Examines Venezuela's 'other path' under Hugo Chavez
Wilpert, Gregory
IT IS DIFFICULT for casual outside observers to make sense of Venezuela. Most people who rely on mainstream media for their information will get contradictory accounts of the government of Hugo...
...Now it has dropped down to 11 percent, one of the lowest rates in Venezuela's recent history...
...All of this grass-roots involvement has also meant an increase in the number of community organizations...
...It is about exclusion and inclusion...
...During the Chavez presidency, the state's education spending has gone from 3.2 percent of GDP to 4.7 percent...
...5) We're usually quick in giving editorial decisions...
...There is also a personality cult focused on Chavez...
...Nonetheless, there is a consensus in Venezuela that large, idle land holdings (latifundios) should be redistributed...
...Prior to Chavez, Venezuela often broke OPEC's oil production quotas, helping to drive the price of oil to $10 per barrel in 1998...
...Another obstacle to successful reform, at least in the eyes of most Chavez supporters, has been the Bush administration...
...government has been funding opposition organizations to the tune of more than $5 million per year, via the National Endowment for DISSENT / Spring 2005 23 POLITICS ABROAD Democracy and the U.S...
...Much more important is the urban land reform program, which is supposed to give homeownership titles to people living in the barrios...
...The president is a charismatic figure for the country's poor, who identify with him because he has been able to channel the anger they feel toward the upper and middle classes and because his self-presentation makes them feel that he is one of them...
...In terms of social policies, the Chavez government has essentially revived Venezuela's social democratic past, by lavishing its oil dollars on social programs of all kinds...
...If there's a delay, it's because a few editors are reading your article...
...intervention reinforce the culture and the cult, which, in a debilitating cycle, in turn intensify the opposition and the intervention...
...To some he fits perfectly the stereotype of the caudillo (strongman), who is working hand in hand with Fidel Castro to turn Venezuela into a state-socialist, authoritarian dictatorship...
...imperialism, and referring to the opposition as "rancid oligarchs...
...First, the new Constitution opened the country's politics to much broader participation and, simultaneously, strengthened the position of the president...
...The battle in Venezuela is not one over preventing state-socialist dictatorship or supporting socialist liberation...
...In the six years that he has been in power, he and his movement have instituted one of the world's most progressive constitutions, decisively broken with the old political establishment, redirected much of Venezuela's oil wealth toward social programs, pursued alternatives to neoliberal development, and worked toward what Chavez calls a "multi-polar world," where the United States is no longer dominant...
...The participatory aspect of the Constitution means that, on a national level, ordinary citizens may now petition for four different types of referenda: for the recall of elected representatives, the repeal of laws, consultation on issues of national importance, and the approval of constitutional amendments...
...At the same time, though, the budding personality cult has squashed any alternative leadership and made the entire left dependent on Chavez for its survival in Venezuela...
...Although party membership is not so much an issue anymore, partisanship is...
...To others he fits the stereotype of the leftist revolutionary and liberator of the oppressed, who is for the first time in the country's history paying attention to the poor majority...
...It is no surprise, then, that Chavez recently announced that the government will focus on fighting corruption and inefficiency...
...To Our Contributors A few suggestions: (1) Be sure to keep a copy of your manuscript...
...One reason for these polarized accounts is that Chavez lends himself to stereotypes...
...But the nature of the domestic opposition and the U.S...
...4) Notes and footnotes should also be typed double-spaced, on a separate sheet...
...3) Type your ms double-spaced, with wide margins...
...More seriously, though, what is perceived as unjustified foreign intervention reinforces the notion that the government is beleaguered, which then justifies the culture of patronage and clientelism...
...In the economic sphere, the Chavez government is one of the few in the world that has successfully pursued a development path that steers clear of neoliberal economic doctrine...
...For 2004, however, the increase in the country's gross domestic product (GDP) was largely due to a rebound from severe recessions in 2002 and 2003, attributable to the effects of a world recession, the April 2002 coup attempt, and the opposition's shutdown of the country's oil industry in early 2003...
...What Next...
...Following the defeat of the August recall referendum, with 60 percent of voters opposing it, and Chavez's success in regional elections a month and a half later, the opposition has now been practically reduced to rubble...
...However, the process has been messy—with many missteps and much resistance...
...It is mainly Chavez supporters who benefit from government programs...
...Because approximately 80 percent of Venezuela's export income and 40 percent of its GDP comes from oil production, the price of oil has tremendous influence on the country's economic well-being...
...In the process, though, it is excluding all those who oppose it, thus potentially creating a mirror image of what it set out to overcome...
...The government is combining a statist approach in the areas of oil and monetary policy with strong support for domestic small businesses and cooperatives, which led to economic growth in 2000 (2.8 percent), 2001 (3.2 percent), and 2004 (17 percent est...
...Public opinion polls have shown that a vast majority of the population has had favorable experiences with them...
...Check all your figures, dates, names, etc.—they're the author's responsibility...
...Without Chavez, his movement would never have been able to do what it has done...
...The program has been controversial, though, because landowners say that the process by which their holdings are to be expropriated in the future does not offer them sufficient legal opportunity to challenge the government's decisions...
...Please use inclusive language so that we don't have to make adjustments during editing...
...The U.S...
...On the other hand, the lengthening of the president's term from five to six years and the direct control he now has over military promotions has strengthened the presidency—making the opposition more desperate and politicizing the military...
...In the past, one had to be a member of one of the ruling parties if one wanted to benefit from government programs...
...The Chavez government is indeed making an effort to include those who have been traditionally excluded: the poor, women, and the indigenous population...
...External Obstacles For much of its time in office, the Chavez government has been on the defensive...
...It does not help, though, that Chavez uses this issue as a rhetorical weapon, boasting of his achievements, when only 6 percent of the country's GDP comes from agriculture and only 12 percent of the country's population lives on the land...
...Their desperation to get back into power, fueled by Chavez's irascible temper, directed at anyone who does not support him, have led to two destructive efforts to get rid of him: the oil industry shut-down and the coup...
...Bur IT HAS not just been oil policy that has aided the country's economy...
...The country's old elite has led an all-out campaign to get rid of Chavez ever since he was first elected in 1998...
...Although it is debatable whether referenda are a good idea for democracies (think of California), Venezuela's politics for most of its forty years of democracy was ossified, and its citizens were apathetic...
...The country still suffers from extensive clientelism, patronage, and corruption in anything the government does...
...However, clientelism and patronage of any kind eat at the fabric of a democratic society...
...Democratic community media, which provide a welcome alternative to the propagandistic programming of the state and the highly politicized anti-Chavez orientation of the private media, have mushroomed too during the Chavez presidency, mostly due to government support of various kinds...
...The new rural land reform is supposed to address many of the shortcomings of the earlier one by providing adequate credit, training, and marketing for new farmers...
...By the time the opposition made its third, constitutional, effort, a recall referendum last August, it was too late...
...Of course, when one turns toward alternative sources of information, such as Web sites devoted to Venezuela, the image is even more dichotomized...
...However, the government has so far not presented a clear plan as to how it intends to do this, and the mere intention to enforce the law is generally insufficient in fighting patronage and corruption in countries like Venezuela...
...In the wake of the opposition's oil industry shut-down, unemployment reached a peak of 22 percent...
...The years of economic growth were due to the increase in world oil prices, which began in 2000, mostly because of Chavez's efforts at bringing OPEC (Organization of Petroleum Exporting Countries) back together as a functioning cartel...
...On the other hand, publications such as the New York Times or the Guardian present a more benign view...
...On the local level, the Constitution and the policies of the Chavez government have also opened opportunities for ordinary citizens to DISSENT / Spring 2005 21 POLITICS ABROAD become more involved than ever before...
...These two factors contributed to the coup attempt against Chavez in April 2002...
...Comparatively speaking, land and agriculture are not really the country's greatest problems...
...On the one hand, publications such as the Economist, the Wall Street Journal, and the Washington Post regularly publish strong criticism of the Chavez government...
...Anecdotal evidence suggests that this program has done more than any other to produce support for Chavez...
...However, the government had problems with the state's bureaucracy and so ran many social programs outside the ministries, in what it calls "missions"—scholarships, literacy programs, continuing-education programs, subsidized food markets, and community clinics...
...The same goes, generally speaking, for academic publications on Venezuela...
...His election, the subsequent ratification of the new Constitution, and the presidential elections in 2000 have completely shut out the old elite from power...
...Similarly, the effort to regularize land titles in the barrios, where squatters have occupied land, has been promoted via tens of thousands of neighborhood "land committees...
...Although these "missions" are more difficult for the government to oversee because of their high degree of independence, they seem to be producing results...
...Chavez came to power largely as a result of the collapse of Venezuela's oil-driven economy and restricted representative democracy and of his own charisma, his ability to unite a fragmented left and the country's poor behind him...
...This is a slight improvement over the past, in that it is much easier to pretend to support the government than actually to become a party member...
...For example, access to drinking water, which has increased from 79 percent to 91 percent during the Chavez presidency, has been facilitated by community "water committees...
...Chavez feeds these stereotypes by giving Castro-like marathon speeches, railing against U.S...
...Agency for International Development...
...The program builds on community cohesion: people will improve their neighborhoods once they have a sense of ownership not just over their homes but also over the neighborhood itself...
...THE EDITORS 24 DISSENT / Spring 2005...
...GREGORY WILPERT is a freelance writer who lives in Caracas and edits the Web site www.venezuelanalysis.com . He is currently writing a book on Venezuela during the Chavez presidency that will be published by Verso Books in the fall of 2005...
...Most people who rely on mainstream media for their information will get contradictory accounts of the government of Hugo Chavez, its policies, and its confrontations with the opposition...
...Venezuela attempted a land reform forty-five years ago, which was widely regarded as a failure—as in most other Latin American countries...
...Look at our last few issues to see if your idea fits in...
...First, there are Local Public Planning Councils, which make government more responsive to local needs by increasing transparency and providing officials with constant feedback from their constituents...
...While most Venezuelans regard the United States positively, critical statements by State Department spokespersons reinforce Chavez's accusations that the United States is acting as an imperial power, trying to control the fate of other countries...
...Other important social policies of the Chavez government include the urban and ru22 DISSENT / Spring 2005 POLITICS ABROAD ral land reforms...
...We will not consider manuscripts submitted simultaneously to several publications...
...Opening the possibility for national referenda has energized civil society and generated forms of political expression that go beyond the dysfunctional party system...
...2) Please don't write to ask whether we're interested in such and such an article—it makes for useless correspondence...
...The main problem the government faces with these new programs, which now take up over 20 percent of the state's budget, is that they constitute parallel structures that duplicate the work of existing ministries...
...Or take a chance and send us your article...
...This program is similar to that advocated by Hernando de Soto (author of The Other Path), in that barrio inhabitants can apply for ownership of the homes they built on land they have occupied...
...If you are submitting to Dissent electronically, our e-mail address is editors@dissentmagazine.org . Please include a postal address and phone number...
...This, combined with regular criticisms by Bush administration officials that Chavez is "not doing enough" to combat terrorism and is a "negative force" in Latin America, have rallied the country around Chavez...
...This is something that never existed before and was badly needed because local government was one of the main areas of corruption—and still is, because the Planning Councils have so far not been able to live up to their potential...
...The main beneficiary of these programs is the education sector...
...The preferential treatment given to cooperatives and small businesses in state purchasing and the promotion of micro-credits for women and cooperatives have also boosted employment opportunities for many...
...For Chavez to succeed in his project of transforming Venezuela, the government will have to overcome the political culture of the country's past and the new personality cult...
...Citizen involvement has also increased because numerous social policies are being enacted in direct consultation with neighborhood groups...
...However, the truth about Venezuela is much more complicated...
...What is happening there is much more ordinary...
...Internal Obstacles Despite the Chavez government's efforts at bringing about a "revolution," much remains the same in Venezuela...
...The Chavez government has yet to figure out a way of bringing the missions and the ministries into a coherent framework...
...So far, more than five million acres have been redistributed to 130,000 families, with all of the land so far coming from state-owned property...
...And please remember that we can't consider articles unless they're accompanied by a stamped, self-addressed envelope...
...Even those who were alienated by Chavez believed that the opposition was far worse...
...Chavez's charisma has unified an otherwise extremely fragmented Venezuelan left, which has no real mass organizations...
...The Effort to Transform Venezuela There are three areas where Chavez has shifted course from that of his predecessors and of most other Latin American governments...
...As we're not an academic journal, we prefer that they, wherever possible, be dropped altogether or worked into the text...
Vol. 52 • April 2005 • No. 2
