Venezuela In The Twenty-first Century

Click to increase image sizeClick to decrease image size Notes 1 Cipriano Castro. 2 This refers to a situation of upward mobility that owes little to once valued education but a lot to the financial reorganization produced by the oil State, as stated by Raquel Rivas Rojas (2001 Rivas Rojas, Raquel. 2001. Consenso, hegemonía e identidad: sujetos y espacios de un imaginario fracturado. Estudios. Revista de Investigaciones Literarias y Culturales, : 109–26. 17 (Caracas, January–June) [Google Scholar]). 3 The foregoing does not exclude awareness of the sociohistorical diversity of Venezuelan political culture(s). I only want to underline the liberal-democratic anchorage with regard to the hegemonic political relation and formalization, since at least 1958. 4 The Punto Fijo Pact, however, was based on the exclusion of the Communist Party, an important political power of patriotic and popular ideology. 5 It is relevant to point out that the ‘Movimiento al Socialismo’ (MAS), established in 1971, represented at the time a threat to that two-party system as a political expression of certain sectors of the middle and popular classes. 6 A good critical summary of the relationship between masses and violence in Venezuelan history in the nineteenth and twentieth centuries can be found in the book Temas de historia social y de las ideas (1969) by Germán Carrera Damas Carrera Damas, Germán. 1969. Temas de historia social y de las ideas, Caracas: Ediciones de la Biblioteca de la Universidad Central de Venezuela. [Google Scholar], particularly in the chapter entitled ‘Violencia, orden y libertad en la historia de Venezuela’ (1969: 169–77); and, also, in the article by Margarita López Maya quoted in the references (López Maya, 2003 López Maya, Margarita. 2003. The Venezuelan Caracazo of 1989: Popular Protest and Institutional Weakness. Journal of Latin American Studies, 35: 117–37. [Google Scholar]). 7 But the economic interests of society have not been able to separate politically from their great benefactor, the corporate oil State, whose power has become more emphatic in recent years with economic redistribution being undertaken according to the political criteria and interests of the Revolution, all of which establish the continuity of the economic system as a power of anti-institutional modernization, to the clear detriment of a democratic political culture. Social violence, to follow Sodré, is still present in ‘Chavista Venezuela’. 8 After a broad review of the theory and criticism of populism, I adopt the definition given by Ernesto Laclau Laclau, Ernesto. 1977. Politics and Ideology in Marxist Theory: Capitalism–Fascism–Populism, London: New Left. [Google Scholar], since it is close to the Venezuelan process I am concerned with. To Laclau, populism becomes ‘uma dicotimização do espaço social por meio da criação de uma fronteira interna e da construção de uma cadeia equivalencial entre exigências não satisfeitas... Deveria estar evidente que, para a cadeia equivalencial criar uma fronteira dentro do social, é necesario representar de alguma maneira o outro lado da fronteira. Não há populismo sem a constitução discursiva de um inimigo: o Ancien Régime, a oligarquia, o Establishment, ou que quer que seja’ (2003: 9). With regard to building a popular subjectivity, Laclau says: ‘Há uma característica desse processo de construção duma significação popular universal que é particularmente importante para entender o populismo. Ei-la: quanto mais se estende a cadeia de equivalências, tanto mais fraca será sua conexão com as exigências particularistas que assumem a função de representação universal (2003: 10). 9 A valuable study of the narratives of national identity in the Venezuela of the mid-twentieth century can be found in the work of Raquel Rivas Rojas Rivas Rojas, Raquel. 2001. Del criollismo al regionalismo populista. El relato identitario en Venezuela (1935–1941) Doctoral thesis, King's College, University of London. Inédito [Google Scholar], Del criollismo al regionalismo populista. El relato identitario en Venezuela (1935–1941). Doctoral rhesis, King's College, University of London. 10 In this connection, the remarks by the Venezuelan writer, Federico Vegas Vegas, Federico. 2004. En la literatura, la mentira es la carnada de una gran verdad. Entrevista de Luis Martínez. El Nacional, Monday 27 September: B9 [Google Scholar], are relevant: ‘The current slogan of the government is “Everything for the poor”, which has two main aspects: “The poor give me all the power” and “All power to the poor”. Poverty is the goal, the style, the ethical principle, the reference, the model, the great controller of urban expression. The main character of contemporary Caracas is the street vendor, a nomadic figure transformed into a sedentary institution. This is reinforced for a very simple reason: poverty is the scenario where I am stronger. Inasmuch as I allow the margin to dictate to the centre what the urban model should be I am creating a favourable context for the continuation of my rule’ (2004: B9). 11 Even though the government sets forth that these do not refer to programmes with financial criteria destined to create state companies, there is no doubt they plait political relations with the Revolution. 12 During a conversation with the author, November 2004. 13 Mijares refers to the Federal War unleashed against Venezuela between 1859 and 1863, led by peasants, former slaves and gangs of labourers, whose extreme poverty made them combat the oligarchy of the time. For Germán Carrera Damas, however, ‘the Federal War allowed the most advanced sector of the dominant class to perfect the formulation of a national Project, and through this instruct the class fights controlled by freedom and equality, creating for them a phantasmagorical world of freedom and equality ... ‘the federal war is a fight among sectors from the dominant class that has only one historical sense: consolidating the dominant class. What there could be of popular presence is interruptions or intrusions but in no case developments historically necessary, historically viable’ (1997: 116–17). 14 Chávez has repeated many times that he admires Cipriano Castro because he considers him a ‘nationalistic’ president, among other things, in a clear fight against the ‘oligarchy’ of the time

Art · Communism · Democracy · Hegemony · Humanities · Ideology · Political science · Politics · Power (physics · Relation (database · Sociology · State (computer science · History and Politics in Latin America · Latin American socio-political dynamics · Law · Politics and Society in Latin America

• The Work of Art in the Age of Mechanical Reproduction

  Walter Benjamin•Stardom and Celebrity•2007

  Add to list

• Dreamworld and Catastrophe

  Susan Buck-Morss, Susan Buck‐Morss•Dreamworld and Catastrophe•2000

  Add to list

• Dreamworld and catastrophe

  Susan Buck-Mor, Susan Buck-Morss•Dreamworld and Catastrophe•2000

  Add to list

• The Venezuelan Caracazo of 1989

  Open Access•Margarita López Maya•Journal of Latin American Studies•2003

  Add to list

• Mob outrages

  Luis Duno Gottberg•Journal of Latin American…•2004

  Add to list