp. 39–94). Lynne Rienner. Naím, M. (1993b). The political management of radical economic change: Lessons from the Venezuelan experience. In J. Tulchin (Ed.), Venezuela in the wake of radical reform (pp. 147–178). Lynne Rienner. Naím, M. (1993c). Paper tigers and minotaurs: The politics of Venezuela’s economic reforms. The Carnegie Endowment. Pacto de Punto Fijo. (1988). Síntesis, 5, 462–465. Pérez Alfonso, J. P. (1976). Hundiendonos en el excremento del diablo. Editorial Lisbona. Rendon, M. (2018). Maduro’s Mafia State. https://www.csis.org/analysis/maduros-mafia-state [last access 31 October 2018]. Rey, J. C. (1989). El futuro de la democracia en Venezuela. Universidad Central de Venezuela. Romero, A. (1996). Venezuela: Democracy hangs on. Journal of Democracy, 7(4), 30–42. Romero, A. (1997). Rearranging the deck chairs on the Titanic: The agony of democracy in Venezuela. Latin American Research Review, 32(1), 7–36. Rosales, A., & Jiménez, M. (2021). Venezuela: Autocratic consolidation and splintered economic liberalization. Revista De Ciencia Política (Santiago). Advance online publication. https://doi. org/10.4067/S0718-090X2021005000113 Salmerón, M., & Salmerón, C. (2019). ¿Por qué Nicolás Maduro sigue en el poder pese al colapso de Venezuela? Notes Internacionals. https://www.cidob.org/es/content/download/72131/ 2265645/version/6/file/NOTES%20211_MELISSA%20SALMER%C3%93N%20%26%20C ARLOS%20SALMER%C3%93N_CAST.pdf [last access 1 April 2022]. Schedler, A. (2006). The logic of electoral authoritarianism. In A. Schedler (Ed.), Electoral authoritarianism. The dynamics of unfree competition (pp. 1–23). Lynne Rienner. Sonntag, H. (1988). Estado y desarrollo sociopolítico en Venezuela. Síntesis, 5, 97–142. Sonntag, H. R., & Maingón, T. (1992). Venezuela: 4-F 1992. Un análisis sociopolítico. Nueva Sociedad.

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Svolik, M. (2018). When polarization trumps civic virtue: Partisan conflict and the subversion of democracy, incumbents. https://ssrn.com/abstract=3243470 [last access 22 June 2020]. Thibaut, B. (1992). Die Auswirkungen der Weltwirtschaftskrise von 1929 auf die politischen Systeme Costa Ricas und Venezuelas. In W. Reinhard & P. Waldmann (Eds.), Nord und Süd in Amerika. Gemeinsamkeiten-Gegensätze-Europäischer Hintergrund (pp. 901–917). Rombach. Waldmann, P. (2021). El Estado anómico. Derecho, seguridad pública y vida cotidiana en América Latina. Vervuert. Waldner, D., & Lust, E. (2018). Unwelcome change: Coming to terms with democratic backsliding. Annual Review of Political Science, 21, 93–118. Welsch, F., & Werz, N. (1990). Venezuela. Wahlen und Politik zum Ausgang der 80er Jahre. ArnoldBergstraesser-Institut. Welsch, F., & Werz, N. (1994): Venezuela: The elections of December 1993 and the beginning of Caldera’s second term. Lateinamerika. Analysen-Daten-Dokumentation, 11(25/26), 155–165. Werz, N. (1983). Parteien, Staat und Entwicklung in Venezuela. Weltforum-Verlag. Werz, N. (1989). Die „Lateinamerikanisierung“ Venezuelas. Jahrbuch Dritte Welt, 1990, 240–256.

Wolfgang Muno is Chair of Comparative Politics, Institute of Political and Administrative Sciences at the University of Rostock, Germany. Thomas Kestler is Scientific Associate at the Department of Comparative Politics at the Institute of Political Science and Sociology of the Julius-Maximilians-University of Würzburg.

Domestic Dimensions of The Crisis: Actors, Parties and Problems

Multiple Crises of the Venezuelan Party System Héctor Briceño

Crises are situations that cannot last, in which something must be decided. They emerge when the status quo is unsustainable, but at the same time nothing has yet replaced it. (Przeworski, 2019)

1 Introduction A crisis is defined as a period of instability, of change between two institutionalized systems, which implies that no crisis can be limitless. However, when talking about the crisis of the Venezuelan party system, there is a tendency to associate the crisis of the late 1980s and 1990s with the current crisis, when in fact they are two different crises. The crisis of the democratic period ended in 1998 with the arrival of Chavismo and the building of, not only a new party system, but also a different political system, an authoritarian regime that replaced the flawed democracy that emerged in 1958. This article argues that the party system crisis experienced in Venezuela between 1998 and 2022 is different from the one experienced at the end of the past century. The crisis of the Venezuelan Party System during the democratic era (1958–1998) was an internal party crisis (which does not imply the absence of external variables), while the current crisis is determined by variables external to them. It is a crisis intentionally induced by the Chavista government through an authoritarian institutional design intended to prevent the institutionalization of a party system and thus inhibit an effective political representation. Political science traditionally analyzes party systems based on the assumption of the existence of a democratic political system (Sartori, 1976), or, failing that, of a hybrid system (Bogaards, 2009; Diamond, 2002), which tolerates minimal levels H. Briceño (B) Department of Comparative Politics, University of Rostock, Rostock, Germany e-mail: [email protected] © The Author(s), under exclusive license to Springer Nature Switzerland AG 2023 M. A. Latouche et al. (eds.), Venezuela – Dimensions of the Crisis, Contributions to Political Science, https://doi.org/10.1007/978-3-031-21889-7_5

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of competition and electoral uncertainty. However, during the period analyzed here, 1998 and 2019, Venezuela is neither a democracy, nor a hybrid regime, nor an authoritarian regime. It is a political system in full transition, undergoing a process of autocratization (Lührmann & Lindberg, 2019), crossing at least two borders (Briceño & de Alemán 2017). The arrival of Chavismo in 1998 implied the beginning of the progressive dismantlement of the Venezuelan democracy. The election of a constituent national assembly that designed a new constitution and with it, different rules, allowed the new elite to take absolute control of all public branches, and thus gradually dismantled the democratic political system (Briceño & de Alemán 2017; Corrales & Penfold, 2015). In this strategy, the democratic procedure par excellence, elections, and its main protagonists, the political parties, have played a central role in the autocratization process (Naím & Toro, 2016). Elections, in addition to legitimizing the transformation of the political system, thanks to the popularity of the leader of the revolution (Briceño & Hurtado, 2021), encouraged a growing political and social polarization through an intense electoral cycle that concentrated more than twenty elections within a span of 16 years, between 1999 and 2015 (Briceño, 2021). During the first 16 years of Chavismo, the incessant political electoral competition submerged the society in a continuous electoral campaign, in which every election was presented as a plebiscite that polarized the population into two irreconcilable blocs (McCoy et al., 2018). Elections, the competition between parties and candidates, the polarization produced by electoral campaigns, together with the continuous modification of electoral rules, institutionalized electoral advantage, and the biased role of electoral authorities (Corrales, 2020), have been deliberately used to turn them into tools of the destruction of democracy. In Fig. 1, the columns depict, based on data from the electoral democracy index of the V-Dem project,1 the democratic backsliding experience in Venezuela, while the line shows the rising levels of political polarization, defined as “the extent to which political differences affect social relationships beyond political discussions. Societies are highly polarized if supporters of opposing political camps are reluctant to engage in friendly interactions, for example, in family functions, civic associations, their free time activities and workplaces” (Coppedge et al., 2022: 227). Political polarization was a practice established immediately after the arrival of Chavismo, which has deepened during the entire period since then. Hugo Chavez’s discourse, the continuous use of the media, the intense electoral contest, and the progressive co-optation of State institutions built a destructive cycle that reproduces itself, in which the dismantling of democracy stimulates (and allows) polarization, and polarization stimulates the dismantling of democracy. At the epicenter of this dynamic is the party system. Party systems are defined as the structures and patterns of interaction between political parties produced by electoral competition. As Sartori puts it: “Parties make for a ‘system’, (…) only when they are parts (in the plural); (…) party system is precisely the system of interactions resulting from inter-party competition,” therefore, 1

See https://www.v-dem.net.

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67

0.90

0

0.80

0.5

0.70 0.60

1 1.5

0.50 2 0.40 0.30 0.20

2.5 3

0.10

3.5

0.00

4

Fig. 1 Polarization and democracy indices, 1989–2019 (Note Electoral democracy index Scale, left axis: 1–0.8: full democracies [dark blue]; 0.79–0.6: flawed democracies [light blue]; 0.59–0.40 hybrid regimes [green]; 0.39–0: authoritarianisms [red]. Political polarization Scale, right axis: 0: no polarization; 4: maximum polarization. Source Varieties of democracy, author’s calculation)

the concept of System is meaningless “unless (i) the system displays properties that do not belong to a separate consideration of its component elements and (ii) the system results from, and consists of, the patterned interactions of its component parts, thereby implying that such interactions provide the boundaries, or at least the boundedness, of the system” (Sartori, 1976). An institutionalized party system implies the existence of a “stable” set of parties that build recurrent patterns of interaction over time. Secondly, it implies that the support obtained by the main parties between consecutive elections is relatively stable, or, in other words, that electoral volatility is low, proof of a solid identification and trust of voters toward the parties that transcends personal leaderships. Finally, it implies that the relationship between parties and voters is solid (Mainwaring, 2018: 23–24) and built on the basis of programs and ideologies than over clientelistic relationships. The central role of party systems is to ensure representation. Political representation is the activity of making citizens’ voices, opinions, and perspectives “present” in the public policy-making processes. That means making people who are absent, present, or in Pitkin’s (1967) words make present again. “Political representation occurs when political actors speak, advocate, symbolize, and act on behalf of others in the political arena” (Dovi, 2018). Thus, political representation implies: 1. Some party that is representing—the Party, the representative, an organization, movement, etc. 2. Some party that is being represented—voters, the constituents, etc. 3. Something that is being represented—opinions, perspectives, interests, discourses, etc.; and, finally, 4. A setting within which the activity of representation is taking place—the political context, Assembly, Parliament, etc. (ibid.).

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Party systems are primarily responsible for fulfilling the representative function through electoral competition by offering voters a political space with ideologically differentiated alternatives (Downs, 1957; Stokes, 1963). Voters perceive the ideological positions of the different parties, identifying with those whose ideology is felt to be closest to their own, in a process defined as spatial modeling of party systems (Dalton & Anderson, 2011). This process requires political parties to establish a clear ideological differentiation between them allowing voters to use ideology as a navigation system to guide their electoral choices (ibid.). Therefore, ideologically differentiated multiparty systems tend to generate a better political representation process. However, this is not a linear relationship. Polarization hinders political representation when the competition is concentrated in two antagonistic extreme parties, abandoning non-polarized voters. Moreover, when political polarization is extreme, it tends to exceed the limits of the party system affecting the political regime itself and its institutions. Thus, party systems efficiently operate between two polarization frontiers: neither too little, since it makes ideological differences imperceptible to voters, nor extreme, which overflows the party system and undermines or delegitimizes political institutions. In order to clearly distinguish the ideological diversity of the political options, its existence is not enough, it is also crucial that it be clearly perceived by voters (Pharr & Putnam, 2000), which demands certain conditions: minimum political and civil liberties that allow the exercise of political opposition, as well as economic and communicational resources, etc. for “participation and opposition” (Dahl, 1989).

2 Chavismo: Hindering Representation The central hypothesis of this paper states that the political strategies implemented by Chavismo since its arrival to power in 1998 have been aimed at hindering the consolidation of a party system by obstructing the relationship between opposition parties and voters, as well as opposition parties’ coordination, through manipulating the political participation and opposition conditions. They have also encouraged extreme polarization to prevent voters from perceiving the political diversity of the opposition parties. The electoral rules designed by Chavismo have forced the opposition to build political alliances that feed political polarization with the government while preventing the development of political identities of each party and an efficient political representation. But Chavismo not only polarized political parties but also extended the political conflict to those institutions that structure the party system, especially the Electoral Management Body. This has generated distrust not only toward the parties but also toward the democratic system itself, stimulating a process that could be defined as induced democratic disaffection.

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We have identified 9 mechanisms implemented by Chavismo in order to prevent parties and party systems consolidation.

2.1 Incentivizing an Anti-party Culture Since its arrival, Chavismo has stimulated an anti-party culture, aimed at delegitimizing political parties.2 Before coming to power, it used the Fifth Republic Movement (MVR) as an electoral political platform, an organization that coordinated the political action of the diversity of groups that initially supported Chavismo. Once in power, it stimulated the creation of a great diversity of alternative political coordination organizations. Bolivarian Circles, cooperatives, communal councils, among many others, became spaces of political articulation that progressively replaced political parties. Simultaneously, the official discourse was always oriented toward the delegitimization of the parties, identifying them as corrupt organizations at the service of the interests of the elites. During the process of drafting the new Constitution, the anti-party culture reached its peak, when the words “political parties” were removed and replaced by the concept of “organizations with political purposes.”

2.2 Removing Public Funds for Political Parties The anti-political culture also crystallized in the Constitution as a prohibition of funding for political parties. Article 67 of the new Constitution strictly forbid the financing of “associations with political purposes with funds coming from the State.” Additionally, the government maintained a constant persecution of the private sector, trying to prevent them from funding the political activity of the opposition parties.

2.3 Control Over the Electoral Management Body Since the arrival of Chavismo to power, the Venezuelan Electoral Management Body, the National Electoral Council (CNE), faced high political interference with the purpose of controlling the electoral system. In 1999, through the decree of the “Transition Regime of Public Power,”3 the National Constituent Assembly unilaterally selected new authorities of the agency, violating the legal regulations, and appointing a board of directors loyal to the government. Since then, CNE authorities have been renewed a dozen times, almost all of them by irregular means, not complying with the procedures established in legal regulations (Constitution and 2 3

The anti-partisan political culture long precedes Chavismo, however, it finds its peak in it. Decreto del Régimen de Transición del Poder Público.

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Organic Law of the Electoral Power), which grant the National Assembly the power to appoint authorities. Only on two occasions the due process was complied with, in 2006 and 2021, years in which the National Assembly was under total control of Chavismo, after the electoral boycott of the opposition in the parliamentary elections of 2005 and 2020 respectively. In all other instances, the government of Hugo Chávez, as well as that of Nicolás Maduro, used the judicial power to impose boards of directors with a clear pro-government majority, thus controlling all transcendental electoral decisions.

2.4 Manipulating Electoral Rules The manipulation of electoral norms has also been a constant since the arrival of Chavismo to the government. In 1999, Hugo Chavez proposed the “Electoral bases for the election of the National Constituent Assembly,”4 a regulation that represented a turn in the electoral system, that eliminated the traditional proportional system for collegiate bodies, substituting it with a majority system which guaranteed him to obtain 95% of the seats with 62% of the votes. From then on, the constant transformation of the regulations allowed Chavismo to maximize electoral support in each election (Briceño, 2013).

2.5 Banning and Party Intervention Through the Supreme Court of Justice (TSJ),5 Chavismo has interfered political parties, both opposition and Chavismo former allies, removing their authorities and replacing them with others loyal to the government. Between 2012 and 2015, such judicial decisions affected six political parties. Two of them opposition (Copei and Bandera Roja—BR) and the other four allies or former allies of Chavismo (Podemos, Patria Para Todos—PPT; Movimiento de Integridad Electoral—MIN UNIDAD and Movimiento Electoral del Pueblo—MEP). Through the TSJ and the CNE, the government in 2017 imposed a process of renewal of membership roles of political parties that had not participated in the 2015 parliamentary elections and of those that participated but failed to reach more than 1% of the votes. The procedure, based on the Law on Political Parties, Public Meetings, and Demonstrations,6 was aimed at punishing and hindering relations between opposition parties that had decided to unite forces under the single identity of the political alliance Mesa de la Unidad Democrática (MUD) since the 2013 presidential election and subsequently in the 2015 parliamentary election. The renewal 4

Bases comiciales para la elección de la Asamblea Nacional Constituyente. Tribunal Supremo de Justicia (TSJ). 6 Ley de Partidos Políticos, Reuniones Públicas y Manifestaciones. 5

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71

process imposed implied that the voters gave their support, signature, fingerprint, and personal data at points arranged throughout the country by the CNE. After two cycles (2017 and 2018), several of the most important opposition parties,7 including the opposition coordination alliance MUD (the most voted organization in the history of the country), failed to renew, losing the possibility of participating in successive electoral processes (Colina, 2018).

2.6 Disqualification of Candidates Disqualifications are administrative processes opened by the Office of the Comptroller General8 which prevent individuals from exercising their political rights to run as candidates to public elected positions, because of the opening of an administrative investigation process, a practice in open contradiction with the Constitution, which states that political rights can only be restricted by a “firm judicial sentence” (art. 42) issued by a court. However, between the years 2002 and 2015, the Comptroller’s Office has prevented the nomination of more than 1,400 candidates through disqualifications.9 In the following years, the disqualifications not only increased, but also diversified, to include leaders of opposition political parties as well as dissident parties (former allies of Chavismo). In the regional elections of the year 2021, the winning opposition candidate for the governorship of the state of Barinas was disqualified after winning, thus preventing him from taking office, forcing a repetition of the election.10

2.7 Bribery of Candidates With the purpose of hindering and obstructing political coordination among opposition parties, Chavismo has developed on several occasions a process of division and co-optation of opposition leaders, encouraging them to break internal agreements and expose their differences. In 2019 a group of opposition deputies were expelled from their parties under the accusation of having been bribed by the government. These leaders would later promote a new opposition platform, the Democratic Alliance, which would act as a less radical opposition space vis-à-vis the government. In fact, since its creation, it has participated in all electoral processes and criticized the 7

The political parties: Democratic Action (AD), Independent Generation (GENTE), New Vision for my Country (NUVIPA), A New Time (UNT), Pro-Citizens (PROCIUDADANOS), and Red Flag (BR) were eliminated after 2018. 8 Contraloría General de la República (CGR). 9 https://accesoalajusticia.org/13-anos-de-inhabillitaciones-politicas-en-una-imagen/. 10 https://www.elnacional.com/venezuela/afirma-que-freddy-superlano-esta-inhabilitado-tsj-ord ena-suspender-totalizacion-y-proclamacion-de-gobernador-en-barinas/.

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electoral boycott of the more traditional opposition. It has also participated in the negotiation processes convened by the government of Nicolás Maduro.

2.8 Distrust Among Opponents The most important consequence of the purchase and co-optation of opposition leaders is the increase of distrust among opponents, who have withdrawn or reduced to their minimum core, fearful of being betrayed by their allies in the party or party alliance, under an authoritarian environment. Mistrust among opposition leaders prevents the parties from generating the necessary agreements to expand networks of relationships and popular support to confront the authoritarian regime, forcing them to act in an uncoordinated manner.

2.9 Harassment of Opposition Leaders, Party Militants, and Sympathizers Finally, the government has used all State institutions to persecute, intimidate, force into exile, and in extreme cases, torture and assassinate opposition leaders, militants, and sympathizers, aiming to generate fear and inhibit opposition political participation and organization. According to the NGO Foro Penal Venezolano at least “15,045 people were detained for political reasons between January 2014 and May 2019” while the 2019 Report of the Office of the United Nations High Commissioner for Human Rights (OHCHR) on the situation of human rights in Venezuela documented 135 cases of political prisoners, most of whom were subjected “to one or more forms of torture or cruel, inhuman or degrading treatment or punishment, such as the application of electric current, suffocation with plastic bags, simulated drowning, beatings, sexual violence, deprivation of water and food, forced postures and exposure to extreme temperatures” (OHCHR, 2019: 10). Through these strategies, Chavismo has managed to prevent the consolidation of opposition political parties and relations between parties and society, deepening distrust, and political disaffection, dividing the opposition leadership, dispersing its followers, and finally limiting coordinated action among them. Therefore, the party system remains atomized and diffused, unable to fulfill its representative function. As a consequence, the diversity of the Venezuelan political party system is not perceived by voters. Figure 2 illustrates the average distribution of political parties on the left–right ideological scale on economic issues. The dots reflect the responses of the survey of experts conducted by the V-Dem Party project, while the arrows reflect the responses of the deputies of the National Assembly, for the period 2016– 2021, collected by the project Élites Parlamentarias Latinoamericanas (PELA) of the University of Salamanca.

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Fig. 2 Political ideology of Venezuelan parties 1998–2016 (Note Ideological political scale: 0: Extreme left; 10: Extreme right. V-Dem Party, political parties that obtain 5% or more of the votes in parliamentary elections. Source V-Dem, party, and PELA, author’s calculations)

The graph shows the existence of a wide ideological political diversity, ranging from the center-right to the extreme left, both from the political self-definition of the deputies to the National Assembly, as well as from the opinion of experts. On the other hand, the graph also shows the political ideological consistency of the various Chavista parties (PSUV, MVR, PPT, and Podemos until 2007), all of them located in the most radical left positions (0–3). Meanwhile, opposition parties tend to concentrate toward the center, both left and right, although it has progressively added new left allies, parties that have broken with the Chavista United Socialist Party of Venezuela (PSUV), such as Podemos and much earlier the Movimiento al Socialismo (MAS). The analysis confirms the political polarization between the two clearly defined blocs, even so it is not reduced to a left–right polarization, but rather between a radical left and a diversity of center parties. The analysis also raises the question of how voters perceive the diversity of Venezuelan political parties’ identities, especially among those self-defined as opposition sympathizers. To answer this, a statistical analysis of the ideological distance between the alliance and its voters has been carried out. Proposed by Dalton (2011), the spatial theory of voting analysis is oriented to prove that political support is oriented by the contrast between the perceptions of the political ideology of the different parties and that of a voter. To run this analysis, data from the 2016 LAPOP survey has been used, specifically the question on ideological self-definition on the left–right scale, and a question that asks the people surveyed to place the two major parties, PSUV and the MUD alliance on the same left–right scale. The results of the ideological distance are compared and grouped according to the political sympathy of the respondents in three categories: Chavista, Opposition, and Non-aligned, and shown in Table 1. According to the results, Chavistas are ideologically very close to the PSUV party (mean = −0.3397). The distance coherence between party definition and sympathizers’ self-definition is most probably related to the hegemonic role played by the

74 Table 1 Ideological distance, central tendency measures, 2016

H. Briceño

Chavismo

Opposition

Non-aligned

PSUV

MUD

Mean

−0.3397

–

Variance

9.745

–

Stand. Deviation

3.1216

–

Skewness

−0.049

–

N

209

–

Mean

–

−0.7713

Variance

–

9.672

Stand. Deviation

–

3.1099

Skewness

–

−0.107

N

–

647

Mean

1.0761

−0.5649

Variance

15.11

14.31

Stand. Deviation

3.8875

3.7829

Skewness

−0.156

0.161

N

289

285

Note The questions used by the study are: (1) On this card we have a scale from 1 to 10 going from left to right, where 1 means left and 10 means right. Nowadays when talking about political tendencies, many people talk about those who sympathize more with the left or with the right. According to the meaning that the terms “left” and “right” have for you when you think about your political point of view, where would you place yourself on this scale? (2) Using this same scale, where would you place the United Socialist Party of Venezuela (PSUV)? (3) And where would you place the Mesa de Unidad Democrática (MUD)? Source LAPOP 2016, author’s calculations

governing party PSUV11 within the Chavista alliance. However, the negative sign of the coefficient of asymmetry (−0.049) implies that Chavista sympathizers place the party leftmost from their own position. Opposition sympathizers present a much more dispersed distribution, with the mean of ideological distances double that of Chavistas (mean = −0.7713), as a consequence of ideological diversity of parties within the MUD alliance, as well as the absence of a hegemonic party. Likewise, the asymmetry coefficient reveals that opposition sympathizers located themselves on the further right of the parties they identify with. Both phenomena are effects of the heterogeneity of the parties that make up the alliance, which under democratic conditions probably would not establish alliance relations. The most interesting results, however, come from the Non-aligned voters’ analysis. They present a very different distribution model, far from Chavismo (mean 11

The PSUV concentrates more than 85% of the votes of the alliance consistently since its foundation (Briceño, 2013, 2017).

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75

Chavismo = 1.0761), they are much closer to the opposition alliance MUD, even closer than that of the MUD sympathizers themselves (mean MUD = −0.5649), despite a greater dispersion indicator (that stands for the heterogeneity of the group) and a positive skewness that places them to the left of the average of the MUD. So, Non-aligned voters, despite being close to the opposition parties, do not identify with them. But why, despite sharing ideology with the opposition parties, they cannot represent them politically? To answer this question, a comparative analysis of the trust levels in political parties among the three political identities (Chavistas, Opposition, and Non-aligned) has been carried out, based on LAPOP 2016 data. This time the specific question to be answered is: Why do supporters of the different groups trust or distrust political parties? Table 2 shows the results of the regression analysis, with trust in political parties as the dependent variable, and six dimensions of independent variables: 1. Voting and Electoral Institution (Trust in Elections, Trust in the CNE), 2. Country Economic perception, 3. Political system (satisfaction with democracy, democratic commitment, political system), 4. Political and social polarization (social conflict, political polarization), 5. Political fear (fear of Chavismo, fear of the opposition), 6. Ideology (ideological distance, ideological self-definition). The most important finding from the analysis of the results summarized in Table 2 is that the only dimension that has an effect over the entire spectrum of political identities in Venezuela is the confidence in “Voting and in the Electoral Institution.” Confidence in elections as a democratic mechanism of political change increases the legitimacy of the protagonists of elections: the political parties. Conversely, the loss of confidence in elections produces a parallel loss of legitimacy of all parties. The strategy of delegitimizing the elections through the control of the Electoral Management Body produces a general effect on the whole political system which undermines the legitimacy of all parties, including the ruling party PSUV. This shows that it is a strategy with overly broad effects that does not discriminate between Chavista supporters and non-supporters, unlike the rest of the other strategies, between political identities. The variable with the greatest explanatory capacity among Chavistas, after confidence in the elections, is satisfaction with democracy. Those who are satisfied with the functioning of the democratic system reward those who make it possible: leaders and parties. Therefore, it is vital for the government that the elections are presented as a mechanism for political change through which voters have the opportunity to influence decisions and the direction of the country. This variable, however, is not decisive among the opposition or among the Non-aligned, who, dissatisfied with the political system, do not consider it a democratic regime (see Table 3 at the appendix). On the other hand, the variables with the greatest explanatory power among the Opposition are fear of Chavismo and polarization. This suggests that the sympathizers

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Table 2 Ordinal regression analysis, trust in political parties Dependent variable

Chavismo

Confidence in parties

Estimate

Opposition Wald

Estimate

Non-aligned Wald

Estimate

Wald

Trust in elections

0.512*

16.377 0.321*

58.929 0.303*

17.442

Confidence in CNE

0.089

0.678

0.013

0.073

0.066

0.856

Satisfaction with democracy

0.363**

3.486

−0.079

0.554

−0.074

0.267

−0.004

Democratic commitment

0.008

0.009

0.114

9.763

Political system

0.198

4.752

0.244

20.875 0.350*

23.552

0.003

Fear of Chavismo

0.042

0.249

−0.170*

26.531 −0.179*

9.197

4.844

Fear of the opposition

−0.098** 2.777

0.119*

−0.018

0.076

Political polarization

0.126

2.334

−0.116** 4.483

0.076

1.209

Social conflict

0.111

0.326

−0.045

0.236

2.507 0.216

Country economic assessment −0.048

0.159

1.354

8.673

−0.159

Ideological distance

−0.123** 3.258

−0.084

2.471

−0.174** 2.857

Left

−0.611

−0.927*

9.678

−1.538*

0.053 1.816

10.257

2

−0.427

0.341

−1.100*

3.966

−2.250** 3.270

3

0.047

0.007

−0.075

0.041

−0.934

2.498

4

−0.259

0.116

−0.412

1.138

−0.768

2.282

5

−0.494

1.057

−0.880*

15.672 −0.916*

5.383

6

−0.480

0.350

−0.495

1.775

−0.951*

3.993

7

−0.273

0.210

−0.155

0.295

−0.290

0.244

8

0.773

1.368

0.003

0

−0.280

0.264

9

−0.841

1.484

0.152

0.236

−0.945

1.351

Right

0a

–

0a

–

0a

–

Nagelkerke

0.325

0.253

0.341

Notes (1) **Significant at < 0.01; * Significant at < 0.005 (2) Definition of variables (see methodological annex) Source LAPOP 2016, author’s calculations

of the Opposition see the parties as a mechanism of protection, as well as struggle against a non-democratic political system. Fear of Chavismo leads voters to seek refuge in parties as organizations that defend democracy, but also their individual rights. Likewise, the perception of the level of political polarization contributes to increased trust in the parties. Opposition parties better represent those voters who perceive political polarization as extreme, while those who do not see political conflict in terms of polarization, trust parties less. Also, this outcome is consistent with the results of the ideology variable analysis. Opposition’s sympathizers who define themselves as center in the left–right ideological spectrum (“5” in Table 2) are, together with those on the extreme left (“Left” in Table 2), those who have the least confidence in the Opposition parties (hence, the result is negative, Left = −0.927; center 5 = −0.880).

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Ideology has a special significance among the opposition, especially those who consider themselves left or center. These coefficients are negative, indicating that part of these voters only vote for the opposition alliance as a consequence of polarization, although they do not feel identified with, nor can they trust these parties. Finally, the Non-aligned group has a very similar behavior to the opposition group in terms of distrust toward those ideologically aligned with the left and the center, but among them the effects are deeper (encompassing the two extreme left groups 1 and 2; and the two center groups 5 and 6) and stronger (higher coefficients). The distinctive character of this group is, however, that, although fear of Chavismo increases trust in the opposition parties, the Non-aligned have a dual position toward the political system of support and rejection. What these results show is that the Nonaligned group is a very heterogeneous group, which clearly escapes the polarized system of representation that has hegemonized the Venezuelan political party system.

3 Conclusions The Venezuelan Party System is ideologically diverse. The political parties extend along the left–right political spectrum. However, diversity is not perceived by voters, especially by those who escape the poles of the government-opposition political conflict. This is one of the main sources of the crisis of representation of the party system. However, the causes of the current crisis of the Venezuelan Party System are not intrinsic to the party system, but rather external. It is a case of political disaffection intentionally designed and promoted by the government with the aim of preventing and hindering the political representation that characterizes democratic systems. The main strategy used by the Chavista government is the extension of polarization to the institutions, especially to the Electoral Management Body (CNE). However, this strategy also affects the electoral bases of Chavismo itself. Therefore, it is complemented through mechanisms to generate distrust directed exclusively to the opposition sympathizers and especially to the groups that escape the polarization, the Non-aligned. Through these mechanisms, the Chavista government has managed to prevent the generation of relations of trust among opposition political parties, as well as between them and the voters, prolonging and deepening the political disaffection and the coordination among all the sectors that oppose the Chavista government.

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Table 3 Democratic scale, 2016 Scale

Chavismo

Opposition

Non-aligned

Total ()

Not democratic

8.0%

65.9%

38.7%

47.0%

Intermediate

13.3%

18.4%

34.3%

22.7%

Fully democratic

78.9%

15.7%

27.1%

30.4%

Mean

7.80

3.80

5.10

4.90

Standard deviation

2.21

2.55

2.70

2.92

N

203

586

385

1.174

Note The question asked by the survey is the following: “On a scale of 1–10, we ask you to evaluate how democratic Venezuela is. A “1” means that “Venezuela is not democratic” and a “10” means that “Venezuela is totally democratic” Where would you put Venezuela? The answers have been regrouped as follows: 1–4 = Not democratic; 5 and 6 = Intermediate; and, 7–10 = Fully democratic Source Latinobarómetro, author’s calculations

Appendix Methodological Annex Definition of variables. Regression analysis (Table 2). Dependent variable: 1. Trust in Parties: On this card, there is a ladder with steps numbered 1–7, where 1 is the lowest step and means NOT AT ALL and 7 the highest and means A LOT. For example, if I asked you to what extent do you like watching television, if you don’t like watching it at all, you would choose a score of 1, and if, in contrast, you like watching television a lot, you would indicate the number 7 to me. If your opinion is between not at all and a lot, you would choose an intermediate score. So, to what extent do you like watching television? Read me the number. So, to what extent do you trust the political parties? Independent variables: 1. Trust in elections: On this card, there is a ladder with steps numbered 1–7, where 1 is the lowest step and means NOT AT ALL and 7 the highest and means A LOT. For example, if I asked you to what extent do you like watching television, if you don’t like watching it at all, you would choose a score of 1, and if, in contrast, you like watching television a lot, you would indicate the number 7 to me. If your opinion is between not at all and a lot, you would choose an intermediate score. So, to what extent do you like watching television? Read me the number. So, to what extent do you trust elections in this country? 2. Trust in the CNE: using the previous scale, to what extent do you trust the National Electoral Council—Consejo Nacional Electoral (CNE)? 3. Satisfaction with democracy: In general, would you say that you are very satisfied, satisfied, dissatisfied, or very dissatisfied with the way democracy works in Venezuela?

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(1) Very satisfied (2) Satisfied (3) Dissatisfied (4) Very dissatisfied (4) Very dissatisfied. 4. Democratic Commitment: Now we will use a ladder where 1 means “strongly disagree” and 7 means “strongly agree.” A number in between 1 and 7 represents an intermediate score. I am going to read you some statements. Please tell me to what extent you agree or disagree with the following statement: Democracy may have problems, but it is better than any other form of government. To what extent do you agree or disagree with this statement? 5. Political System: On this card, there is a ladder with steps numbered 1–7, where 1 is the lowest step and means NOT AT ALL and 7 the highest and means A LOT. For example, if I asked you to what extent do you like watching television, if you don’t like watching it at all, you would choose a score of 1, and if, in contrast, you like watching television a lot, you would indicate the number 7 to me. If your opinion is between not at all and a lot, you would choose an intermediate score. I am going to ask you a series of questions, and I am going to ask you to use the numbers provided in the ladder to answer. Remember that you can use any number. To what extent do you think that one should support the political system of Venezuela? Probe: If you think that the courts should not support the political system, choose number 1; if you think that the political system should be supported a lot, choose number 7 [or choose a score in between]. 6. Fear of Chavismo: To what extent do you consider that Chavismo’s Policy threat the well-being of the country? (1) A lot (2) Somewhat (3) A little (4) Not at all. 7. Fear of the opposition: To what extent do you consider that the policy of the opposition threaten the well-being of the country? (1) A lot (2) Somewhat (3) A little (4) Not at all. 8. Political polarization: Nowadays, there is a lot of talk about Venezuelans being divided. In your opinion, how much political division is there among Venezuelans today? Give me a number on the scale where 1 is that there is no political division among Venezuelans at all, and 7 is that there is a lot of political division. 9. Social conflict: Do you think that the current level of social and political conflict in Venezuela is very low, low, neither low nor high, high or very High? (1) Very low (2) Low (3) Neither low nor high (4) High (5) Very high. 10. Country economic assessment (Sociotropic): Do you think that the country’s current economic situation is better than, the same as, or worse than it was 12 months ago? (1) Better (2) The same (3) Worse. 11. Ideological distance: ideological self-definition vs. ideological definition of the parties (definition: see Table 1). 12. Left–right scale: Changing the subject, on this card there is a 1–10 scale that goes from left to right. The number one means left and 10 means right. Nowadays, when we speak of political leanings, we talk of those on the left and those on the right. In other words, some people sympathize more with the left and others with the right. According to the meaning that the terms “left” and “right” have for you,

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and thinking of your own political leanings, where would you place yourself on this scale? Tell me the number.

References Bogaards, M. (2009). How to classify hybrid regimes? Defective democracy and electoral authoritarianism. Democratization, 16, 399–423. Briceño, H. (2013, enero–junio). Reformas electorales y sus efectos en el sistema político venezolano 1999–2010. Politeia, 36(50), 129–169. https://www.redalyc.org/articulo.oa?id=170035 853006 Briceño, H. (2017). Sistema de partidos venezolano: polarización y crisis de representación. In D. Urbaneja (coordinador), Desarmado el modelo. Las transformaciones del sistema político venezolano desde 1999. Konrad Adenauer Stiftung. Briceño, H. (2021, enero–junio). Del ensayo al error. La trayectoria del derecho electoral venezolano entre 1958 y 2009. Revista Mexicana de Estudios Electorales, 5(25). (Primer Semestre 2021) Briceño, H., & de Alemán, P. B. (2017). Venezuela 2018: The prospects for regime change (Draft). Universidad de Rostock. Briceño, H., & Hurtado, H. (2021). Venezuela 1999–2020: de la democracia al autoritarismo, dos transiciones. In Y. Murakami & E. Peruzzotti (Eds.), América Latina en la encrucijada: coyunturas cíclicas y cambios politicos (pp. 155–198). Universidad Veracruzana. Colina, G. (2018). El nuevo ecosistema de partidos políticos en Venezuela (Informe Electoral Nro. 7). Observatorio Global Comunicación y Democracia, Venezuela. https://www.observademoc racia.org/wp-content/uploads/2018/09/InformeEspecialOGCD-PartidosPoliticosVenezuelaSept iembre2018-1.pdf Coppedge, M., John, G., Knutsen, C. H., Lindberg, S. I., Teorell, J., Altman, D., Bernhard, M., Cornell, A., Fish, M. S., Gastaldi, L., Gjerløw, H., Glynn, A., Grahn, S., Hicken, A., Kinzelbach, K., Marquardt, K. L., McMann, K., Mechkova, V., Paxton, P., Pemstein, D., von Römer, J., Seim, B., Sigman, R., Skaaning, S.-E., Staton, J., Tzelgov, E., Uberti, U., Wang, Y.-t., Wig, T., & Ziblatt, D. (2022). V-Dem codebook v12. Varieties of Democracy (V-Dem) Project. Corrales, J. (2020, January–June). Democratic backsliding through electoral irregularities: The case of Venezuela. Revista Europea de Estudios Latinoamericanos y del Caribe (109), 41–65. Corrales, J., & Penfold, M. (2015). Dragon in the tropics: Hugo Chavez and the political economy of revolution in Venezuela. Brookings Institution Press. Dahl, R. (1989). Democracy and its critics. Yale University Press. Dalton, R. (2011). Left–right orientations, context, and voting choices. In R. Dalton & C. Anderson (Eds.), Citizens, context, and choice: How context shapes citizens’ electoral choices (pp. 3–32). Oxford University Press. Dalton, R., & Anderson, C. (2011). Citizens, context, and choice: How context shapes citizens’ electoral choices. Oxford University Press. Diamond, L. (2002). Thinking about hybrid regimes. Journal of Democracy, 13, 21–35. Dovi, S. (2018). Political representation. In The Stanford encyclopedia of philosophy (E. N. Zalta, Ed.). https://plato.stanford.edu/archives/fall2018/entries/political-representation/ Down, A. (1957). An economic theory of democracy. Harper. Lührmann, A., & Lindberg, S. I. (2019). A third wave of autocratization is here: What is new about it? Democratization, 26, 1095–1113. Mainwaring, S. (Ed.). (2018). Party system institutionalization, decay, and collapse. Cambridge University Press. McCoy, J., Rahman, T., & Somer, M. (2018). Polarization and the global crisis of democracy: Common patterns, dynamics, and pernicious consequences for democratic polities. American Behavioral Scientist, 62, 16–42.

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Naciones Unidas. (2019). Informe de la Alta Comisionada de las Naciones Unidas para los Derechos Humanos sobre la situación de los derechos humanos en la República Bolivariana de Venezuela. https://www.ohchr.org/SP/NewsEvents/Pages/DisplayNews.aspx?NewsID=24788&LangID=S Naím, M., & Toro, F. (2016). Venezuela: los progresistas del mundo no pueden seguir callados. El País. https://elpais.com/internacional/2016/07/09/actualidad/1468099480_304349.html, consultado el 09 February 2021. Pharr, S., & Putnam, R. (Eds.). (2000). Disaffected democracies: What’s troubling the trilateral countries? Princeton University Press. Pitkin, H. F. (1967). The concept of representation. University of California. Przeworski, A. (2019). Crises of democracy. Cambridge University Press. Sartori, G. (1976). Parties and party systems: A framework for analysis. Rowman & Littlefield International. Edición de Kindle. Stokes, D. (1963). Spatial models of party competition. American Political Science Review, 57(2), 368–377. https://doi.org/10.2307/1952828

Héctor Briceño is Guest Researcher at the Department of Comparative Politics of the University of Rostock, Germany.

Discretionality and Disarticulation in the Venezuelan Public Administration Julia Alcibiades

1 Epistemological Assumptions, Theoretical Justifications, and Methodological Guide Public administration in Venezuela is a topic generally investigated from the perspective of law, political economy, or democratic development. My work in this chapter approaches the topic from a broader political-administrative perspective. Consequently, it is important to justify it. The debates and theoretical developments in social sciences have emphasized the argumentative angle of the presentation of ideas through the explicit exposition of the assumptions that have guided the investigations and reasoning to produce knowledge that aspires to be relevant; otherwise, the production of knowledge is discretionary and lacks justification. Thus, I will outline the essential elements of the epistemologies that have guided this work (from where to seek), to lay the foundations of the assumptions that have oriented my reflections. In the next step, I will summarize the theoretical components that allow to have what to say. Finally, I will articulate a pertinent methodology for this work.

1.1 Epistemological Framework Habermas has rescued the critical reflection that transcends the methodological emphasis proposing a turn back to epistemology, since he comprehends science as a form of possible knowledge. Thus, to achieve a genuine epistemology, it is important to break down the identity between positive science and knowledge: Science is not the only way to relevant knowledge (Habermas, 1968: 90). This critical epistemology J. Alcibiades (B) Political Science, Universidad Central de Venezuela, Caracas, Venezuela e-mail: [email protected] © The Author(s), under exclusive license to Springer Nature Switzerland AG 2023 M. A. Latouche et al. (eds.), Venezuela – Dimensions of the Crisis, Contributions to Political Science, https://doi.org/10.1007/978-3-031-21889-7_6

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emphasizes an emancipatory interest for the constitution of social, as distinguished from a practical or technical knowledge. The emancipatory interest is akin to democratic demands, the technical interest is instrumental, and the practical one is biased without a normative foundation. Likewise, Habermas has emphasized a discursive ethic to ground the exercise of a deliberative democracy that legitimizes agreements in fair conditions through an argumentation under real conditions of plurality and symmetry (Habermas, 1981: I 16–23, 43–49). Apel (1999) argues that a valid and upright dialogue, practical in character, responds to a dialogical ethics, which is necessary under conflicts, following the “basic norm” of rational argumentation seeking a consensus that takes into account not only the present interest but also the future consequences and impacts. To accept that human affairs, more than rational understanding, need the comprehension of knowledge, emotions and values lead, at least, to delve into the theoretical contributions of Weber (1922), Husserl (1907), and Hermeneutics as propounded by Heidegger (1927) and Gadamer (1975). Why? Because all of them aim to comprehend human reality, not merely classify it, by an empirical process that, starting from induction, abstract categories that make a complex reality intelligible. Weber contrasts verstehen to understanding for overcoming the objectification of human experience proposed by empiricism: The epistemological key in social sciences is to start from the concrete interpretations that the actors give to their experiences. The comprehensive task of the researcher is to give intelligibility to what the actors perceive, and the way they configure their schemes of justification and action, through the ‘ideal types’: the interpretation of genuine social demands and needs requires a genuine effort of comprehension that transcends mere ideological practice. Husserl wants to find the intelligibility of human life. This requires “bracketing” what is grasped by natural or empirical consciousness. It is a task of reflection in order to arrive “at the things themselves” starting from the spatio-temporal subjectivity of consciousness itself. The essential characteristic of consciousness is its intentionality, constituted by sense and meaning, the elucidation of which is the task of the phenomenological method: The phenomenological description reveals the assumptions of any actor and thus the hidden nature of a social-political reality. Sartre (1943: 561–638) calls “situation” the inseparability that arises between consciousness and circumstances: Each one interprets the totality of his world and is an integral part of it. The essential condition of consciousness is the freedom to be, to have and to do, the three projects through which the human condition is in situation (Sartre, 1943: 638–690). Intelligibility arises from pondering the distinction between intention and results of acts that express a given existential project (Sartre, 1964). The notion of project comes from Heidegger (1927) to denote the essential condition of human existence always projected toward the future and unveiled through a hermeneutic exercise. This ontological dimension reveals the original way of being

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of human life itself: founding the present through the understanding of havingbeen and projecting oneself with an ontological sense of possibilities and responsibilities; recognizing the “historicity” of human life, a fundamental hermeneutical principle (Gadamer, 1975: 331). Historicity reveals a particular way of being (social-cultural-political). The History of Ideas, an epistemology that emerged from Cambridge University, has also emphasized the importance of understanding the origin and development of a socio-political language. When a research is historical, it interrogates past ideas. This requires not imposing later thoughts on the reading, in order to reveal how the ideas of an epoch are adopted and interpreted by specific actors in that historical period (Pocock, 2001). The History of Ideas assumes a chronological understanding of time, while Hermeneutics aims at comprehensive turning points: a given human reality or situation as a whole can be seen from a given issue, i.e., a fractal apprehension. The political justification of assuming historicity with future projection is akin to the essential nature of Politics as evidenced by Aristotle (Rhetoric I, 3, 1358 b): Politics deals with the constitution of the future while law approaches the past and communication focuses on the present. The non-discretionary interpretation of human affairs from a certain shared experience additionally requires the question about why. Weber’s and Husserl’s emphasis is guided by the question of what, left aside by the methodological bias of empiricism, which is based on the question of how to prove the validity of the data by some quantitative value. The question of what reveals the need to return to Epistemology, but the question of why places the emphasis on the ontological-constitutive perspective. Why is this last perspective so important? Because it makes it possible to rescue the unfolding of historical consciousness, from which it is possible to reveal the fundamental assumptions of the shared existence of a certain nation/society. The ‘having-been’ of the Venezuelan nation is evident in the public culture that gives intelligibility to the political-administrative experience. The epistemologies that coexist in the contemporary arena have guided this work with the following ideas: a. All human existence occurs through the unfolding of a set of assumptions regarding the world, man and temporality that are expressed in the socio-political culture (but does not exhaust it, there is always the ‘light’ and the ‘dark’ in every human situation). b. All of us patent our having-been, all of us are actors. Therefore, it is necessary to consider all people, not only the political elites. In this sense, it is key to consider the reflections of our contemporaries of the nineteenth and twentieth centuries, left aside by a selective historicism that emphasizes the patriotic history from the military glory. The rescue of civic reflection is essential to understand the constitutive contours of solutions more akin to our public culture. c. Every act and decision occur in a situation (there is no such thing as ‘reality out there’) which is a source of determinations or possibilities depending on the actor’s election. The reflective exercise is key to raising the awareness

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of those who share some public ‘space.’ Two great edges appear under the political-administrative reflection in a situation: the transitive and the reflexive. Understanding the limit between the two is always an indetermination. d. Administration constitutes the ratio cognoscendi of the ratio essendi, which is Politics (Rosales 1984) because the sense and meaning of both is the constitution of a social-temporal locus (Barnard, 1938: xxxi, 6, 21). The emancipatory administration as component of the government is an idea found in Republicanism but it constituted some thoughts about politics and administration since the nineteenth century (Toro 1839–1858, Acosta 1846–1868) as well as in Fayol (De Fridman, 2020) and Barnard (Alcibiades, 2015). It assumes the principle of government as opposed to the one of management, i.e., cooperation and impartial direction and control following public criteria instead of hierarchy and technical-instrumental or practical execution and control. e. Politics and administration, under this approach, are the elevated expression of the constitutive intelligence, directed toward the intimate articulation of thinking and doing that distinguishes them from other social sciences. Government is the expression of constitutive acting to generate public goods in conditions of realizability; an emphasis on action, not merely on the present understanding, considering a horizon of future temporality (sustainability) with respect to a legitimate political order thought from plurality, the acceptance of conflicts and their dialogic-ethical overcoming.

1.2 Theoretical Corpus 1.2.1

Contemporary Institutionalism

Buchanan (1985) has argued that the discretionary power of politicians expands the scope of public activities, which distorts the original mandate given in the electoral act. The solution is to incorporate into the constitution restrictions on the discretionary power of the rulers that allow the functioning of politics closer to the expectations of the citizens. The criterion of public finances allows guiding consensual decisions regarding the sustainable development of the nation. Consensus, not conflict, reduces economic transaction costs. North (1990) has elaborated the most succinct approach to regulatory issues, when he defines institutions as the rules of the game of a society. They can be formal (such as those contained in the Constitution) or informal, those emanating from the culture. The role of institutions is to generate trust, or to reduce uncertainty, guided by the criteria of economic development in order to choose the best ways to promote national strengths by creating sustainable opportunities, not mere growth. The absence of trust is a measure of institutional weakness. Sen (1999, 2009) has emphasized that economy requires two conditions: an explicit institutional framework and ethics in behavior to base agreements on equitable conditions of exchange. The system of institutionalized rules must establish

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the guarantee of instrumental individual freedoms (those contained in the constitutional texts) and substantive freedoms (each person has the right to choose his or her life plan). The exercise of freedom must not generate inequality. The guiding criterion is the expansion of the substantive freedoms of individuals and the best procedure is called Social Choice: to evaluate the different public sectors, to assume a reform process that replaces the areas of social inequalities with strong institutional frameworks, which diminish the conditions that generate poverty and famine. Rawls (1971, 1991) conceives institutions as a set of rules derived from an impartial social contract aimed at choosing guiding principles to orient the choice of the regulatory framework in the search for social equity. The method proposed by Rawls, Political Constructivism, allows the parties that would choose the principles of justice to conceive an equitable and sustainable society. What would be the content of such an impartial regulatory framework? Not only the ‘basic structure of society’ expressing principles of fairness, as Rawls affirms, but also the political-administrative structure capable of generating public goods under equitable conditions, the political and administrative processes and relations to be established, the roles of the relevant actors and the realizable political execution. Rationality (means-ends relationship) and reasonableness (to be governed by some idea of Good) are both necessary in a well-ordered society. Thus, we would place on the horizon the correct way to reach consensus: focusing on a public problem, leaving behind self-interested positions. Once the legitimate political-ethical framework is agreed upon, it is when the moment of Law is imposed: conception of the constitution and the legal framework for the nation. Venezuela was conceived as a republic in the generation of liberators and interpreted, in successive “political programs” (Urbaneja, 1994) from the first (individual) and second (social) generation liberalism; then from positivism and, from the twentieth century onwards, from social democracy and Chavismo. From the second half of the twentieth century, the aspiration has been the constitution of a democratic republic (Castro Leiva, 1998). The republican-democratic aspiration is central in this document to reflect about the changes that have occurred and argue about the guidelines for the future.

1.2.2

Behavioral Economics

Behavioral Economics, developed by—among others—cognitivist psychologists Amos Tversky and Daniel Kahneman, as well as by economists such as Richard Thaler, starts from the notion of ‘bounded rationality’ coined by Herbert Simon and have led to the awarding of the Nobel Prize in Economics to Simon in 1978, Kahneman in 2002 (Tversky died in 1996) and Thaler in 2017, who has conceived the way to formulate public policies taking into account the results of all those studies. Simon (1997) reasons as follows: Human behavior is finalistic and rational: the former means that “it is guided by general goals or objectives,” the latter expresses that “it selects alternatives that lead to the achievement of previously selected objectives.” Human rationality is not perfect because it depends on our knowledge and habits;

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consequently, socio-political action always needs to be executed by more or less organized teams. The limits of rationality can be expanded through changes inherent in its three components. The solution to expand the scope of rationality, according to Simon, is to focus on management behavior by designing organizations that provide the control framework for efficient decision-making. Studies by cognitivist psychologists have focused on decision-making in contexts of risk and uncertainty, i.e., those similar to public and coexistence spaces. The key idea they have tested is the following: we make decisions based on intuitive and cognitive biases. Biases are the foundation of our behavior and heuristics (the integrative perspective) allow us to synthesize our biased view of the world. The heuristics identified by Tversky and Kahneman in 1974 are three: (1) Representativeness by which we use social stereotypes to make judgments. (2) “Availability of instances or scenarios which is often employed… to assess the frequency of a class or the plausibility of a particular development.” (3) Adjustment and Anchoring, people’s estimation “by starting from an initial value that is adjusted to yield the final answer” (Tversky & Kahneman, 1974: 1131). What do these studies teach us? That we need to question our intuitive responses, the way we think, the theories we adopt, and the way we understand others and the world around us. Understanding a public culture requires to comprehend the assumptions, heuristics, and behavioral biases to make the constitution and maintenance of an institutional framework feasible. Kahneman distinguishes experience and intuitive reasoning, both of which are commanded by rapid thinking, from the slow thinking which is correlative to deliberation (the one to produce relevant knowledge). Thaler and Sunstein (2011) have demonstrated that a nudge requires to consider others’ psychological well-being, thus communication needs to provide kind reinforcement and indirect approach to enhance better decisions in a given situation. Even though these authors insist that it is a difference between ‘enhancing’ and ‘banning,’ there is some ethical critique on this practical method that takes into consideration four elements: (1) make it easy, (2) make it attractive, (3) make it social, and (4) make it timely.

1.3 Methodological Approach The following steps, which correspond to Sects. 2, 3, and 4 of this document, permit to demonstrate the characteristics of the Venezuelan public sector: 1. Analysis of the legal framework, the public administrative structure in Venezuela (the look from the power), and its functioning. 2. Description of experiences in the public sector and what they mean regarding the public culture (the view of all intervening actors that reveal the constitutive edges of the Venezuelan culture). 3. Political-administrative reflections as guiding ideas to configure a feasible agenda for institutional change.

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2 Legal Frame, Administrative Structure, and Political-administrative Meaning 2.1 Legal Structure and Functioning The Organic Law of Public Administration or ‘LOAP,’ as it is referred to in the Venezuelan public arena, has gone through three different formulations in 2001, 2008, and 2014. They respond and point to a set of political-administrative assumptions: the first version was discussed and approved by the legislative power, which is its competence according to the 1999 Bolivarian Constitution (1999 BC) articles 202– 203. The other two versions have emanated from the Presidency under the activation of an “Enabling Act” (1999 BC, art. 203) to Chávez (2000, 2007, and 2010), thus the changes of the laws have been labeled as “Decree-Act.”1 Allan Brewer-Carías (2009) has identified several main changes of the law of 2008 in relation to that of 2001 summarized as follows: 1. The conception of a third public entity, “misiones” which, endowed with a budget, lacks the organizational structure of the “organs and entities,” the two categories of public organization identified by the LOAP of 2001 and 2008. 2. To conceive the structure of the public sector (central, states, and municipalities) following “the guidelines of centralized planning” (arts. 15, 18, 23, 32, 44, 48, 60, 77, 84, 91, 99, 119, 121, 131), under the direction of the President of the Republic (art. 46) and the coordination of the Executive Vice President (arts. 3, 49). 3. To distinguish the “Central Level of the National Public Administration (art. 44)” from “the Central Planning Commission (arts. 44, 57)” in charge of coordinating and controlling the “centralized planning.” 4. Incorporation of the “regional authorities” (arts. 44, 70) as a part of the “Central Level of the National Public Administration.” 5. Elimination of autonomous entities now called “deconcentrated,” i.e., dependent on the orders of the “central government” (arts. 44, 70). 6. Reduction of the scope of citizen participation to in the “organized communities” (including the Communal Councils) (arts. 84.10, 138, 139, 140), as well as limitation of the “access to public information (art. 7.1).” The latter is a violation of 1999 BC articles 51 (right to individual demands on any public official position) and 62 (“participation in the formation, execution and control of public performance”). The principal change in the LOAP 2014, which holds the “misiones,” as well as the centralized planning and control, is the addition of the figures of the Sectorial Vicepresidencies that, under the direct control of the President and Executive Vice President can assume: “functional, administrative and budgetary supervision and

1

There have been also two Enabling Acts granted to Nicolás Maduro in 2013 and 2015.

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control of the ministries of the people’s power, in order to guarantee and protect the interests of the State at its different levels of government.” Sánchez Falcón (2017: 80–82) has pointed out the lack of autonomy and control over the municipalities and States by the figure “Regional Authorities” legalized in article 70: “The President of the Republic may designate regional authorities, whose function will be the planning, execution, monitoring and control of the policies, plans and projects of territorial planning and development approved in accordance with centralized planning….” From the specifications containing in the description of the article, there is not a clear line between the responsibilities of each position, which establishes the capacity of intervention by the “regional authority” in the actions and performance of any ‘local authority’ for the sake of “centralized planning,” i.e., a personalized administrative practice instead of one preserving the internal organizational inclusive practice. The functioning of public administration can be analyzed by the appointments to the positions of the Executive power.2 The data regarding those appointments has been divided into three periods, the first two under Chávez and the last under Maduro: (a) 1999–2006 in which the title was “Minister of…,” (b) since 2006 when the title of “Minister of the Popular Power for…” was officially adopted (c) since 2013 under the Maduro regime. The Executive Vice President, as well as the Ministers, are appointed by the President according to the Bolivarian Constitution of 1999, article 236, n. 3. The Office of the Executive Vice President is the only one that has not been changed in its name throughout the period 1999–2022; there have been 12 persons in that position. The numbers of changes show a bias that the administrative theory has proven wrong since the seminal work of Frederick Taylor (1911: 7): “What we are looking for, however, is the ready-made, competent man. It is only when we fully realize that our duty, as well as our opportunity, lies in systematically cooperating to train and to make this competent man… then we shall be on the road to national efficiency”.

Chavismo has not developed such a philosophy yet. Tables 5 and 6 (see Appendix) show the change from “Ministry of” to “Ministry of the Popular Power for” that has been maintained until today. The new name expresses that the object of the action is the ‘popular power’ instead of the national sector to attend to. The summary of the changes (for details see appendix: Tables 5–7) is shown below (Table 1): The three changes of the LOAP may suggest that law has been used as a “political resource” (Rose 1984: 123–160) not only to control public administration and citizenship, but it also points to a different way to understand the role of the state and the government. The rate of changes of ministries has increased under Maduro’s regime showing the intensity of the searching for ‘the right person,’ a tendency that 2

Even though Maduro was in charge of the Venezuelan Presidency during March 6–April 19, 2013, he was appointed as the head of the Executive power by Chavez during his final public television appeareance on December 8, 2012. Thus, there have been the following periods: (1) HCh, 1999– 2000; (2) HCh, 2000–2006; (3) HCh, 2007–2012; (4) NM, 2013–2019; and (5) NM, since January 10, 2019.

Discretionality and Disarticulation in the Venezuelan Public … Table 1 Summary of changes in Ministries and Ministerial Positions during the period 1999–2002

91

Ministers

Ministeries

272

110

Ministers in charge less than Ministers in charge over a year a year 44

228

Ministers with more than a charge in a year

Ministers interchanged

42

86

Ministers reinstalled after a year

Ministers with both Presidents

37

61

Ministers only Chávez

Ministers only Maduro

112 (in 14 years)

101 (in 9 years)

probably will increase in the context of complexity and uncertainty both global and national.

2.2 Some Political-economic Analysis and Its Implications Besides the legal perspective, some examples of the political-economic analysis are expressed by Arturo Sosa (2008), César Rincón Godoy (2017), and Edgar Córdova Jaimes (2019). Sosa has identified two periods of modernization between 1958 and 1998: (a) financier (1958–1975) and (b) lacking of center (since 1976 with the nationalization of the oil industry) and summarized this very important point: during 1913–1922, Román Cárdenas, Minister of Public Finance under the Presidency of Juan Vicente Gómez, reorganized and made effective the performance of the public sector in the areas of accounting, budget, taxes, and treasury completing “the necessary conditions for the control of the central State over the political relations in the country” (Sosa 2008: 4). This type of control is a feature of the Venezuelan public culture. Rincón Godoy (2017) has also identified four “models” of public administration since 1958: (1) Bureaucratic-centralized-clientele (1958–1989) with the mediation of the political parties and the bias, embedded in the administrative public culture, for the achievement of goals without properly weighing “the rationalization of public resources.” (2) Modernization and decentralization of the State (1990–1998) under

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the pressures of the external (a global economy that impelled decisions on privatization), as well as internal conditions (first direct election of regional and municipal authorities). (3) Formal citizen participation (1991–2007).3 (4) “Autocracy” and “populism” (since 2013). Many scholars and researchers use the word ‘bureaucracy’ as one of the characteristics to describe public administration in Latin America, as does Rincón Godoy regarding the 1958–1989 period. However, it can be argued that it is not a proper application of one of Weber’s ‘ideal type’: Bureaucracy is rational and impersonal, two characteristics that can be interrogated regarding the Venezuelan reality. Diego Bautista Urbaneja (1993: 59–79) describes the structure of personal relations between Juan Vicente Gómez and his “compadres”4 to whom he turned to when in need of appointing someone to a public position. They represented the loyalty Gomez sought, while entrusted to ‘doctors’ (academic and specialized personnel) the direction of technical management. To assure a personal control by hiring loyal people is a feature of the socio-political culture already established in the nineteenth century. The loyal relationships are not articulated by means-ends rational acts; in few cases, they express the rational act related to a value, but are largely emotional acts (Weber, 1922). Thus, bureaucracy does not exist in those situations. Neither when the political parties were the mediators between society and the State, nor with the implications of the centralization of the LOAP: The clientele relations introduced by the political parties have been transformed into discretional relations, because each appointment of a new Minister implies a complete change in all the positions in that Ministry as well as the entities that report to it. Since there is no explicit general policy on the conception and functioning of the public sector, disarticulation is the main characteristic in Venezuela’s public life. The importance of organizational articulation through explicit and shared policies has been the contribution of the pioneering work of Alfred P. Sloan as CEO of General Motors (GM), a corporation organized since 1929 in a decentralized form but maintaining its internal articulation by corporate policies developed by committees that have no interference in the managerial or operational processes (Sloan, 1963: 169–185). Articulation with autonomy has been one of the key issues for organizations. Córdova Jaimes has identified four “administrative models” since 1961: (1) Clientele democracy, political representation, administrative centralization, and import substitution (1961–1989); 2) Formally participatory democracy and administrative decentralization (1990–1998); (3) Populist democracy, administrative centralization, and civic-military relationship; and (4) Competitive authoritarianism. Populist democracy needs a charismatic leader whose principal characteristic is to mobilize people through language. However, “to govern is not the same as inflaming 3

Rincón Godoy identifies this period up to 2012 but the Constitutional Reform of 2007 gradually shifted away the openness towards real participation in the LOAP-2008 and its centralized planning and decisions. 4 Fathers of godsons and goddaughters. Close people become compadre and comadre.

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the skin of the multitudes” (Escovar Salom, 1975:130). Furthermore, conceiving the administrative task of the State through changes in the LOAP and the continuous movement of Ministers has not improved the performance of the public administration, thus originating “a disconnection between the aspiration of the society and the setting forth of the program” (Latouche, 2004: 19). One of the electoral promises in 1998 was to transform the conception of the State in order to lay the foundation of a participatory democracy, but the actual situation shows that to substitute a given order, though precarious, is more than changing names and persons. Political will without the government of change (political-administrative) may lead to the total absence of institutions.

2.3 Organic Law of Public Administration, Heuristics and Biases Article 44 of the LOAP identifies the level of direction of the public administration, using an inclusive language, constituted by the President, VP, Ministers’ Council, Sectorial VP, Ministers, Vice-Ministers, Chiefs of Government, and regional authorities. Article 45 of the LOAP identifies the competencies of these “superior organs of direction of public administration” in two categories, political and administrative. The first one are to direct “the interior and exterior politics of the Republic,” the second one is divided into three aspects: (a) “the strategic conduction of the State”; (b) all the political-administrative processes regarding the public policies (PPPP); and (c) exercise “administrative control” over “the lower bodies, which shall be evaluated in their functioning, performance, and results.” What does Chavismo assume in relation to those three aspects? In order to answer that question, it is important to trace the long history of public administration since the work of Von Justi (1751), which transformed Cameralism into the Cameral Sciences. The Chamber, the object of study of this school of thought, consisted of three areas: economics, public finance, and police. The evolution of the latter gave way to the emergence of the science of public administration in France with the work of Bonnin, and Von Stein in Germany evolving from there in the configuration of an extensive theoretical corpus (Guerrero, 1989). However, to structure an organization, it is necessary to apply all the criteria developed in the administrative field: a. a focus on the efficiency of factories, productivity, and national prosperity (Taylor, 1911); b. the constitution and strengthening of companies through the attention to their “essential functions or operations” along with the implementation of concrete principles of administration (Fayol, 1916); c. the first definition of ‘organization’ in Chester Barnard’s seminal work (1938) that identify purposes, cooperation, and organizational moral as key factors;

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d. the definition of Herbert Simon in 1947, Nobel prize of Economics in 1978, and kept through the four editions of his work that emphasize decision-making processes (Simon, 1997); e. the economic positioning of Japan at the end of the 1970s challenged this perspective and thus the heuristic of management changed from an instrumental bias to practical management (Ouchi, 1981, Ohmae, 1982 and Peters & Waterman, 1982). The lacking perspective has been the adoption of an emancipatory government translated to public administration capable of genuinely responding to the demands of a participatory democracy. The distinction management (Taylor, 1911) and government (Fayol, 1916) borrowed from De Fridman (2020: 184–193) is central to understanding the Venezuelan public administration. The American author assumes the otherness of the I-think-you-perform (technical-instrumental emphasis), the French one assumes personnel as a member of the social body in which the leader is just someone with the highest administrative responsibility (practical-emancipatory focus). Under the conception of administration as a component of the government there are three areas of action which must be conveniently articulated to harmonize public performance: rectory or the expression of a reflective perspective (fair guide) distinguished from a transitive focus that deals with strategy (articulated orientation) and regulations (impartial rules to adopt or to generate). A reflective perspective enhances a political-administrative learning, with the correlative production of relevant knowledge, as well as a government of change; otherwise, an emphasis on the transitive perspective leads to the reinforcement of the legal framework. Thus, the normative aspect of an institutionalized political-administrative State performance diminishes. The public sector has been organized upon a bias since the authoritarian design realized during Juan Vicente Gómez’s regime: the organization of the State is functional and operates through the triad structure-personnel-budget. The organizational structure is vertical separating the planning from the execution processes without precise coordination, therefore occasioning the separation between the organizational “brain” from the “muscles” (Ohmae, 1982: XV) and breaking the connection between the organizational “intention” (the plan) from the “results” (Sartre, 1964). Moreover, the public performance is very slow for the adoption of traditional procedures that do not respond to the real needs of people with realizability criteria, i.e., orientation toward public goods, quality of life, and normative framework (Barragán, 1995). The inability to provide answers has led to the creation and maintenance of a set of ‘missions’ to expand the distributive justice of the state. That solution not only duplicates the resources for a given public sector but also expresses lack of the administrative control of the State, which is established in the third aspect of article 45 of the LOAP. Moreover, the government decides for the people thus breaking the necessary creation of consensus that could make the formulation and execution of public policies possible, i.e., first aspect of article 45 of the LOAP. The second

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aspect, the strategic conduction of the State, does not consider weighing the opportunities for attaining sustainable development through the evaluation of scenarios and the improvement of core competencies. Therefore, strategies adopted since 1998 have been short-term decisions, developing and maintaining internal and external stakeholder loyalties and constant restart. Decisions are set forward in advance by the highest Executive power generating a constant interference in the organizational autonomy of all public organizations. The motto of Independence, ‘be loyal to the cause,’ describes this political-administrative context. Therefore, it is reasonable to say that the model of public administration of Chavismo is neither instrumental nor practical, nor emancipatory. Personalism works against any organizational deliberative proposal.

3 Organizational Actors and Public Culture Organizations are “the principal structural aspect of society itself” and “the locus of action in society whether economic or not” (Barnard, 1938: xxix, xxxi). Peter Drucker (1998: 22–23) argues that any “organization is above all social. It is people. Thus, its objective should be to make people efficient (…). Organization is more than a tool. It expresses values. It expresses the personality of (…) [a given] state entity.” We turn our work to the organizational actors.

3.1 Three Experiences in the Public Sector On Tuesday, the first week of February 2003, at the planning and budget office of a public housing entity, an order from the President’s Office demanded the presentation of a plan for that Friday. We brought together staff from three Areas: Projects, Inspections, and Planning. The surprise was twofold: The data provided by them did not match and no one had any idea what the priorities were in the medium term. In other words, there was no plan. In fact, the planning area concentrated on presenting data reports to the Ministry and the Venezuelan Central Bank every Friday, because this last entity is responsible for gathering the national data for the President’s State of the Nation Report. We had an uncoordinated situation and, suddenly, it was clear to the members of the team involved that there had to be a minimum agreement to generate a coherent product. That first plan revealed that, in addition to the organizational disarticulation, there was also an internal one into the Planning and Budget Office: The budget was not made up to attend the 173 housing developments in some degree of execution, but rather the criterion was how many households ‘could be made’ from the list sent by projects. The person in charge of the budget considered that the plan “was not his problem.” There were also differences between produced units and budget and financial execution. Soon it became clear that the problem was not technical

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but a lack of an overall vision that allowed each area to understand its place in an integrated organization. The question then became how to generate that administrative philosophy because we found in the personnel a high resistance to change their convictions. To our surprise, it was Frederick Taylor, the father of Scientific Management, who rescued us: His perspective of constituting a ‘task system’ was transformed into the notion of ‘macro-process’ or chain-value of processes. Our objective was transformed into developing the housing development macro-process within ‘a sustainable habitat’ relating the effort to the legal framework that regulated the sector, as well as to the contributions of each organizational area to enforce the macro-process. From this we reorganized the budget and financial inversions. The notion of macro-process, an integrated chart of processes articulated to goals and vision, allowed to articulate a management that, without declaring it, transformed the effort around an impersonal debate and impartial reference to a plan from which correlative supervision and control was established. Three characteristics of the public sector can be identified from the experiences in the public sector: (a) lack of internal coordination of the area and with other areas, (b) lack of coordination with other public entities, and (c) a technical understanding of the job with no reference to service or coordinated articulation. Why is this so? That question, formulated out of perplexity, has led to a group of several considerations about the public sector through two relevant aspects, the technical and the human one. Technical: During 2001, I was a consultant for the strategic plan of the Chacao City Hall. When we began to develop the criteria for the budget of the following year, the Director of the Area complained: How can politics be made if 82% of the budget is consumed by item 401? This item is the budget account for all the issues regarding personnel. The percentage of 401 account in the budget is the indicator of administrative clientelism. Human: In 2009, I worked in Planning and Budgeting at the Vice Ministry of Planning and Development of the Ministry of Housing and Habitat. The Budget Coordinator, a young economist, behaved in a distant and technical way. When it was lunchtime she informed me that she had worked in the IT sector for several years and that she was used to sharing and discussing her work with her colleagues needed to share with her friends in order to carry out her responsibilities: without human ties, she was lost. Thus, a conjecture about public culture became clearer: People perceived organizations as psychic prisons from which they want to escape. As Morgan (1986: 219) has pointed out “Abraham Selznick of the Harvard Business School has shown that patterns of unconscious anxiety often exert a decisive influence on coalition building and the politics of organizational life. Often the unconscious fears prevent the leader from being able to accept genuine help and advice. For example, policy suggestions put forward by subordinates may be interpreted as rivalry and hence dismissed or suppressed regardless of their substantive merit.”

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3.2 Some Ideas Derived from Those Experiences The associative relationships, which are fundamental for effective and efficient organizational efforts, are weak in Venezuelan public organizations. What prevails is the reinforcement of informal organization over the formal one, a condition that asks for loyalty instead of teamwork based upon competencies: The following of orders is a posture that limits critical reflection as well as constructive conflict. Power struggle is an acute feature in any Venezuelan organizations: Everyone expresses the project-to-have-power, none is seeking a conscious administration which implies: define a model of organization (rectory-strategy-regulation), improve processes, develop competencies, and establish impartial control understood as an organizational learning process (Moss Kanter 1984). As a result, the conception of being a boss consists, primarily, in the establishment of a web of relations instead of the responsibility of institutionalizing a sound organization. If an actor, enthusiastic for the idea of transforming an organizational reality, takes on the challenge of bringing about genuine change, quickly realizes that personal and relational interests that are difficult to overcome permeate the total situation. So, the only rational thing to do is survival, always taking care of one’s position, an election that makes reasonableness disappear for there is not a shared idea of organizational morality. Of course, most people understand that the ethical thing to do is to propitiate a genuine change, but activating it exceeds anyone’s energies. Being a leader means building a protected topos of trusted people and so organizational action tends to disappear: The performance of an organization depends upon itself, not the will of a group of people. Thus, little room is left for the constitution of a significant social locus: Given the characteristics of organizations as psychic prisons, the trusted people are few and therefore each one develops a tribe, a feature of indigenous native culture that one encounters everywhere. Genuine leadership capacity cannot be developed in the pre-organizational conditions of public entities in Venezuela. Achievements result from being inserted in the web of informal relationships that enhances a quasi-familiar encounter among people who carry out procedures without weighing purposes. The only truly institutionalized matter is the budget according to an account book followed by the entire public administration (Román Cárdenas’ legacy). This situation of budget compliance without articulation of plans is paradigmatic in public administration. Strategies are related to the personalized topos and not to a real strategic plan. Lacking a planned organizational performance and associative coordination related to explicit objectives and strategies, the solution for follow-up is the proliferation of meetings that are always long: it temporarily resolves the lacking of coordination, the reflexive condition to order teamwork.

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3.3 Features of the Venezuelan Public Culture To grasp the constitutive features of the Venezuelan culture, it is important to reflect on historicity. The oil and the economy that was established in the second decade of the twentieth-century “radically changed” the “habits of life” and the “way of thinking” of Venezuelans “but not their way of being as a historical people” (Morón, 1998: 253–254). The “root of the Venezuelan community” consists of the “process of old mixed race (mestizaje)” (ibid: 139), which occurred during colonial times, to which was added the new one, of the successive waves of immigration during the nineteenth and twentieth centuries. From there the essential feature of Venezuelan public culture emerges: heterogeneity. 1. Heterogeneity: The central idea comes from the reflection of Simon Bolivar in his Angostura Speech (1819): the complexity of Venezuela society comes from the mixture of three worlds. Bolivar analyzed thoroughly the government implications of the existence of a “heterogeneous society” saying that it requires “an extraordinarily steady hand” to transform it. The historicity of Latin America introduces the ideas of paradoxical uncertainty before relativity and quantum physics. 2. Disarticulation (Touraine, 1978): Condition resulting from encouraging a public issue or problem without connection with other socio-political aspects and without a vision of totality. The origin of the disarticulation has been heterogeneity: When each participant in a situation confirms that the other individuals are dissimilar, and that each issue to be addressed is not homogeneous, each one tries to solve as she/he can: articulated public administration requires foresight, coordination, organization, direction, and control which are simultaneous necessary acts very hard to realize in a kaleidoscopic and complex human situation. 3. Dyschronic development (Soriano, 2004): Resulting conditions by the introduction of foreign elements into a society that have altered its “harmonic coexistence” and resulting in the coexistence of different theoretical, cultural, and temporary expressions that, when a political change is assumed, affect the socio-political structure with each attempt. Both liberalism, that has substantiated social democracy (Venezuelan opposition) and Marxism, to which Chavismo owes its doctrine, have had their origin in Europe and, consequently, it is necessary to understand their roles in the disarticulation and the consequent dyschronic development that has followed each attempt to change the Venezuelan socio-political situation. These three constitutive elements of Venezuelan historicity explain the various cultural features described in previous pages, above all personalism: the only certain thing to rely upon is oneself, and the limits with the others are usually blurry. The following Table 25 indicates the assumptions and heuristics of Venezuelan culture:

5

The data for this chart gathers the phenomenological observations of students since 1994.

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Table 2 Venezuelan culture-heuristics Ontological About the world

About people

Active and present spiritual syncretism

Epistemological

Ethical

Reliance upon intuitive thinking

Disregard of self-government

Intuitive materialism Transitive perspective (What I see it is)

Responsibility depends upon external determinations

Egocentered (no real Reliance upon emotional individualism) comprehension. Chameleonism

Democratic aspirations, autocratic behavior

Uniqueness (each one is different)

Affection in personal relations. Chrematistics in relation to strangers

External criteria of social projection (money & academic degrees)

Latin America, in general, and Venezuela, in particular, require a great deal of reflexive balance and political-administrative prudence to achieve sustainable development, which requires to accept the inner tendencies to rely upon intuitive thinking. Mariano Picón Salas described in 1941 (1988: 115) an aspect of the “political culture” that is present nowadays: Venezuelan “great masses are guided by the vital instinct more than the ordained intelligence.” Without the considerations about public culture, the ways to address the political-administrative problematic will continue to be insufficient.

4 Political-Administrative Analysis and Guidelines for Change 4.1 Constitutional Principles, Conception of State and Government There are three important heuristics regarding the conception of the constitution, the state, and government that allow a deeper comprehension of the Venezuelan situation. Promoting participatory democracy was a political promise in 1998 and that changed the guiding foundation of the constitutional text. García-Pelayo (1998: 34–53) establishes three foundations for a Constitution: rational-normative, sociological, and historical. The 1961 Constitution assumed the rational-normative model that depersonalizes the notion of sovereignty and conceives the political organization on two assumptions: (a) to structure the whole life of the State according to predetermined norms, (b) to deny any authority beyond what is established by precise legal norms. This model, based on the notion of validity, conceives the constitution as a system of norms that offers guarantees of rationality as opposed to the irrationality of custom. On the contrary, in the constituent moment of 1999, the rationale shifted

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toward a model that combined the historical and sociological models. For the former, what legitimizes the constitution is the inherited tradition: The constitution is not a system product of reason, but a structure resulting from a heroic historical transformation. The constituent should rescue the ancestral and patriotic heritage, conceiving sovereignty as the power of the people. The sociological model of the constitution aims to give validity to the fundamental political text, conceiving it as an entity, a way of being, not a duty to be. The constitution is not the result of the past; it expresses the social situations and structures of the present, not based on a transcendent form, but on the “legality” of the society that rebels against pure normativity and cannot be dominated by it. The changes to the Constitution in 1999, the attempted reform in 2007, and the amendment in 2013, as well as of the laws via the Enacted Act obey profoundly to the sociological principle for the Constitution. The conflict between the government and the opposition is a matter of principles: Chavismo maintains the historicalsociological foundation as justification for its decisions and actions; the entire opposition assumes a rational-normative assumption as an integrating heuristic. Alessandro Passerin D’Entrevès (1967) identifies three political perspectives for the State: a. The State can be conceived as a force, one that imposes through arbitrary dynamism, based on tradition or personalized command, not only a set of mandates, but also the obligation to conduct oneself with respect to them. This model of state has re-enthroned political personalism not only in the political sphere (Soriano, 2010) but also in the administrative sphere. b. The State as power requires legal norms and procedures which, adopted within a constitutional framework, genuinely regulate socio-political action. This is the model of the state adopted in the recent proposal of constitutional reform. Two comments in this regard: the constitutional reform proposed by the opposition has not defined how to limit the discretionary power of public decision-makers, along the lines of Brennan and Buchanan (1985), nor has it considered that the institutional debate is necessarily prior to the constitutional debate. c. The State as authority incorporates the idea of legitimacy: The exercise of governmental power respects the legal framework and follows rules that are justified in order to meet citizens’ expectations. Hosting an institutional debate through an impartial procedure and argumentative ethics would require transcending that bias of short-term that has marked political-administrative action. Chavismo has adopted the heuristic of ‘state as force’ therefore changing the laws any time it is perceived there are new edges that it is important to control, for instance when under a given election the opposition has won a municipality or a regional state it immediately has followed the appointment of a ‘protector’ by the President. The opposition, on the contrary, assumes the heuristic ‘state as legal power,’ while ‘state as authority’ is yet to be seriously considered. Three ways to understand government derived from the descriptions supra: 1. Personalism: Interests of and between groups, construction of interested loyalties, and non-public criteria of action and decision. Chavismo and the last years of the

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period 1958–1999 seem to be this kind of public direction that is not perceived as related to fairness: “On February 27, 1989 (…) the Venezuelan people reminded their leaders (…) that the accumulated injustice ends up taking its toll,” which led to the rejection of the political system established from the Punto Fijo Pact: the citizens’ perception is that “justice is in default” (Morón, 1998: 253–254). 2. Management: Rational-sustainable public orientation, distinction between those who command and those who obey, emphasis on public efficiency and productivity, regulation, establishment of areas of decisional discretion, and management control. 3. Governmental practice: Normative-sustainable public orientation, cooperation and emphasis on joint action, co-government, distinction between regulation and rectory, establishment of areas of responsibility, and control understood as production of relevant knowledge. Another feature of politics in Venezuela has been the settle differences through pacts. The only difference has been how much temporality has been weighed, being in this last sense the Punto Fijo Pact the one that assumed to base the democraticrepresentative destiny of the nation under criteria of permanence by means of a “populist system of conciliation” (Rey, 1998: 292–294). The fundamental problem with this posture is the resolution of immediate problems without introducing, as part of the pact, the mechanisms of maintenance and renewal of the agreements: the active conception of a government of change has not been conveniently pondered, together with little attention to the normative foundation of the pacts that has led to the “theft of public goods” throughout “a long history of depredations” (Battaglini, 2001: 47–54). Political-administrative change requires reflective weighing of future temporality, as well as of the competencies of those who participate in it. It will be desirable that this pair of criteria be present in the governmental considerations, otherwise more administrative disarticulation will be generated. Overcoming the pact’s foundation toward an institutional one is the first requirement to guide this new effort by public demands.

4.2 Administrative-organizational Analysis The history of the administrative field shows six conjunctural milestones: (1) Principles of government according to Bonnin (1809, 1812, 1829) or of management (Taylor, 1911); (2) Administrative entity (Fayol, 1916); (3) Administrative relations (Mayo, 1933); (4) Organizational Execution (Barnard); (5) Processes of decision (Simon 1947); and (6) Organizational actors (Sloan 1963). All theorists of both, public administration and organizational theory, have adopted one or a combination of those constitutive features to study organizations. The structure-process relation expressed in ‘departmentalization’ can be traced back to the time of the development of large, decentralized corporations during the decade of 1920 (Chandler, 1962).

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Along its history, administration has developed three heuristics: instrumental management, which became paradigmatic since the work of Taylor and until the end of the 1970 decade of the twentieth century; practical management since the positioning of Japan as a global economic and emancipatory government. Even though this last has been a Republican issue, the administrative counterpart has been developed by Fayol and Barnard whose work has been interpreted ted by the heuristic of management (the translation of the work of Fayol into English erased the word ‘administration’ and it was substituted by ‘management’). Fayol emphasizes that administration is a component of government (1916: 8, 48) and argues that the principal problem in the public arena is “the ministerial instability” because it prevents those responsible “from acquiring the professional competence, business experience and administrative skills that are indispensable for the development of an action program” (1916: 61). Barnard does not leave a doubt when he says (1938: 216): “The executive functions serve to maintain a system of cooperative effort. They are impersonal. The functions are not, as so frequently stated, to manage a group of persons. I do not think a correct understanding of executive work (…) in this narrower, convenient, but strictly speaking erroneous, conception obtains. It is not even quite correct to say that the executive functions are to manage the system of cooperative efforts”.

Therefore, taking into account the History of Ideas in the field of administrations, as well as the theoretical framework assumed for this work, the following Table 3 can be drawn: This table allows both a diagnosis and a guide for implanting a government of change. It has two assumptions, institutionalism and Behavioral Economics already stated above. The words for describing organizational culture are taken from Handy (1996): a web culture (image of a spider) is centered around people with power, an Apollo culture (image of a Greek temple) is designed by following procedures, an Athena culture (image of a tennis net) is centered in team-building and performance, an existential culture (image of the Greek God Dionysus) accepts the inner liberty of each member to define the work in a consensual context. Table 3 has two foundations, power and ethics, that underline the heuristics expressed in the four administrative models. From all the work on power there is an under-cited contribution, that of Mary Parker Follett (1946: 95–116) and her distinction between “power-over” and “power-with,” the first related to management, the second articulated to emancipatory government. The heuristics about public ethics can be stated as follows: Lacking of it in personalism, pragmatism is related to instrumental management, utilitarianism is the one expressed by practical management, being deontology the ethics of emancipatory government. Hans Jonas (1979) has re-defined Kant’s deontology with an ethics explicitly future-oriented and a new categorical imperative for our “technological civilization”: “Act in such a way that the effects of your action are compatible with the permanence of authentic human life on Earth” (I, V). The genuine responsibility embraces our planet as a whole, and so, “Responsibility is care, recognition as a duty by another being, care for what threatens their vulnerability and becomes concern” (II, III, 3).

Mechanic

Systems

Brains

Cooperation & empowerment

Personalism

Instrumental management

Practical management

Emancipatory government

HEURISTICS OF ETHICS

HEURISTICS OF POWER

Organization

Principles

Consciousness of heuristics & biases

Institutional Practice

Table 3 Public administration

Rectory & strategy & regulation

Macro-process

Coordinated/ controlled tasks

Operational

Processes

Associatives

Strategical coordinated

Technical/ operational (productivity)

Loyalty & efficiency

Relations

Technical-practical Athenea

Technical-instrumental Apolo

Technical-position Web

Actors (Competencies) & Culture

Social responsibility Situational Existential

Situational cost/ benefit

Situational cost/ benefit

Predetermined objectives

Execution

Discretionality and Disarticulation in the Venezuelan Public … 103

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4.3 A Realizable Agenda for Change (Rectory, Regulations, and Strategies) • Rectory is the first need for a heterogeneous, disarticulated society characterized by a dyschronic development, i.e., self-government and citizenship. Regretfully, the instrumental comprehension of education has forgotten the demands for civic culture. • Developing an institutional regulatory framework would require (1) starting from an understanding of the public culture and gathering its republican-democratic vocation; (2) recognize cultural heuristics and biases; (3) choosing an impartial procedure that focuses first on the most necessary areas (Sen, 2009), taking into account the Millennium Goals or the objectives agreed upon in the meetings of Latin American countries for the transformation of the State. • Three guiding criteria for the previous steps (1) that it is sustainable over time, even under conditions of government change; (2) that it incorporates the necessary elements to combine sustainable permanence with the cycles of becoming; and (3) that maintenance and renewal actions are part of the change project. • Replacing the “trial and error” strategy with another based on deliberation, carried out in real time, in order to shape objectives and policies by priority and emergency areas. The scope of this strategy implies determining, with a consensual procedure based on impartial foundations, the guiding criteria for defining and acting on each of the areas for the orderly development of society. The minimum for public administration would contemplate: • Conception of a small and coordinated organization to transcend the image of a ‘psychic prison’ and bring the foundation of communitarian closeness combined with a track of deliberative process of reflection. For that it is mandatory to define the limits among state and administrative authorities. • Organize the State administratively around coordinated and decentralized processes, rather than functions, with citizen satisfaction as the criterion for evaluating public organizational performance. • Use the guidance coming from Behavioral Economics to increase the probability of success in the implementation of new public policies considering the biases and psychological tools for the application of nudge, a method tested by Thaler (2017), who won the Nobel Prize in Economics, to expand the scope of rationality of public actors (Table 4) (García Arteagoitia, 2019: 143).6

6

This chart has been adapted to the psychological principles that are present in Venezuelan society by 175 students since 2017.

Discretionality and Disarticulation in the Venezuelan Public …

105

Table 4 Behavioral economics and PPPP INSTRUMENTS

PSYCHOLOGICAL PRINCIPLE

NUDGE

Default option

Status quo bias Ecological racionalidad rationality

MAKE IT EASY

Reduction of bottlenecks

Psychological transaction costs Present bias

Simplification of messages

Limited memory Primacy bias Procrastination

Reduce, differentiate, and simplify options

Choice overload

Attract attention

Limited attention Salience Principle of reciprocity

More efficient financial incentives

Loss aversion Overestimation of probabilities Crowding-out effect Attraction to gambling

Social norms

Social norms

Social network

Principle of reciprocity

Identity

Priming

Engagement mechanisms

Identity

Responsiveness

Decisive fatigue Ego depletion Habit Limited attention

Reduce costs and highlight immediate benefits

Present bias

Plan

Identity Planning fallacy Procrastination

MAKE IT ATTRACTIVE

MAKE IT SOCIAL

MAKE IT TIMELY

Acknowledgements This work would not have been possible without the active dialogical presence and solidarity of Miguel Angel Latouche, Tiago Aular for the data in charts 1-4, Jesus Valoz for the discussions that inform charts 5-6, Mirla Alcibiades for the continuous loans of her hemerography accounts of Venezuela’s nineteenth century, Francisco Javier Alcibiades for his kind criticism of my ideas; David Morales, Sophia Morales Alcibiades, and Gilber Gomez for their constant support and their understanding of my dedication to intellectual work that often leaves family life aside, and my students in the School of Political and Administrative Studies at Central University of Venezuela.

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Appendixes See appendixes Tables 5, 6 and 7 Table 5 Ministries 1999–2006 Valid through

Persons

With repetition

Years without changes

Ministry of the President’s Office

1999–2006

12

1

1

Ministry of Defense

1999–2006

8

Ministry of Interior and Justice

1999–2006

6

Ministry of Exterior Relations

1999–2006

6

4

Ministry of Agriculture and Brood

1999–2004

6

1

Ministry of Education

1999–2003

2

Ministry of Education, Culture, and Sports

2004

1

0

Ministry of Education and Sports

2005

1

0

Ministry of University Education

2002–2003 2005–2006

3

3

Ministry of Superior Education

2004

2

0

Ministry of Education

2006–2007

2

Ministry of Culture

2004–2006

1

2 2

1

1

3

5

5 2

Ministry of Sport

2006

1

0

Ministry of Health

1999–2006

4

5

Ministry of Nourishment

2004–2006

2

2

Ministry of Science, Technology, and Intermediate Industries

1999–2002

2

3

Ministry of Science and 2003–2006 Technology

2

3

2005–2006

1

2

Ministry of Tourism

(continued)

Discretionality and Disarticulation in the Venezuelan Public …

107

Table 5 (continued) Valid through

Persons

With repetition

Years without changes

Ministry of Planning and Development

1999–2006

2

1

6

Ministry of Public Finance

1999

2

Ministry of Economy and Finance

2000–2006

4

Ministry of Communication and Information

2002–2006

5

1

Ministry of Energy and Mines

1999–2001

2

2

Ministry of Oil and Mining

2002–2003 2005–2006

3

3

Ministry of Energy and Oil

2004

1

0

Ministry of Environment and Natural Resources

1999–2006

4

5

Ministry of Social Development and Popular Participation

2005–2006

1

2

Ministry of Popular Economy

2005–2006

3

1

Ministry of Public Construction and Housing

1999–2000

3

1

Ministry of Infrastructure

2001–2006

5

2

Ministry of Housing and Habitat

2004–2006

3

1

Ministry of Work and Social Security

1999–2006

5

4

Ministry of Basic Industries and Mining

2005–2006

2

1

Ministry of Production and Commerce

1999–2006

8

2

Ministry of Agriculture and Soil

2005–2006

2

1

0 1

5

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Table 6 Ministries 2007–2012 Valid through

Persons

With repetition

Years without changes

Ministry of Popular Power for the President’s Office

2007–2012

10

1

1

Ministry of Popular Power for Communication and Information

2007

13

2

5

Ministry of Popular Power for Women and Equality

2009

9

2

6

Ministry of Popular Power for Infrastructure

2007–2008

3

1

Ministry of Popular 2007–2013 Power for Environment

6

2

Ministry of Popular Power for Oil and Mining

3

8

2007–2015

Ministry of Popular 2007–2008 Power for Housing and 2010–2013 2015Habitat

8

1

9

Ministry of Popular 2005–2006 Power for Science, Technology, and Intermediate Industries

3

Ministry of Popular Power for Science and Technology

2007–2013

4

Ministry of Popular Power for Public Construction and Housing

2009

2

Ministry of Popular Power for Telecommunications and Computer Science

2007–2009

2

2

Ministry of Popular Power for Work and Social Security

2007–2013

4

4

Ministry of Popular Power for Basic Industries and Mining

2007–2008 2009–2011

2

1

2

(continued)

Discretionality and Disarticulation in the Venezuelan Public …

109

Table 6 (continued) Valid through

Persons

Ministry of Popular Power for Industries

2012–2014

4

1

Ministry of Popular Power for the Social Process of Work

2014

7

4

Ministry of Popular Power for Production and Commerce

2007–2008

2

1

Ministry of Popular Power for Small Industries and Commerce

2009–2011

4

Ministry of Popular Power for Popular Economy

2004, 2007–2008

2

3

Ministry of Popular Power for Communal Economy

2009–2010

1

1

Ministry of Popular 2007–2009 Power for Participation and Social Protection

3

1

Ministry of Popular Power for Communes and Social Movements

2009

9

Ministry of Popular Power for Transportation and Communications

2010–2010

1

Ministry of Popular Power for Indigenous People

2007

5

Ministry of Popular Power for Electric Energy

2009

8

Ministry of Popular Power for Penitentiary Service

2011

2

Ministry of Popular Power for Aquatic and Aeronautic Transportations

2011–2016

4

With repetition

1

Years without changes

5

1

2

9

8

2

9

4

(continued)

110

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Table 6 (continued) Valid through

Persons

With repetition

Years without changes

Ministry of Popular Power for Terrestrial Transportation

2011–2015 2017

6

1

7

Ministry of Popular Power for Defense

2007

11

Ministry of Popular Power for Internal Relations and Justice

2006–2013

5

Ministry of Popular Power for Agriculture and Soil

2007–2015

4

Ministry of Popular Power for External Relations

2007

7

Ministry of Popular Power for Education

2007

10

Ministry of Popular Power for Culture

2007

9

8

Ministry of Popular Power for Sport

2007–2013

5

4

Ministry of Popular Power for Youth

2011–2013

2

2

Ministry of Popular Power for Health

2007

13

1

7

Ministry of Popular 2007Power for Nourishment

9

1

7

Ministry of Popular 2007–2009 Power for Planning and Development

2

1

1

Ministry of Popular 2009–2013 Power for Planning and Finance

2

3

Ministry of Popular Power for Commerce

2012–2014

5

1

Ministry of State for the Revolutionary Transformation of Great Caracas

2010–2014

2

4

Ministry of State for Women

2008–2008

1

0

Ministry of State for Public Bank

2011–2013

1

0

3

2

4

12

1

6

Discretionality and Disarticulation in the Venezuelan Public …

111

Table 7 Ministries 2013–2022 Valid since

Persons

With repetition

Years without changes

Ministry of Popular Power for the President’s Office and Governmental Follow-up

2013

7

2

5

Ministry of Popular Power for Defense

2013

5

8

Ministry of Popular Power for Tourism

2007–2018 2020-

9

8

Ministry of Popular Power for Economy and Finance

2007–2009 2017

8

5

Ministry of Popular 2013 Power for Internal Relations, Justice, and Peace

5

Ministry of Popular Power for Planning and Development

2013

2

8

Ministry of Popular Power for Finance

2013

1

1

Ministry of Popular Power for Economy, Finance, and Public Bank

2014–2016

3

1

Ministry of Popular Power for Oil

2016

4

5

Ministry of Popular Power for Housing, Habitat, and Ecosocialism

2014–2014

1

1

Ministry of Popular Power for Ecosocialism and Water

2015–2017

4

0

Ministry of Popular 2017 Power for Science and Technology

3

5

Ministry of Popular Power for Science, Technology, and Innovation

2

1

2013–2014

2

4

(continued)

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Table 7 (continued) Valid since

Persons

Ministry of Popular Power for Basic, Strategic, and Socialist Industries

2016–2017

1

Ministry of Popular Power for Industries and National Production

2018

4

3

Ministry of Popular Power for Industries and Commerce

2015–2017

3

2

Ministry of Popular Power for National Commerce

2018

4

2

Ministry of Popular Power for International Trade and Foreign Investment

2016–2018

4

1

Ministry of Popular Power for Public Construction

2017

4

3

Ministry of Popular Power for Terrestrial Transportation and Public Construction

2016–2016

2

Ministry of Popular Power for Urban Agriculture

2016

7

Ministry of Popular Power for Ecological Mining Development

2016

6

3

Ministry of Popular 2016 Power for Fishing and Aquaculture

5

4

Ministry of Popular Power for National Borders

2016

1

7

Ministry of Popular 2018 Power for Assisting of the Waters

1

5

Ministry of Popular Power for Youth and Sport

3

2014

With repetition

2

Years without changes

5

(continued)

Discretionality and Disarticulation in the Venezuelan Public …

113

Table 7 (continued) Valid since

Persons

Ministry of Popular Power for Productive Agriculture and Soils

2016-

2

With repetition

Years without changes 6

Ministry of Popular Power for Ecosocialism

2018

4

2

Ministry of Popular 2019 Power for Tourism and External Commerce

2

0

Ministry of Popular Power for University Education, Science, and Technology

2015–2016

2

1

Ministry of Popular Power for University Education

2007–2014 2017

11

6

Ministry of Popular Power for Productive Economy

2016–2016

1

0

Ministry of Popular Power for Health

2013-

19

3

2013Ministry of Popular Power for Women and Equality

18

2

2013-

17

3

Ministry of Popular 2013Power for Communes and Social Movements

21

1

Ministry of Popular 2016Power for Fishing and Aquaculture

12

3

Ministry of Popular Power for Indigenous People

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Julia Alcibiades Professor of Political Science at the UCV in Caracas, Venezuela.

Venezuela: The Military Factor Miguel Angel Latouche

1 Introduction Relations between civil and military powers in Venezuela have always been complex. The lack of formal and institutionalized political processes, until the middle of the twentieth century, resulted in the preponderance of the military in the processes of organizing the public and institutional life in the country. The almost total absence of civilian presidents during the nineteenth century is not causal, nor is the presence of two centralized dictatorships led by the military, nor the hegemony of military officers in positions of power during the first half of the twentieth century. The military represented the best organized group of society, as such they played a crucial role in the organization of the country, in the distribution of privileges and the management of power and resources. With the exception of the 40 years of representative democracy (1958–1998), the military has been present in the decision-making and in the processes of designing the country’s institutional life. In some ways, the Venezuelan society has traditionally been subjugated by the military establishment. Despite the democratic experience, it is difficult to speak of an emancipated society in Venezuela. The phenomenon of the caudillo and the relations of supra-subordination toward the power of the State has been historically present in important sectors of society that end up being paternalized by the power structure, or whose consciousness is “bought” through social programs, direct subsidies, manipulation, or controlled using force. In recent years, there have been a series of paradigmatic changes that have transformed the Venezuelan society. These have been introduced by the military establishment, first under the leadership of Hugo Chávez, and then during the presidency of Nicolas Maduro. This organizational change has implied the praetorianization of Venezuelan society and the substantial increase in the military presence in public

M. A. Latouche (B) Political and Administrative Sciences, University of Rostock, Rostock, Germany e-mail: [email protected] © The Author(s), under exclusive license to Springer Nature Switzerland AG 2023 M. A. Latouche et al. (eds.), Venezuela – Dimensions of the Crisis, Contributions to Political Science, https://doi.org/10.1007/978-3-031-21889-7_7

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life.1 This process was developed within the barracks and has had a direct effect on the organization of military life, it could even be said that we are in the presence of a revolutionary military force that does not follow the patterns of traditional institutional organization. This chapter focuses on analyzing, from a political perspective, the contemporary impact of the active incorporation of the military in Venezuelan public life, and its transformative effect on Venezuelan institutions during the so-called Bolivarian Revolution.

2 Background With the arrival of Chavismo to power, the military were provided, for the first time in the history of Venezuelan, with the Constitutional right to vote. Although members of the military are not allowed to engage in political proselytism, participate in political campaigns, or run for public office, as written in article 329 of the National Constitution, the possibility of now openly manifesting political preferences opens the gate for political involvement. The issue of reducing the military’s influence in politics was crucial throughout Venezuelan history. After all, the military has traditionally been a fundamental political factor since the times of independence. In fact, it can be said that through Venezuela’s republican history, the military has monopolized the control of both political power and economic resources. During the short pause of representative democracy established by the Punto Fijo Project from 1958 to 1998, it was possible to limit military function to the protection of sovereignty, security, and order maintenance. Although the military maintained an important influence over the political system throughout the so-called democratic period, it is no less true that it was an attenuated influence, or in any case, that it was mediated and subject to political and constitutional control. The Armed Forces were considered a non-belligerent institution with strictly limited functions and restricted access to political deliberation. Perhaps that is why the two coup attempts of 1992 were so unexpected and confusing for the Venezuelan society (Angulo, 2001). Since 1958 the military were considered a more or less unified, professional institutional force completely subordinated to political power. At that time, the threat of a military uprising was considered to be a part of the nation’s political past and no major fissures were expected to exist within the military structure. Both the attempted coup d’état on February 4 and November 27 of that year revealed, not only that the unity of the Armed Forces was fragile but also that there was a process of delegitimization of the High Command, that the hierarchical order was in question and that a series of long-term conspiracies were advanced by military lodges that acted against the democratic system (Irwin & Micett, 2011). It also revealed the presence of a deep crisis that affected political stability. The situation 1

Praetorianism is understood as the permanent present of the military and its increasing influence over the society. In our times, the concept is associated to despotism.

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of the Venezuelan political system was widely discussed previous to the mentioned events. In the 1980s there were already evident signs of erosion of the “elite conciliation project” (Latouche, 2006; Guevara, 1993). The system reduced its capacities to respond efficiently to social demands. During this decade, the country faced a long-standing economic crisis resulting from corruption, mismanagement, and a significant reduction in the price of oil. The situation had a negative impact on the population’s quality of life due to increasing prices and decreased spending on social programs. The near collapse of the financial system reduced the value of the currency and the availability of foreign currency, traditionally used to lessening the impact of high inflation. During this period, there was a greater mistrust toward institutions. Political parties did not represent the diversity of interests that were present in the public space, public administration became inefficient and political institutions, tribunal included, were perceived as neither impartial nor fair (Urbaneja, 1995). Despite the existence of a Presidential Commission for State Reform (COPRE), which for years evaluated and proposed changes that would reduce the inefficiency of the state apparatus, its ideas were not considered by the administration. Growing criticism from various sectors increased the feeling of political and social division within the country. The media constantly referred to various scandals members of the political class were involved in without them having any consequences. The path that led to the deterioration of the political system was evident as could be seen in the increasing criticism and its persistence. The same can be said of the military establishment. There was a general perception that the Armed Forces was a solid institution, without significant divisions among its members, with unity of command and with objectives that adhered to the precepts of partisan democracy. The truth is that Venezuelan democracy advanced an accelerated process of elitization that reduced its capacities to deal with increasing social demands in the context of a complex and diversified society (Latouche, 2004). There was a distortion in the communicative exchange between the elites and the masses, but even more, political parties were unable to intermediate between the people and the political system, again increasing the levels of dissatisfaction of the general population and reducing political support. One obvious indication of this situation was the social uprising of 1989, the so-called Caracazo: On February 27 and 28, people from popular sectors took the streets to protest against poor living conditions and against the impact of the structural adjustment measures that were being adopted by the government of CarlosAndrés Peréz. This ended up becoming a widespread looting that spread from Caracas to various cities in the country and was harshly repressed by the police and various components of the Armed Forces. The Caracazo left an undetermined number of people dead and wounded and has been used a posteriori by Chavismo as an element of justification for the coup attempts that would take place three years later. After 1992, the Venezuelan political system went through a period of instability. This included a political trial against the President of the Republic and his subsequent departure from power, the installation of a transitional government elected by the Congress of the Republic and the subsequent election of Rafael Caldera, an old leader who had been a subscriber to the Punto Fijo Pact. On the other hand, the case

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against the leaders of the military coup was dismissed and they were incorporated into the political life of the country. We can say that this turbulent stage represented the final point of the model of representative democracy in Venezuela and its institutional model based on the construction of consensus and the reduction of conflicts between traditional political actors (Romero, 2016). Similarly, the relationship between civilians and the military began to change substantially (Müller, 1992). Contrary to what was expected, the attempted coups were not generally rejected by the population. The Armed Forces were considered by many to be the institution called upon to “rescue” the country from the hands of politicians. In certain sectors of Venezuelan society, the coup plotters were considered heroes (Yago, 1992). The collective imagination underwent a transformation, in which the military began to be perceived as an active actor within the dynamics of national politics, not only as a stabilizing factor but also as a transforming element—a “purifier” of the system. The military was idealized as the heirs of the liberating army and the image of Simon Bolívar and used as a factor of civil-military cohesion (Mendoza, 2021). Once Chavez was set free from imprisonment,2 he became the leader of a political movement that—in alliance with sectors of the left—initiated a campaign in favor of the political transformation of Venezuelan society. It was not only about an antiparty discourse that criticized the arrangement between the elite powers. It was also about a vindication of the mobilized people as the central axis of political action (Arenas, 2010; Latouche, 2019). In this sense, Chavismo was a populist project right from the beginning that built a narrative based on the vindication of the rights of the excluded. Along this process, Hugo Chávez used his charisma to appropriate the popular discourse and the representation of popular sectors. In fact, the original project presented the idea of unity between “leader, people and armed forces” as the central axis of politics (Ceresole, 2018). The Armed Forces were perceived in particular as an efficient and modernizing institution that was capable of reducing social conflict and replacing the old political class. Within that same imaginary, the sectors belonging to the revolutionary military lodge perceived themselves as the ones called to rescue the country’s independence and vindicate the interests of the popular sectors. Hence, from the beginning, Chávez’s rhetoric was progressive antiimperialist and pro-independence aiming to represent the continent-wide interests of Latin America. On his way to power, Hugo Chávez took advantage of both the weakness of the political system and the breakdown of the Armed Forces. This institution began to be colonized by the revolutionary discourse even before Chavismo came to power, particularly in sectors that were more closely linked to the more radical left. This development facilitated the growth of Chavismo as an electoral option and led to it coming to power in 1998.

2

On May 26, 1994, President Rafael Caldera, under significant pressure from political and military groups, decreed the dismissal of the criminal case against the military and civilians involved in the 1992 coups.

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3 The Garrison State The victory of Chavismo initiated an important process of institutional transformation that started to influence all aspects of life in the country. (Romero, 2016). The call for a National Constituent Assembly and the promulgation of a new Constitution in 1999 allowed significant changes in the rules of the game (Ellner, 2010). Gradually, the institutions were taken over by Chavismo, which became a hegemonic force amid protests and in opposition to the remnants of the old political class and organized civil society (Latouche, 2019). Chavismo had an authoritarian character but cannot be considered a traditional dictatorship. It is a hybrid system that provides certain guarantees of political participation with an unequal playing field, which, in turn, provides undue electoral advantages to the Chavista government to maintain the status quo (Brading, 2014). In some way, Chavismo built part of its legitimacy based on the civil-military union that implied the systematic and growing incorporation of military personnel in activities that until then had been exclusive to the civilian world. It should be noted, for example, the increase in the military presence in positions of the state bureaucracy. Similarly, it should be noted that many former soldiers affected by the “revolutionary process” assumed positions of political representation, positions in the governing party or executive positions at the regional and local levels. This led to the militarization of Venezuelan democracy (Rodriguez, 2006). The military advanced a process of “colonization” of the public space, which implied the cooptation of the popular movement and the control of society (Lasswell, 1941). It is not by chance that the protests against the government, for example, were demobilized by the use of public forces, the prosecution of leaders, the control of the media, and the persecution of journalists. Within the dynamics of social control, there was the silencing of civil society and citizens’ demonstrations, together with the constant threat to opposition sectors. The military had a normative difficulty to deal with dissents. Pluralism was not accepted as a value within the Armed Forces. The military followed a doctrine of national security that as a common ground did not welcome dissident behavior. There was a change in the military doctrine. This implied the politicization of the Armed Forces according to the values of Chavismo. A revolutionary doctrine was built, in which the military became an active subject of politics, with great involvement in the areas traditionally reserved for civil activity. The military, on the other hand, continued to be a closed preserve within which only the action of its members was validated, which is a sign of inequity in civil-military relations (Loverman, 1999). The pictured development allowed a rapid transition toward a radical democracy in which the military was not only a fundamental factor of political stability but also a player inside the system. Certainly, Chavismo implies a personalistic exercise of power, which is imposed through the figure of a Caudillo while its hierarchical form is endorsed and shared by the military. Consequently, whereas the Executive plays an important role in defining the nature of the political game, administrating resources, and establishing strategies, the role of the military is crucial. This does not imply that there is a military government. However, it must be noted that the military is an

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important part of the government. As such it has influence, manages resources, and has a voice in the decision-making processes and institution building. The President is a “superplayer,” as long as he is both the Head of State and the Commander in Chief of the Armed Forces. In that sense, the State, despite being governed by civilians, is constituted in a closed hierarchical structure in which relations of supersubordination prevail and the public discussion, which is essential for the legitimacy of the democratic system, is reduced. Even more, it is replaced by the idea of loyalty and obedience that is characteristic of the military institution. The Armed Forces are the only belligerent institution within the Venezuelan institutional framework with an effective veto power. In practice, it has become the stabilizing factor of power relations. One could say that the government remains in power to the extent that it is validated and supported by the military. But even more, one could say that given the number of military officials and their influence within the government’s structure, Venezuela is in the presence of a military government even though its nature does not correspond to the Latin American military tradition. Even when the most important positions in the administration are in the hands of civilians or ex-military, it seems clear that the Armed Forces constitute the mechanism that make the State function. Not only in relation to the maintenance of order and the hegemonic power of Chavismo, but also in practical administrative terms. In fact, one could say that the process of transforming Venezuelan society has advanced with the support and approval of the Armed Forces. This has been possible because, unlike other Latin American countries, the Armed Forces have popular support and they perceive themselves and are perceived not as a purely repressive establishment, but as a factor of transformation of the system. These perceptions have their origin in the particular process of formation of the Venezuelan National State in the twentieth century and the role that the military establishment played in that process. Thus, the military has a social representation in the collective imagination that has made them an integral part in the system, at least as important as the United Socialist Party of Venezuela (PSUV) and the coalition of leftist parties that support the government and whose representatives participate in the National Assembly. In fact, the Armed Forces are considered as a means to carry out activities of social assistance, aid and rescue, food distribution, among others. Such actions seek to legitimize the extended presence of this component within the Venezuelan social imaginary. This has facilitated the tutelage of society by the State and the reduction of useful democratic complexity through the suppression of protest. In the end, the military presence constitutes a dissuasive element that reduces constructive criticism of state action. This limits the exercise of the civil rights of the population opposed to the government, who are perceived as enemies, or at least as a threat to the security of the State. After all, with Chavismo, there is a significant confusion between the sphere of operation of the State and the government. In this context, any difference with government action is perceived as a potential action against the State. This tends to solidify the authoritarian character of the government (von Bergen, 2016). Venezuela has become a praetorian society in which various symbolic and coercive actions are used to control the population and to impose a radical and confrontational vision of state action. Chavismo has imposed a radical democracy that has led

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to the polarization of society between friends and enemies. In a dichotomous way, Chavismo’ discourse, defines the interaction between (what in the official narrative are considered) the elite and the people. In this sense, the idea of the elite has a broad character that not only includes the traditional parties, the media, the financial sector, or the traditional bourgeoisie, but also the intellectuals, the universities, and the middle class that do not commune with the Chavista project. The official discourse has been imposed and the public discussion of ideas has been reduced to the governmental narrative. In fact, the official discourse functions as a revealed and unquestionable truth. In this context, the military presence makes it even more difficult to build minimum agreements for coexistence between these sectors. Chavismo has led to limited civilian control over the military sector, which increased its presence and political influence. Thus, the praetorianization of the Venezuelan society took place to the extent that the military’s influence was positioned in the various aspects of life in the country. This has turned the military into a privileged class with access to resources and goods that are not available to other sectors of the population. Credits, contracts, housing programs, facilities constitute part of the new military jurisdiction that separates them from the common citizen. One may not forget its capability to exercise institutional violence, its monopolization of State weapons, and its capacity for territorial control.

4 A Change of Nature Since the beginning of Hugo Chávez’s government, the military has been managing important resources aimed at implementing development plans. The “Bolívar 2000 Plan” was oriented toward the development of infrastructure and various social programs. Likewise, the influence of the garrison chiefs at the level of regional politics increased. They came to have a permanent position in the regional and local planning systems that were directed by governors and mayors. On top of that, the military budget was increased and after 2002 the acquisition of weapons for the modernization of the operational readiness took place. Eventually, there was a change in the doctrine. First, to incorporate the figure of the militiamen, whose current number was over a million, and then to introduce the idea of war of resistance against internal and external enemies (Jacome, 2011). The idea of the people in arms was advanced, with which it forces civilians to participate in the active defense of the nation under military command, which constitutes another form of cooptation of society. The institutional changes that took place in the Armed Forces were oriented toward strengthening its power structure (Jacome, 2007). It can even be said that it constitutes the equivalent of a state power just like the Executive Power, the Legislative Power, the Judicial Power, and Moral Power.3 Even though it is not enshrined in the legislation in this 3

The Venezuelan Constitution incorporates the figure of the Moral Power in its Article 273. This is exercised through the Republican Moral Council, which is made up of the Comptroller General, the Attorney General, and the People´s Ombudsman.

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way, its autonomy and influence on some extent give it a similar status, in particular under the following presidency of Nicolás Maduro. In this dynamic, the Armed Forces incorporated the so-called reserve and the territorial guard into its traditional components of Army, Navy, Aviation, and National Guard. The latter reports directly to the Presidency of the Republic and is justified with the fourth-generation war doctrines under the name of “people’s war of resistance” (Jacome, 2007). The Armed Forces have become a militant institution that openly embraces the Chavista political project. This does not mean that there are no dissidences within the various components, but certainly they are subject to strong political pressure and permanent surveillance by state intelligence apparatus. As a consequence, the number of military-political prisoners serving sentences in Venezuelan prisons is significant. According to the Penal Forum, an NGO that has international recognition, the number has risen to 242 men and women of different components and gradations in 2022. The foregoing elaboration shows that loyalty over professionalism has become a fundamental value of the armed component (CGLA, 2019), which together with the militarization of the public and social control has placed Venezuelan democracy under military tutelage. Venezuela faces a new type of militarism, no longer talking about the direct seizure of power through a coup, but about the construction of a series of institutions that concentrate power in the Executive and its supporting structures, in this case the PSUV and the Armed Forces, which are the civil and military components that constitute the revolutionary project and that guarantee governance through the structuring of a hegemonic social order. Although the idea of mobilized people is still present, popular organization is mediated by the power structure. Elections continue to be a legitimizing mechanism of the system, which does not prevent power from manipulating or unduly influencing collective preferences or using public resources for partisan purposes. The Venezuelan government has declared that its political process is based on the construction of the Socialism of the 21st Century. However, the process has been praetorian in nature from the beginning. It has caused the deterioration of Venezuelan democracy, not only in terms of the weakening of democratic institutions, but also in what has to do with the deterioration of democratic culture. The practices of the Armed Forces involve a high political and ideological component based on rigid (and authoritarian) interpretations of Marxist theory applied to Bolivarianism as the founding ideology of the so-called Fifth Republic. The Armed Forces have thus acquired a partisan character, as such they are not an impartial force but, on the contrary, have taken sides in favor of the current government. A non-orthodox path of professionalization has followed, which is based on safeguarding and deepening the revolution as a process of political transformation. In that sense, the Armed Forces have declared themselves anti-imperialist, socialist, and popular. This imposes a much more authoritarian and vertical view of the Venezuelan political process that responds more to the dynamics of the system’s own accumulation of power and resources than to the emancipatory needs of the population.

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5 Conclusions The growing militarization of Venezuelan society has been the result of a systematic process of “colonization of civil spaces” and the reduction of the public space. In recent years, the Venezuelan society has been subjected to a deep polarization in which the Armed Forces have functioned as a stabilizing factor in favor of the government’s position. In this sense, they have been used to maintain order and contain social dissent. The idea of building social action of a civic-military nature has ended up giving preponderance to the military factor within that equation. Venezuelan society has been co-opted by military power to the point that its ability to influence the course of politics is reduced. In this sense, we can ensure that the military not only supports the governmental project represented by Chavismo, but also is even an important part of it, to the point that it can be considered as a vital element for maintaining the government’s hegemonic apparatus. There has been a revision of the traditional military doctrine throughout the era of Chavismo. The formation of the Venezuelan military is based on the idea of permanent war against imperialism, of an asymmetrical confrontation that calls for the participation of civilians and the military in the defense of the country. From an ideological perspective, there has been a reinterpretation of the Bolivarian doctrine that gives the armed component a preponderant role in the transformation and construction of the structure of society. From a liberal perspective, democracy has been replaced by a left/ populist vision that recognizes mobilized people and the armed institutions as the fundamental actors of the political game.

References Angulo Rivas, A. (2001). Civiles, Militares y Política en Venezuela Fermentum. Revista Venezolana De Sociología y Antropología, 11(30), 115–142. Arenas, N. (2010). La Venezuela de Hugo Chávez: Rentismo, populismo y democracia. Revista Mueva Sociedad, 219, 76–93. Brading, R. (2014). From passive to radical revolution in Venezuelan’ populist project. American Perspective, 41(6), 48–64. Castillo, H. (2019). Militares, control civil y pretorianismo en Venezuela. La conjura pretoriana. Boletín De La Academia De Ciencias Políticas y Sociales, 158, 481–493. Ceresole, N. (2018). Caudillo, ejercito y pueblo. Ediciones Al andalus. Corrales, J. (2015). Autocratic legalism in Venezuela. Journal of Democracy, 26(2), 38–55. Crisis Group Latin America (CGLA). (2019). Venezuela Military Enigma. Crisis Group Latin America Briefing, 39. International Crisis Group. Ellner, S. (1997). Recent Venezuelan political studies: A return to third world realities. Latin American Research Review, 32(2), 201–218. Ellner, S. (2010). Hugo Chavez first Decade in office. Breakthrough and Shortcomings. Latin American Perspective, 37(1), 77–96. Guevara, P. (1993). La etilización de la democracia representativa. Politeia, 15, 29–60. Hernan, C., & Ledezma, L. (2013). History and political theory of civilian-military relations in Venezuela. Politeia, 24, 31–48.

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Irwin, D., & Micett, I. (2011). Logias Militares Venezolanas y Conspiración, 1972-febrero de 1992 Argos, 28 (54). Jacome, F. (2007). Venezuela: Socialismo del Siglo XXI y Fuerza Armada Nacional. Policy Paper 21. Fredrich Ebert Stiftung. Jacome, F. (2011). Fuerza Armada, Estado y Sociedad Civil en Venezuela. Instituto Latinoamericano de Investigaciones Sociales. Jacome, F. (2018). Los militares en la política y la economía de Venezuela. Nueva Sociedad, 274. Lasswell, H. (1941). The Garrison state. American Journal of Sociology, 4, 455–468. Latouche, R., & Ángel, M. (2004). Programa político y democracia en Venezuela. Elementos para la revisión conceptual. Revista Venezolana De Análisis De Coyuntura, X, 2, 11–23. Latouche R., & Ángel, M. (2006). Los dilemas de la representación. Hacia una revisión de la crisis del sistema político venezolano contemporáneo. Revista Venezolana de Análisis de Coyuntura, XII, (2): 11–27. Universidad Central de Venezuela. Latouche, M. A. (2019). Venezuela and its Labyrinth: Institutional change and authoritarianism in twenty-first-century socialism. Middle Atlantic Review of Latin American Studies, 3(2), 1–26. Loverman, B. (1999). For la patria. Politics and armed forces in Latin America. Scholarly Resources. Müller Rojas, A. (1992). Relaciones peligrosas militares, política y Estado. Tropykos-Fundación Gual y España-Asociación de Profesores de la UCV. Rey, J. C. (1989). El futuro de la democracia en Venezuela. IDEA. Rey, J. C. (1992). Apogeo y decadencia de la democracia representativa. América Latina. Alternativas para la democracia. Monte Ávila Editores. Rodriguez- Fraco, X. (2006). La democracia uniformada: El poder militar en Venezuela. Polis, 2(1), 245–272. Romero, C. (2016). Crisis política y transición en Venezuela. Cadernos Prolam/USP, 15, 64–87. Suarez, A. (2021). Algunas consideraciones filosóficas y políticas sobre el militarismo bolivariano. Apuntes Filosóficos, 30(58), 219–231. Urbaneja, J. C. (1995). Pueblo y petróleo en la política venezolana del siglo XX. Monte Avila Editores. Von Bergen, F. (2016). Partido de gobierno y relaciones civiles y militares en la Venezuela chavista. In Luis Alberto Butto & José Alberto Olivar (Eds.) El Estado Cuartel en Venezuela: Radiografía de un proyecto autoritario. Universidad Metropolitana. Yago, A. (1992). La Rebelión de los Ángeles. Fuentes Editores.

Miguel Angel Latouche is guest lecturer at the Department of Comparative Politics of the University of Rostock, Germany.

International and Regional Dimensions of the Crisis

The Role of the EU in the Venezuelan Conflict: Why Did Democracy Promotion Fail? Susanne Gratius

1 Introduction The EU has been an important, albeit not a key actor in the Venezuelan conflict. For three reasons, Venezuela is an exceptional case in the EU policy toward Latin America and the Caribbean (LAC). Firstly, because of the application of an arms embargo and smart sanctions against government officials. Secondly, due to the diplomatic recognition of the opposition leader Juan Guaidó as the legitimate president of the country and, consequently, the freezing of dialogue channels with the Maduro Government. The support of Juan Guaidó by 24 of 27 EU member states served as a second negative incentive to promote a democratic transition. Thirdly, this policy of coercion coincided basically with the US strategy toward Venezuela, which became another novelty in EU-Latin American relations. Thus, against its traditional stance of positive incentives to promote democracy, in the Venezuelan case, Brussels chose a different path by supporting the opposition as the leading force for a democratic transition and de-legitimizing the Maduro Government through sanctions. Different to other authoritarian regimes, such as the Cuban, where the EU’s policy focusses on the government and rejects US sanctions (Ayuso & Gratius, 2020), in Venezuela, Brussels took the inverse path and allied with the United States in its endeavor to promote democracy through a policy of regime change. Another difference to other external conflicts where the EU presented itself divided, this is not the case in its policy toward Venezuela which has been surprisingly coherent since 2017, is of the EU Council imposing smart sanctions. Finally, unlike its policy toward other authoritarian regimes in the LAC, like Cuba, the EU’s policies align with the US policy, and a new Transatlantic consensus (Ayuso & Gratius, 2020).

S. Gratius (B) Department at the Faculty of Law, Autonomous University of Madrid, Madrid, Spain e-mail: [email protected] © The Author(s), under exclusive license to Springer Nature Switzerland AG 2023 M. A. Latouche et al. (eds.), Venezuela – Dimensions of the Crisis, Contributions to Political Science, https://doi.org/10.1007/978-3-031-21889-7_8

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In a certain way, the sanctions approach contradicts the image and self-perception of the EU as a “soft democracy promoter” through dialogue, inclusion and constructive engagement as a usual practice toward authoritarian or hybrid regimes in and outside Europe (Grimm, 2019). However, there are important reasons for the decision to use negative incentives to promote democracy: firstly, state fragility and bad governance, secondly, the EU’s traditionally strong connections with the Venezuelan opposition; thirdly, high levels of violence and impunity; fourthly, strategic resources and the strong support of the Maduro regime by Russia and China, two major actors that sustain the regime and boycott Western efforts to promote a democratic transition (Gratius, 2022). Negative incentives by sanctions and the diplomatic recognition of the opposition leader Guaidó have been the EU’s main tools for a democratic transition through regime change in Venezuela, whereas positive incentives such as mediation efforts, development cooperation and economic exchange played a secondary role. At this backdrop, the article addresses the tools and outcomes of the EU policy toward Venezuela. At the first glance, given the fact that Maduro continues to stay in power three years after the recognition of Guaidó and more than four years since the approval of EU sanctions, Brussels policy (sanctions and diplomacy as negative incentives) failed and was even counterproductive by helping to maintain the Maduro regime in power (Ayuso & Gratius, 2020). The predominance of negative incentives was an important reason for the failure of EU policy. Based on this initial statement, in what follows, the analysis explains why the EU’s role in the conflict has not been constructive and missed the opportunity to contribute to solve the multidimensional crisis in Venezuela. The article is divided into three major parts. The first section discusses the EU’s distinctive role (compared to the US) as an international democracy promoter and peacemaker in terms of profile and instruments. The second part briefly analyses the application of two major tools of EU policy toward Venezuela since 2017: sanctions and diplomacy as negative incentives and, at a minor level, mediation and cooperation (development and economic exchange) as positive incentives. The third section contrasts the outcomes of that policy and explores the main reasons for the failure or limited results of the EU’s dual policy of diplomacy and sanction toward Venezuela.

2 The EU’s Role as an International Democracy Promoter (and Peacemaker) The EU is a democracy promotor and, at a minor extent, a peacemaker in and outside its borders. Inside, the debate about the quality and constraints of democracy in the former socialist countries Hungary and Poland (Everett, 2021) reflects that the EU itself has problems with populist governments or hybrid regimes that conspire against Brussels’ self-imposed treaty-based democratic conditionality and its foundational values “human dignity, freedom, democracy, equality, the rule of law and respect for

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human rights” (Cardwell, 2017: 866). Outside its borders, the promotion of human rights, democracy and peace are a part of the EU’s foreign policy goals. The Treaty of Lisbon, signed in 2007, foresees, on the one hand, “to consolidate and support democracy, the rule of law, human rights and the principles of international law” and, on the other, “to preserve peace, prevent conflicts and strengthen international security” (Chapter 1, article 10A, 2b and 2c). Different to the clearly defined US strategy of democracy promotion as an outstanding goal (Carothers, 2020), the EU prefers a horizontal approach by combining human rights, democracy and peace anchored in its treaties and programs of development cooperation (Godfrey & Youngs, 2019). Likewise, different to the United States (Tovar, 2014), the foundational idea of EU democracy promotion policy is not primarily the Wilsonian idea of democratic peace, but the perception of a close relationship between democracy and social progress. Consequently, as a normative, multilevel actor (Manners, 2002) the EU seeks to spread its own values in the outside world, principally from a constructivist or idealistic perspective and closely linked to a social democratic model: “The more democratic a system of government, the more inclusive and equal a society will be” (Council of the EU, 2019). To the contrary, the United States approach to democracy tends to be more national and security interests driven, and, ultimately, interventionist (Downes & Monten, 2013). Therefore, Washington’s policy of democracy promotion better responds to the “materialist theory of democracy promotion”, whereas the EU’s approach fits into the “normative theory of democracy promotion” (Wolff & Wurm, 2011), given its nature as a norm setter and its foundational values and the commitment to export them abroad. The exhaustive academic literature on democracy promotion focuses primarily on two major topics: the tools and instruments divided in positive and negative incentives; on the one side, and the outcomes and constraints of democracy promotion, on the other (Carothers, 2020). The first debate relates regime types (flawed democracies, hybrid regimes or limited autocracies and dictatorships) and instruments. It distinguishes between negative incentives (sanctions, democratic conditionality or other restrictions of punishment), and positive incentives (political dialogue, aid, trade and investment, treaties or accession) to motivate the targeted government to democratize (Woo & Verdier, 2020). The second debate contrasts goals or intentions of democracy promoters with the democratic results or outcomes in targeted countries. Obviously, both debates are closely inter-connected, and offer the theoretical background for analyzing concrete actors of democracy promotion and comparing case studies. Similar to the United States, the EU launched a number of institutions and tools to promote human rights, democracy and peace. Inspired by the US National Endowment for Democracy (NED), the EU and its member states in 2013 created the European Endowment for democracy (EED) to promote democracy in its neighborhood (Eastern and Central Europe, Middle East, North Africa and Turkey) and beyond. The European Instrument of Human Rights and Democracy (EIDHR), funded with 1.33 billion Euro in the period 2014–2020 has been the longest-standing tool in this area, created in 1994 at an initiative of the European Parliament (EP) to support democracy abroad and, at that time, particularly the transition processes in LAC.

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For example, Colombia benefitted from this program and, later on, from the funds available at the EU’s Instrument contributing to Stability and Peace (EUR 1 billion over 2014–2020). Election Observation Missions (EOM), human rights dialogues and democratic conditionality as well as Declarations, statements and EP Resolutions have been other powerful instruments to promote democracy in unstable or transitional political environments. These and other measures to promote democracy abroad underline the EU’s role as a “soft-promoter of democracy” by development cooperation, electoral observation or political dialogue. They respond to a model of positive incentives for democracy. Nonetheless, the EU also applies coercive or negative tools to promote democracy, human rights and peace. The Council of the EU imposed a similar number of selective or smart sanctions against a large number of states. The number of sanctions increased parallel to the widening of EU’s competences in foreign policy from the signing of the Maastricht Treaty, in 1993, onwards. According to Guimelli, Hoffmann and Ksiazczakova (2020: 9), “sanctions have significantly contributed to the consolidation of the international actorness of the EU”. The EU sanctions map1 indicates that in January 2022 Brussels maintained restrictive measures against 32 countries, two of them in Latin America: Nicaragua and Venezuela. Different to the US, the EU’s coercive measures are smart or selected sanctions which, according to the literature (Drezner, 2011), tend to be more efficient or at least less harmful for the population than, for example, economic embargoes or general sanctions. According to the literature (Biersteker et al., 2016; Woo & Verdier, 2020), sanctions work better in democratic environments than in authoritarian regimes, and they are more successful in combination with positive incentives such as the promise of investment, trade and development aid in exchange for lifting the coercive measures. However, Woo and Verdier (2020: 215–216) found out that rewards (incentives) and sanctions (coercion) combined work better in case of both democracies and dictatorships. They affirm that strong rewards or high positive incentives are the only effective instrument in limited autocracies such as Venezuela, where autocratic elements coincide with limited pluralism and competitive elections (Levitsky & Way, 2006). In this case, sanctions have a strong “rally round the flag effect” by consolidating the authoritarian winning coalition by its appeal on nationalism against external enemies. Contrary to this evaluation, in the case of Venezuela, the EU chooses negative incentives and few rewards. Regarding outcomes or results of these instruments in targeted countries, the first important condition for their efficiency is the existence of a powerful coalition of opposition forces—“a winning coalition” according to Letkzian and Souva (2007: 848)—with some political space of action and political pressure on the regime. But the success of coercion also depends on the duration of the restrictive measures: the longer they last, the less effective they are (Drezner, 2011, Bierstecker et. al., 2016), because the sanctioned target manages to adapt to sanctions. For example, in the Cuban case, US sanctions had been replaced by closer cooperation with strategic partners and adversaries of Washington: the former Soviet Union, China and Venezuela 1

https://www.sanctionsmap.eu/#/main.

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(Ayuso & Gratius, 2020). Second, sanctions work better in combination with incentives and/or positive measures like development cooperation, economic exchange or, in the case of the EU, the perspective to become a member of the Union (Grimm, 2019). To sum up, academic literature suggests the following lessons. Firstly, rewards or positive incentives work better than coercion in limited autocracies; secondly, if sanctions are approved they should be concrete and should not last too long, democracy promotion needs to count on a powerful opposition, and, thirdly, the combination between carots and sticks is a must. These preliminary assumptions raise the question whether EU policy toward Venezuela took into account or ignored these recommendations or results of academic analysis of democracy promotion, and if the EU policy was reactive and short-term or meditated and long-term.

3 The Predominance of Negative Incentives in EU Policy Toward Venezuela There is a broad consensus between institutions and member states that the EU policy toward Venezuela envisages a peaceful democratic transition.2 Beyond this broad consensus on human rights and democracy, the ways and means toward these goals are less clear, and the EU combines negative and positive incentives or measures, with a clear preference of coercion and diplomatic pressure. The EU uses four diplomatic tools for democracy promotion in Venezuela: (1) critical declarations against the human rights record and the “autocratization” of the Maduro Government; (2) the recognition of Juan Guaidó (2019–2021) as legitimate President of the country; (3) the EU mission to observe regional elections on 23 November 2021; and (4) the International Contact Group (ICG) launched in 2018 to support a negotiated solution to the conflict. Particularly the second diplomatic tool, the recognition of Juan Guaidó and the de facto freezing of diplomatic relations with the Maduro Government, was part of the EU’s (institutions and member states) package of negative incentives or coercive measures for democracy promotion, human rights and peace. In addition, the EU’s toolkit includes selective sanctions against an increasing number of government officials, the freezing of their assets, visa prohibitions and an arms embargo, among other so called smart sanctions.3 The recognition of Juan Guaidó as the President of Venezuela translates, on the negative side, into the nonrecognition of the Nicolás Maduro government and the de facto lack of diplomatic 2

See, for example, the Declaration of the High Representative of the EU on January 6, 2021: “Venezuela urgently needs a political solution to end the current impasse through an inclusive process of dialogue and negotiation leading to credible, inclusive and democratic processes”; and EP Resolution on 18 July 2019, when the EP “Reaffirms that a peaceful, democratic and inclusive solution is the only sustainable way out of the current political impasse and the severe social and humanitarian crisis (…)”. 3 see https://www.sanctionsmap.eu/#/main.

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contacts. On the positive side, the EU created the dialogue initiative ICG and maintained a low-level development assistance and some economic exchange. Within this broad toolkit, positive measures do not offer a real incentive for the government in power to engage in a peaceful transition or to share power with the opposition supported by most EU member states. The following sections demonstrate that negative incentives might be politically correct by satisfying domestic lobbies or certain political parties (the dominant conservative group in the EP), but, in practice, they block the path toward an EU-led mediation (Ayuso & Gratius, 2020), and the beginning of a democratic transition by fair and transparent presidential elections requested by the EU, the United States and other countries.

3.1 EU-Venezuelan Relations in the Latin America Context: A Gradual Deterioration EU policy toward Venezuela is embedded in a regional and inter-regional context of relations with Latin America. Particularly in Latin America, long-standing dictatorships until the 1980s—at that time Colombia and Venezuela represented democratic exceptions—motivated the countries of the region, beginning with Argentina, to request the inclusion of a democracy clause in all treaties signed with the EU. From that moment onwards, all free trade or association agreements between the EU and Latin American countries include a democracy clause and, in most cases, a regular human rights dialogue. Given this background, the promotion of human rights and democracy are shared values between both regions and not a unilateral imposition by the EU. The democracy clause has been rarely applied, and it rather served as a potential and diffused threat than as an effective instrument of coercion. Particularly in Latin America, a region outside the EU’s neighborhood and strategic interest, it is true that “The EU has never been especially drawn to punitive approaches to democracy support” and “most of its punitive measures relate to security or stability concerns rather than to democracy” (Godfrey & Youngs, 2019: 4). Bearing in mind its image as a soft democracy promoter in Latin America—compared to the more interventionist US approach (Downes & Monten, 2013)—the EU’s strategy toward Venezuela is an exception from that rule. Why did Brussels agree on negative incentives by imposing selective sanctions to promote democracy in Venezuela and why does the EU support a regime change and places itself on behalf of the political opposition against Chavism? From 1969 onwards, Venezuela has been a part of the EU’s long-standing relationship with the Andean Community (Comunidad Andina de Naciones, CAN). When Hugo Chávez became President, in 1999, the traditional inter-regional pattern of EU-CAN cooperation continued, but was complemented by intense (and sometimes) conflictive bilateral relations in the Venezuelan case. Chávez and Maduro’s new foreign policy priorities toward partnerships with the Global South included ideological alliances with Cuba and leftist South American leaders such as Lula

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da Silva in Brazil or Evo Morales in Bolivia (Gratius, 2021). Bilateral tensions with Colombia due to the FARC guerilla (hosted on Venezuelan territory) and other issues complicated Venezuela’s membership in the Andean Community and Chávez decided not to participate in the EU-CAN free trade agreements, which was finally signed with individual countries (Colombia, Ecuador and Peru). In 2006, when Hugo Chávez announced the withdrawal from the CAN and Venezuela’s membership in MERCOSUR, EU-Venezuela relations started to move into a limbo, because Venezuela did not participate in the EU-MERCOSUR negotiations on an association agreement. As a result, EU-Venezuela relations decreased to a low-level bilateral partnership increasingly deteriorated by the gradual “autocratization” under Chavism. In 2017, four years after Nicolás Maduro was elected President of Venezuela upon the death of Chávez in 2013, MERCOSUR member states Argentina, Brazil, Paraguay and Uruguay decided to invoke the democracy clause and suspend Venezuelan participation in the bloc. From that moment on bilateral relations between the EU and Venezuela declined to irregular summits and ministerial meetings. It was followed by a divided opinion among Latin American states on the inclusion of Venezuela in regional initiatives such as the Community of Latin American and Caribbean States (CELAC) or the Union of South American Nations (UNASUR), and a tense political relationship with the EU. The EU Council decided in November 2017 to apply selective sanctions against Venezuelan government officials. From that moment on, the EU reduced bilateral contacts to a minimum and the absence of EU-CELAC summits or relevant inter-regional meetings contributed to a freezing of diplomatic channels with the Venezuelan government. Parallel to this, the EU openly supported Juan Guaidó whose self-nomination as legitimate President of Venezuela was recognized by 24 of its 27 member states (Gratius & Puente, 2019).

3.2 Negative Incentives or the Dominant Policy of Coercion Venezuela has been the first Latin American country sanctioned by the EU. In November 2017, the Council of the EU unanimously and for the first time approved an arms embargo, visa restrictions and asset freezing. In the following years, the number of government officials on the EU sanctions list increased at each annual revision. As of the latest meeting held in November 2021, there were a total of 26 officials on this list. Although this has been a usual practice of the EU, until 2017 no Latin American country, not even Cuba, has ever been subject to direct coercive measures by Brussels. Selective sanctions reduced diplomatic contacts to a minimum and were—maybe unintendedly—reinforced by other diplomatic restrictions. Therefore, the diplomatic recognition by 24 EU member states of the opposition leader and former President of the Venezuelan National Assembly, Juan Guaidó, as a legitimate president of the country, served as a second negative incentive for democracy because of the parallel freezing of diplomatic contacts with the Maduro regime. The Spanish controversy in 2020 on the formal arrival of Venezuelan Vice-President

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Table 1 European commission, official development assistance to Venezuela, 2020 DCI 2020 (Million Euros)

IcSP (projects and resources), EC to Venezuela 10 Projects, including: reconciliation, Covid-19/Migrants, family violence, agents for peace, project 550,000 Institute for Integrated Transitions, Barcelona

11,6 million Euro

49.4 (ranked 4th in LAC)

Source Author’s own compilation based on the EU donor tracker: https://donortracker.org/countr y/eu. DCI: Development Cooperation Instrument

Delcy Rodríguez and her apparent conversation with former Minister Ábalos exemplify the politicization (controversial debate or polarization inside the EU) on maintaining diplomatic channels with the Maduro regime and the re-opening of these channels. The recognition of Guaidó helped to reinforce the power position of the opposition and avoided the detention of key opposition figures, but only for a limited time-period. The EU as well as the United States and other countries underestimated the strength of the regime based on the armed forces and miscalculated the domestic power balance clearly unfavorable for the opposition (Martínez Meucci & Alfaro, 2020). In these two years of Guaidó´s presidency of the Venezuelan parliament—later on occupied by members of the Maduro regime following the fraudulent legislative elections in December 2020—the EU lost linkage and leverage (Levitsky & Way, 2006) with the regime (Gratius, 2022) and its one-sided policy disqualified Brussels as a neutral mediator in the conflict. The EU presented itself as a close ally of the United States and supported Washington’s policy of regime change by a peaceful transition that which is a precondition for the lifting of respective sanctions in a Declaration by the Council of the EU on 3 April 2020.4 The strongest force behind these two negative incentives of democracy promotion by smart sanctions and diplomatic restrictions was the European Parliament (EP) with a clear stance of condemning the regime and supporting the opposition.

3.3 Positive Measures: Too Weak to Work as Incentives On the other hand, the EU approved a series of positive incentives: it launched the diplomatic initiative International Contact Group (ICG) to facilitate a negotiated solution, it sent an EOM to regional elections in 2021 and it increased development and particularly humanitarian aid in recent years (see Tables 1 and 2): The ICG integrates six LAC countries (Costa Rica, Chile, Dominican Republic, Ecuador, Panama and Uruguay) and eight EU counterparts (the EU itself, France, Germany, Italy, the Netherlands, Portugal, Spain, and Sweden). The ICG met several 4

See https://www.consilium.europa.eu/en/press/press-releases/2020/04/03/declaration-by-thehigh-representative-on-behalf-of-the-european-union-on-venezuela/ (24.03.22).

The Role of the EU in the Venezuelan Conflict: Why Did Democracy … Table 2 EC development funds, 2007–2020 (Million Euros)

2020

49.45

2019

49.11

2018

15.9

2017

137

2.1131

2016

1.85

2015

1.96

2014

4.97

2013

3.29

2012

6.58

2011

4.39

2010

4.43

2009

2.46

2008

4.72

2007

13.5

Total

164.92

Source EU Donor Track

times from 2019 onward (Smilde & Ramsey, 2019), supported the Norwegian negotiation process and underlined the need for “a political negotiation and the organization of credible, free and transparent elections”,5 but failed to assume an active mediation role, or to identify a viable solution to the conflict. Moreover, it is somewhat paradoxical that that “EU member states do not recognize (the Maduro government) as legitimate”,6 but, despite that fact, agree on a diplomatic initiative aimed at a peaceful solution of the conflict without taking into account or recognizing the regime as an actor in that process. From the perspective of the Maduro regime, the ICG does not offer any positive incentives to engage in a negotiated democratic transition process. The EU Election Observation Mission (EOM) for the Venezuelan regional and local elections on November 21, 2021, signaled a gradual change in the EU policy thanks to the personal engagement of the EU High Representative for Foreign Affairs Josep Borrell in favor of re-opening some dialogue channels with Venezuelan institutions, in this case the National Electoral Council (CNE). The EU’s initial findings on regional and local elections suggested a mixed balance between some technical improvements and a larger participation of oppositional parties at the local level. At the same time, the EU highlighted “unfavorable political conditions (…), the lack of judicial independence and non-adherence to the rule of law”.7 President 5

Venezuela: Statement by the International Contact Group on the political negotiations in Mexico, 2 September 2021 (https://eeas.europa.eu/headquarters/headquarters-homepage/103686/venezuelastatement-international-contact-group-political-negotiations-mexico_en) (24.03.22). 6 See https://eeas.europa.eu/headquarters/headquarters-homepage/108099/venezuela-municipaland-regional-elections-and-eu-electoral-observation-mission_en (24.03.22). 7 See https://eeas.europa.eu/headquarters/headquarters-homepage/108099/venezuela-municipaland-regional-elections-and-eu-electoral-observation-mission_en (24.03.22).

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Maduro harshly criticized these findings and decided not to renew the visas of the EU delegation for an additional week. Although the EOM offered a positive incentive by re-engaging Venezuelan official institutions and contributing to increase electoral legitimacy and international prestige, its impact on the EU’s goal to promote a democratic transition remains limited. The case of EU development assistance suggests a similar picture. Venezuela has never been an important beneficiary of EU development assistance due to its status as an oil-exporting and high-income country. Taking into account that the United Nations still classifies Venezuela as a country with “high human development”,8 until very recently, the EU practically excluded Venezuela from its bilateral cooperation programs with the LAC region. The situation changed gradually when Venezuela transformed into a fragile state with a permanent humanitarian crisis from 2017/2018 onward, but humanitarian aid became politicized as the outcome of the US and EU attempts to bypass the government and channel aid through the opposition. The disastrous economic and social situation in Venezuela motivated the EU to allocate 238 million Euros in emergency aid since 2016. Funds increased from 2018 onward to alleviate economic and social hardship caused by eight years of severe recession, hyperinflation, food and energy shortages (Puente & Rodríguez, 2020). Whereas humanitarian and other development assistance increased parallel to Venezuela’s economic hardship, trade and investment between the EU and Venezuela declined drastically, compared to the pre-and Chávez era. EU exports to Venezuela decreased “drastically from EUR 6.5 billion in 2012 to EUR 0.69 billion in 2019; and imports were reduced by half in the same period” (Gratius, 20229 ). In short, Brussels did not indicate any type of strong incentives identified by some authors (Woo & Verdier, 2020) as the only efficient instrument of democracy promotion in “limited autocracies” such as the Venezuelan regime. The EU neither substantially increased its humanitarian and regular aid programs to help the country overcome its deepest ever crisis in modern times (Gratius & Puente, 2019) nor offered it new instruments such as a trade agreement or investment flows that might have facilitated the regime to engage in a democratic transition in exchange of the EU lifting the sanctions. Political initiatives like the ICG and the EOM had a minor effect on the EU’s linkage and leverage and were not designed as incentives for the regime to engage in a democratic process (Table 3).

8

The UN Development Report 2020 classified Venezuela as “high developed country” ranked 113rd among 189 evaluated countries (PNUD, Informe sobre Desarrollo Humano 2020. La próxima frontera: desarrollo humano y el Antropoceno. Nota informativa para los países acerca del Informe sobre Desarrollo Humano 2020. República Bolivariana de Venezuela). 9 See https://ec.europa.eu/trade/policy/countries-andregions/countries/venezuela/ (24.3.22).

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Table 3 Negative and positive incentives of the EU policy toward Venezuela (2017–2022) Instrument/+/−

Negative incentives

Positive incentives

Diplomacy

Recognition of Juan Guaidó as the legitimate President of Venezuela by 24 EU member states, Declarations, Resolutions and statements on mismanagement and violation of human rights and democratic principles

International Contact Group (ICG) EOM (implicit recognition of regional elections Nov 2021)

Economic measures

Selective sanctions (travel restrictions, freezing of assets, etc.) against 27 government officials; arms embargo

(Limited) trade relations and investment (declining)

Development cooperation

Low level of ODA, Venezuela is not targeted by the EC because of its high developed country UN status

Humanitarian aid (irregular resources) and emergency funds increased as a reaction to the humanitarian crisis since 2016

Source Author’s own compilation

4 Conclusions: Why did the EU Policy Fail? The EU’s goal to promote a peaceful transition to democracy in Venezuela failed, insofar as there are no visible signs of an end of autocracy; and the opposition was unable to force the regime to share power and to start a credible negotiation process with their political adversaries. Parallel to the consolidation of a chaotic autocracy, the economic and social crises continue, but some indicators such as the inflation rate improved at the beginning of 2022. The EU policy toward Venezuela followed only some of the lessons on the use of coercion as an instrument of democracy promotion: Brussels applies smart or selective sanctions on an annual basis (four years), it counts on a more or less powerful coalition of opposition forces and it applies some positive incentives such as diplomacy, trade or investment, even though at a very low level (Gratius, 2022). Thus, the EU preferred sanctions or negative incentives over positive measures, and positioned itself clearly on behalf of the opposition and, consequently, became part of the domestic political game and abandoned its neutral political stance before 2017. From this one-sided perspective, the EU (as well as the United States) will be unable to mediate between the two sides or to establish the conditions for a negotiated transition to democracy, given that the Maduro regime does not accept the EU as a neutral player, because of the diplomatic recognition and the sanctions against Venezuelan government officials. Consequently, the costs of this policy of double negative incentives (sanctions and recognition) are the loss of neutrality and mediation power, as well as credibility, taking into account the different policies that the EU applies to authoritarian regimes: positive incentives in the case of Cuba where the regime is its closest ally and negative

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incentives in the case of Venezuela where the opposition is its principle interlocuteur (Ayuso & Gratius, 2020). Altogether, negative incentives consolidated the regime in power, playing the card of external enemies and allying with other authoritarian regimes such as China or Russia. These negative outcomes played against the benefits of a close Transatlantic alliance on Venezuela with the United States (even under the Presidency of Donald Trump) by applying similar tools and sharing the goal of regime change, and with other Western states like Canada which applied similar policies. Why did the EU policy not help solve the Venezuelan conflict and return to the democratic path? The first reason might be the balance between tools. In theory, Brussels chose the right combination between negative and positive incentives (the dual approach), which is much more promising than pure coercion (Hill, 2016: 154). Nonetheless, although Brussels combined negative and positive incentives, they appear unbalanced and clearly focus on sanctions and diplomatic restrictions as well as on blaming and shaming. The prevalence of coercion might be politically correct in order to satisfy domestic constituencies, but is not helpful to force an authoritarian regime like the Maduro regime to change its behavior. The recognition of Guaidó placed 24 out of 27 EU member states—including Spain as the closest European Latin American partner—against the authoritarian regime which became a part of the domestic political game. Indirectly, through the powerful instrument of diplomatic recognition and support of the opposition, the EU tried to change the “power balance between the regime and opposition in favor of the latter. Through this policy, the EU (without declaring it) shared the US goal of regime change, and preferred, in ultimate consequence, a breakdown of the authoritarian regime over a negotiated transition, which from Brussels” perspective should be in the hands of opposition forces. This one-sided political stance of the EU member states played against the dialogue and mediation focus of the ICG, which supported the attempts of Norway and others to find a negotiated solution (Martínez Meucci and Alfaro 2020). In a certain way, negative incentives conspired against the traditional approach of the EU toward a peaceful and negotiated democratic transition, impossible without the recognition of both parties, opposition and regime. The counterproductive effect of sanctions, be these general or smart, on an authoritarian regime with a populist past that uses the friend-enemy logic for its own purpose of legitimation, also neutralized Brussels’ effort to mediate or support a dialogue between the government and opposition (Ayuso & Gratius, 2020). The rally-roundthe-flag effect of the US and EU sanctions combined even helped the regime to consolidate its power and to sustain the regime with strong external allies like China and Russia (Gratius, 2022). The political praxis showed that this dual policy of sanctions and incentives does not work under certain domestic conditions in the targeted country. Consequently, a second reason for the failure of the EU policy toward Venezuela lies in the over-estimation of the strength of the opposition (Martinez Meucci, 2020), which is too weak and too divided to take power and too much connected to the US sanctions, which a clear majority of the Venezuelan population rejects as harmful and counterproductive (Weisbrot & Sachs, 2019). The opposition has not been able

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to strengthen their political position in Venezuela, due to internal reasons such as corruption scandals, political divisions inside the bloc and the regime’s repression and harassment of any type of criticism and dissident positions as well as the unfair electoral conditions denounced by the EU in its EOM in November 2022. In this sense, the alignment of the EU with Washington’s goal of regime change and open backing of the opposition offered alliances with other anti-Maduro forces in Latin America, but it also pushed the EU into the internal political polarization between the government and opposition. In short, in the period 2017–2022, EU policy toward Venezuela failed to accomplish the goal of a peaceful, negotiated democratic transition and/or regime change, because of Brussels’ preference for negative incentives of democracy promotion, the one-sided position on behalf of the opposition and the loss of linkage and leverage (Gratius, 2022) due to its low-level relations with the Venezuelan government. In contrast to coercion, positive incentives like trade, investment and development cooperation were too weak to serve as an incentive for the authoritarian regime in power for engaging in a credible and efficient dialogue with the opposition. By positioning itself clearly on the side of the opposition and its leader Juan Guaidó, the EU’s effort and diplomatic initiatives like the ICG or the support of Norwegian mediation were too weak to convince the regime to share power or start a democratic transition. On the contrary, the two negative incentives were even counterproductive because they forced the regime to seek alternatives to Western powers, mainly China, Cuba and Russia (Gratius, 2022). Going back to the academic literature, an efficient EU policy of democracy promotion should combine sanctions with positive incentives—such as substantial development assistance, a trade agreement or direct investments, or the promise of an amnesty for government officials following previous negotiations with the opposition—strong enough to convince the dominant post-Chavist regime to abandon authoritarianism and to share power. According to Woo and Verdier (2020), rewards are the only effective tool that work in limited autocracies like Venezuela. That said, the EU should reconsider its policy of negative incentives and replace it with a constructive engagement through dialogue, cooperation, and economic exchange. Sanctions might be politically correct and based on the request (in this case by the EP and domestic lobbies) to act, but as the Venezuelan case demonstrates, they do not work as an effective instrument of democracy promotion in hybrid regimes or limited autocracies. The fact that the Maduro regime is still in power, despite all sanctions and economic hardship, evidences the limited or even negative role of the EU, partly because it chose the wrong combination of instruments and favored a weak stakeholder (the opposition) to promote regime change and/or a peaceful transition to democracy. Consequently, the EU lost not only linkage and leverage in Venezuela, but also credibility as a coherent democracy promotor with the same instruments for similar types of regimes. It looks doubtful that the gains of such a policy of negative incentives (Western alliance) won over losses (credibility, mediation). In any case, the unsuccessful EU policy toward Venezuela has played in favor of the regime and

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against the Venezuelan population. The mismatch between goals and instruments could not be greater and needs an urgent revision.

References Ayuso, A., & Gratius, S. (2020). Sanciones como instrumento de coerción: ¿cuán similares son las políticas de Estados Unidos y de la UE hacia Venezuela? América Latina Hoy, 85(agosto), 31–53. Biersteker, T., Eckert, S. E., & Tourinho, M. (Eds.). (2016). Targeted sanctions: The impacts and effectiveness of United Nations action. Cambridge University Press. Cardwell, P. J. (2017). Explaining the EU’s legal obligations for democracy promotion: The case of the EU-Turkey relationship. European Papers, 2(3), 863–886. www.europeanpapers. Carothers, T. (2020). Rejuvenating democracy promotion. Journal of Democracy, 31(1), 114–123. Council of the European Union. (2019, October 14). Council conclusions on democracy. Brussels. Downes, A. B., & Monten, J. (2013). Forced to be free? Why foreign-imposed regime change rarely leads to democratization. International Security, 37(4), 90–131. Drezner, D. W. (2011). Sanctions sometimes smart: Targeted sanctions in theory and practice. International Studies Review, 13, 96–108. Everett, J. (2021). Poland and Hungary: Democratic backsliding and the shifting European political landscape. RUDN Journal of Political Science, 23(3), 394–406. Godfrey, K., & Youngs, R. (2019). Towards a new EU democracy strategy. Working Paper. Washington DC: Carnegie Endowment for International Peace. Gratius, S. (2022). The West against the rest: Democracy versus autocracy promotion in Venezuela. Bulletin of Latin American Research (first view online: 26 May 2021). Gratius, S. (2021). Bolivia y Venezuela: Políticas exteriores populistas de dos ‘Estados Rebeldes.’ In S. Gratius & R. Ángel (Eds.), Política Exterior y Populismo en Europa y América (pp. 204–231). Tecnos. Gratius, S., & Puente, J. M. (2019). Las Claves de la Crisis Venezolana, Foreign Affairs Latinoamérica, 19(2)(abril), 5–15. México D.F. Grimm, S. (2019). Democracy promotion in EU enlargement negotiation: more interaction, less hierarchy. Democratization, 26(5). Giumelli, F., Hoffmann, F., & Ksiazczakova, A. (2020). The when, where and why of European Union sanctions. European Security, 30(1), 1–23. Hill, C. (2016). Foreign policy in the twenty-first century. Palgrave Macmillan. Letkzian, D., & Souva, A. (2007). An institutional theory of sanctions onset and success. Journal of Conflict Resolution, 51(6), 848–878. Levitsky, S., & Way, L. A. (2006). Linkage versus leverage rethinking the international dimension of regime change. Comparative Politics, 38(4), 379–400. Martínez Meucci, M. Á. & Alfaro, F. (2020). Asimetría del conflicto y mecanismos de diálogo y negociación en Venezuela, América Latina Hoy, 85. Manners, I. (2002). Normative power Europe: A contradiction in terms. Journal of Common Market Studies, 20(2), 235–258. Puente, J. M., & Rodriguez, J. A. (2020). Venezuela en etapa de colapso macroeconómico: Un análisis histórico y comparative. América Latina Hoy, 85, 55–72. Smilde, D., & Ramsey, G. (2019). El difícil camino hacia adelante: Venezuela y el Grupo de Contacto Internacional. Análisis Carolina, 1. Madrid: Fundación Carolina. Tovar, J. (2014). El idealismo wilsoniano en la política exterior estadounidense, ¿una doctrina recurrente? Revista Española De Ciencia Política, 35, 137–160. Weisbrot, M., & Sachs, J. (2019). Economic Sanctions as Collective Punishment: The Case of Venezuela. Center for Economic and Policy Research: Washington.

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Susanne Gratius is Director of the Political Science and International Relations Department at the Faculty of Law of the Autonomous University of Madrid and an Associated Senior Researcher at the Barcelona Centre for International Affairs.

From Monroe to Bolívar and Back? US-Venezuela Relations Alexander Brand and Wolfgang Muno

1 Introduction Richard Nixon, then-Vice President of the United States, visited Caracas on May 13, 1958. President Dwight D. Eisenhower had sent him to a goodwill tour through South America, described as “one of the most important United States foreign policy events in post-WWII Latin America” (Cox, 2012). Some incidents during this visit may be considered characteristic for US-Venezuela relations, perhaps for US-Latin America relations in general. The visit took place a few months after Venezuelan dictator Marcos Pérez Jiménez had been overthrown and fled to the US, where he was granted asylum as a former loyal ally. This created an agitated atmosphere in the new democracy, the Caracas municipal council even declared Nixon persona non grata (Chavez, 2015). Nixon’s earlier stops had seen some minor protests in Uruguay and Peru, but in Caracas, he and his entourage were attacked by a mob of angry Venezuelans, and several members of staff were injured. The US reacted with a mobilization of troops in the Caribbean, ready to invade Venezuela, but nothing dramatic happened and Nixon could get away without serious injuries. News at that time spoke of “the most violent attack ever perpetrated on a high American official while on foreign soil” (Pathé, 1958). Nixon himself later interpreted the assault as proof that Latin Americans were not fit for democracy (Friedman, 2012: 156ff.). What we can clearly gauge from this is the long-standing anti-Americanism in Latin American societies, the main reason for these events (cf. Friedman,

A. Brand (B) Rhine-Waal University, Kleve, Germany e-mail: [email protected] W. Muno Institute of Political and Administrative Sciences, University of Rostock, Rostock, Germany e-mail: [email protected] © The Author(s), under exclusive license to Springer Nature Switzerland AG 2023 M. A. Latouche et al. (eds.), Venezuela – Dimensions of the Crisis, Contributions to Political Science, https://doi.org/10.1007/978-3-031-21889-7_9

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2012; McPherson, 2009 generally on anti-Americanism in Latin America). AntiAmericanism here has to be seen as anti-hegemonic resistance, most vocally articulated at the popular level, in light of US support for former dictator Pérez Jiménez, which reflects an arrogant idea of Latin America as a subordinated region. The concept of the “backyard”, in which the US exercises hegemony, found its purest expression in the so-called Monroe Doctrine, while the Latin American resistance can be attributed to the ideas established by Simón Bolívar. In this article, we will analyze US-Venezuela relations in recent years, drawing on the two historical figures of Monroe and Bolívar symbolizing different understandings of the relationship at hand. First, we will shortly introduce the two adjacent narratives, followed by a very short overview of historical relations between the US and Venezuela. Despite several differences, the two have been very close for decades, not least because of oil. In recent years, as we will show in the remainder of the chapter, relations have deteriorated considerably, first under Chávez, and even more so under Maduro, with both leaders emphasizing anti-Americanism. However, as recent developments show, the future of US-Venezuela relations is anything but determined.

2 Bolívar Versus Monroe? Simon Bolívar and James Monroe, the two historical figures represent two narratives in US-Latin American relations. A central element of US-Latin American relations is the Monroe Doctrine, which declared Latin America the “backyard” of the United States.1 The Monroe Doctrine dates back to President Monroe’s message to Congress on December 2, 1823 (Gilderhus, 2006; Smith, 1994). US concerns about a possible restoration of colonial rule in the recently independent Latin American republics as well as Russian intentions to expand its influence in Alaska southwards resulted in a—at that time—rather purely defensive stance enshrined in three key propositions: (1) no future colonial claims by European powers in the Americas, (2) American nonentanglement in European affairs and (3) the declaration of any European intervention in the Americas as a threat to national security. The Monroe Doctrine, however, was of limited importance, until it was used by President Polk in the mid-nineteenth century to legitimize his expansionist policy southwestwards, at the same time warning European powers not to intervene in Texas or California (c.f. Gilderhus, 2006). After the US had won the war against Mexico and annexed half of the Mexican territory, the idea of “America the Americans” became increasingly mixed up with religious ideas of the “City upon a Hill” and the secularist Manifest Destiny, creating the belief of American Exceptionalism as well as some kind of an American version of the “White man’s burden”. This resulted in a particular form of self-glorification: America had a mission and US foreign policy

1

The following paragraphs draw on Muno and Brand (2014).

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was seen as necessarily altruistic and virtuous in this regard (c.f. Dittgen, 1998; Junker, 2003; Krakau, 1967). This thinking culminated in the famous Roosevelt Corollary to the Monroe Doctrine (cf. Ricard, 2006). Again in order to prevent European imperialist powers to expand in Latin America and to secure hemispheric US interests and power, President Roosevelt on December 6, 1904 declared before Congress the willingness (and the moral duty) of the US to be the hemispheric police force: Chronic wrongdoing, or an impotence, which results in a general loosening of the ties of civilized society, may in America, as elsewhere, ultimately require intervention by some civilized nation, and in the Western Hemisphere the adherence of the United States to the Monroe Doctrine may force the United States, however reluctantly, in flagrant cases of such wrongdoing or impotence, to the exercise of an international police power. (quoted after: Smith, 1994: 25)

The result of recurrent US interference was not a stabilization of weak governments but continuing military interventions (embodied in the “big stick policy”, a term again coined by T. Roosevelt). As Grandin points out: “By 1930, Washington had sent gunboats into Latin American ports over six thousand times, invaded Cuba, Mexico (again), Guatemala and Honduras, fought protracted guerrilla wars in the Dominican Republic, Nicaragua and Haiti, annexed Puerto Rico, and taken a piece of Colombia to create both the Panamanian nation and the Panama Canal” (Grandin, 2007: 3). At that time the US became the unrivaled hemispheric hegemon in the Americas. In the 1930s, however, this hegemonic approach was abandoned temporarily. After initial steps taken under President Herbert Hoover, the world economic crisis led F. D. Roosevelt to alter US-Latin American policy. Roosevelt, busy with domestic problems, tried (and had) to loosen the grip and declared a “Good Neighbor Policy”. Consequently, Roosevelt withdrew troops from Haiti and the Dominican Republic, relinquished unequal treaties like the Platt Amendment, which gave the US the right to intervene at any time in Cuba and to dictate Cuba’s foreign policy, and accepted the nationalization of Mexico’s oil in 1938 (Smith, 1994: 35; Rabe, 2012: 15). This approach fostered a new wave of multilateralism. The Latin American states, with the exception of Argentina, supported the US in the Second World War, with Brazil and Mexico even sending troops. After the war, Latin Americans were among the founding states of the United Nations: Of the 51 states at the inaugural ceremony in San Francisco, 21 were from the Western Hemisphere. Consequently, in 1948, the Organization of American States (OAS) was established by all nations of the hemisphere, explicitly emphasizing non-intervention and cooperation as hallmarks of a neighborhood policy based on partnership. The Cold War ended this gentle US approach toward Latin America, reviving the thinking of the Monroe Doctrine and the Roosevelt Corollary. In the following decades, Latin America was seen as a Cold War arena, with the US trying to prevent any communist takeover in the region, especially after the Cuban revolution (c.f. Brands, 2010; Rabe, 2012). With the end of the Cold War—except for limited areas such as trade, foreign direct investment and the War on Drugs—the US’ position toward Latin America became more and more one of neglect. Yet, the traditions

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described above still continued to bind US Latin American policy. The prevalent approach always secured hegemony through interventions and exerting control. Latin Americans and Latin American governments often expressed criticism toward the regional hegemon while at the same time admiring the US and seeing the country as a role model. At its very beginning in the nineteenth century the relationship did not seem to be fraught with problems. When Latin America reached independence, the republic of the US served as a role model throughout the continent. Many of the young Latin American republics copied and adapted the US constitution. After the US had made its ambitions for regional hegemony clear, Latin America often found itself torn between an anti-imperialist stance that entailed autonomy from the US on the one hand2 and acceptance of (factual) dependency and a guiding role of the US on the other. This ambivalent stance was not least exemplified by the person and the ideas of Simon Bolívar, arguably one of the most prominent heroes of Latin American independence (Bushnell, 1986). Visiting the US and gaining certain respect for the organization of US politics and society, he nevertheless became famous for stating that “[t]he United States … seem[s] destined by Providence to plague America with torments in the name of freedom” (quoted in: Bushnell, 1986). However, the context in which these words were uttered—great power rivalry between the US and Great Britain, in which Bolívar sought to strategically position himself—has mostly been forgotten. In order to escape from US domination, Bolívar emphasized the idea of a united Spanish America, which he published in his “Ideas on the Union of All America” in 1813 and again in his famous Jamaica letter in 1814. During the Congress of Panama in 1826 he also tried to unite Spanish America but remained unsuccessful (Fitzgerald, 1971, on Bolívar see also Collier, 2008). Counter-hegemonic and antiimperialist thinking, as well as a strife for non-interference and autonomy have arguably been vocal throughout the last two centuries in Latin America, but especially Hugo Chávez has used Bolívar’s thinking to reject US claims and push new regional integration (cf. Muno, 2015). The “Alianza Bolivariana para los Pueblos de Nuestra América – ALBA” was named after Bolívar as a reminiscence of his ideas of unity, and to emphasize an anti-imperialist, anti-US stance. Monroe and Bolívar, two significant historical figures representing important narratives, also help understand US-Venezuela relations, which oscillated between US hegemony, intervention and Venezuelan counter-hegemony.

3 The History of Relations Between Venezuela and the US After independence, Venezuela was trapped in a “permanent crisis” (Morón, 1979: 218) marked by civil war and international debts (on the history of Venezuelan foreign policy see the excellent overview in Boeckh, 2005). An extraordinary example of 2

Often, but not exclusively, a left-wing attitude, but occasionally also employed by nationalist and populist governments like Juan Perón in Argentina.

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an ongoing Venezuelan debt crisis was the Anglo-Italian-German intervention in 1902/1903 when the European powers blocked Venezuelan harbors to enforce debt repayment. The US ambassador represented Venezuela in negotiations after the intervention, and ultimately, this episode inspired the Roosevelt Corollary. The US became the debt-collector for European powers in order to prevent further European intrusion into the hemisphere. This, however, also strengthened its dominance and presence in the Caribbean. The situation improved during the dictatorship of Juan Vicente Gómez, with nation-building and the starting oil wealth (see Kestler & Muno, 2022, in this volume). Venezuela could pay all foreign debts, and international companies invested in the country. Official Venezuela-US relations were very good, although Venezuela, from time to time, tried to emphasize its independence. As Boeckh explains, on one hand, Gómez executed a kind of “appeasement” policy toward US capital, on the other hand, he avoided open dependence by balancing oil concessions between US and Anglo-Dutch companies (Boeckh, 2005: 87). In the decades after Gómez’s death, oil dominated US-Venezuela relations. It became Venezuela’s most important export product and the US became the most important destination of its oil shipments (cf. Ewell, 1996). However, the relations were neither static nor unidirectional. During World War II, the Venezuelan government managed to increase its royalties from 19% to around 50% (Boeckh and Hörmann, 1992: 517). In 1960, the new democratic government in Venezuela initiated the foundation of the Organization of Oil-exporting Countries (OPEC) after a decline of oil prices and hence of state income (Rabe, 1982). With OPEC, oil prices quadrupled in 1973 and 1974. Based on these windfall profits, Venezuela considered itself a regional power (Boeckh, 2005). The country tried to promote democratization processes in Latin America and supported peace processes in Central America. In the 1980s, ongoing economic problems restrained Venezuelan foreign policy; the country slid deeper and deeper into economic, social and political crises (see Kestler and Muno, 2022, in this volume). Still, despite minor differences, the two countries maintained good relations and stayed close allies. Under Chávez, relations started to deteriorate considerably.

4 The Watershed Moment: Chavez’ Rise to Power Hugo Chávez’s rise to power in 1998 is commonly regarded a turning point in USVenezuela relations even though such a statement needs to be qualified. Initially, Chávez’s platform and his Movimento Quinta República (MVR) were aiming more at making “sclerotic institutions less corrupt [and] a profoundly unequal society fairer” (Buxton, 2018: 7). Faced with rampant inequality, steadily declining per capita income and massive poverty across large swaths of the Venezuelan society—despite the country’s rich endowment with oil—the new government promised to address the ever growing socio-economic crisis at home as its first priority (cf. Brand & Muno, 2014). Therefore the emerging project of “Bolivarian reform”—later “Bolivarian

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socialism”—focused on domestic-level transformations, with only little emphasis on Chávez’s “radical populism”, with which he later confronted the US. Most notably, Chávez had not framed his presidential campaign around an anti-American narrative (cf. Buxton, 2018: 13), nor was his incoming government’s policy marked by a repudiation of US (or European) investors, rather to the contrary. It perhaps amounts to an overly reductionist account of developments to regard the change in government as such as the watershed moment in US-Venezuela relations (cf. Angelo, 2020a: 4). In the beginning, the US for the most part rather remained in the position of a critical and distanced observer and—from the perspective of the new Venezuelan government—was still considered a candidate for continued business relations. Admittedly, within the US, conservative members of Congress such as Ileana Ros-Lehtinen and Marco Rubio warned about a second Cuban-style communism, this time in Venezuela. And the terror attacks of 9/11 made the Bush administration more receptive of the narrative of Venezuela sliding into a dictatorship with the potential to threaten US energy security (cf. Buxton, 2018: 16). In turn, Chávez froze part of his military cooperation with the US and offended CubanAmericans and their lobby by openly embracing the Cuban government under Castro (cf. Angelo, 2020a: 4, Fonseca et al., 2020). Still, there was no full deterioration of relations, as little collaboration remained in place, including joint counternarcotics operations against Venezuela’s neighbor Colombia. What made things turn sour was the attempted coup-d’état in Venezuela in 2002 and in particular the de facto US backing of the coup through its recognition of the Carmona transition government, which remained in power for only three days. As Venezuelan opposition groups associated with the overthrow had been supported by the US State Department as well as foundations such as the National Endowment for Democracy (NED), Chávez fumed upon his return to office that the US government had in fact “conspired with the opposition to overthrow him” (Gill, 2018: 81), in response to his domestic reforms and his mild (political) distancing from the US. The Bush government, in return, officially denied any involvement in the events and suggested that it had even warned Chávez of the plot. Only a few days later during an emergency meeting, the US sided with other OAS members and condemned the coup (cf. Vulliamy, 2002). The 2002 coup clearly led to a radicalization of the Chávez government against the US. Whereas it intensified its investment into the transformation of the domestic economy and society toward welfarism, redistribution, statism and anti-neoliberalism (cf. Brand & Muno, 2014), it also stepped up its efforts to counter the hegemonic role of the US in the Western Hemisphere. As Wehner and Thies (2021: 330; own emphasis) explain: Chávez ended the traditional friend and partner role of the United States in the Western Hemisphere. The United States became the enemy and rival in a new role relationship with Venezuela, as the U.S. Ambassador recognized the new government of Pedro Carmona during a failed 3-day coup…

As a result of such a new posture, the Venezuelan government now criticized US claims for preponderance more openly and frequently resorted to negative stereotypes

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of the US when mocking the domestic opposition—for instance, as “sons of the Empire” or “puppets” of the US (ibid.: 331). In such parlance, US president Bush was called the “spokesman for imperialism”, and several US allies in Latin America were antagonized for their close relationships with the US. The change was, however, not merely rhetorical. It also included substantial criticism of the US-led War on Drugs in the hemisphere, which resulted in the expulsion of Drug Enforcement Agency (DEA)-personnel from Venezuela. Around that time, the practice of mutual extradition of diplomatic staff began, which continued until very recently. Most notably, toward the end of the second Bush administration in 2008, US ambassador Patrick Duddy was expelled while his successor, who had been confirmed by the US Senate, was rejected by Chávez. Such “diplomatic bickering” became a hallmark of US-Venezuela relations ever since. After the failed coup, the Venezuelan president increasingly targeted the US Global War on Terror (GWOT). Criticism had already began during the war in Afghanistan, with Chávez using his weekly television show Álo Presidente to condemn bombings and civilian casualties (cf. Gill, 2018: 81). Further issues were the scathing of US sanctions toward Cuba—Venezuela’s now closest ally—and the rejection of the US free trade agenda. It was due to the strong Venezuelan opposition at the 2005 OAS Summit in Mar del Plata, that the plans for the establishment of a Free Trade Area of the Americas (FTAA) were buried. This development may be interpreted in connection with the so-called pink tide challenging the political climate in large parts of Latin America at that time (cf. Chodor, 2015). Domestically and to some extent also region-wide, the state-sponsored TV news channel teleSur became an important communication tool to confront and provoke the US, to blame it for all sorts of problems, to galvanize anti-US sentiments and to spread conspiracy stories (cf. Carey, 2019: 447). Regionally Chávez re-invented himself as leader of an emerging “leftist bloc” on the platform of anti-imperialism, casting Bolivarian socialism not only as an alternative concept but one that was to challenge US predominance in Latin and particularly South America.3 The main vehicles of such efforts were ALBA and Petro Caribe, a commercial scheme, under which Venezuelan oil was shipped on preferential conditions to allies in South America and the Caribbean. Some observers have called these attempts “instances of post-hegemonic regionalism” (cf. Riggirozzi & Tussie, 2012), meaning post-US and post-neoliberal at the same time. Others have highlighted that these institutions were supposed to be building blocs of a Venezuelan counter hegemony (cf. Bagley & Defort, 2015). In all this, undeniably, the surge in oil price levels during the first decade of the twenty-first century was a crucial factor. It allowed Venezuela to invest in domestic redistribution as well as to engage in transnational welfarism. Within the mentioned projects, the rhetoric of South-South cooperation met with anti-US ideological content, effectively contributing to a soft balancing of US claims for primacy, at least for some time (cf. Alvares, 2021: 56).

3

Globally, the Chávez government also intensified its relations with a couple of key “states of concern”, from a US perspective, most notably China, Iran, Russia and Belarus.

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Not by chance, it was ALBA that was treated with a great deal of suspicion by the US (cf. Biegon, 2020: 58). Before the oil price collapsed and the socio-economic conditions in Venezuela deteriorated to the extent that it was impossible to sustain the ALBA and Petro Caribe exchanges, these activities were regarded as a source of concern among US officials, as cables and messages published through Wikileaks showed (ibid.). All in all, US responses still appeared to be low-level and rather subliminal, given the magnitude of the (rhetorical, perhaps more than substantial) challenges (cf. Gill, 2018: 83–84). Preoccupied with the GWOT, Islamist fundamentalism in the Greater Middle East and beyond, a rising China, fraying transatlantic relations and already festering domestic polarization, the US government certainly did not prioritise Latin or South America at that time. Regarding Venezuela, it relied on a four-pronged strategy, with instruments and activities chosen that indicated the secondary nature of the concern at hand. As Gill (2019) aptly describes, the US approach to Venezuela was marked by (1) a continued engagement with, and support of domestic opposition groups, however, marginalized within the country, and often under the guise of democracy promotion; (2) the usage of development projects and the United States Agency for International Development (USAID) in particular to establish links to poorer segments of the Venezuelan population, in an apparent attempt to also rival domestic welfare programs; (3) occasional attempts to pressure the Venezuelan government and judiciary to take back measures, which were to limit the political pluralism within; and (4) to lobby foreign governments to prevent Venezuela’s access to international leadership positions such as, for example, the United Nations Security Council in 2006.4 What is most striking, however, is that despite all rhetorical gestures and diplomatic bickering, in economic terms the ties between Venezuela and the US remained quite close. Bonfili has coined the phrase “interdependent rivalry” (2010) to capture the essence of this seemingly ambiguous situation. All ideological antagonism did not sever the close relations established through Venezuelan oil shipments during the W. Bush years (cf. Brand & Muno, 2014). From 1993 until 2007, around 50% of Venezuela’s oil exports went to the US (with some of it re-imported in refined form). Only in 2007, a noticeable drop of oil shipments to the US to around 40% of total Venezuelan oil exports can be determined. Still, it is highly questionable whether this followed a “political logic” or was the result of other factors, such as the rise of China as destination for Venezuelan oil and declining US demand for Venezuelan oil due to increased domestic investments into fracking and horizontal drilling. The latter also allowed the US at least in principle to regard Venezuelan oil exports as less significant for national (energy) security and more of an instrument to leverage pressure on the Chávez government.

4

As no consensus could be reached on whether to select Venezuela or the U.S-chosen counter candidate Guatemala, both countries running for the seat in the end reached a compromise on fielding Panama.

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5 Spiraling Deterioration: Maduro and US Responses In 2013, Hugo Chávez died of cancer.5 His successor, Nicolás Maduro, former Vice President and Interim-President after Chávez’s death, chosen by Chávez himself as political heir, was elected on April 14, 2013, with only 50.66% of the votes, adding to the fact that the election was far from being free and fair. Maduro used the advantage of being incumbent extensively, while the opposition was intimidated and there were irregularities. Maduro’s narrow victory in the presidential elections of 2013 showed the electoral weakness of the new government. In the parliamentary elections of December 2015, the opposition for the first time received a clear majority of 56% of the vote, gaining control of the National Assembly. In order to avoid an assembly controlled by the opposition, Maduro deprived the legislative body of any authority, with the help of the loyal Supreme Court. In May 2017, Maduro called for a National Constituent Assembly, with the objective of building a parallel legislative power loyal to his project. The first notion of the National Constituent Assembly was the dismissal of the National General Attorney, a former ally of Chávez and critic of the Maduro actions. This move allowed the regime to deepen control over all public powers. Chavismo-Madurismo also systematically destroyed electoral conditions, based on decisions of the Supreme Court of Justice and the National Electoral Council (CNE). The main strategies applied were the political disabling of the most popular leaders, the illegalization of the most important political opposition parties, the manipulation of the vote through change and redistribution of the electorate in polling stations, the annulment of disputed elections, the advance convocation of the presidential elections and the development of a clientelistic control mechanism based on the issuance of the so-called Carnet de la Patria, which was introduced to administer the distribution of food and medicine and was used to intimidate voters. The deterioration of the electoral conditions went hand in hand with the harassment, persecution and dismantling of the opposition (see Briceno & Bautista de Alemán, 2019; Corrales, 2020). Given all what is known by now about the 2010s in the US—roughly the decade of the two Obama and the following Trump administrations—one could expect that such changes in government and disruptions in political style would also have left its mark on US-Venezuela relations. However, reality presents itself as much more ambiguous and occasionally also more puzzling than expected. Barack Obama came to office with the promise of widespread “change” but developed a policy vis-à-vis Venezuela which mostly seemed like a continuation of his predecessor’s. Donald J. Trump, while certainly breaking with established diplomatic routines and political habits in many ways, seemed to show neither heightened interest nor knowledge of hemispheric politics. However, during his four years in office he dramatically intensified US sanctions, with devastating results for the Venezuelan economy and society. No matter what, neither approach brought decisive governmental change in Venezuela, with Maduro inheriting Chávez’s project in 2013 and clinging to power ever since. If there is one unifying explanation for such seemingly unexpected developments, it is 5

The following paragraphs draw on Muno and Briceño (2022).

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the strong element of domestic politics in US foreign policy-making, which helped installing a set of confrontational policies toward Venezuela. When Obama became the 44th President of the US in early 2009, many observers hoped that the promise of restoring leadership in the Western Hemisphere would be met by activism, yet quite a few also expected that any such attempt would lead to problems. Clearly, the pivot to Asia with an effort to contain the rise of China and the phasing out of the costly wars in Iraq and Afghanistan topped the agenda of the incoming administration. In addition, the global financial crisis with its seismic effects on the US economy, job and housing markets, plus the ambitious plan to create a more inclusive health care program, steered attention and resources to the domestic realm. If there was any genuine and resource-backed attempt at hemispheric change on behalf of the Obama administration, it was focused on Cuba. Only consequently, symbolic gestures such as the handshake between Obama and Chávez at the Summit of the Americas in 2009 proved to be short-lived, and just that: symbolic. It is instructive, for instance, that the diplomatic bickering seemed to continue almost seamlessly: Obama re-dispatched the former US ambassador Duffy to his position in Venezuela, only to find him expelled again shortly after. The US later responded by canceling the visa of Venezuelan Ambassador Bernardo Álvarez Herrera. Since 2010 the US has not appointed an ambassador to Venezuela either. The diplomatic back-and-forth became an integral part of the folklore of the bilateral relations ever since. Another element of continuity in US-Venezuela relations under Obama has been frequent allegations and rumors popularized by Chávez and other administration officials that the US government might be conspiring against him (cf. Neuman, 2013). Consequently, military attachés were sent back to the US as they were accused of recruiting Venezuelan army personnel for another overthrow. Other diplomats and embassy staff had to leave over the years due to allegations of sabotage. Most notoriously, in 2017 and with Obama’s successor already in office, six executives of Citgo, the US-based subsidiary of Venezuelan state-controlled oil company PdVSA, were arrested and put on trial (widely perceived as a show trial) on corruption charges. (The “Citgo 6” were sentenced and jailed in 2020; in 2021 this was commuted to house arrest only to be re-installed later the same year). The US response to such measures was, for a long time, to continue to reach out to oppositional forces, and to occasionally annul the visa of selected Venezuelan diplomats involved in human rights abuses and corruption. As some observers remarked, this strategy essentially “concurred with the Bush administration’s strategy of isolating Venezuela” (Buxton, 2018: 18). This, however, stood in marked contrast to the attempts of the Obama administration to thaw the frozen relationship with Cuba, to re-install diplomatic ties, and to ease travel and trade restrictions to the island, even against the continued and mounting resistance of organized Cuban-Americans in Florida and in the US Congress. While Obama traveled to Cuba in 2016 to deliver a speech to the Cuban people, no such offerings were made to Venezuela under Chávez and Maduro. The price for (some) political rapprochement with Cuba may have been an increasing hostility toward the Venezuelan government, at least in terms of a strategy to appease domestic opposition in Congress, and more specifically in the US Senate.

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The deterioration of the situation in Venezuela after Maduro’s coming to power, the street protests and ensuing violence on the streets of Caracas, was only one side of the coin. However, they helped galvanize the political sentiment in the US toward a condemnation of authoritarianism and human rights abuses (cf. ibid. 19). On the other hand, there were activists in the US Congress who played a dominant role in shaping US policy stances toward Venezuela. Even though some officials in the administration supported a tougher stance toward Venezuela—reportedly among them, then-Deputy National Security Adviser Antony Blinken (later on Secretary of State in the Biden administration)—it was first and foremost US Senators Marco Rubio (R-FL, running for becoming presidential candidate in the 2016 elections) and Bob Menendez (D-NJ, repeatedly serving as Chairman of the Senate Foreign Relations Committee) who pushed for a hardline stance on Venezuela. In 2014, both had sponsored the Venezuela Defense of Human Rights and Civil Society Act, which included sanctions on individuals associated with the Maduro government. Before this act was discussed, Rubio had already given forceful speeches in the Senate, highlighting the need to confront the Venezuelan government in line with his long-standing position on regime change in Cuba. Later on, he repeated his arguments several times, apparently also in an effort to gain momentum in the 2016 US presidential primaries. In response, the Maduro government banned Rubio (and other lawmakers) from traveling to Venezuela for life, calling them “terrorists”. The move was hailed by Rubio as a “badge of honor” (cf. O’Keefe, 2015). Interestingly enough, the Senate hearings on the Venezuelan crisis also figured prominent public intellectuals such as Carnegie’s Moises Naím, who took a nuanced position on the role the US was to play: I will be as dispassionate as possible in my analysis and recommendation on US policy toward Venezuela. But I come to this task with a heavy heart. I see a country I love, and which gave so much to me and my family, spiral downward into economic chaos, fighting in the streets, a deeply divided society, massive government abuses and unimaginable corruption. [… However, the] United States cannot and should not be a protagonist in what is going on there. (Carnegie Endowment, 2014: 2, 4)

Instead, Naím opted for targeted sanctions against individual actors in contrast to sanctions hitting the oil sector (plus a more multilateral, region-wide approach toward the crisis in Venezuela, presumably under the auspices of the OAS with attempts to explain Venezuela’s situation to the population). Taking on the Maduro government too harshly by targeting the oil sector, Naím argued, would hit the Venezuelan economy very hard while giving Maduro an excuse to blame all ills on the US sanctions. Naím aptly termed this an “anti-imperialist trap”, which some members of Congress were risking to fall into (cf. ibid. 4). The Obama administration largely agreed with this approach and implemented the act through a 2015 Executive Order, which was extended in 2016. The order mostly concentrated on individual travel bans and the freezing of assets (cf. Camilleri, 2018: 191), yet it also included naming Venezuela an “extraordinary threat to the national security” of the US. The latter was rightly interpreted as the overture to possibly harsher sanctions to follow. Assessments differ on whether the Obama administration pursued a regional, multilateral strategy under the roof of the OAS rather half-heartedly (cf. Hawley,

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2017: 3–4), or whether it was part of a deliberately designed multi-track approach to build up pressure on Maduro on grounds of violations of human rights, of political freedoms and election principles, and of the constitutional order (cf. Camilleri, 2018: 193). What is important, however, is to also take into account that the OAS itself was considered an important and legitimate institutional venue only to hugely varying degrees by various Latin American governments, depending on who was in power at what time. All in all, the Honduran debacle in 2009/2010 (cf. Muno & Brand, 2014) had further damaged the organization’s reputation in the eyes of all left-to-center and centrist governments at least. In addition, OAS Secretary General Luis Almagro, in office since 2015, carried the image of being (too) close to the US (Biegon, 2020: 61), which gave hemispheric debates there an occasionally divisive flavor. Nevertheless, the US was able to assemble an alliance of around 15 countries to take a tougher stance, at least rhetorically, on the Maduro government. Such only lukewarm efforts, or the relatively passive positioning of the Obama administration, were on one hand lauded as measures to restore faith and legitimacy through coordinating activities (cf. Beckmann, 2019: 90). On the other hand, the Obama administration, clearly not prioritizing Venezuela on its foreign policy agenda, had to do something to please the more assertive members of Congress. And the variety of options seemed not too wide (cf. Naím & Toro, 2018: 136). While the transition from Obama to Trump marked a fundamental change in many regards, there were surprising lines of continuity regarding the initially low priority of Venezuela on the list of foreign policy issues as well as the significant role of some US Senators in shaping the overall policy direction toward Venezuela. Trump himself did not declare any specific interest in Latin America or Venezuela. He made some derogatory remarks on Mexican immigrants during the campaign (cf. Beckmann, 2019) and the intermestic issue of the “wall” to keep Mexican immigrants at bay aside. From a Venezuelan perspective, it was interesting to see that the outgoing Obama administration had received one of the lowest confidence ratings among South American publics, whereas there was, comparatively (albeit at low level) some hope placed in the incoming Trump government, at least among some parts of the Venezuelan population (cf. Haman & Skolnik, 2021: 66). One could hence hypothesize that as immigration was not a huge concern in USVenezuela relations when Trump entered office, Venezuela was assumed to become a second or third order concern. The only person in the newly formed administration that was supposed to have a pre-history and an opinion about Venezuela was the new Secretary of State Rex Tillerson. Having been a long-time executive of the oil giant ExxonMobile, the nationalization of Venezuela’s petroleum industry once had inflicted immense losses on the company, a development he seemed to have taken as a personal affront (cf. Hawley, 2017: 13). Not only the forgone profits but also the fact that ExxonMobile could not nearly compensate them through an in principle favorable ruling by the World Bank’s Center for the Settlement of Investment Disputes (ICSID) in 2014 was considered to be still nagging on him. Nevertheless, a “Trump effect” on US-Venezuela relations was not visible initially. In terms of upholding the measures and continuing the policies adopted by the Obama administration, it largely “followed the playbook left in place by its predecessor”

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(Camilleri, 2018: 190). Later on, the memoirs by National Security Advisor John Bolton (2018–2019) suggested that Trump himself may have had developed a strange fascination even for Maduro at times, describing him as “smart” and his entourage as “good-looking generals” (cf. Angelo, 2020b). Such allegations, if fully credible or not, seem to render doubtful that there was a genuine interest in fighting authoritarian consolidation in Venezuela. Marco Rubio, vis-à-vis his fellow Republican Trump (who had beaten him in the presidential race), was now able to successfully position himself as a shaper of the administration’s policy toward Venezuela. He acted as “educator”, occasionally dubbed a “virtual Secretary of State for Latin America”, and in particular, he brought Trump in personal contact with opposition figures from Venezuela (Camilleri, 2018: 189). In doing so, he was not so much forcing an administration to adopt policy positions like under Obama but rather gaining argumentative primacy over an initially reluctant executive. In radicalizing the US administration’s stance on Venezuela, he paved the way for a tougher sanctions regime, closer ties and support for select opposition actors, and a decidedly sharpened tone, which over time even included the pondering of military options6 for overthrowing the Maduro regime. Not by chance this instance awarded him the nickname “ouster in chief” in reference to Venezuela (cf. Baker & Wong, 2019). A re-shuffling of Trump’s foreign policy team in 2018 swept more assertive, neoconservative hardliners into office (cf. Biegon, 2020: 64), which further strengthened that policy approach. In all this, Rubio (to some extent also Menendez, even though enmeshed in a corruption scandal) also catered to his home base, i.e., conservative CubanAmericans. In that part of the electorate in particular, the message of taking out Cuba via Venezuela (and hence the need to be tough on Venezuela) sold very well. Not surprisingly, that link also became a staple in speeches and rallies of administration officials: Trump called Maduro a “Cuban puppet” in early 2019, and addressing the UN Security Council in the same year, Secretary of State Mike Pompeo justified the new determination to force Maduro from office due to his country’s cordial relationship with Cuba. In a similar vein, National Security Adviser Bolton reportedly mentioned Cuba nine times in twelve minutes of a speech on the Venezuelan crisis in Lima in August 2019 and asserted that extreme economic pressure “will work in Venezuela and it will work in Cuba” (Kurmanaev & Jakes, 2019). All of this shows that the narrative of linking Cuba to Venezuela and vice versa, and the necessity of regime change in both countries, had become the official policy line of the US. In terms of policy substance, the Trump administration, being “educated through Rubio and the likes” and under impression of escalating protests in Venezuela, developed a strategy of building up maximum pressure through myriad sanctions (Hausmann & Morales-Arilla, 2021), most of them unilaterally applied and then extended through the threat of secondary sanctions. Most notably, on July, 31, 2017, the Trump administration added President Maduro himself to the sanctions list, one of only four 6

Naím and Toro (2018: 135–136) aptly call this an “ill-advised revenge fantasy”, which raised eyebrows in the hemisphere and particularly so in the neighboring countries, even among those allied with the US.

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heads of state in the world subject to such a measure (Camilleri, 2018: 191). Then, it incrementally added financial sanctions, under which PdVSA was consecutively denied access to US financial services and investments. It also prohibited US institutions from trading in financial instruments issued by the Venezuelan government in an effort to cripple opportunities of public authorities to re-finance the Venezuelan budget. In the mid- to long-run that was also supposed to shipwreck any attempts by Venezuela to pay off some of its mounting debts and to stave off a debt default. Accordingly, Venezuela’s oil production (including its exports to the US) plummeted. By 2018, it was less than half of what it had been in the 1990s (Rodriguez, 2020). When the next level of sanctions was implemented, which prohibited most US businesses from engaging in any transactions with PdVSA, oil shipments almost came to a halt. Only Citgo, PdVSA’s US-based subsidiary was granted a temporary exception, however, with its revenues blocked in a designated account. Later in 2019, even Citgo—important also regarding the refining of crude oil and shipping back petroleum to Venezuela—was put under the sanctions regime. The Treasury Department then extended these sanctions to all foreign companies willing to continue business in the US and with US-based companies. This instance led Venezuelan oil production to a near collapse: a mere 300,000 barrels a day (b/d) could be shipped to few destinations, illegally or not, but barely refined at home due to a lack of technology and additives. It needs be borne in mind that this amounted to an almost tenfold decrease, down from approximately 2.7–3.0 million b/d in 2008 (cf. Monaldi & La Rosa Reyes, 2021). Ultimately, in 2019, US imports of Venezuelan oil ended (see CRS, 2021). With the reduction of oil production, hyperinflation, and budget deficits the Venezuelan economy collapsed in the Maduro years. The GDP had decreased by more than 75% since 2014, budget deficits were constantly between 10 and 25 percent of GDP, the IMF estimated an inflation of above 900,000% in 2018 and 500,000% in 2019, poverty rose: 96 percent of all households were estimated to live in poverty in 2020 (see CRS, 2021). Venezuelan people reacted with mass emigration: according to the UNHCR, more than 4.8 million Venezuelans left the country, other sources speak of even 6 million Venezuelan migrants. Maduro tried to find new allies in other parts of the world but even China became more cautious and reduced its engagement in Venezuela, compared to the Chávez years. Still, Venezuela is highly indebted, owing China more than 60 billion USD, and Russia at least 17 billion USD, with a total debt level aggregating at about 170 billion USD (see Brand et al., 2020). The closest new ally became Russia, a strategic partner with investments in the oil sector, loans and military cooperation. Additionally Iran, Turkey, Algeria and India now play important trading roles (cf. Vaz, 2022). At the same time while the Venezuelan economy was slowly coming to a halt— due to mismanagement and corruption, undoubtedly, but also under the impact of the heavy, expanding US-sponsored sanctions regime—domestic protests escalated. In the wake of fraudulent and hence unlawful presidential elections in 2018, the newly appointed President of the National Assembly Juan Guaidó declared himself president in January 2019 on the basis of a constitutional provision. This move was quickly seized on by the Trump administration recognizing Guaidó as new

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Venezuelan leader, being the first among 54 other states and entities such as the EU to follow in recognition of the Guaidó government as legitimate. As Gratius (2022) pointed out, this implied the de facto end of diplomatic relations with the Maduro government and the replacement of the latter in the OAS with that formed under Guaidó. Against a multitude of external actors who have come to shift their position on Guaidó—among them the EU—the Trump government upheld its recognition and even sought to leverage its position through deciding on the mentioned extraterritorial sanctions just in that moment when negotiations between Guaidó and Maduro on the future of Venezuela began. To further support Guaidó’s claim of power, the Trump administration (at least in principle) welcomed a military insurrection in Caracas in April 2019 (cf. Briceno-Ruiz, 2020: 169), which failed, and fully suspended embassy operations in Venezuela’s capital in August 2019. Since then, it maintains a Venezuela Affairs Unit in Bogota (Colombia). There is a consensus that the US’s hardline stance under Trump, and the harsh sanctions at the core of it, dealt a huge blow to an already dwindling economy. It effectively annihilated what had been left of public services and led to a serious deterioration of socio-economic conditions. It is in that sense that the sanctions “imposed by the United States on Venezuela landed on the context of a decaying rentier economy” (Bull & Rosales, 2020: 8). However, the claim that the US measures did not bring about regime change is also quite uncontroversial, as the ruling elites and supporting parts of the population seemed to have been strengthened in their opposition toward externally imposed hardship (cf. Rodriguez, 2020). In an ironic twist, the Maduro government remained in power and issued a referral to the International Criminal Court (ICC) in early 2020, in which it asked for the initiation of an investigation into “crimes against humanity” committed through the application of the unlawful coercive US sanctions. The outbreak of the COVID-19 pandemic in 2020 allowed the Maduro government to further consolidate its political control under the guise of declaring a national emergency, especially misusing security agencies.7 The spread of the virus throughout the whole territory resulted in the incorporation of the pandemic in the national agenda in order to take advantage of the virus as a tool for both national and international political goals. For example, Maduro denounced in a televised speech that the coronavirus may have been created as a means of biological warfare against China. In July 2020, he accused Colombian President Iván Duque of leading a biological attack against Venezuela by sending infected people from Colombia in order to spread the disease on to Venezuelan soil8 : We are suffering the attack of the Colombian virus, sent by Iván Duque, with the trocheros [people who cross the border between Venezuela and Colombia through unofficial/illegal roads]. If it were not for the trocheros, Venezuela would be totally controlled and without any covid-19 case to this day, and we would be enjoying the total flexibilizations of labor and social life.

7 8

The following paragraphs draw on Muno and Briceño (2022). CNN (2022), EFE (2022)

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All measures to avert the spread of the virus in Venezuela were framed in the declaration of a State of Exception and National Emergency through a Presidential Decree based on the Constitution and the Organic Law of States of Exception. The regulation gave the National Executive special powers to “make decisions and develop the measures foreseen in the decree” as well as to dictate other social, economic and sanitary measures in order to continue with the attention to the sanitary situation. Thus, just a couple of days after the State of Emergency decree, at least 19 judicial measures were implemented, including resolutions and decrees (Sira Santana, 2020: 67–70) that affected a wide range of areas, restricting basic rights such as the right to free transit, assembly, exercise of economic activities, property, education and work. The decree was also used by the government to keep the population uninformed about the severity and spread of the disease in the country with the aim of hiding the real capacity of the State to deal with the pandemic. In this sense, academics, social organizations, the media and even health sector personnel from both public and private hospitals were persecuted and coerced by the government simply for sharing information in the media and even on social media. The COVID-19 pandemic reached Venezuela in a precarious political condition and under a deep humanitarian, migratory and institutional crisis. The year 2020 was especially important in political terms, since the constitutional parliamentary period was expiring, which demanded the holding of new elections to select the members of the National Assembly for the 2021–2025 period. In December 2020, and in full force of the national pandemic emergency decree, parliamentary elections were held, characterized by the continuity of the deterioration of the electoral conditions and the absence of special measures for the protection of the health of voters. Only a set of protocols were approved, including social distancing (1.5 m), the mandatory usage of masks, control of the number of people in the voting centers, hand disinfection and cleaning of the voting machines after being used. The turnout was only 30.2%, attributable to the systematic deterioration of electoral conditions, the opposition boycott, and the virtual absence of health protocols to prevent voters from having to decide between health and voting. The parliamentary election was not recognized by a significant part of the international community, including the EU, the OAS, the US, Canada and many Latin American countries.

6 A New Dawn in US-Venezuela Relations Post-Trump? In 2020, Joe Biden was elected 46th president of the US. In a rather unconventional move in 2020, Venezuelan President Maduro was interviewed by the Washington Post suggesting that a lift of the oil sanctions could usher a “new type of relationship” between the two countries, a relationship, which was to be built on dialogue and trust instead of “fake news” he believed were fed to Trump by his advisors (Faiola, 2020). While this interview seemed to make clear the urgency with which the Venezuelan government sought a change in bilateral relations with the US it also hinted at a

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transformation in the near future, with a new administration possibly in power in the US as of 2021. The Biden administration, preoccupied with other concerns on his political agenda, however seems to have kept the US’s Venezuela policy “on autopilot” (Ramsey, 2021) so far. Three elements marked its approach toward the still ongoing crisis in Venezuela: continuity (sanctions and recognition of Guaidó), low priority to Latin America and, if at all, only a very selective interest in Venezuela, and the exposed role of the US Senate and the more assertive hardliners there, now pitched against a Democrat in highest political office again. While the Biden administration might have moderated its rhetoric toward the Maduro government, it remained largely uncompromising regarding the sanctions in place. There was no “sanctions reset”, even though statements indicated a willingness to use these as a bargaining chip in negotiating a transition of power and government in Venezuela. Hence, the Biden administration clings to the idea of furthering a transition—largely modeled on the “Democratic Transition Framework for Venezuela” devised by its predecessor administration in March 2020—which is to replace Maduro through a newly elected executive and legislative (cf. Angelo, 2020a: 8). Any allusions for a military solution, however, are gone. The US position on recognizing Guaidó has also not changed, despite a few key allies changing their views. One could read a more principled, geopolitically driven idea into this, in the sense of building up one candidate as a contender to a supposedly China-friendly9 Maduro government (cf. Ferchen, 2020: 1, 18). Continuity in foreign policy, however, is occasionally the result of low prioritization. Compared to the post-COVID-19 recovery, acidic societal and political polarization, and tumultuous US global power transitions (say: China and Russia), the situation in Venezuela seems to be relegated to a second order concern again for the Biden administration. This is on the one hand perplexing as Biden’s interest and experience in hemispheric relations date back to his early career in the Carter administration (Long, 2021). On the other hand, his administration has inherited the unfinished business of migration management in the Americas: the one aspect that seems to matter most for Team Biden, and around which it apparently also sought to structure the 2022 Summit of the Americas in Los Angeles. (An event, which was widely regarded as failure not least due to the exclusion of Venezuela, Cuba and Nicaragua and ensuing non-attendance of several Heads of State.) Focusing on migration in general, however, seemed to tilt the table to Central America, at the expense of South America. Only very recently, and due to the ever deteriorating situation in Venezuela and at the Colombo-Venezuelan border, the outbound stream of Venezuelan refugees has heaped the country higher on the agenda of the US government. Consequently, about 50% (or: close to 250 million USD) of all assistance money spent through USAID on the Venezuelan humanitarian crisis until 2021 went into the refugee camps on the Colombian side of the border 9

All in all, there are doubts on how close relations between Venezuela and China have grown over the last years, or whether we do not find a more cooled down Sino-Venezuelan relationship these days (cf. Myers, 2019).

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(cf. USAID, 2021: 19). With an estimated 6 million refugees (15% of its population), Venezuela has become the hemisphere’s Syria by now. The Biden administration itself seemed to flip-flop in its approach to the resulting refugee streams. In early 2021 it declared that around 320,000 migrants from Venezuela were eligible for Temporary Protected Status, only to ramp up deportations of newly incoming refugees back to Colombia in 2022 through the Department of Homeland Security and on grounds of pandemic-related regulations. Electoral and domestic politics still feature big in shaping the US approach toward Venezuela. While a couple of key players—Menendez as Chairman of the Senate Foreign relations Committee, Rubio as Senator assigned to Senate committees on appropriations, foreign relations and the Western Hemisphere—remain or have returned to key offices, some contrasting voices seem to emerge slowly. For instance, the Chair of the Senate Subcommittee on the Western Hemisphere Tim Kaine (DVA) explicitly argued on behalf of multilateralizing the Venezuela strategy. Senator Chris Murphy (D-CT), member of the Foreign Relations Committee, made public that he sent a letter to Secretary of State Blinken calling for an end to a misguided policy toward Venezuela. Still, the fear of electoral retribution in Florida (i.e., being accused of being too soft on Cuba and Venezuela) might hold the Biden administration and more moderate voices in the ranks of the Democratic Party (cf. Long, 2021). Inattentiveness due to low prioritization might invite hardline policy entrepreneurs from within the US Senate to become more active again. The most obvious sign of a potential change in US-Venezuela relations under Biden was brought about by external developments. In a surprise move, several US officials met with representatives of the Maduro government in March 2022, in response to the Russian invasion in Ukraine and ensuing punitive measures of the US against Russia (cf. Lambert, 2022). By no means sure to have opened a window of opportunity, these talks explored two essential issues: First, they were intended to drive a wedge between the Maduro government and that of Russia by suggesting that there could be a rapprochement between the US and Venezuela. Second, they created thinking space on whether Venezuela could make a comeback as substitute provider of oil to the US and its partners, with the newly implemented sanctions against Russia curtailing supply. Not surprisingly, these exchanges were met by fury and scathing comments from the side of Rubio (“a huge PR success for Maduro”) and Menendez (“giving Maduro a handful of undeserved handouts” is a “strategy destined to fail”). For the time being, the US sanctions toward Venezuela remained in place; they have not least contributed to a “collapse of 72 percent in the country’s per capita income” so far, the “equivalent of four Great Depressions and the largest contraction ever documented in Latin America” (Rodriguez, 2022). Neither did they achieve meaningful political change in Venezuela nor a return to pluralism and the rule of law. If at all, they have vastly exacerbated the amount of social suffering and societal disintegration. With a mere 15% of its population on the run, Venezuela not only walks on the verge of economic collapse but also resembles a failed state and society to quite some extent. The shared sentiment among many analysts that the Biden administration needs to correct a “failed punitive approach” (cf. Rodriguez,

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2022; Sabatini, 2021), has so far not been matched by a U-turn in US policy toward Venezuela. The list of suggested policy reform is long and contains claims for deideologization, re-diplomatization, temporary exemptions to the oil-related sanctions, a reversal of the failed strategy around the Guaidó government (which increasingly lost support abroad and lacks any momentum at home), and overall multilateralization (cf. Hausmann & Morales-Arilla, 2021; Monaldi & La Rosa Reyes, 2021; Ramirez, 2021; Rodriguez, 2022). At this time, though, a crucial question as regards such policy change is whether the Russian war in Ukraine will heap Venezuela back in the position as negotiation partner. The US has moderated sanctions and started to allow Venezuelan oil exports to Europe, which resulted immediately in an increased oil production. In June 2022, it rose by 61% to 630.500 b/d again according to official data. Additionally, US oil company Chevron waits for an exemption of sanctions to start a joint venture, while other US companies line up for future investments in Venezuela (Zimmermann, 2022). So far, due to rising oil prices, the noted increase in oil production, and a dollarization of the economy, Maduro has managed to escape the economic collapse, and the Venezuelan economy has slightly recovered in recent months (Sweigart, 2022). The opposition toward rapprochement and insistence on hardline measures toward Venezuela in the activist corners of US Senate is, however, not likely to collapse anytime soon.

7 Conclusion Monroe and Bolívar: the two historical figures used as symbols for ideas and narratives on US-Latin American relations reveal that inherited traditions and foreign policy narratives not only inform the choices, decisions and give meaning to the actions of protagonists, they are also subject to cycles of re-production, re-articulation and subtle change. Our analysis of recent US-Venezuela relations has allowed us to elucidate important dynamics of hegemony/counter-hegemony in the Americas, which arguably both contribute to our understanding of how things have evolved (lack of change, erratic actions) and what the results imply in terms of future developments. Both sides, the US as well as Latin America, seem to be trapped in dilemmas: partnership and leadership are ultimately irreconcilable (US) and the will to autonomy and factual dependency (Latin America) do not mix easily. Moreover, future prospects for US hemispheric leadership have been weakened, not least since counterhegemonic articulations throughout Latin America have become more widespread, especially with the US pivot to Asia, and the rise of China. US-Venezuela relations fit well in these dynamics, with a long history of close relations, especially due to oil, and the deterioration of relations under Chávez and Maduro, and respectively, under Bush, Obama and Trump. New geopolitical and geo-economic problems arising from growing tensions between the West and Russia/China will ultimately affect Latin America, for a very long time seen as the

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“backyard” of the US, but in recent years emancipating itself, due to US neglect and the availability of alternatives (mainly Chinese, but recently also Russian). Observers even speak of a “Post-American Latin America” (Shifter & Binetti, 2022). According to this perspective, there seems to be a new option for Latin America in form of a “selective policy of diversified foreign relations” (Maihold, 2022). In a similar vein, Carlos Fortín, Jorge Heine and Carlos Ominami put forth the concept of “active nonalignment” (no alineamiento activo) already in 2020 (Fortín et al., 2020). Maduro seems to follow this strategy, trying to navigate through the storm without giving up any shore, but the question remains if there is any possibility for him to make a comeback as economic partner of the West while still forming part of an anti-Western front in political terms.

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Gilderhus, M. (2006). The Monroe doctrine: Meanings and implications. Presidential Studies Quarterly, 36(1), 5–16. Gill, T. M. (2018). From promoting political polyarchy to defeating participatory democracy: U.S. foreign policy towards the far left in Latin America. Journal of World-Systems Research, 24(1), 72–95. Gill, T. M. (2019). Shifting imperial strategies in contemporary Latin America: The U.S. empire and Venezuela under Hugo Chávez. Journal of Historical Sociology, 32, 294–310. Grandin, G. (2007). Empire’s workshop: Latin America, the United States, and the rise of the new imperialism. Owl Books. Gratius, S. (2022). The West against the rest? Democracy versus autocracy promotion in Venezuela. Bulletin of Latin America Research, 41(1), 141–158. Haman, M., & Školník, M. (2021). Trump and the image of the United States in Latin America. Central European Journal of International and Security Studies, 15(1), 58–85. Hausmann, R., & Ramon Morales-Arilla, J. (2021). What should Biden do about Venezuela. Project syndicate (online). https://www.project-syndicate.org/commentary/biden-strategy-onvenezuela-by-ricardo-hausmann-and-jose-morales-arilla-2021-03. [16.08.2022] Hawley, A. (2017). The future of U.S.-Latin American relations under President Donald Trump. Ibero-Analysen No. 28. IAI. Junker, D. (2003). Power and mission. Was Amerika antreibt. Herder. Kestler, T., & Muno, W. (2022). The quest for democracy. Venezuela in the 20th and 21st Century. In this volume. Krakau, K. (1967). Missionsbewußtsein und Völkerrechtsdoktrin in den Vereinigten Staaten von Amerika. Metzner. Kurmanaev, A., & Jakes, L. (2019, August 6). With tougher U.S. sanctions on Venezuela, Bolton says ‘now is the time for action’. The New York Times. Lambert, T. (2022). Annäherung ans Erdöl. Lateinamerika-Nachrichten, 574(April), 8–10. Long, T. (2021). Biden’s Latin American policy will be constrained more by weak regional leadership than by Florida’s electoral politics. LSE Latin America and Caribbean Blog (online). https://blogs.lse.ac.uk/latamcaribbean/2021/01/19/bidens-latin-america-policy-will-be-constr ained-more-by-weak-regional-leadership-than-by-floridas-electoral-politics/. [16.08.2022] Maihold, G. (2022). Amerika-Gipfel mit hemisphärischen Divergenzen. Warum Lateinamerika auf Unabhängigkeit setzt und was das für Europa bedeutet. SWP-Aktuell 2022/A 42. Berlin, 07.07.2022. https://www.swp-berlin.org/10.18449/2022A42/ (3.8.2022). McPherson, A. (2009). Yankee no! anti-americanism in U.S.-Latin American relations. Harvard University Press. Monaldi, F., & José La Rosa, R. (2021). U.S. policy toward Venezuela’s hydrocarbon sector. Policy Brief, Rice University’s Baker Center for Public Policy. Rice University. Morón, G. (1979). Breve historia de Venezuela. Editorial Espasa Calpes. Muno, W., & Brand, A. (2014). Farewell to leadership? Ideas of hegemony and counter-hegemony in the Americas. International Area Studies Review, 17(4), 375–393. Muno, W. (2015). ALBA, UNASUR, CELAC—Neue Formen regionaler Integration und Kooperation in Lateinamerika. In G. Andreas & C. Jakobeit (Eds.), Regionale integration (pp. 412–431). Nomos. Muno, W., & Briceño, H. (2022). Autocratization and public administration: The revolutionarypopulist regime in Venezuela in comparative perspective, manuscript. Myers, M. (2019). The reasons for China’s cooling interest in Latin America. Americas Quarterly (online). https://www.americasquarterly.org/article/the-reasons-for-chinas-cooling-int erest-in-latin-america/ (16.08.2022). Naím, M., & Toro, F. (2018). Venezuela’s suicide. Lessons from a failed state. Foreign Affairs, 97(6), 126–138. Neuman, W. (2013, September 30). With accusations of sabotage, Venezuela expels 3 U.S. embassy officials. The New York Times. O’Keefe, E. (2015, March 17). For Marco Rubio, Venezuela matters in 2016. Washington Post.

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Pathé. (1958). Tragic incidents In Venezuela against Vice President Nixo. British Pathé News. https://web.archive.org/web/20170406131619/https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=EHR 1dBTJrRA (3.8.2022). Rabe, S. (1982). The road to OPEC. United States relation with Venezuela, 1919–1976. University of Texas Press. Rabe, S. (2012). The killing zone. The United States wages cold war in Latin America. Oxford University Press. Ramirez, R. (2021). The Biden white house and the Venezuela crisis: Time for a policy change. IAI-Commentaries No. 21 (February). Instituto Affari Internazionali. Ramsey, G. (2021, December 20). How Biden can jump-start his stagnant Venezuela policy. Washington Post. Ricard, S. (2006). The roosevelt corollary. Presidential Studies Quarterly, 36(1), 17–26. Riggirozzi, P., & Tussie, D. (2012). The rise of post-hegemonic regionalism in Latin America. In P. Riggirozzi & D. Tussie (Eds.), The rise of post-hegemonic regionalism. The case of Latin America (pp. 1–16). Springer. Rodriguez, F. (2020). The United States helps Venezuela’s regime survive. Foreign Affairs (online). https://www.foreignaffairs.com/articles/venezuela/2020-10-09/united-states-helps-ven ezuelas-regime-survive (16.08.2022). Rodriguez, F. (2022). Biden must change, not Deepen, Trump’s failed Venezuela strategy. Just Security (online). https://www.justsecurity.org/79733/biden-must-change-not-deepen-trumps-failedvenezuela-strategy/ (16.08.2022). Sabatini, C. (2021). Can Biden succeed where Trump’s Venezuela policy failed? World Politics Review (online). https://www.worldpoliticsreview.com/articles/29380/what-s-next-for-U.S.-ven ezuela-relations-under-biden (16.08.2022). Shifter, M., & Binetti, B. (2022, June 3). A policy for a post-American Latin America. Foreign Affairs. https://www.foreignaffairs.com/articles/2022-06-03/policy-post-american-latin-america (3.8.2022). Sira Santana, G. (2020). Venezuela y el Estado de Alarma. In A.R. Brewer-Carias & H. Romero Muci (Eds.), Estudios juridicos sobre la pandemie del covid-19 y el decreto de estado de alarma en Venezuela (pp. 55–70). Editorial Jurídica Venezolana Internacional. Smith, G. (1994). The last years of the Monroe doctrine 1945–1993. Hill. Sweigart, E. (2022, May 3). Summit of the Americas: Venezuela and Nicolás Maduro: An overview. Americas Quarterly. https://www.americasquarterly.org/article/venezuela-and-nicolas-maduroan-overview/ (30.6.2022). USAID. (2021, April 16). Enhanced processes and implementer requirements are needed to address challenges and fraud risks in USAID’s Venezuela response, Audit Report, Office of the Inspector General, No. 9-000-21-005-P. Vaz, R. (2022). Venezuela and Russia deepen cooperation after high-level meetings. Venezuelanalysis.com, 17.2.2022. https://venezuelanalysis.com/news/15458 [18.2.2022]. Vulliamy, E. (2002, April 21). Venezuela coup linked to Bush team. The Guardian. https://www. theguardian.com/world/2002/apr/21/usa.venezuela. [16.08.2022]. Wehner, L., & Thies, C. (2021). The nexus of populism and foreign policy: The case of Latin America. International Relations, 35(2), 320–340. Zimmermann, P. (2022). Venezuela steigert Ölexporte, neue Investitionen in Aussicht, amerika21, 9.7.2022. https://amerika21.de/2022/07/258969/venezuela-export-oel-investitionen [9.7.2022].

Alexander Brand is Professor of Political Science/International Relations at Rhine-Waal University in Kleve, Germany. Wolfgang Muno is Chair of the Department of Comparative Politics at the University of Rostock, Germany.

Venezuela, Cuba and United States: Power and Geopolitics in the Great Caribbean Ernesto Domínguez López

1 Introduction The complex processes unfolding in Venezuela since the later years of the twentieth century have been the subject of much discussion. From a wide variety of perspectives, the reality of the Latin American country can be perceived and has been presented under different lights, sometimes astonishingly different from each other. For some, it represented and continues to represent the hope of change of a better future; for others, it epitomizes the collapse of democracy and the rise of authoritarianism. In many ways, and in spite of undeniably deep differences, the role played by Venezuela in the imagination of millions in the region and the world is similar to that played by Cuba, albeit the latter has been in that place for over sixty years. The Cuba’s revolution shocked many in its moment. The continued survival of its social and political project, even in the aftermath of the collapse of the Soviet Union, remains a point of interest for scholars and common people. It is also a referent for political actors across the spectrum, as well as for political movements and peoples around the globe, regardless of their preferences and their judgment. Both countries, their leaderships and their policies have been connected in many senses for over two decades. Economic, social and political ties were built over those years, agreements were signed, and hundreds of thousands of Cubans and Venezuelans participated in a wide array of programs of exchanges in diverse fields. Their governments supported each other at international fora, and they both were the targets of hostilities and sanctions from the same sources, mainly the United States (US).

E. D. López (B) Center for Hemispheric and United States Studies, University of Havana, Havana, Cuba e-mail: [email protected] © The Author(s), under exclusive license to Springer Nature Switzerland AG 2023 M. A. Latouche et al. (eds.), Venezuela – Dimensions of the Crisis, Contributions to Political Science, https://doi.org/10.1007/978-3-031-21889-7_10

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No matter how we evaluate the nature of their political regimes, the successes and failures of their development projects, the impacts on their populations and their involvement in international affairs, all the evidence indicates an entanglement between Cuba and Venezuela’s recent histories. These are bonds that go well beyond trade and investments, political agreements or socio-cultural exchanges on which they were built, to include ideologies, and, perhaps more importantly, to some extent, the common ground of soberanist-latinamericanist-antiimperialist projections deeply embedded in their political speech and alignment. More recently, the economic crises experienced by both countries have filled large parts of the news cycles that address their realities (whether true realities or virtual, constructed ones). The same can be said about long lasting or newly emerging (at least visibly) political conflicts, in particular when linked to public demonstrations critical of their governments or openly opposed to them. Undoubtedly, news coverage is limited and generally biased, in particular when considered alongside the existence of similar developments in other parts of the world. Such predisposed reportage generates particular perceptions and builds imaginaries, while not necessarily providing reliable information or facilitating a better understanding of social phenomena. Perhaps not surprisingly, academic works on the subject show somewhat similar traits, at least in two regards: on the one hand, authors often base their analyses on assumptions that do not necessarily fit the character of the object of the study; on the other, it is frequent to focus on a single factor or a limited set of factors as the key to explaining behaviors and processes that are complex in nature.1 Many such works will produce and have produced results that do not concord with true reality—not virtual reality—or concord just partially. It is interesting to observe how frequently studies and analyses on these topics center their attention on the internal aspects of different sorts, which form the core of their explanatory models. Obviously, these domestic factors are fundamental to understanding the processes under scrutiny. However, they are not enough, as it would not be enough either to concentrate on the unidirectional aspects nor the mutual influences between Havana and Caracas. To put it in simple terms, their developments and interdependencies cannot be explained solely on the basis of their individual conditions or their bilateral interactions. Any comprehensive analysis would be limited without the inclusion of the geopolitical dimension. That is, without placing the object of study and its specificities in the network of power relations and interests that connects States and non-state actors in a complex, multi-layered system that crosses political borders. This is particularly true for countries located in the Greater Caribbean basin, in the immediate surroundings of the US, the world’s greatest power at the moment. In the region, the US is the dominant actor with a long history of hegemony-building and hegemony-protection. Hence, it has been a relevant factor in all political processes in the area. Symptoms of relative decline of the US as a global power have been increasingly visible in the recent years. Nevertheless, it is undeniable that it remains the strongest actor in the international system and the dominant force in the Western hemisphere, 1

This a common trait in social sciences in general.

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and it will probably remain so for years. Future shifts in the balance of forces in the international system will change the conditions, thus opening paths of development for different projects and alternatives as new configurations emerge. It is then necessary to fully understand the operation and core components of the existing power structure—as a major variable for any local, national and regional development and as a reference for their ulterior evolution. In other words, we need to add to any model a third major actor—the US—the effects of its recent downward trend as the globally dominant power, the operation and general dynamics of the international system—understood as a complex system of relations among States and non-state actors—and more broadly its geopolitics. The centrality of the US in any study that intends to explain processes in any country in the Western hemisphere, and in particular in Venezuela and/or Cuba, is warranted by a long history of influence and presence, an ever growing tower of evidence that demonstrates its interest and involvement—whether directly or indirectly—and the fact that the North American country is the core of the regional power structure. This does not presuppose disregarding domestic factors, but to place them in a broader, more complex field. The aim of this chapter is to contribute to the interpretation of the role played by the US and its policies in the recent historical evolution of Venezuela and Cuba, as well as its influence on the bilateral relations between the two Caribbean countries. It is not intended as an alternative explanation, nor as a comprehensive explanation: it explores a dimension that adds to the wider analysis of such realities.

2 Geopolitics in the Greater Caribbean Basin Geopolitics as a reality has existed for a long time, probably as long as civilizations have existed. However, as a concept, it is much more recent. It was coined in the early twentieth century, by the Swedish political scientist Rudolf Kjellén, and its early nucleus stemmed from the work of four main authors: Kjellén, the American naval officer and historian Alfred Mahan, the German geographer Friedrich Ratzel, and the British geographer and politician Halford McKinder. In essence, it is the convergence of politics and geography into a synthetic body of theoretical and practical instruments to explain international relations and to plan and execute foreign policy. The original authors paid attention to geographical spaces whose control determines the balance of power in the international system, and the means to achieve that control. Particularly influential was McKinder, whose concept of heartland has been pivotal in the development of geopolitical perspectives and international policies and politics (Kearns, 2009). A somewhat different approach to that of mainline geopolitics was advanced by the Dutch-American political scientist Nicholas Spykman (1944), with emphasis on the rimlands, but it is not essentially different at its core. Politics itself is not a simple, straightforward concept with a consensual definition. Its ancient etymology, long history and abundance of academic works and practical usages create a conceptual space within which we can locate a vast number

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of versions, with different degrees of variation. We must consider also nuances introduced by its translations and adoptions into diverse languages—politics and its family of terms is a translation and adaptation into English of the original Greek family of terms derived from politikos. For example, policy and politics both translate into Spanish as política, making it difficult to transmit directly the specific meaning of the term. Bobbio and Matteucci (1983: 1240–1252) offered an excellent synthesis of the concept, its evolution, components and ramifications. In this article, I will understand politics as the process of exercising, distributing and reproducing power in the public sphere, via the interaction of actors and interests within the framework of institutions—formal and informal—and organizations. This must be understood also from a systemic perspective: it unfolds within a system of relations—local political systems or the international system—interdependent with myriads of other processes, factors and structures—economic, social and symbolic. Thus, power relations and structures are at the very core of politics. Hence, geopolitics, in the context of this chapter is the process of exercising, distributing and reproducing power under the influence of geographical factors.2 It considers dimensions like the economy or social relations within a framework inclusive of the different branches of geography, from physical geography to human geography. As a form of knowledge, it is the discipline that systematically studies the contents and processes described as geopolitical. The specific sub-set of relations studied in this chapter is spatially located in a region that encompasses the Caribbean Sea and the Gulf of Mexico, and the territories that form their basins. This includes the Southern part of today’s US, Mexico, Central America, the Northern-most part of South America—inclusive of Colombia, Venezuela, Guyana, Suriname and French Guiana—and the Antilles and Bahamas. These two sub-regions can be integrated into the Greater Caribbean Basin (GCB), a concept validated by the connected geographic and climatic conditions of its constituent parts, but even more by a common history. The emergence of the GCB as a geopolitical feature is deeply intertwined with the history of capitalism,3 since its formative centuries and its early expansion. The building of colonial empires in the Americas was a primordial component of the 2

Geopolitics is typically a concept in international relations. However, when defined broadly, it could be applied to domestic affairs as well. Although it will not be used in that sense in this text, this is a path worth exploring. 3 The common acceptance of the term “capitalism” and its generalized usage by individuals of all political colors is a relatively recent development. In the 1940s, Maurice Dobb decided to dedicate a full chapter of his Studies on the Development of Capitalism to justify the term itself (Dobb, 1946). As recently as 2017, Harvard University Press published a book on inequality, and ten of its chapters, written by different authors from different fields, addressed issues as primordial as the definition of capital and the political economy of capitalism and capital (Boushey et al., 2017). Thus, at a conceptual level, capitalism and its main components are still subject of debate. An interesting discussion on the subject appears in Ingham (2008). In this text, I understand capitalism as a historically determined mode of production (Banaji, 2010), with a set of specific features that act as organizational principles for the cultural complexuses (Dominguez Lopez, 2014) in which it dominates, inclusive of market structures—the market, political structures—the Nation-Sate—and symbolic structures.

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expansion of European powers, which in turn was a driving force in the development of capitalism and its worldwide expansion. The emerging empires intended and attempted repeatedly to control advantageous positions in their own continental space, in Asian markets and on the interlocked trade routes. A major outcome of this development was the formation of the Atlantic system connecting Africa as a source of slave labor force; Europe as the source of military, financial and political power, eventually the dominant market and later the main manufacturing center; and the Americas as a primary source of precious metals and raw materials (Bailyn & Denault, 2009; McClusker, 1997; Morgan, 2014). During the first two or three centuries of modern history, the Americas were a zone of contention among major powers. Its wealthiest and more strategically important territories were under the control of the Iberian crowns, whereas England, France and the Netherlands initially took marginal areas and spent decades and centuries wrestling others, considered more relevant, from Spaniards and Portuguese. The hemisphere was in fact a hub connecting trade routes and distant components of the emerging World-system (Yun Casalilla, 2019).4 Within that global framework, the GCB was a pivotal part of a global network of power and interests. Its geographical location and characteristics made it a key knot in the increasingly dense web of international commerce and conflicts. The bulk of the trade between the hemisphere and Europe crossed its waters—inclusive of goods coming from Asia—and with it the influence and interest of the European powers. These conditions shaped the history of Cuba and established its geopolitical relevance. The island country is at the center of one of the most trafficked areas in the world, surrounded by highly important trade routes, and with direct access to vital areas in the region. This is a key geostrategic position, particularly from a military and economic perspective. Hence, it has been an object of the interest of several powers that, in different moments and through diverse means, seek to gain or ascertain control on Cuba. Conversely, it made all social, political and economic processes—that is, all historical processes in the country—deeply intertwined with international affairs, made the struggle for sovereignty—or its abandonment—a major component of all political projects, whether explicitly or not. For instance, all Cuban revolutionary processes have included a geopolitical-sovereignist component and have addressed the relation with empires and other powerful actors as part of their projections and developments (Dominguez Lopez & Yaffe, 2017). On the other hand, Venezuela, albeit located in the same basin, had a very different role for a long time. It is not situated on the main trade routes, and it was not one of the major sources of precious metals or labor force that constituted the center of the early colonial system. Its development started later, with the expansion of the plantation system since the eighteenth century—in its case cacao was the main crop—but then it was part of a relatively polycentric economic structure. It played a major part, however, during the independence wars, being the first territory of the Spanish America to declare its independence—in 1811—and providing leaders and 4

For the concept, theoretical models and methodologies of World-systems analysis, see Chase-Dunn (1998).

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troops to the liberation armies. Yet, it was a relatively secondary component of the GCB for the better part of three centuries, as an agrarian country with lesser strategic value when compared to others like Colombia, Panama—both originally part of Nueva Granada and later Gran Colombia and the Republic of Colombia—Mexico or Cuba (Bethell, 1990; Guerra Vilaboy, 2000; Prieto Rozos, 2014). The 1800s were filled with momentous events in the Western hemisphere. The decay of Spain as a colonial empire brought a major wave of conflicts that led to the hard-fought independence of its domains in Continental America. However, the new countries were, for the most part, economically weak, politically unstable and in frequent social unrest. Their independences fractured the colonial structure in the region and created a “power vacuum”. Consequently, the balance of power in the international system entered a period of adjustments in a global context dominated by the emergence of Great Britain as hegemonic force, fueled by its industrial revolution and its second colonial expansion. A new contest began between countries seeking to fill the vacuum (Arrighi & Silver, 1999: 37–96). The US entered the nineteenth century with a national project aimed to become a regional power that evolved over time to aim for the status of global power, and grew as an international actor in the process. American elites considered it necessary to build their own sphere of influence to counter the European empires. Thus, expansion and power projection became a part of their vision for the new country. When we examine the foundational documents of the US foreign policy, such as the Monroe Doctrine (Monroe, 1823), particularly as interpreted in the Roosevelt Corollary (Roosevelt, 1904), we realize two things: first, US elites asserted the importance of securing a base in the region; second, in many ways what is known today as Latin America, along with a large percentage of today’s US territory that at the time was beyond its borders, were not considered fully “external” to the country, as they were meant to be under their control. When placed against the background of the Manifest Destiny, with its quasi-messianic undertones (Engdahl, 2018; Mountjoy, 2009), it follows immediately that a national project such as this one combines pragmatic decisions made to favor dominant interests, with deep ideological roots that shape the systems of signifying at the center of collective and individual structures of thought. Thus, when the US entered the ranks of the independent States, with its growing population and economy, its projections and plans, the nature of the geopolitical dynamics in the GCB changed dramatically, if not immediately. The main axis until then had been its relevance as a major hub in the global trade network, and the interest of European governments of securing access to resources from the Americas, East Asia and Africa, and achieving strategic advantages by controlling key routes and choke points. Washington saw in the basin a frontier and a core component of its national security circuit. That placed Cuba among the first targets of US foreign policy. Documents and speeches by several of the founding fathers, along with other texts and actions, prove the strength of their interest in annexing, or at least controlling, Cuba. This was considered both a need for the survival of the US Republic and a right stemming from nature, politics and predestination (Pérez, 2014).

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Table 1 Instances of Use of US Armed Forces Abroad, as Mentioned to Congress, 1798–2021 (Salazar Torreon & Plagaki, 2021) Period

Great Caribbean Basin

Asia–Pacific

The Americas (except GCB)

Europe

Middle East

Africa

1798–1898

41

32

12

4

0

8

1898–1939

35

19

0

6

1

2

1939–1945

2

1

0

4

1

1

1945–1959

0

5

0

2

2

1

1959–1990

9

10

2

2

7

9

1990–2001

6

6

0

34

16

18

2001–2021

14

19

2

38

58

24

Total

107

92

16

90

85

63

The degree of early activity of Washington in the GCB is shown by the recurrent use of its military to advance its interests. When looking at the number of mentions in the US Congress by the executive of instances of use of the armed forces abroad since 1798, it is possible to observe some interesting patterns (Table 1): As late as 2021, instances of use of armed forces in the GCB were more numerous than its equivalents in any other part of the world. However, 76 of the 107 instances occurred before 1939, whereas Europe, the Middle East and Africa appeared much more often since 1990. The explanation of this change is twofold. First, between 1798 and 1939, the US was struggling to build itself as a power, by securing its direct interests, carving its own sphere of influence and keeping its distance from the “European entanglements”. In fact, American involvement in the First World War, despite its importance, was an exception. Second, World War II marked the consolidation of the US as a global hegemonic power. Hence, its foreign policy priorities reflected that condition, as well as the fact that by then the US was firmly in control of the Western hemisphere, where no European government even thought of competing. Focus was placed on other scenarios, where issues were more pressing. In the case of Africa, American military actions grew significantly after the dissolution of the colonial empires, which fits the most traditional inter-empire dynamics. There are a few other things to consider. These figures do not represent exactly the same type of action. Most of the mentions since 1990 are presentations to the US Congress by the executive of redeployments of units in bases around the world or recurrent reports on the continuity of active missions: that is the case in the presence of American forces in the former Yugoslavia or in Afghanistan. That is not the case in prior actions: for example, the participation in World War II was mentioned just once, as it happened with the occupation of countries like Cuba (1898–1902 and 1906–1909) or Haiti (1914–1934) (Salazar Torreon & Plagakis, 2021). Also, other forms of intervention are not included in these reports, as is the case of the organization and execution of military invasions manned by foreign citizens (“exiles”) in Guatemala (1954) or Cuba (1961), or the provision of support to the

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“contras” in Nicaragua (1981–1990) and to armies fighting leftist guerrilla movements in Nicaragua—before 1979—Salvador or Guatemala—in spite of the methods they used, inclusive of terror campaigns and scorched-earth tactics. Considering all, there were interventions in all countries in Central America, the Spanish Caribbean rim and in Haiti, in many of them on multiple occasions, curiously, with the exception of Venezuela. We must add to this the support provided to military coups in several countries—for example Cuba. It is also significant that after almost two decades of no direct military actions in the region, there were several in the 1960s, all of them related to Cuba, in the 1980s—to Panama—and since 1990, related to Haiti (Blum, 1995; McPherson, 2013; Salazar Torreon & Plagakis, 2021). Some of the fundamental tools in building the US sphere of influence were economic in nature. American companies invested in the region’s main resources, regularly using their influence to secure privileges and zero or near zero liability in the host countries. Typically, they paid no taxes or almost no taxes. In the early times of this process, they created a model known as enclave economies, in which those companies controlled areas where the resources existed—whether agricultural lands, mineral or others—and their output was taken directly to the US, bypassing local economies all together, without supervision by local authorities, and often applying forms of coercion to ensure continued labor supply. One of the most famous companies that engaged in these practices was United Fruit Company. This was accompanied by the signing of trade agreements with unequal terms, frequently forced on their counterparts in the aftermath of military interventions and with the co-optation of local elites (Prieto Bulmer-Thomas, 2010; Rozos, 2014). Consequently, these practices subordinated the local economies to US interests, while granting those companies immunity. This created the conditions to exercise direct influence on the countries’ domestic affairs, which produced a number of dictatorships that alternated with constitutional regimes led by representatives of the elites who had direct ties with the US. The use of local strongmen and the subordinated countries’ armed forces as political tools relieved the American military from playing the role of occupation forces while keeping those countries firmly within the US—centric power structure. It was a resource in periods of social unrest and political crises, when domestic institutions were insufficient to reproduce the existing order and power relations. Support for military dictatorships at the continental level, with special emphasis in the GCB, became frequent after the introduction of the Good Neighbor Policy by Franklin Delano Roosevelt, with his public renouncement to military interventions in Latin America (Prieto Rozos, 2014). Hence, the commonality of goals of both types of actions while adjusted to different historical contexts is a compelling interpretation. Cuban history offers a telling example. The intervention of 1898 and the formation of the new republic—officially founded in 1902—included the forceful introduction of the Platt Amendment in the constitution. The amendment established restrictions to Cuba’s sovereignty akin to those of a protectorate—including the right of military intervention. Its core provisions were further developed in the Permanent Treaty of Relations of 1903—one of its long-lasting effects is the naval base at Guantanamo Bay, in Eastern Cuba—and the Trade Reciprocity Treaty of 1904. This institutional

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framework was updated in 1934, after a process known in Cuba as the revolution of 1933 that ended with a US-supported military coup. American companies controlled over 60% of the country’s sugar industry, which in turn generated up to 90% of its income from exports, in a fully open economy with 40% of its gross national product deriving from its external sector on average. Up to 90% of the sugar exports were directed to US markets, largely as raw material for an array of industries, including sugar refineries. Constitutional governments, military occupations and military dictatorships alternated until the revolution of 1959 (Dominguez Lopez & Yaffe, 2017). Countries like Nicaragua, Guatemala or the Dominican Republic show similar historical patterns, for even longer periods (Prieto Rozos, 2014). A major change occurred in the twentieth century, with the discovery and exploitation of Venezuela’s oil reserves. The role of the South American country shifted rapidly, becoming a major oil exporter and a founding member of the Organization of Petroleum Exporting Countries. The importance of oil and oil products for the global economy provided Venezuela with a global market and ample room for economic growth. It also made other resources—which the country has in large amounts, from minerals, to water, to fertile lands with a variety of climates—less attractive for investment, in particular foreign investment, thus moving toward an oil exports-dependent economy. This means that the capital-intensive oil industry became completely dominant, which limited further development in other industries and generated forms of rentism (Bulmer-Thomas, 2010; D’Angelo, 2014). From a geopolitical point of view, it transformed Venezuela into a target for the hegemonic interests of the US and other foreign powers, in a world in which the control of the main source of energy is a primary goal in international competition. These extractive practices of the US have expectedly evolved over time. In recent times, extraction of economic surplus through creation of enclave economies became secondary to more modern methods like the maquilas, which represent a form of subordinated industrialization, and a form of externalization of environmental and social costs, as well as a reduction of production costs for American corporations (Bulmer-Thomas, 2010). Complementing this, trade agreements have also been updated. That is the case with the free trade agreements like NAFTA (recently replaced by USCAMEX) and CAFTA (currently CAFTA-RD), which created institutional frameworks that reinforced Washington’s dominant economic position in relation to Mexico and Central America, respectively, with the addition of the Dominican Republic in the latter (North American Free Trade Agreement [NAFTA]; CAFTA-DR). The geopolitical dynamic of the GCB, however, should not be interpreted through a bipolar model. It is possible to identify a hierarchy, given by the relative strength and policy-orientation of its constituent states. The largest and wealthiest country in the region after the US—Mexico—has a foreign policy with a long history of neutrality and non-interference. Hence, Venezuela, due to its resources and more active foreign policy, played the role of a secondary, regional power during the reorganization of the international system carried out after World War II, subordinated to Washington but with a leadership among smaller countries (Feinberg, 2020: 20).

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Data and facts presented here, interpreted within the broader framework of political history and the dynamics of international relations in the region, suggest a few corollaries. First, the geopolitical value of the GCB was established early in its colonial history. It has evolved driven by shifts in the balance of power in the international system and other specific historic conditions. Second, Washington used its growing might to control weaker states in the region, but carefully avoided direct confrontation with the European powers. The exceptions were the War of 1812 against Great Britain, which responded to a distinct set of exceptional circumstances (Foner, 2011: 318–324), and the war with Spain in 1898, when the Iberian country was in the last stages of its decline and exhausted from the long and adverse wars in Cuba and the Philippines. Third, the use of military force was instrumental in the construction of the American power structure in the region that served as platform to launch Washington’s bid for global hegemony. This formed a part of the bigger and more diverse set of tools that complemented and reinforced each other (e.g., diplomatic actions, economic activity). Fourth, Venezuela was not of immediate interest in the early stages of the expansion of US influence. When it became relevant, non-violent instruments were preferred instead of direct military action. Fifth, the Cuban revolution was perceived as a security threat and a fracture of the power structure that demanded a response. Sixth, hard power policies of different kinds are ready in the toolkit for US foreign policy when other means are considered insufficient.

3 Cuba-Venezuela-US: Geopolitics at the Dawn of the Twenty-First Century The Cuban revolution of 1959 had created a fracture in the hemispheric power structure, by taking the island country, with all its geopolitical significance, out of Washington’s control. As it happened in the midst of the Cold War, it was inevitably interpreted by the US elites as a threat to their interests and to their interpretation of the US’s national security,5 and as a window of opportunity for the Soviet Union. Also, the revolution could set an example for other countries in the region, triggering other revolutions through a domino effect that could potentially shatter the structure itself. This view was at the core of the making of Washington’s Cuba policy, which developed into three main branches. First, a system of economic sanctions—called blockade in Cuba and embargo in the US—that started in 1959, integrated into an overarching and growing body of legislation and policies since 1962 (Dávalos

5

National security as understood by American elites and governments is not limited to the security of its territory and population. It includes the extension of their interests, as far as they may reach. This is observable in the National Security Strategies published by each administration of the last 4 decades (President of the United States, 2002, 2006, 2010, 2015, 2017). This is in line with a geopolitical interpretation of national security for a major power.

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Fernández, 2012; Miranda Bravo, 2003).6 Second, undercover operations by intelligence agencies—mainly the CIA—including support for anti-government organizations inside and outside Cuba that carried out a wide array of actions, including violent and clearly terrorist attacks (Bolender, 2010, 2012).7 Third, the political isolation of the Cuban government, particularly in the region, by putting pressure on the Latin American governments to make them break their relations with the island.8 These policies acted as catalysts for Cuba’s complicated alliance with the Soviet Union and its support to revolutionary movements around the region (Dominguez Lopez & Yaffe, 2017). During the 1980s, the Reagan administration had put some emphasis on the rollback of revolutions in Latin America—and especially in Central America and the Caribbean—which led to the undercover operations in Nicaragua and the invasion of Grenada. Also, the first major action of the George H. W. Bush administration was the invasion of Panama in 1989 to capture its President, Manuel A. Noriega, who had long-running ties with the CIA.9 Thus, the region was among the priorities for Washington in those times. Yet, the post-Cold War world had forced upon the American decision-makers a reorganization of their foreign policy, which, as mentioned above, led to a reinforcement of its presence in other parts of the world, like Eastern Europe and the Middle East, in an overt manner. This was part of the formation of what was presented as the new world order. By the late twentieth century, the Cold War was over, the Soviet Union had disappeared, political maps had changed dramatically, and the US was the undisputed global hegemonic power. It was in the process of reshaping the international system and re-signifying its alliances and international organizations according to its own views with a unilateral outlook. The GCB and the whole Western hemisphere seemed secured, with the exception of Cuba, which remained an outlier subjected to mounting external pressures and in hard economic conditions. In the eyes of many, the collapse of the Cuban political regime was all but inevitable. However, it survived, which prompted two laws, the Cuban Democracy Act—also known as Torricelli Act—of 1992 and the LIBERTAD Act—also known as Helms-Burton Act—of 1996, that added a layer to the system of sanctions that further entrenched the blockade/embargo (US Congress, 1992, 1996). Yet, Cuba’s government held up. This fact had unexpected ramifications.

6

A secret memorandum from US Deputy Assistant Secretary of State for Inter-American Affairs Lester Mallory to the Assistant Secretary of State for Inter-American Affairs stated that the only foreseeable means to reduce and potentially eliminate the Cuban people’s support for the government emerged from the revolution was through “disenchantment and disaffection based on economic dissatisfaction and hardship” (Mallory, 1960). 7 The most famous of these were the landing of an invading force of Cuban émigrés, organized, armed and trained by the CIA in Bay of Pigs in 1961—an application of the method used in Guatemala in 1954–, and hundreds of assassinations attempts on Fidel Castro. 8 Cuba’s expulsion from the Organization of American States was the clearest outcome of this line of policy. 9 This occurred in a context in which the future of the Panama Canal was in debate, as the end of the concession would end in 1999, after the Torrijos-Carter treaty.

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The electoral victory of Hugo Chavez in Venezuela in 1998 came to change the political landscape in the region. Suddenly, a country that had remained essentially aligned with the US for a long time entered a period of social and political transformation, under the label of the Bolivarian Revolution, and intended to be the starting point of the Socialism of the twenty-first century. Its first major step was to call to elections for a constitutional assembly. The elected body produced a new Carta Magna that enshrined a significant part of the political ideas proposed by the bolivarians—most commonly known and self-represented as chavistas. More importantly for this discussion, the new government launched an international policy fully independent from Washington, and promoted the integration of Latin America as a way to counterweight the influence of the North American power. During the first decade of the twenty-first century, other countries experienced notable political changes that brought to their governments leaders and organizations with similar projections, like the cases of Ecuador, Bolivia and Nicaragua—the latter with the return of the sandinistas. Other significant, albeit less radical, political turns followed, with the electoral victories of left and center-left parties in Brazil, Argentina, Uruguay and El Salvador. In fact, we can find strong movements with leftist tendencies in most Latin American countries in those years. These movements reflected complex structural and multilevel contradictions, both within countries and in interstate relations, including relations with the US. In other words, the victory of the chavistas in Venezuela was the starting point of a broad process of changes in the hemisphere. Sub-regional and regional integration processes and coordination fora emerged in that context, without the participation of the US, or any other major global power. The continent had not seen anything similar since the aftermath of the independence wars and the failure of the Anfictionic Congress of Panama in 1826 (Ayerbe, 2012: 217–287; Prieto Rozos, 2014: 490–589). Arguably, the political alliance between Cuba and Venezuela was the bedrock of these processes. Cooperation between the two countries ramped up shortly after Chavez’s inauguration, especially after the approval of Venezuela’s new constitution and the start of comprehensive changes. These were spearheaded by “social missions”, intended to transform and improve the living conditions of the impoverished sectors of its population with the redistribution of the income generated by its oil industry, controlled by the state-owned Petróleos de Venezuela (PDVSA). Cuban professionals were instrumental in those plans, with tens of thousands of medical personnel, sports trainers, teachers and advisors in a variety of fields being deployed nation-wide. In exchange, Caracas supplied oil at fixed prices, and engaged in multiple investment and trade projects. A bilateral agreement signed in December 2004 was the origin of ALBA (currently ALBA-TCP), intended as a project of deep integration across the board. It was conceived as more than an organization for economic and political cooperation, as it included—and still includes—for instance, educational and cultural programs, in charge of promoting the development of artistic and literary production, as well as support for literacy campaigns and educational development. In the following years, the project was joined by the most radical leftist governments in the continent and a number of other actors, including several small Caribbean island nations—six of its

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current ten members. Venezuela provided its material resources—oil in the first place, especially during the bonanza brought by the rising prices prior to the Great Recession of 2008—and Cuba its personnel and expertise in a number of fields—health care, science and education. By its own conception, ALBA provided a framework to reduce the US dominance and to project Venezuelan and Cuban leadership in Latin America, with special focus on the Caribbean. This idea was advanced by its supporters and critics alike, albeit with different views on the potential, scope, viability or dangers posed by the organization and the alliance at its core (Bagley & Defort, 2014; Correa, 2005; Fonseca & Polga-Hecimovich, 2020; Oliva, 2007; Yánez, 2005). The activism of the Cuban government after the revolution had prompted a reorganization of the hierarchy in the system of regional relations in the GCB. Havana’s support for revolutionary movements, its conflict with the US and its construction of South-South and South-East alliances placed the island state to be a regional force to be reckoned. The economic crisis that followed the collapse of the Eastern European socialist bloc and the dissolution of the Soviet Union, however, limited its material resources to a minimum, thus limiting its capabilities and prompting a redesign of its foreign policy (Erisman & Kirk, 2006).10 The Bolivarian revolution, Caracas’ new policies, and the new agreements generated two major outcomes in this regard. First, they moved Venezuela to a position of regional leadership, similarly marked by its Latin American and antiimperialist orientation, in support of leftist political forces and movements (Feinberg, 2020: 21). Second, it provided Cuba with a platform to revamp and expand its foreign policy, with what we may call a soft power perspective, articulated around cooperation projects, first and foremost medical cooperation (Kirk & Erisman, 2009). This development was somewhat facilitated by the dominant trends in US foreign policy in those years. Following the attack on the Twin Towers in New York on September 11, 2001, the George W. Bush administration launched the War on Terror. This was somewhat diffuse in its definition, but a global and comprehensive set of military and political actions to reassert US dominance, under the justification of ending the threat represented by terrorism. In first place, Islamic terrorism. It started with the invasion of Afghanistan in 2001 to oust the Taliban government—justified as an operation to capture Osama bin Laden and to destroy terrorist training camps—and was soon followed by the invasion of Iraq in 2003. In hindsight, it is clear that the War on Terror represented a campaign to deepen the political reorganization of the international system. The focus was placed on the vast Eurasian land mass, which coincided with McKinder’s original views about global geopolitics, but also with the approach to realpolitik championed by Zbigniew Brzezinski11 (1998) when discussing the imperatives of US hegemony. Influential neoconservative politicians and thinkers, like Paul Wolfowitz and Richard Perle, also shared that perspective. 10

For example, all military activities in Africa ended in 1991, after the successful conclusion of the war in Angola—key factor in the collapse of the Apartheid regime in South Africa. 11 National Security Advisor of President Jimmy Carter and a central figure in United States’ foreign policy intelligentsia. Of Polish origin, he was decidedly anti-Soviet.

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This policy/strategy went a step further in the resignification of the most important international organizations. Military interventions in Iraq in 1990–1991 and Somalia in 1993—to cite just two examples—had been approved by the United Nations Security Council (UNSC), so they were covered by a legal framework and technically were actions of the United Nations. Later, the invasion of Yugoslavia in 1998, justified as a response to the conflict in Kosovo, was carried out under the banner of NATO, without the explicit consent of the UNSC. In Afghanistan and Iraq, the US sidestepped both organizations and made the decision in a unilateral manner, regardless of the participation of some of its allies, chiefly the United Kingdom. In other words, unilateralism became the norm in Washington’s foreign policy. The US’ unilateral actions prioritized the use (or threat of use) of the military force and economic pressures, as coercive means, with open-ended actions in different contexts. A very controversial component of this toolkit was the principle of preemptive action, that is, the idea of attacking potential enemies before they constituted an immediate threat (Bacevich, 2002). The so-called Bush Doctrine of foreign policy relied heavily on these instruments and principles (President of the United States, 2002, 2006). The critique of this doctrine and its implementation gave birth to the concepts of hard power—the preferred approach of the Bush administration—and soft power (Nossel, 2004; Nye, 2003, 2004, 2008; Wilson, 2008). We can interpret the doctrine within Susan Strange’s framework of power relations in the world economy. Strange identified four primary power structures as security, production, finance and knowledge, and four secondary power structures as transportation (sea and air), commerce, energy and welfare (Strange, 1988). These eight structures are all interdependent and essentially inseparable, but identifying them explicitly allows for a better understanding of the types of power structures. Each one is amenable to the use of hard or soft power, and is thus useful in identifying the scope of the resources available to the great powers, especially to the US. The Bush Doctrine clearly prioritized the first of the four primary structures, security, and the third of the secondary ones, energy. The imperatives of sustaining world dominance, particularly when approached from the unilateral perspective applied by the George W. Bush administration, caused the widening of US resources. The fact that American military forces were present and actively involved in combat missions across the world implied a demand for supplies of all kinds. This certainly stimulated the activity of the corporations of the military-industrial complex, but it represented as well a burden for the federal budget, as military expenditures grew rapidly. Also, it meant increased demands of workforce, to keep the large number of troops and other personnel on the ground and in the command and logistic chains. In the short term, the boost of activity in certain sectors of the economy carried others with them, thus helping to stimulate the growth of the gross domestic product (GDP) and the creation of jobs. In its initial stages, it even served as a rally cry in the political arena, to the point of help reducing the levels of polarization in the American public at large (Pew Research Center, 2017). However, in the longer term, it put a significant stress on the material and human resources, aggravated by the indefinite nature of the War on Terror, which was presented as endless in political speech. It is somewhat natural, given the nature

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of the enemy—terrorism—which is in fact a method, not a state or an armed group. The relatively meager results of the main actions, particularly Afghanistan and Iraq, where a decisive victory proved elusive, in spite of temporary success, the lack of coherent plans for the aftermath of the wars and of exit strategies for the forces involved, the increased levels of instability in those countries and the security threats that followed, all piled up to make clear that the strategy had not paid off. Not for the country as a whole, even if it benefited some groups. That is to say, it put the US in the field of the imperial oversizing, as defined by Paul Kennedy (1987: 514–515). In such a context, Latin America at large and the GCB in particular, occupied a lower position in the scale of priorities. There were policies in places, like the sanctions against Cuba, the project of a continental free trade area—an expansion of the existing NAFTA and other bilateral and multilateral free trade agreements— and the continuity of the Plan Colombia. The latter was officially concerned with the fight against drug trafficking and the strengthening of the Colombian State; but on closer examination it visibly strengthened the position of US military and other security-related agencies in a country of great strategic value, as well as the alliance with an important government. But the Bolivarian revolution in Venezuela and the subsequent wave of leftist successes—the pink tide—in the region showed that the existing policies were insufficient to preserve the status quo (Dominguez Lopez, 2016: 84–92; 2018b: 23–36). The limits of the US power became more visible with the convergence of four processes. First, the Great Recession, and more broadly, the structural crisis that began in the 2000s broke the internal political consensus and triggered a transition, unfinished at the moment of completing this work. During the transition, all structures shall be adjusted, as wide and heated debates—often in the form of conflict—on all fundamental policies filled the political arena, and levels of uncertainty and dissatisfaction grew, at a time that the legitimacy of the establishment suffered, including the foreign policy establishment (Dominguez Lopez & Barrera Rodriguez, 2018). Second, the re-emergence of Russia as a major international actor. After the collapse of its economy and the chaos that followed the dissolution of the Soviet Union, Moscow looked for a place in the post-Cold War international system, a seat at the table. The initial attempt to build an alliance with the US failed, however, due to multiple reasons, including Washington’s attitude toward the Eurasian country. The ascension of Vladimir Putin to the presidency brought with it a project of reinvigoration of the Russian policy, and its relaunching as a global player. The combination of these and other factors led to increasing frictions that eventually became an open confrontation, when Moscow showed its capacity and will to act on its own interests even when in opposition to the US, as demonstrated by its actions in Georgia, Syria and Crimea (Dominguez Lopez & Borges Pías, 2016). Third, the emergence of China as a global actor, with the capacity to compete and even surpass the US in the economic sphere and the production of new technologies. The growth of its GDP, its advances in core technologies like artificial intelligence, nuclear fusion, renewable energies and telecommunications, put the Asian country on the path to take the lead in the global economy, which would mean the return to a historically typical correlation, given the size and dynamism of ancient, pre-modern

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and early modern Chinese economy. Beijing also demonstrated its intent to be more active in the international arena, by launching its Belt and Road Initiative, while reinforcing its military capabilities, participating in peace-keeping operations and strengthening its position in a series of international disputes (Dominguez Lopez, 2021: 31–32). Fourth, the formation of the China-Russia strategic alliance. It is difficult to overstate the importance of this alliance. It meant two major nuclear powers, the second and third largest military powers, two countries with massive natural and human resources, with high degrees of complementarity in their developments, joining forces with the clear intent to counterbalance the influence of the US in the international system. The rapid growth of China’s capacities made this association extraordinarily relevant for the present, and even more for the future. The creation of the Shanghai Cooperation Organization added an extra layer to the alliance, when it attracted several important international actors like India, Iran, Pakistan or Kazakhstan, in one or the other capacity (Dominguez Lopez, 2021; Dominguez Lopez & Borges Pías, 2016). Hence, the early years of the twenty-first century saw fundamental changes in the GCB, with the Bolivarian revolution and the construction of the Cuban-Venezuelan alliance. It generated an important shift in the geopolitical balance of the region that triggered a political wave that spread throughout Latin America. In its initial stages, the US, then engaged in the War on Terror, seemed to lack a coherent strategy to cope with the emerging challenge. It happened as the balance in the international system was changing as well, with the rapid upward movement of China and Russia in the hierarchy, along with the increasing visibility of the limits of Washington’s power. The structural crisis and the concomitant transition in the US opened the room for a complex and conflictive debate on its national project, including the potential adjustment of its foreign policy to the new realities.

4 Adjustments and Continuities The rapidly changing international system demanded a revision and update of US foreign policy and national security strategies, and of its geopolitical views. Since the earliest years of the twenty-first century, a number of American scholars and former politicians have criticized the Bush Doctrine and advanced some proposals to change it. Despite their ideological differences, there was a school of thought that recognized the limitations of the associated hegemonic project (Brzezinski, 2007; Kissinger, 2002; Nau, 2002; Nye, 2002, 2004; Nossel, 2004). Particularly, interesting was the idea of the “smart power” (Nye, 2008, 2011). Aside from a marketable concept—it is hard to imagine someone rejecting “smart power” and defending something like “dumb power”—it entails the combination of fundamentals and instruments of hard power with those of soft power according to the needs and concrete circumstances. Smart power was regarded originally as a means to restore US leadership in the international system, which by 2007 was perceived as weak (Armitage & Nye, 2007).

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As the impacts of the structural crisis of 2008 rippled across the world and the American political system, the exhaustion of the model championed in the Bush Doctrine opened room for a debate on foreign policy and its potential adjustment (Dominguez Lopez & Barrera Rodríguez, 2018: 250–275). In that context, a very important question was what would be the role of Latin America in general and the GCB in particular in the US’ global strategy. Subsequently, another question was how Washington would deal with the challenges emerging in the region, which the Bush administration had failed to quell. When closely examined, foreign policy is in fact a form of public policy, with some specific imperatives and actors involved. As such, its making happens in essentially the same way as any other public policy, so models of policy-making are useful to explain its production. As synthesized by López and Rodríguez (2020), we can apply a cyclical model, where we need to add three key factors: first, the influence of governmental actors that are not directly and formally involved in the making of the specific policy; second, the influence of non-governmental actors—interest groups, lobbies, powerful individuals, the elites, broadly speaking; third, the relevant State policy that establishes the general goal of the public policies in the specific issue. The latter is the most stable of the factors, one that crosses administrations and evolves at a much slower pace. What was the State policy of the US regarding the GCB in the first decades of the twenty-first century? The discussion up to this point lead immediately to a conclusion: the assertion and reinforcement of its control on the region. There is an important distinction to be made: geopolitical importance, strategic value, do not depend on the level of priority assigned to a specific region or country, but on the system of variables that measure its relevance in dimensions like economy or security. Priority, on the other hand, is assigned based on the assessment made by decision-makers and other participants in the policy-making of a series of variables, of which geopolitical value is just one, albeit relevant. Even more so, there is another problem, which has to do with the knowledge dimension in decision-making, that is, individuals and groups involved in the process not necessarily make a correct evaluation of the importance of the region, the existing imperatives and the resources available (López & Rodríguez, 2020). On this basis, what was the State policy of US for Venezuela and Cuba? Washington’s official speech talks about fighting authoritarianism, violations of human rights, individual liberties and so on, in its justification of hostile policies toward both countries. It is worth noticing that, even according to Human Rights Watch, an organization in no way suspect of sympathizing with the Cuban and Venezuelan governments, violations of human rights in both countries were much less significant than those recorded in countries like Saudi Arabia and Colombia (Humans Rights Watch, 2021), both considered allies of Washington. It would not be realistic to exclude ideological factors from the conditions for the making of the policies: logically, participating individuals have ideological constructs, through which they evaluate and decide on those matters. Both countries represent important ideological and political departures from the American

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model of capitalism.12 Thus, decision-makers act informed by their ideological views. Nevertheless, these appear as a relatively secondary, albeit important factors. The conclusion from the discussion above is again clear: The goal of the State policy of the US toward Venezuela and Cuba is to reassert Washington’s control on both countries, via regime change. The examination of the variables, the history and the projection of both governments and their alliances leave no room for other interpretations. In this context, criticism of their political systems or accusations of authoritarianism and violations of human rights essentially act as go-to figures to justify effective actions. It is a somewhat cynical approach, but foreign policy, in practice, is largely a function of key variables, like power and interest, much more than ethics. The real question is how to accomplish those goals, and what degree of priority would be assigned to them. One of the most interesting developments in this respect was the position of the Obama administration. From its own national security strategies (President of the United States, 2010, 2015), it is visible that the administration’s approach to foreign policy was closer to the idea of smart power, in combination with a liberal perspective on international relations, and the intention of building a form of multilateralism with US leadership. Also, there was a very clear attempt to produce and implement a coherent strategy toward Latin America, which applied the tool considered the most appropriate to each case, instead of blanket, omnicomprehensive policies. The Trump administration, since its inauguration, showed other intentions, with a speech and practice that basically rejected all norms, asserted a type of nationalist perspective—“America First”—dismissive of its traditional alliances, and somewhat erratic (President of the United States, 2017). One of the most significant actions of the Obama administration in this regard was the change of its Cuba policy, the restoration of diplomatic relations—severed since 1960—and the launching of a process of negotiations that officially intended to normalize the relations. The first African-American president was also the first in his position to declare that the long-standing coercive policies had failed, and were detrimental even to the US. He lifted some restrictions, and promoted some economic, academic and social exchanges, as well as cooperation in some specific aspects of mutual interest—typically with long histories of limited engagement. Nonetheless, it is important to remember that in his speech announcing the new policy, on December 17, 2014, Obama said in not ambiguous terms, that he was changing the means of his policy, not its goals. Regardless of the targeted public of that particular statement—the speech is clearly multi-layered (Obama, 2014)—it means that the change occurred at the public policy level, but the State policy remained the same, with the strategic goal of changing the political regime on the island, as the way to reclaim control on it. That is, the geopolitics of the relation remained essentially the same (Dominguez López, 2015, 2016, 2018b). 12

However, they are very different in many aspects: Cuba has had an economy controlled by Stateowned companies for a long time, unlike Venezuela, where privately owned companies are far more numerous; Cuba has a single-party system with a communist party at its core, while Venezuela has a multi-party system, with an ideologically diverse socialist party in government, in alliance with other smaller forces. Yet, they are often presented under the same light.

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Significantly, the relations with Venezuela did not take a similar path. The 2009– 2017 period saw an intensification of the conflict between the two countries. The death of Hugo Chavez in March 2013 and the election of Nicolas Maduro for the presidency in April of that year unleashed a series of reactions, both internally and externally, including the increase of political violence in the country, international sanctions and public condemnation of the Venezuelan government and its top officials. Frictions with regional allies of the US, especially Colombia, escalated. At that point, when the change in policy toward Cuba appeared as part of a larger strategy, supported by the Democratic establishment, it seemed that the two policies were set to diverge in the future (Oxford Analytica, 2015). Why the difference? There are several possible explanations. One of them, totally straightforward, is that there was a perception of vulnerability after the passing of Chávez, given that the space of his charismatic leadership could not be filled by any of the remaining leaders, including Maduro; also, the institutions created during the process were not as deeply entrenched as those created in Cuba, and the transition in the government had not been planned or carried out in a completely orderly manner. But there is another factor. For years, actions conducted or supported by the US had led to deeper, more solid relations between the two countries, despite their differences. Differentiated policies can be interpreted as an attempt to create a breach between them, exploiting those differences and generating incentives for the Cuban government to abandon or at least weaken its alliance with Caracas, as some analysts suggest would be a viable strategy for Washington (Feinberg, 2020). The inauguration of Donald Trump as President in 2017 brought to the forefront a less sophisticated policy that tended to conflate both ideological projects and models. The moniker castro-chavismo became recurrent, as a description of any left or left leaning movement, leader or political force in the hemisphere. Trump himself declared that he intended to revert Obama’s “failed policies” that were “bad” for the US. Particularly in the case of Cuba, in just a few months the US president announced the abandonment of Obama’s path, the strengthening of its policies and new rounds of sanctions (Dominguez Lopez, 2018a). What is the main component of Washington’s policy toward Cuba and Venezuela? The answer is: economic sanctions. In the case of Cuba, the blockade/embargo constitutes the longest-running system of comprehensive sanctions on a country in modern times. As mentioned above, it began in the immediate aftermath of the revolution. But it is not a static phenomenon. Au contraire, it is a dynamic reality. Recent research identified 122 new sanctions introduced between January 2001 and June 2020. Notably, these are not instances of implementation of existing sanctions— fines, for example. The figure represents the introduction of new restrictions, for the most part in the form of incorporation of groups of entities and individuals to the restricted lists held by the Office of Foreign Assets Control (OFAC) and Department of State (Barrera Rodriguez & Iturriaga Bartuste, 2020: 34). In the same period, there were, in total, 58 flexibilizations of existing sanctions. This means generally scraping names form the restricted lists, allowing some exports—food and medicine—to Cuba under special conditions of cash-in-advanced

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payments and with special licenses,13 allowing certain companies to operate in Cuba—like the airlines—also under special licenses. The bulk of the flexibilizations (44), occurred under Obama, as was to be expected. On the other hand, during the first three and a half years in office, the Trump administration introduced 34 new sanctions, the highest frequency in the series (Barrera Rodriguez & Iturriaga Bartuste, 2020: 36). More recent studies, not published yet, found that in the second semester of 2020 the Trump administration passed other 12 sanctions, in the midst of the COVID-19 pandemic. It is important to note that these new sanctions do not come to replace older ones. Rather they are built on top of them. Nor can the flexibilizations overturn any of the core legislations of the blockade/embargo, including the above mentioned Torricelli Act of 1992 and Helms-Burton Act of 1996. What we observe here is the continuity in time of the central axis of US policy toward Cuba, arguably with the same purpose of causing resentment and disaffection through economic hardship, with significant variations in its actual form due to the regular addition and less frequent scraping of restrictions. This variability, even at the superficial level, generates a degree of instability and uncertainty, which adds to the explicit impact of the sanctions by making it harder for potential business partners to determine what is possible and what is not, given the threat of being punished by the US. On top of this, the massive entanglement of regulations, some of them effectively contradictory, means that even if the variations are disregarded, the complexity of engaging in business with Cuba is a deterrent in and of itself. What the data indicates is a significant variation in the intensity of the sanctions and in the general orientation of the Cuba policy. Where Obama attempted to update it, by using non-coercive methods, Trump went back to adding sanctions and overturning most of Obama’s new policies. The addition of restrictions during the pandemic is in fact in line with the main immediate goal set for this policy since its inception. There is another question to be asked here: why this reversion? There are several dimensions to be considered in the answer. First, Trump came to the White House with the announced goal of overturning Obama’s policies in all spheres, to erase his legacy. Reasons for this can be various: personal characteristics of the new president, backlash coming from radical conservatives and right-wing populists that formed the core of his base, will and interest of sectors of power intended to take control of the transition and drive the country in a different direction to what the previous administration had attempted to follow. Engaging in negotiations with Cuba has been presented as one of the successes of the Obama administration, so its reversion was to be expected. Another factor is the relative strength of a sector within the US that has a specific interest in Cuba. This is particularly the case in the very important state of Florida, the largest swing state in presidential elections for years, the home state of the core of the Cuban American community. The traditional leadership of that community, genetically connected with the old émigrés, created a series of political organizations 13

The conditions for these operations are such that in a number of technically allowed areas, like medicines, there has been zero or near zero purchases.

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and found a way to build a strong political clout on the state and the country, by using the characteristics of the American political system (Dominguez Lopez, 2019). Previous research has shown the activism of the elite of the community and its representatives in promoting a harsher Cuba policy (Domínguez López & González Delgado, 2017; González Delgado & Domínguez López, 2018a, 2018b; González Delgado et al., 2021). However, it would be reductive to portrait the resulting policies simply as an outcome of the activity of these sectors. There is evidence that their success is dependent on the orientation of the executive in the matter (LeoGrande, 2019), thus the importance of the individuals is placed in positions of power within the government. Also, the behavior of these politicians and power groups indicate that their view conflates Cuba and Venezuela, to the point in which the relations between both governments is enough to justify the application of similar policies to the two of them. They have influence mostly in the policy-making toward Latin America— for example, John Bolton, Mauricio Claver-Carone or Marco Rubio occupied key positions in that regard—so their take on the matter, which is also influenced by non-governmental groups, was an important factor, particularly during the Trump administration. In many senses, for some of these politicians, the conflict and the sanctions are a goal in itself, as long as they secure the support of powerful groups for them, as some of the latter are also interested in the funds appropriated in the federal budget to support democracy promotion and other programs, most of which are allocated to US-based organizations. For Venezuela, this history is different in several respects. Its confrontation with the US is more recent, so sanctions are also a far more recent phenomenon. There is no old comprehensive legislation and the restrictions imposed on the country are framed as targeted against the government and the leaders of the military. But to imagine that it is possible to target the main public companies, the countries’ international transactions, its assets abroad,14 while not affecting the livelihood of the common people would be absurd (Weisbrot, 2017). A number of studies on targeted or “smart” sanctions have shown that, regardless of their framing, they have comprehensive impacts that can and have been measured in several cases (Gordon, 2016, 2019, 2011). Hence, despite the differences, Venezuela was the target of an increasing system of sanctions that in practice thwarted its economic development and growth, already hit by the long-term impacts of the global structural crisis. This translated into increased difficulties for the population to access basic goods. Those effects are clearly beyond the ability of the government to administer its resources, in a country dependent on its external sector. There is no known document equivalent to the Mallory memorandum for Venezuela, at least not yet. But considering the history of the region, the geopolitical value of the country, and the imperatives of US dominant position, it 14

In recent years, with the official recognition of Juan Guaidó as president of Venezuela, instead of Maduro, by the United States, the United Kingdom, Colombia and some other countries, Venezuelaowned companies abroad and Venezuela’s gold reserves have been seized, and officially transferred to “Guaidó’s government”. Effectively, Venezuela lost those resources, severely limiting its ability to import necessary goods, also in the midst of the pandemic.

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follows that these are policies equally intended to generate discontent through the creation of economic hardship, as a way to debase the Venezuelan government. The final goal could take one of two possible forms: either cause the collapse of the government, or forcing it to change course and accept Washington’s predominance. Nevertheless, a number of studies on the subject indicate that it is unlikely that the sanctions will make the Bolivarian leadership abandon its path (Oxford Analytica, 2019). This is in fact one of the problems with international sanctions: their effectiveness in advancing the goals that they are supposed to accomplish is typically low, especially when compared to the damage they cause, and can even be counterproductive to those interests (Oxford Analytica, 2017). The return to a fully coercive policy toward Cuba with increased sanctions and a hostile rhetoric conducted by the Trump administration ended the differentiated treatment approach used by the Obama administration. That meant that the potential effects of the divergence on the Cuba-Venezuela alliance all but disappeared. Was there any replacement for this significant aspect of the policy? In fact, there is a rhetorical strategy, albeit somewhat simplistic, that tries to fill that gap. It is frequent for US officials and other political figures to point to an alleged control of Venezuela’s security institutions and overall government by Cuban operatives. Some have mentioned the presence of tens of thousands of Cuban military personnel. No evidence has been presented for any of those allegations, so they can be discarded (Feinberg, 2020: 23). It is implausible due to several reasons: in first place, the sheer number would have made their presence impossible to disguise. The figures adduced are similar to the total medical personnel deployed in Venezuela, which are not part of the military, and are publicly acknowledged as part of the cooperation agreements. Also, it would imply a total control that is almost certainly resented by the Venezuelan military and the public in general. Finally, the resources necessary for such a massive operation, and the inevitable weakening of the island’s defense capabilities would be unaffordable under the current conditions. Nonetheless, such declarations do not seem random, they can serve the purpose of inducing nationalist reactions that may weaken the relation between Havana and Caracas. So, by the early years of the third decade of the twenty-first century, the conflict remained. Despite the variations introduced by the Obama administration, the general trend was to increase the use of sanctions against both Cuba and Venezuela, with the clear intent of shrinking the social bases of their governments and create the conditions for their collapse. The geopolitics of the relation remain essentially the same: a major power (the US) trying to rebuild its power structure in the GCB, which implies the subordination of the states of the region, to consolidate its position in a world of shifting balances. Obama and Trump represented two alternative strategies to accomplish the same goal through different means, although for Venezuela both applied coercive policies of the same type.

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5 Conclusions The discussion above leads to a conclusion: the conflictive nature of the relation between the US, Cuba and Venezuela is the result, in the first place, of the basic contradiction between the project of a dominant power and two countries that attempted to build their sovereignties and to create a mechanism for the integration of Latin America, without the participation of Washington. There is an ideological factor involved, and probably to some individuals in the US it is a fight against authoritarianism. But the process as a whole clearly falls under the label of geopolitical conflict. Thus understood, it is possible to address this subject as a case of triangular relations, in which the interaction between any two vertices is influenced by the third one. A fundamental aspect of the analysis is that the relation is asymmetrical in many senses. The three countries are very unequal in terms of resources and power, their ability and will to act in the international arena are different, and political alignments left no room for neutrality amongst them for over twenty years. Aside from ideological coincidences, which are fewer than what appears in the opposition speech and largely in the American speech, the alliance between Venezuela and Cuba was, at least in part, the logical consequence leading to such dynamics, to some extent as a way to compensate the difficulties imposed by the conflict and to complement each country’s capabilities. The geopolitical value of the GCB, firmly established by its history and its geographical and political features, makes its control a necessity for the global projection of the US. This has not translated, however, into a clear, coherent, stable strategy, except, maybe, during the Obama years. There are policies that, regardless of their effectiveness, continue over long periods of time, and seem to have a life of their own. That is the case of the economic sanctions. It would be interesting to explore the problem of the sanctions, given its increasingly recurrent use as a weapon of choice in the US foreign policy, and not only in the region. It may be a sign of the effects of the relative decline of Washington and a symptom of the early stages of a hegemonic transition. This is still speculative, but it is an appealing line of inquiry. The only measurable positive outcome for US interests was the relative contention of the influence of the Cuba-Venezuela alliance as a result of their economic crises. In this context, the crisis that Venezuela is experiencing at the moment of writing these lines—as is Cuba—is very clearly the result of the combination of many factors. Aside from the domestic components of the crisis, and the effects of the global structural crisis, and the pandemic, it is necessary to introduce in the analysis the geopolitical dimension, in which conflicts, alliances and concrete policies like economic sanctions are manifestations of the underlying structures and dynamics of the international system, the power structure and interactions in the important GCB, and the goals set by the governments involved. Economic hardship and social crisis are not simple by-products, but intended consequences. The political implications and the perception of the role of opposition forces and their connections with US cannot be fully understood without this dimension.

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Ernesto Dominguez López is Professor at the Center for Hemispheric and United Studies of the University of Havana, Cuba.

Difficult but Necessary: Venezuela-Colombia Relations Throughout Time—A Historical Depiction of Two Specially Connected Neighbors Alexandra Gericke

1 Introduction Historically, they are defined as sister nations whose common past reaches back to colonial times when they jointly achieved independence from Spain becoming one nation. As ‘children of the Liberator Simón Bolívar’ they have been connected through shared cultural values, geographical similarities, and a common language. They also share a long border that unites and separates them at the same time: Venezuela and Colombia. Ever since their coming into existence, these two South American countries have been closely intertwined on multiple levels. Today, however, Venezuela-Colombia relations are extremely distant, contrastive, and highly conflictive. This makes their difficult yet necessary binational relations an important case study. Following are more of the major recent news headlines on the binational relations between the two countries: Colombia y Venezuela: destinados a vivir juntos (Pardo, 24 Oct 21), Maduro denuncia que ‘se están asesinando a dos venezolanos por día en Colombia’ (Europa Press, 22 Oct 21), Colombia no reconocerá ‘dictadura corrupta’ de Venezuela (El Nuevo Siglo, 20 Oct 21), Diplomacia entre Colombia y Venezuela sigue en el limbo (Suárez, 22 Oct 21), Venezuela’s Maduro is biggest obstacle to implementing Colombia peace deal: official (Acosta, 23 Mar 21), Freddy Bernal: Colombia y Venezuela deben volver a ser países hermanos (Bravo, 3 Nov 21).

These headlines, picked through a random sample, indicate a certain degree of friction between the two sides. While the relationship does not seem friendly—but rather tense—it becomes obvious that there is no way around it. These two nations need each other as much as they struggle with one another. A. Gericke (B) Department of Comparative Politics, University of Rostock, Rostock, Germany e-mail: [email protected] © The Author(s), under exclusive license to Springer Nature Switzerland AG 2023 M. A. Latouche et al. (eds.), Venezuela – Dimensions of the Crisis, Contributions to Political Science, https://doi.org/10.1007/978-3-031-21889-7_11

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This chapter is set out to show the dimensions of Colombia and Venezuela’s binational bonds since their independence from Spain. It focuses on recurring issues treated differently during changing presidencies and seeks to analyze the reasons behind the differences. This chapter starts by briefly describing the common challenges and problems that are a subject-matter of bilateral policy. Subsequently, the case of Colombia and Venezuela will be chronologically analyzed with a focus on theoretical considerations and actors. In order to be able to thoroughly understand the key elements of binational policy, the examined time frame comprises more than 200 years, beginning in 1819, when Colombia became independent from Spain, but concentrates mainly on the past 20 years since the coming into power of Hugo Chávez in 1999. In this way, the rest of the chapter is divided into seven sub-sections where I describe the contours of bilateral policy, 170 years from independence until the 1990s when cooperation efforts began to pay off, and, finally, five sub-sections covering a timeframe of about 30 years when phases of cooperation and confrontation took turns respective to changing presidencies. Overall, this chapter seeks to analyze why bilateral relations have been rather conflictive than cooperative in the past three decades and what have been the decisive factors, taking into consideration the main actors, namely the Colombian and Venezuelan presidents.

2 Challenges and Problems of Bilateral Policy: Theoretical Approach International politics encompasses the totality of all interactions directed toward the authoritative distribution of values beyond state borders. It thus goes far beyond the traditional notion of large-scale politics of small circles because: 1. it is not limited to the major issues of war and peace, but potentially encompasses all policy areas and, 2. the actors involved in international politics potentially reach far into the domestic and social spheres (Schimmelfennig, 2017: 22). Since there is no hierarchical order in international politics, theorists speak of politics under the conditions of anarchy (ibid.: 23), which makes problems much more complicated, more difficult to work with and harder to solve, compared to those at the level of a state in international relations. Politics between states deals with the same basic substantive challenges of value distribution as politics at any other level of analysis and broadly distinguishes between the values of safety, welfare, and freedom that each play important roles. Each of these values has its own problems and challenges:

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Table 1 Problems and challenges of international politics Values

Problems

Challenges to politics and science

Safety

Insecurity: war, rearmament

Peace, disarmament

Welfare

Inefficiency: market fragmentation, market failure

market integration, provision and preservation of international public goods, satisfaction of basic needs, equal opportunities

Freedom Non-freedom: Violation and restriction of Guarantee of freedoms and rights in the individual autonomy state and beyond the state Source Schimmelfennig (2017: 28)

• Regarding safety, international politics can lead to conflict and accordingly to war or peace. Thus, it seeks to ensure safety and preserve the natural foundations of life (ibid.: 28ff.). • An increased level of welfare is another goal of states that cooperate with each other. International politics in that regard can lead to a fragmentation or integration of the markets of cooperating states. It also regulates the provision and preservation of international public goods, the satisfaction of basic needs and the equality of opportunity, which it combines with respect and promotion of freedom and human rights (ibid.). • International politics related to the value of freedom may cause the violation and restriction of individual autonomy or, on the other hand, it may guarantee freedoms and rights in the concerning state and beyond (ibid.). International politics faces the special challenge of having to ensure upholding these values under the conditions of anarchy, usually making problems not only larger, but also more difficult to deal with (ibid.). The three main values of international politics, its respective problems and challenges to politics and science may be viewed in Table 1: These three values and their respective problems and challenges to politics and science may be viewed in Table 1. Since this article intends to provide a historic overview of Venezuela-Colombia relations, it will take these values (of safety, welfare, and freedom) into account but will abstain from using certain theories, such as realism, institutionalism, transnationalism, liberalism, and constructivism (Schimmelfennig, 2017: 64–65). The longitudinal analysis of this paper has an underlying descriptive approach and will focus mainly on actors.

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3 What Have Been Venezuela and Colombia’s Main Challenges and Problems in Their Bilateral Relations?—A Historical Overview 3.1 From Tense Delimitation to Cooperation—La Gran Colombia and Independence (1819–1980s) In order to understand the current Venezuela-Colombia relations, it is important to look at both nations’ shared history, which dates back to their independence from Spain more than 200 years ago: from 1819/211 until 1830 Colombia and Venezuela were both part of La Gran Colombia: Gran Colombia is the historiographical designation for the state, then known simply as Colombia (República de Colombia). The state included the territories of present-day Colombia, Ecuador, Panama and Venezuela, and parts of northern Peru and north-western Brazil (see Fig. 1). The constitutional fathers established the state as a politically constituted solidarity federation of citizens, legitimized according to the principle of constitutionally controlled popular sovereignty and governed according to the principle of separation of powers (König, 2008: 63). As soon as Gran Colombia had a constitution that guaranteed citizenship rights and made politics predictable, it was possible for European countries and the US to recognize the new country and incorporate it into the international system of states.2 Since England viewed it as a potential trading partner and, because to the US it was the key to demarcating the American Hemisphere from the Old World and its systems of government, the new-born nation was finally able to obtain its recognition (ibid.: 64): In 1822 the US became the first nation to recognize the independent government […] of Colombia. […] In 1824, the United States entered into a General Convention of Peace, Amity, Navigation, and Commerce with Gran Colombia […], its first bilateral treaty with a Latin American nation. (Loveman, 2016: 6)

The Battle of Ayacucho in 1824 irrevocably ended the Spanish colonial rule in the Americas. However, it also made the common (external) enemy disappear, resulting in the falling apart of the artificially created nation of Gran Colombia into its original constituent states. Geographical conditions alone stood in the way of close integration. Additionally, the large country lacked common socioeconomic interests and a developed sense of common identity. At first, the effort to stimulate a sense of community with the help of coinciding economic interests and future 1

In the Battle of Boyacá on August 7, 1819, Simón Bolívar’s troops reached the decisive victory over the Spanish forces and thus secured the former Viceroyalty of Nueva Granada’s final independence. It was followed by the victories in Carabobo (Venezuela) on July 24, 1821; Pichincha (Ecuador) on May 24, 1822; and Junín and Ayacucho (Peru) on August 6 and December 9, 1924 (König 2008: 61, 62, 67, 68). 2 This was even more important because Spain refused to renounce its sovereignty over the former colonies, despite Gran Colombia’s de facto independence.

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Fig. 1 Departments of Gran Colombia 1826 (Source Wikimedia Commons)

prospects among Colombians did not seem unrealistic: The interests of merchants and agricultural producers and their desire for free trade and unimpeded imports and exports was met with a series of laws abolishing or modifying regulations that had hindered economic development during the colonial period (König, 2008: 68). One problem, however, was that the economic structures of the three sub-regions were very different and offered no real potential for economic integration. As a result, laws enacted by the central government with the goal of unification often favored only one region while disadvantaging the other. In addition to economic divergences, there were ethnic and social differences that made it difficult to develop a greater Colombian national consciousness (ibid.: 69). The economic and social problems that existed at the supranational level made administrative exceptions necessary and thus proved to be an obstacle to integration, providing arguments particularly for Venezuelans and Ecuadorians in their efforts to separate. In addition to the structural economic crisis, a serious political crisis developed: first, there were clashes between the military and civilians over questions of power, and second, disputes evolved between President Simón Bolívar and Vice President Francisco de Paula Santander over constitutional issues and the organization of the political system (ibid.: 70–71). The tensions between Bolívar’s

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supporters and those of Santander grew, marking the beginning of the later formation of Colombia’s Conservative and Liberal parties. When no solution was found at the Constituent Assembly of 1828, Bolívar’s supporters, among them numerous Venezuelan military officers, saw dictatorship as the only solution. Thus, on August 27, 1828, Bolívar issued the so-called Organic Decree of Dictatorship, reinstated the privileges of the military from colonial times, and claimed executive and legislative power for himself until an assembly scheduled for 1830 would have drawn up a new constitution. To oust Santander, he eliminated the office of vice president and appointed him ambassador to the US (ibid.: 71). These events resulted in an assassination attempt on Bolívar, which failed and led Venezuela to announce its separation from Gran Colombia in November 1829. Two months later, a final attempt to preserve the state through constitutional reform failed. In May 1830, Ecuador also announced its separation, and in October 1830, a constituent assembly restored Venezuelan sovereignty (ibid.: 72). The former republic was replaced by the republics of Venezuela, Ecuador, and Nueva Granada. During the rest of the century the border between Colombia and Venezuela was subject to change several times in accordance with different treaties. However, the final agreement that defines the land border until today is the López de Mesa-Gil Borges treaty, signed in April 1941. The total extension of the land border between the two countries comprises 2219 km and even though it was fixed, the maritime border dispute remained, along with risks of armed conflicts (Agudelo Romero, 2015: 4). Since their separation, relations between Venezuela and Colombia oscillated between periods of stability and moments of tension. Until 1941, the difficult and traumatic delimitation of the land border, and from the mid-sixties until the end of the eighties, the negotiations on the delimitation of the marine and submarine areas in the Gulf of Venezuela, constituted the central axis of the agenda of relations between the two countries (Ramírez et al., 1999: 161), making safety the recurring issue.

3.2 A Decade of Cooperation (1989–1998) In the 1990s, other topics came to the forefront of the bilateral agenda, particularly a dynamic process of economic integration, characterized by increased trade and a boom in reciprocal investment, as well as border incidents caused by Colombia’s internal conflict. In the face of possible situations of friction, the two governments designed special mechanisms and devised formulas of understanding which, in most cases, proved to be beneficial (Ramírez et al., 1999: 161–162). Border security remained the major source of conflict, again affecting the value of safety: guerilla warfare, drug trafficking, and common crime striking Colombia, became factors of border tension with Venezuela. Armed confrontation led to the displacement of thousands of Colombians, whose freedoms could no longer be guaranteed. Many of them found refuge in Venezuela. Between 1995 and 1997, the modus operandi seemed to face its toughest test: various deadly cross-border attacks by the

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Colombian guerilla group ELN3 repeatedly caused the Venezuelan armed forces to illegally cross the border. Bilateral disputes involving the fight against guerillas generated a climate of friction that called into question all mechanisms and procedures established at the beginning of the decade. At the time, the Venezuelan side, which witnessed a strong wave of xenophobia against Colombians, even considered the persecución en caliente—or cross-border ‘hot pursuit’ practice, which was later dismissed (ibid.: 168). In summary, the 1990s saw significant progress in cooperation mechanisms aimed at overcoming tensions associated with a new set of problems mainly related to cross-border crime. Until the establishment of two major negotiation and border commissions in 1998, more than 30 binational commissions had been created.4 This increase shows an effort at various levels to build channels and instruments for the joint management of problems and the common agenda during that time (ibid.: 170). As a result of this, both countries’ welfare levels could be improved, and safety matters were vigorously worked on, albeit with little success. In the 1990s, cooperation prevailed but a critical juncture in the middle of the decade paralyzed the mechanisms of understanding and generated a fragmented management of the situation that would introduce new explosive ingredients to the relationship. Overall, the two states managed to put in place and maintain several levels of agreement. First, they made progress in the construction of a bilateral agenda. Subsequently, they agreed to give all the issues on the agenda a global, simultaneous, and direct treatment. Finally, both governments decided to hold periodic meetings of presidents and foreign ministers and to set up two presidential commissions for dialogue and negotiation (Ramírez, 2003: 222).

3.3 Critical Junctures in Binational Relations (1999–2002) Between 1999 and 2002, already existing binational problems grew more complicated with Hugo Chávez becoming the Venezuelan president in 1999 and his Colombian counterpart, Andrés Pastrana, who had been elected a year before (see Fig. 2). The main obstacle during that time became the hemispheric and international context that Colombia and Venezuela had to face and the position each one assumed in this respect. There was the US on one side, pressing for an unconditional alignment in its anti-drug and then anti-terror wars. Washington also imposed numerous conditions on the extension of counternarcotics missions and the development of the Free Trade Area of the Americas (FTAA). In such a difficult framework and with both nations 3

Ejército de Liberación Nacional (National Liberation Army). There were 8 types of binational commissions between 1989 and 1999 working on the following subjects: Political (4 commissions); Border (6 commissions); Catchment Areas (6); Security (4); Drug Trafficking (2); Economy (8); Energy (2); Culture (4). For detailed information on all commissions see Ramírez et al. (1999: 190–206).

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Fig. 2 Timeline—Colombian and Venezuelan presidents (Source Author’s own illustration)

depending on the international context, room for self-activity was very limited. In the case of Colombia, the country’s internal armed conflict had become internationalized for being linked to key issues of the global agenda, the economic crisis, and the fragility of the state. In the case of Venezuela, President Chávez’s plan to bury the Punto Fijo pact and the so-called Fourth Republic that sustained it, and to advance his ‘Bolivarian Revolution’ to implement the Fifth Republic, led to a total polarization in Venezuela with strong national reactions and opposition by its main commercial partner the US. Neither Venezuela nor Colombia were able to insert themselves in a non-impoverishing way in the complex globalized world. Despite being each other’s main partner after the US and being the driving force behind the Andean Community (CAN), they did not articulate a joint strategy to improve their international standing. Quite the opposite happened: disagreements derived from the different conceptions of the Chávez and Pastrana governments toward hemispheric or global phenomena, which again added to the critical situation of the bilateral relationship (Ramírez & Hernández, 2003: 205–206). For the first time in binational history, the two governments were aiming at opposing policy options that, while not intending to compete against each other, did have mutual repercussions. Previously, resolution of disagreements had been a part of the framework of political coincidences, to the point that a phone call between the presidents was enough to get them on the same page. Now, Chávez was distancing himself from the US while Pastrana pinned his hopes on the North American partner. Bogota and Washington articulated their mutual anti-drug fight in Plan Colombia. Meanwhile, Caracas prohibited US overflights for the purpose of anti-drug control, accusing Plan Colombia of ‘Vietnamizing’ its neighbor and raising concerns about a possible military imbalance between the two countries, which would interfere in Venezuelan domestic politics. Chávez even took this concern to the UN, the OAS, and the Inter-American Summit (ibid.: 207). While Chávez reconsidered goals, means, alliances, and diplomatic styles and bet on countries of the Global South, Pastrana articulated the anti-drug struggles with the US. When Plan Colombia was adopted in 2000, the governments of Venezuela, and to some extent also Ecuador, Panama, Brazil, and Peru, made public—and very clear—their apprehensions against this military strategy, which they described as a

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dangerous for regional security (Egurbide & Aznárez, 18 November 2000; Relea, 3 March 2001). For Venezuela, the issue was even more relevant due to the length and the geographic and demographic complexity of the border. During the joint Chávez-Pastrana years, there was hardly any cooperation between Colombia and Venezuela. Safety and welfare values began to reach problematic levels. However, the rock bottom was yet to come.

3.4 Radical Ideological Differences: The Bolivarian Project vs. Democratic Security (2002–2010) Since 2002, when Pastrana’s term in office ended and Álvaro Uribe Vélez first took over, coinciding with the presidency of Hugo Chávez, Colombian-Venezuelan relations suffered a progressive deterioration, notwithstanding some moments of understanding and collaboration (Márquez Restrepo, 2008: 193). Before coming to power, Uribe was practically unknown in Colombia’s national political arena. With his campaign slogan ‘mano firme, corazón grande’ (Infobae, 27 May 2021) and his proposal of democratic security (contrary to Pastrana’s recently failed negotiation policy), and his discourse of putting an end to the FARC guerrilla, he was quickly welcomed by a people in need of a messiah who elected him in 2002 with a resounding victory in the first round. Also being a charismatic leader, his Venezuelan counterpart Chávez had managed to come to power with overwhelming support three years earlier. Their government plans, however, differed fundamentally. Both presidents represent the end of the partisan influence that had dominated the political landscape of their countries for half a century and which they no longer needed to win. Uribe and Chávez marked the beginning of what may be called an ‘inflation of the executive’, characterized by their style of leadership, the institutional and political change they sought, the role they assigned to the military, their conception of security, the extension of the media and the resulting personalization of politics (Sanín Fonnegra, 2008: 62). Uribe governed Colombia for two presidential terms (2002–2010). His mandate was characterized, among other things, by the fight against drug trafficking and the guerrillas FARC and ELN, by the paramilitary demobilization programs (Justice and Peace Law), the continuity of Plan Colombia, and by his attempt to reach a free trade agreement (FTA) with the US. Likewise, major scandals ranging from illegal interceptions by state agencies (DAS)5 (Soendergaard, 2014), irregularities in the delivery of subsidies ‘AIS’ (Caracol Radio, 13 July 2019), false positives, and ‘parapolitics’. Colombia’s support for the FTAA and other FTAs, including the eventual signing of the bilateral FTA with the US, Venezuela’s exit from CAN, binational differences on violence and the pacification process in Colombia made

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Colombia’s now-defunct intelligence agency, DAS, spied on the Supreme Court, journalists, human rights defenders, and politicians. The scandal was discovered in 2008.

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it difficult—if not impossible—to establish a stable relationship based on bilateral trust (Romero, 2012). Meanwhile, Chávez declared himself a revolutionary trying to turn Venezuela into a socialist country while distancing himself from US hegemony. The transition stage within the framework of the Bolivarian Revolution, called Revolutionary Democracy, reshaped the Venezuelan State during Chávez’s mandate of more than 13 years: In the political-institutional sphere, he achieved from the change of the country’s name (Bolivarian Republic of Venezuela) to the creation of a unicameral National Assembly, the approval of a new Bolivarian Constitution, the possibility of being reelected or revoked and the formation of citizen Bolivarian cells (some of them armed) to defend the twenty-first century socialism project. Economically—due to the power of the oil industry—the country prioritized the acquisition of state-owned companies in sectors such as communications and energy, reducing the participation of private companies, particularly foreign ones through nationalizations and regulations (Márquez Restrepom, 2008: 203ff.). Colombia’s democratic security and Venezuela’s Bolivarian project thus became the greatest demonstration of political antagonism between the two countries. They can be viewed as detonators of great crises between Colombia and Venezuela during that time, not only because of their radical differences but also because of their foreign policy failures, which left aside the traditional channels of institutional diplomacy replacing them with ‘microphone diplomacy’, including infiltration of information to the media and unbridled statements that further worsened bilateral relations (Illera Correal & Ruiz Vásquez, 2008: 108). An intense rapprochement between Chávez and Uribe in the very beginning, however, had made it possible to revive border infrastructure projects, talk about an inter-oceanic connection, design possible solutions to the maritime dispute, and address mutual electoral issues. Nevertheless, their understanding lasted until Uribe first named and later rejected Chávez as a facilitator for the release of hostages (Márquez Restrepo, 2008: 194). A few months later, in March 2008, Chávez reacted strongly to an air raid by Colombian military forces on a FARC camp located on Ecuadorian territory, dubbed ‘Operation Phoenix’, which led to the death of guerrilla leader Raúl Reyes. In response to, the Venezuelan president expelled the Colombian ambassador to Venezuela, ordered an army mobilization at the Western border with Colombia and threatened the use of Russian fighter-bombers, calling the Colombian army’s action a ‘cowardly assassination’ and making it the most critical moment in bilateral relations (ibid.), greatly effecting the value of safety. When the two presidents met at the Rio Group Summit a few days later they declared their inclination to end their diplomatic crisis (El País, 7 March 2008) but never managed to unblock the relationship, which was left with a minimal agenda. Only the binational gas pipeline survived from this period as an enduring project.

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3.5 Rapprochement and Renewed Cooperation (2010–2013) Along with a combination of needs, opportunities and will, tense VenezuelaColombia relations became more dynamic and cooperative after their reestablishment following the coming to power of Juan Manuel Santos,6 who significantly improved bilateral ties with all neighboring countries (Márquez Restrepo, 2016: 556). Between 2010 and 2013 Chávez and Santos met five times; their foreign ministers and members of the specially created bilateral commissions for the reestablishment of bilateral relations even nine times.7 The last presidential meeting took place in Havana, Cuba, in March 2012, where Chávez was convalescing from an operation. During this gathering the two leaders discussed the Colombian peace process, in which Chávez’s mediation had been fundamental. At a previous evaluation meeting, held in Cartagena in April 2011, the presidents signed specific cooperation agreements on issues such as drug trafficking, industry, and tourism. It was agreed, for example, to build an oil pipeline from Venezuelan territory across Colombia to the Pacific coast, from where hydrocarbons produced in the two countries would be shipped to Asia (EFE, 28 November 2011), to create a common industry to produce generic medicines (El Tiempo, 4 March 2011) and to set up a common steel factory, among other agreements (Márquez Restrepo, 2016: 557). Favorable bilateral relations during less than three years of parallel Chávez and Santos governments, allowed joint actions in the face of cross-border problems, new commercial rules of the game and expansion of formal steps between the two countries, significantly improving safety and welfare.

3.6 Radical Turn and Renewed Deterioration of Bilateral Ties (2013–2018) With the death of Chávez and the assumption of office by his successor Nicolás Maduro in 2013 bilateral relations deteriorated again. Venezuela’s economic and political weakening was caused by the decline in oil prices, Maduro’s lack of legitimacy and, in 2014, by the opposition’s decision to push for the ruler’s ouster through popular mobilization. In this scenario, in which according to the International Crisis Group (30 July 2015) a multidimensional crisis was already beginning to take shape in Venezuela, Maduro ordered the closure of the border for almost a year (357 days), causing binational trade to fall to 10% of its pre-closure value (negatively affecting 6

This trend, however, was reversed when Maduro assumed the Venezuelan presidency several years later. 7 Five bilateral commissions were created in August 2010 to address issues such as debt payment to Colombian industrialists, economic cooperation, social investment on the border, security, infrastructure, energy, and tourism. Several of the presidential and foreign ministers’ meetings were aimed at evaluating the commissions’ progress (Márquez Restrepo, 2016: 557).

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the value of welfare) and marking the beginning of migration to Colombia. Additionally, about 2,200 Colombian citizens were expelled by Venezuela and more than 18,000 returned voluntarily (Márquez Restrepo & Lara Merchán, 2021: 543). The latter issue shows significant problems regarding the value of freedom. Due to the permanently closed border, illegality, insecurity, and violence increased on both sides, making safety a vast issue. A total of five presidential meetings between Santos and Maduro during their concurrent terms8 did not help prevent the crisis. During their first meeting the two leaders tried to clarify differences that had arisen after Santos had received Venezuelan opposition leader Henrique Capriles in Bogota two months earlier. At that time, Caracas accused Bogota of forging a ‘conspiracy’ against it and threatened to re-evaluate its role as a partner in Colombia’s peace process (El País, 23 July 2013). In September 2015, they met to discuss the border crisis unleashed by Maduro’s decision to close it and expel illegal Colombians settling there.9 In these meetings, the topics discussed always comprised issues related to security, trade, and the problem of foreign exchange at the border. The binational thematic roundtables10 last met in July 2014 after four total rounds losing their initial dynamism (Márquez Restrepo, 2016: 557ff.). Venezuela’s closure of the border marked a turning point in the bilateral relations with an ongoing scenario of confrontation rather than cooperation, again downgrading safety issues. Why did Maduro decide to take such a radical turn when he could have used binational institutions to solve the border problems? The explanation for this type of change in a state’s foreign policy is usually either to be found at the systemic level, (i.e., in the way the state is positioned in the international system), or at the domestic level (i.e., in the character of its government, its stability and cohesion, and its economic situation, among other reasons). In the case of Venezuela, Martha Lucía Márquez Restrepo11 suggests that the border closing had mainly domestic reasons because Venezuela’s regional influence, along with its ‘petrodiplomacia’, had declined significantly (Márquez Restrepo, 2016: 559): After slow recovery from the worldwide financial crisis in 2008 and especially as a result of the fall in oil prices, which in 2014 forced Venezuela to radically reduce its 30% oil subsidies to the countries of the Bolivarian Alliance for the Peoples of America (ALBA), Venezuela lost quite a large share of its international presence, while coming closer to Cuba. Taking advantage of this situation, in January 2015 8

They first met in July 2013 in Venezuela (Cancillería Colombia), then on the sidelines of the BRICS summit in Brazil in July 2014 (Cancillería Colombia), in August 2014 in Colombia (Cancillería Colombia), in September 2015 in Ecuador (El Tiempo, 21 September 2015) and finally in August 2016 in Venezuela (Cancillería Colombia). 9 Following a confusing incident in which members of the Venezuelan Armed Forces were wounded allegedly by Colombian paramilitaries. 10 For issues related to (1) politics and security, (2) trade and finance, (3) social issues and borders, (4) infrastructure, (5) transportation, and (6) telecommunications. 11 Márquez Restrepo is director of the Colombia’ Center for Popular Research and Education (CINEP). Her research interests include Venezuelan domestic politics and Colombia-Venezuela binational relations (CINEP, 2021).

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the US promoted the first Caribbean energy security summit, which was attended by several ALBA countries seeking to end their economic and political dependence on Venezuela. In this context Cuba-US-relations also improved.12 Another sign of Venezuela’s loss of regional power was the vote in the OAS in August 2015 by which Colombia unsuccessfully sought to push for a meeting of foreign ministers to discuss Venezuela’s humanitarian crisis (EFE, 1 August 2015; Márquez Restrepo, 21 September 2015). Considering the above-mentioned circumstances, Maduro’s foreign policy inflection was more likely a response to Venezuela’s domestic situation. Although there had been differences between Maduro and Santos that had been solved diplomatically,13 Maduro’s actions and declarations regarding the closing of the border deviated sharply from what had been agreed by Santos and Chávez during their meeting in Colombia in 2010. Back then, when Maduro was foreign minister, it was agreed that the parties would base their relations on a transparent, direct, and respectful dialogue, that they would favor diplomatic channels leaving aside ‘microphone diplomacy’ and would strictly comply with the provisions of International Law, respecting the other party’s sovereignty and non-interference in the internal affairs of the other. However, Maduro transgressed all these agreements: he unilaterally closed the border to Colombia, accused his Colombian counterpart of being a liar, of inventing the crisis and of ‘turning a blind eye’ to a conspiracy to assassinate him. He also deported nearly 1,100 Colombians in an alleged crackdown on crime violating the Inter-American Convention on Human Rights (Márquez Restrepo, 2016: 558). An analysis of the factors that could explain this change and deterioration in all binational values suggests that the confrontational attitude is more related to personal and domestic factors than to international considerations, as regional transformations would have made it advisable for Venezuela to adopt a cooperative foreign policy rather than a competitive one. On the personal level, it must be pointed out that although Hugo Chávez denigrated the Colombian oligarchies, unlike Maduro, he never referred to Colombian citizens in pejorative terms. On the other hand, about Colombian migrants, Maduro said that ‘they come and all they bring is poverty, they all come looking for education, work, health, and housing. Colombia has become a net exporter of poverty to Venezuela’ (EFE, 5 June 2015). This negative view of Colombians can be seen as a part of Maduro’s nationalist strategy to overcome the domestic crisis situation. Through his discourse, he put Venezuelans in opposition to Colombians and managed to unite the national community through opposition to

12

Because the island could not function without the 100,000 barrels per day that Venezuela used to sell it with a financing of 40% for a term of 25 years and an interest rate of 1%. Nor would it have been easy for Cuba to survive without the remittances it received for the over-invoiced services of doctors and other professionals working in the US, which represent about 30% of Cuban GDP (Márquez Restrepo, 2016: 559). 13 I.e., tensions after a meeting between Juan Manuel Santos and Henrique Capriles after the latter’s defeat in presidential elections; Colombian complaints regarding the bad treatment of former President Andres Pastrana, who tried to visit Leopoldo López.

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otherness, blaming Colombians, especially living along the border, for supply shortages and the low value of the Venezuelan currency bolivar, among other problems Venezuela had been facing (Márquez Restrepo, 2016: 560). With this resource, the Venezuelan President intended to divert attention from the national problems that were the result of the errors of 14 years of Chavism in power. In particular, he intended to cover up an inflation that by the end of 2018 had reached a peak of 65,000%,14 a fiscal deficit of over 30% of the GDP that year, constant economic contractions since 2013 (World Bank), an extremely high level of shortage of basic products and medicines that led the International Crisis Group in 2015 to call it an ‘unnatural disaster’ affirming that Venezuela’s political, social, and humanitarian crisis resembles those faced by countries after natural disasters (ICG, 30 July 2015). Maduro’s strategy of blaming Colombian actors, among others, for Venezuela’s profound political, economic, and social crisis has not created a favorable scenario for cooperation, making stable relations especially with Colombia extremely difficult (Márquez Restrepo, 2016: 560). Consequently, bilateral cooperation to combat social problems and crime in the common border areas was barely taking place if even. The neighboring countries’ bilateral relations finally reached a point of maximum deterioration when Colombia participated in the creation of the Lima Group, which condemned the breakdown of democratic order in Venezuela (Márquez Restrepo & Lara Merchán, 2021: 543).

3.7 Further Bilateral Estrangement and the Worsening Crisis Since 2018 In Colombia, a peace agreement with the FARC in 2016 formally ended more than 50 years of domestic armed conflict. However, the present government, which was elected in 2018 and is led by the right-wing conservative President Iván Duque (Democratic Center Party), a close ally of former President Uribe, has been blocking large parts of its implementation for more than five years. Although Venezuela under Chávez had made an important contribution to Colombia’s peace agreement, the ideological differences between the two countries have become insurmountable, making an international armed conflict (the issue of safety) a recurring rhetorical topic. While the Maduro government ostensibly keeps supporting the ELN and FARC dissidents, who use the border region and Venezuela as a retreat, the Colombian government repeatedly disregards Venezuela’s national sovereignty in its pursuit of guerrillas (Birke Daniels et al., 2021: 1). Duque’s very close ally—the US—runs two strategies toward Venezuela, which Bogota largely shares: the first (which dates to the Georg W. Bush administration) 14

IMF data on inflation in Venezuela since Maduro presidency: 2013: 41%, 2014: 62%, 2015: 122%, 2016: 255%, 2017: 438%, 2018: 65.374%, 2019: 19.902%, 2020: 2.355%, 2021: 2.700% (estimation), 2022: 2.000% (estimation)—source: Statista (11 November 2021).

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comprises unilateral actions including sanctions and the threat of military intervention; the second encompasses the promotion of dialogue and was first considered during the Trump presidency (Márquez Restrepo & Lara Merchán, 2021: 547). For his part, the Colombian President has been supporting US sanctions against the Maduro regime while being reluctant to engage in a dialogue with Maduro.15 He refused Maduro’s invitations to talk about issues such as the extradition of fugitive Colombian senator Aida Merlano (Olmo, 29 January 2020) or the management of the COVID-19 pandemic. Another feature of foreign policy toward Venezuela has been Colombia’s participation in the Lima Group, which, among other issues, recognizes Juan Guaidó16 as the legitimate president of Venezuela (as opposed to Maduro) and supports the Framework for Democratic Transition in Venezuela for the formation of a Transition Government (Márquez Restrepo & Lara Merchán, 2021: 548–549). As a consequence of the above-mentioned aspects, diplomatic and consular relations came to a complete breakdown during the concurrent presidencies of Duque and Maduro. As a first positive step, Colombia unilaterally reopened its river and land borders with Venezuela in June 2021 after they had been closed for 14 months as a part of measures to contain the spread of COVID-19 (Torrado, 2 June 2021). Venezuela followed in October reopening its side of the border for trade after it had been closed for a total of six years (for vehicles) and for two and a half years for pedestrians17 (DW, 4 October 2021). This measure particularly supported binational trade (the value of welfare): in 2008 the exchange reached about USD 7.2 billion, in 2015 it had fallen back to about USD 1.331 billion and in 2020 it was a mere USD 221 million (Padinger, 6 October 2021). According to the 2020 report by Bertelsmann Transformation Index (BTI), the Venezuelan regime’s gross mismanagement turned its ‘economy the worst performing and most miserable in the world for the fourth straight year’, calling it a ‘miracle in reverse’ for setting new standards in economic decline (BTI, 2020).18 90% of the population lived in poverty in 2020 compared to 40% in 1998, when the Bolivarian Revolution took place (Birke Daniels et al., 2021: 1). The collapse of the Venezuelan economy and its progressive strangulation with financial sanctions has been deepening the humanitarian drama and pressures 15

Duque disapproved of the negotiations for a return to democracy in Venezuela that were held in Barbados in 2019, calling them a bad precedent for humanity while accusing Maduro of intending to manipulate his elections only seeking to have sanctions lifted. 16 In January 2019 Juan Guaidó, the president of Venezuela’s National Assembly, who had frequently met with Colombian President Duque, proclaimed himself interim president of Venezuela. At that time, food, medicine, and other utensils were urgently needed in Venezuela. Therefore, enormous aid was gathered and tried to enter Venezuela at various points. Maduro reiterated that there was no humanitarian emergency and reacted violently. On February 23, 2019, Maduro announced the severing of ‘all kinds of relations’ with Colombia and gave 24 h for all Colombian officials to withdraw from Venezuelan territory. Consequently, Colombia withdrew all of its personnel even though it did not recognize Maduro as legitimate president and announced that it was temporarily closing the crossing of the border bridges (BBC, 23 February 2019). 17 Caracas closed the border for vehicles in August 2015; for people it was suspended after relations broke down in February 2019, when Venezuelan opposition leader Juan Guaidó tried to enter his country with a caravan of humanitarian aid from Cúcuta, Colombia. 18 GDP contraction according to BTI: 2015: −6%, 2016: −17%, 2017: −14%, 2018: −18%.

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the departure of more Venezuelans, especially to Colombia, which again relates to the value of freedom. Any increase or decrease in the crisis in Venezuela ends up impacting Colombia in multiple ways, including its safety, welfare, and freedom. With several years of a closed border and without institutional channels of dialogue, the two countries returned to ‘microphone diplomacy’ typical of the times when Chávez and Uribe were in power (Márquez Restrepo & Lara Merchán, 2021: 550). Far from the respective capitals, weakness, and absence of the state on both sides allowed the further emergence of illegal and criminal structures with numerous Venezuelan migrants stuck in the border area. Local, national, and binational initiatives (like the group Puentes Ciudadanos Colombia-Venezuela,19 previously Convergencia Ciudadana) have been trying to provide emergency humanitarian care but lack sufficient funding for this work, which has made it difficult to go further and create long-term social and economic prospects (Birke Daniels et al., 2021: 1–2). It must be pointed out, however, that in reaction to the issue of Venezuelan migration to Colombia, Duque ran an open-door policy like no other neighbor (Márquez Restrepo & Lara Merchán, 2021: 549): in February 2021 he declared that his country would grant the approximately 1.7 million Venezuelan migrants and refugees in the country complementary protection and legal status for a decade under the Temporary Protective Status Program (UNHCR, 3 December 2021)—a decision which the UNHCR called ‘historic’ and one of the region’s ‘most important humanitarian gestures’ (Grandi, 8 February 2021; Freier, 11 February 2021). Analysts see Colombia’s openness to Venezuelans in part from a sense of reciprocity dating back to the 1980s and 90 s when the situation was reverse. However, Colombia’s approach is also pragmatic: realizing that the inflow of Venezuelans cannot be stopped, the country understood that registering all undocumented migrants would increase its control and allow substantial fiscal savings. Already before the pandemic, Colombia had been very successful in raising funds from international donors. The country hosts 37% of Venezuelan migrants in the region and managed to attract approximately 45% of the funds allocated by several organizations to help cover the costs of Venezuelan displacement (Freier, 11 February 2021). The antagonism between Duque and Maduro has added to a climate of insecurity and violence, which today dominates many areas of life in both countries, contributing to polarization and destabilization in the region.

19

This group is particularly interesting in search for a solution. It was founded in 2019 by almost 100 social organizations and more than 200 personalities from Colombia and Venezuela and promotes conflict resolution through negotiation with the participation of citizens. Specifically, this plural and multifaceted initiative for a binational and regional ‘diplomacy of the citizens’ aims to support the dialogue and agreements between different social and political sectors of both countries for a political and peaceful solution in Venezuela and beyond that build bridges between the two nations and their people (https://puentescolombiavenezuela.org).

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4 Conclusions and Final Remarks As elaborated above and summarized in Fig. 3, relations between Colombia and Venezuela have always fluctuated between short-term approaches and rather frequent tensions that have not allowed a stable basis of agreements to face border and binational problems. The constant change between conflict and cooperation has led to an accumulation of a large set of problems that have still not received the necessary attention. The values of safety, welfare, and freedom have always played important roles in binational relations, with safety being the largest issue to struggle with, followed by welfare and freedom. Figure 3 recaps the two nations’ ups and downs since 1819, mainly referring to the value of safety. Periods of tension predominated alongside shorter phases of cooperation in between. Colombia’s internal armed conflict has continuously negatively affected Venezuela. Pro-US-policies in search of a solution made matters more complicated. A large part of the problem is the 2,219 long kilometer shared border, which both nations struggle to control for various reasons. On both sides, networks of irregular groups and transnational crime have been taking advantage of precarious local institutions, corruption, and political alliances to contest control of smuggling and illicit trafficking in gasoline, drugs, and weapons. The worsening of the economic crisis in Venezuela in the past decade, which includes hyperinflation, unemployment, devaluation, loss of purchasing power, fiscal and foreign exchange deficits, reduction of imports, shortages, and poverty, among other issues, increases its effects on Colombia. In the same way as Venezuela was affected due to the Colombian armed conflict starting in the 1970s with the voluminous labor migration of Colombians to Venezuela, Colombia is now affected due to the direct impact of the crisis in

Fig. 3 Historical overview of confrontation vs. cooperation between Colombia and Venezuela (Source Author’s own illustration)

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Venezuela and currently houses more than 1.8 million Venezuelan people.20 A solution to the crisis affecting the value of freedom may become the earlier mentioned initiative Puentes Ciudadanos Colombia-Venezuela. Regarding the value of welfare, it was shown that the two economies had been well integrated in the 1990s, especially during the Santos administration, but that they are now decoupled. The low figures are explained by mistrust, deindustrialization, as well as exchange and payment problems. To reverse this situation, it is necessary to strengthen the positive ties between the two countries and appeal to international accompaniment. It is key for Colombia and the region that the US, the EU, and multilateral organizations help in the search for a peaceful and democratic solution to the situation in Venezuela, ruling out any military intervention. That would require Colombia to propose negotiated solutions among Venezuelans, act in the face of the serious situation in the extensive border area and continue to attend to the exodus from Venezuela. As presented in the historical outline, Venezuela-Colombia bilateral collaboration and confrontation depended considerably on the countries’ respective presidents. Their ideologies, attitudes and will played a decisive role in determining friendship or enmity. In other words, the political leaders, hence the actors, can be viewed as the key to understanding Venezuela and Colombia’s difficulties in dealing with each other. Another factor, however, comprises the international structure in which the respective states found themselves during the past 200 years. Special emphasis must be put on each country’s stance toward the USA: whenever regional relations and interests were put before close cooperation with the USA, bilateral ties between Colombia and Venezuela improved and vice versa. Today’s hardened antagonism between Caracas and Bogota has geopolitical implications beyond the continent with Colombia supporting the Lima Group, the OAS, and the US, while Venezuela maintains close ties with Cuba, Russia, China, and Iran (Birke Daniels et al., 2021: 1). The ideological conflict between ‘Bolivarian socialism’ and the right-wing conservative Colombian government might have also played an important role in the June 2022 presidential elections in Colombia, which led to the appointment of Colombia’s first leftist president, Gustavo Petro—a former guerrillero, who on 28 August resumed diplomatic relations with Venezuela (AFP, 29 August 2022) as one of his first official acts in power.

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Alexandra Gericke is Scientific Associate at the Department of Comparative Politics of the University of Rostock, Germany.

Conclusions: Dimensions of the Crisis and Future Prospects Miguel Angel Latouche

and Alexandra Gericke

It is not easy to make sense of the current situation in Venezuela. Sometimes reality appears like a puzzle with pieces that do not seem to match. Venezuela can be considered a special case in Latin American politics—not because of its exceptionality, but due to the intensity of the political process, multiple contradictions regarding phenomena and actors, and its impact on the recent development of Latin American politics in general. A tendency toward the collapse of the political equilibrium and the weakening of representative democracy seems to be a general phenomenon throughout the region. Latin America currently leads a strong discussion about the nature of the political system and the characteristics of its social contract. Recent regional history tells a story of despair and hopes after a long struggle against dictatorships and painful democratic transitions. As shown in this book, the process of democratic transition in Venezuela started in 1958 when democratic forces put the last traditional military dictatorship to an end. Many countries in the region followed in the 1980s, culminating in the electoral defeat of Augusto Pinochet in the Chilean National Referendum of 1988 and his subsequent departure from power. However, the construction of electoral democracy in Latin America did not solve traditional regional problems, such as social exclusion, poverty, wealth distribution and the lack of development, which again led to a reduced legitimacy of democratic processes. This may not only explain the increase of populist regimes throughout the region but also the way how electoral preferences have constantly moved between the left and the right, giving rise to governments of different political sides. Perhaps one could say that the most important discussion in contemporary Latin American politics has to do with the very nature of the political M. A. Latouche (B) · A. Gericke Department of Comparative Politics, University of Rostock, Ulmenstraße 69, 18057 Rostock, Germany e-mail: [email protected] A. Gericke e-mail: [email protected] © The Author(s), under exclusive license to Springer Nature Switzerland AG 2023 M. A. Latouche et al. (eds.), Venezuela – Dimensions of the Crisis, Contributions to Political Science, https://doi.org/10.1007/978-3-031-21889-7_12

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regime, its viability, ideology and coherence. It is a discussion between traditional representative liberal democracy and more radical forms of democracy that in many cases adopt populist narratives—with higher or lower intensity. It is important to note that in all cases the exercise of power is legitimized through electoral processes, which according to each case differ in their degree of transparency. The latest radicalization of politics in the region originates in the 1998 election of Hugo Chávez and his Socialism of the 21st Century. The Venezuelan political regime adopted a leftist discourse and a radical ideological position, aligning closer to countries like Cuba, Nicaragua, Russia and China, while pushing it away from its traditional associates and principal economic and political allies—the US, the EU and Colombia. In some cases, strong confrontation led to the breakdown of diplomatic relations, the application of sanctions, a confrontational “microphone diplomacy” and a shift away even from the Organization of American States (OAS). The construction of the Socialism of the 21st Century was a complex process. Chavismo advanced the institutional transformation of the political system in its favor. With more than 20 years in power, the leftist government has been able to reduce popular protests and to control state structures and resources while not making the political system any more stable. Indeed, the apparent calm one may notice at the moment, has to do with the use of the Armed and Police Forces controlling the population, criminalizing protests, demobilizing and controlling opposition parties, the media and constructing political support through incentives and direct subsidies toward a targeted population, which includes the most dispossessed and traditionally excluded classes. Venezuela is still a divided society, marked by polarization, distrust and an extreme economic crisis. As we tried to show in this book, democratic spaces, understood from a liberal point of view, are nonexistent in contemporary Venezuela. The rise of Chavismo has caused the official narrative to become hegemonic, distorting public opinion and limiting the availability of non-partisan information. Chavismo has monopolized the political space and reduced political competition. Venezuela experiences a significant crisis of the political party system: Although the opposition is allowed to electorally participate in the political process and occasionally wins legislative seats and gains support in regional elections, its real capacity to make an impact concerning decision-making processes, the control of the executive or protest is muchly reduced. The reason behind this problem is that the political system is based on a political arrangement between three fundamental factors in Venezuelan politics: 1. the Executive, controlling resources and the administration, 2. the Military, controlling state authority and 3. the Party, providing the people for social mobilization and as an intermediary mechanism with the State. Despite international economic sanctions, the government has been able to guarantee its long-term survival by taking advantage of spikes in oil prices and through the construction of a new institutionality. We were able to also show that public administration in Venezuela is inefficient. An unfair distribution of costs and benefits reflects a lack in the political system

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to adapt and consequently to respond to the different challenges of contemporary social development, in particular, increasing social cooperation and improving the well-being of the majority of the population. Chavismo has created new forms of exclusion. Following a tendency applicable for authoritarian regimes, it managed to reduce social complexities by limiting manifestations of social demands. One clear symptom of this is precisely the current crisis of the opposition. After many years of strong political confrontation, the opposition parties have reduced their operating range. Political pressure also reduced the participation by activists and their ability to enforce their interests, to raise resources and to call for political mobilization and protests. One imminent task of the Venezuelan opposition will be the renovation of its leadership and the restructuring of its political parties, along with the design of an alternative democratic model, which is able to recognize and respect the different political interests. Chavismo has shattered Venezuela’s political culture. Throughout this book we have talked about a divided society, which has not reached agreement about the interpretation of history and tradition, about common values, and especially not about the visions of the future. Open social conflict is relatively low at the moment but its potential to rise is high since the social equilibrium is unstable, being nurtured by the existence of the multidimensional crisis. However, the existence of a weak equilibrium allows hope for a future possibility of a political transition. The scope of such a process needs to be carefully considered by both academics and political actors. The current crisis of Venezuelan politics makes it difficult to imagine a future democratic model for this country. It would have to include all views that characterize a democratic society. As mentioned before, Chavismo reduced the complexities of plurality through the “colonization” of the public space, the control of the mass media and a lack of freedom of speech. Populism in power in Venezuela has not only been authoritarian but also exclusive. Solving the situation of permanent crisis in Venezuela involves dealing with a multitude of problems that threaten the viability of the political association. Various indicators point out that polarization in recent years has had the potential of leading to violence. Political confrontation of great proportions has left deep wounds in Venezuelan society, reduced the coherence of the country’s economy and hampered its integration into regional and sub-regional democratic dynamics. At a whole, the Venezuelan crisis must be understood as constitutive, partly due to the deterioration of the system of conciliation of the pre-Chavismo political and economic elites and subsequently the evolution of Chavismo in power. The first problem was the progressive process of elitization of the system, which led to the exclusion of important sectors of the population and the loss of political support, while at the same time it made the Punto Fijo Pact possible. Due to the mistake that important actors in the struggle against the dictatorship of Marcos Perez Jiménez were not part of the agreement process that gave rise to a pacted democracy, Punto Fijo was already born with an “original sin”. The second instance that led to further problems was the process of institutional transformation carried out by Chavismo. The process of constitutional change in 1999, for instance, did not include important

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Fig. 1 Pluralism and political inclusion in the Venezuelan Political System (Own elaboration)

parts of the Venezuelan society, generating a situation of political exclusion, which gave rise to the political confrontation that has characterized the last 20 years in Venezuela. Finally, and to visualize the sources of Venezuela’s multi-layered crises, Fig. 1 is meant to show the evolution of the Venezuelan Political System from 1958 until today. The Punto Fijo Pact was a political arrangement between the political parties Democratic Action, Copei and URD. At that time, Venezuela went through a process of modernization while being semi-rural. As shown in the illustration, Punto Fijo was able to encompass the majority of demands from the population and install an idea of progress and modernization through concrete actions. However, as the society evolved and changed, the pact was unable to respond to the increasing demands and changes of aspiration. The elitization of parties, the reduction of efficiency, corruption, among other factors, reduced popular support and led to the substitution of Punto Fijo by the populist Bolivarian Political Project (BPP). This moved the political system to the left and excluded a great percentage of the population. An attempted military coup d’état against Chavez in 2002, which was controlled by the most conservative sectors of the population and very briefly installed Pedro Carmona as acting president of Venezuela, would have moved the political system to the extreme right. Carmona’s Project unquestionably excluded sectors of the center and left from the political spectrum but did not get its chance to govern. The construction of a functional and long-lasting democracy in Venezuela requires a new political pact—a pluralistic program, which is sufficiently inclusive to respond to the demands of the population, promote equal participation, satisfy the population’s needs, and provide opportunities for personal fulfillment and well-being.

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Constructing democracy involves respect for all people and their opinions along with the search for consensus. Thus, the construction of democracy in Venezuela is only possible inclusively through national reconciliation that allows the structuring of a broad collective democratic project. Venezuela must rebuild democratic spaces, reduce structural injustices and regain stability. Thus, we understand that a pluralist political project must be capable of dealing with the diversity of processes and interactions that are present in society. It must be the product of a negotiation process that accounts for the needs and aspirations of the society. We understand that an inclusive political agreement would reduce the inconsistencies in the Venezuelan political processes, create the capacity for realization of the development goals to which the country aspires, guarantee the provision of adequate justice and facilitate the reconciliation of a country that has been subjected to a deep rupture. It is a question of reconstructing the normative agreement, of recomposing public morality and of establishing spaces for the democratic encounter.

Miguel Angel Latouche is guest lecturer at the Department of Comparative Politics of the University of Rostock, Germany. Alexandra Gericke is Scientific Associate at the Department of Comparative Politics of the University of Rostock, Germany.