Academia.edu no longer supports Internet Explorer.
To browse Academia.edu and the wider internet faster and more securely, please take a few seconds to upgrade your browser.
Venezuela’s crisis speaks of a broader threat to Latin America’s second freedom. Self-sufficiency efforts are being renewed and much rests on how far political forces within can fight off external machinations.
Venezuela’s downward spiral has left the country poised between crisis and collapse. Over the last three years, the country’s economy fell into a depression marked by severe shortages and hyperinflation; social protest frequently erupted into violent instability; and the little that remained of one of Latin America’s oldest democracies vanished, yielding an authoritarian regime. Worse yet, the already acute political crisis took a turn for the worse. The government now openly relies on military force and institutionalized repression to maintain a modicum of stability. The government of President Nicolás Maduro blocked the opposition’s constitutional push for a recall referendum, using its control over the judiciary and electoral institutions to suspend a process that mobilized millions. Then, after Vatican- and Union of South American Nations (UNASUR)-sponsored talks between the Maduro Government and the opposition’s Mesa de la Unidad (The Democratic Roundtable) coalition broke down, the country’s human rights crisis escalated. Among other illegal detentions, the government arbitrarily jailed an elected member of Congress. As the rule of law further collapsed, the number of political prisoners rose to 116. Great uncertainty persists about whether gubernatorial elections postponed in 2016 will take place in 2017. Without any elections this year, Venezuela would likely experience a significant, but ultimately not destabilizing, street clash. This sharp decline has brought the country, and the hemisphere, to a moment of truth. Venezuela’s descent is the direct result of chavismo’s failed model. Yet Venezuelans must recognize that crafting a new, sustainable governance framework will require broad-based participation from political and civil society, including chavistas. For the hemisphere, the country’s current trajectory constitutes an unacceptable interruption of democracy while the possibility of collapse into civil strife poses an enormous danger for regional stability. This report on the Venezuelan crisis and Latin America’s future considers what the United States and the inter-American community, acting diplomatically, including through the Organization of American States, can do in response to the current crisis, specifically with regards to the erosion of democratic norms and practice in Venezuela.
An analysis of scenarios for the future of Venezuela, and its impact on the region, with a focus on the impact of the outflow of Venezuelan refugees to Colombia, the Caribbean, and across the region.
Internally and internationally, there has been a long and dense controversy over the real options for a definitive solution to the deep Venezuelan humanitarian crisis. Two sides, the 'pacifist' and supporter of an 'internal' solution and the 'interventionist' or external one, debate endlessly without taking into account the systematic violation of humanitarian law by the State, hunger, medical neglect and the forced exodus of large masses of the population. As in the recent cases of Syria or Yemen, the international community shows even greater indolence. This trend towards the petrification of the 'Venezuelan case' has not changed after the appointment of an interim president by the National Assembly, the last stronghold of democratic representation, nor has it happened after the international majority support it has received. Nevertheless, the Venezuelan constitution of 1999 imposes on the legitimate president to fully exercise as Head of State and President of the Government of his country, among other things to achieve the democratic and institutional restoration in Venezuela. With the exception of a massive desertion of military commanders and troops unrelated to State crimes attributable to the regime, it seems almost impossible for the legitimate president to fulfill such duties without agreeing on a sufficiently strong military alliance and guarantor of the required success.
Critique: Journal of Socialist Theory , 2018
With Venezuela having the world’s largest oil reserves and located within the supposed US-dominated Western Hemisphere, Venezuela’s sovereignty and limited control of its own oil has threatened the control of US capitalism in the majority of Latin America. The 2017 crisis in Venezuela caused by US-backed opposition is seen in the context of the US attempting to remove a sovereign and independent government from power, resembling the Syrian crisis in 2011. This paper will analyse the context of the current crisis in Venezuela as a coordinated effort by Washington to target the Bolivarian revolution. The most critical question though is why? Washington is attempting to counter a Chinese penetration into Latin America and to stop a threat to the US dollar’s domination on the region. However, despite Caracas blaming Washington for its current crisis, do the opposition have legitimate claims to the failures of the Bolivarian experiment?
The Bullet: Socialist Project, 2019
https://socialistproject.ca/2019/04/defiant-resistance-the-venezuelan-crises-and-the-possibility-of-another-world/ Bob Dylan once said, “Let us not talk falsely now, the hour is getting late.” February 23rd, 2019, was the day that Juan Guaidó, the self-proclaimed President of Venezuela, had “authorized” “humanitarian aid” to enter Venezuela, an attempt to force the Maduro government, and thus the Venezuelan people, to their knees. There is great urgency as an ever-increasing escalation of violence is being perpetuated by those who would destroy Venezuela, including several attacks on Venezuela’s electrical grid over the last few weeks. But let me be clear: the Venezuelan poor are resilient, and any change will be on their terms. Most importantly, Venezuelan politics is collective, and there is a deep form of solidarity across communities along with an abiding interest in building a different form of politics. In short, if one does not unearth this collective politics, one cannot understand what is happening in Venezuela. While in Venezuela doing field work in July 2018, in conversations with many Venezuelans, I noted the consistent insistence that Venezuela must be respected.
Italian Institute of International Political Studies (ISPI), 2018
The paradox of Venezuela, testing ground par excellence for 21st century socialism and home to the world’s most abundant oil reserves, is enduring: What does this worn out country represent? How could it get to this point without Western democracies taking action to alleviate damages? Are we dealing with a crisis that progressively worsens, while becoming more and more protracted? If so, for how long? Maybe we would find more answers by wondering ‘how far’ this crisis could go.
European Review of Latin American and Caribbean Studies Revista Europea de Estudios Latinoamericanos y del Caribe, 2020
In this introduction, we present the main contributions of this special collection, which aim to open the analysis to the broader political and economic processes that underpin Venezue-la's recent crisis. We highlight the transition from a limited democracy to an authoritarian regime and some of the potential pathways to democratization. We further explain how the political transition that occurred in the last decade was influenced by structural conditions of the Venezuelan economy, elaborating on the collapse of the Venezuelan rentier economy and some of the emerging processes that feed the strengthening of authoritarianism. Lastly, we analyse how these transformations have been affected by a changing international order with emerging actors and dynamics in a global order upheaval. The articles in this special collection locate in Venezuela's crisis on broader theoretical discussions rooted in comparative and historical perspectives. En esta introducción, presentamos las principales contribuciones de esta colección especial, cuyo objetivo es abrir un análisis a los amplios procesos políticos y económicos que susten-tan la reciente crisis de Venezuela. Destacamos la transición de una democracia limitada a un régimen autoritario y algunas de las posibles vías hacia la democratización. Explicamos además cómo la transición política que ocurrió en la última década estuvo influida por las condiciones estructurales de la economía venezolana, explicando el colapso de la economía rentista venezolana y algunos de los procesos emergentes que alimentan el fortalecimiento del autoritarismo. Por último, analizamos cómo estas transformaciones se han visto afecta-das por un orden internacional cambiante con actores y dinámicas emergentes en una agita-ción del orden global. Los artículos de esta colección especial sitúan la crisis de Venezuela en debates teóricos más amplios enraizados en perspectivas comparativas e históricas. Pala-bras clave: Venezuela, retroceso democrático, autoritarismo, economía rentista, orden global , Nicolás Maduro, Revolución Bolivariana.
مجلة الآداب والعلوم الإنسانیة, 1994
Bloomsbury, 2021
Journal of Visual Theology / Визуальная теология, 2024
from the edited volume, __Words of Experience: Translating Islam with Carl W. Ernst__ (Equinox, 2021), 2021
Forum médical suisse =, 2018
Revue hybride de l'éducation, 2021
Indo-Pacific Journal of Phenomenology, 2015
The Journal of Heart and Lung Transplantation, 2015
International Journal of Nursing Studies, 2001
Hepatology (Baltimore, Md.), 2017
Balanced Automation Systems II, 1996