Venezuela: the political evolution of Bolívarianism

Julia Buxton Venezuela’s Bolívarian revolution is seen by proponents and critics as a paradigmatic example of the leftward shift in contemporary Latin American politics. The centrality ofVenezuela to the hemispheric political realignments of the twenty-first century has somejustification. President Hugo Chávez was the first of the ‘leftist’ presidents to assume executive authority, his election triggering - depending on one’s ideological leanings - fears of a domino effect and regional leftist contagion, or evidence that a leftist political alternative was possible in Latin America, a region historically dominated by right-of-centre political forces and neoliberal-inspired economic policies. A decade of Chavismo(the term tends to be used interchangeably with Bolívarianism) has produced a truly transformative project in Venezuela, one whose sustainability and capacity for institutionalization are questionable, but which has without doubt seen a significant redistribution of economic and political power from an elite minority to the politically excluded and economically marginalized majority...