Analyzing Democracy and Development in Venezuela Under Chavez

This essay critically examines the state of democracy and development in Venezuela under Hugo Chavez's presidency. It argues that while Chavez wasn't a dictator, his actions significantly undermined democratic institutions, including the media, opposition, and judiciary, leading to a concentration of power and a rise in corruption. The essay references Steve Ellner's analysis of Chavismo, highlighting the internal contradictions and challenges within the movement, such as expropriations and factional strife. Despite initial promises of social inclusion and poverty reduction, corruption increased, and economic policies, including nationalization efforts, proved detrimental. While inequality decreased due to oil revenues, other South American countries with robust democratic institutions achieved better outcomes. The essay concludes that Chavez's policies, marked by short-term spending and a lack of institutional checks, have left Venezuela vulnerable and with weakened democratic foundations. Desklib offers this essay and other resources to aid students in their studies.

Running head: DEMOCRACY AND DEVELOPMENT 1
Democracy and Development
Name
Institution

DEMOCRACY AND DEVELOPMENT 2
DEMOCRACY AND DEVELOPMENT
Introduction
This paper discusses the political state of Venezuela under Chavez. Hugo Chavez
clinched the presidency of Venezuela in the year 1998. The three promises that Chavez gave to
the people during the campaign period are: improve the state, to rewrite a new constitution,
social exclusion, to combat poverty and eliminate poverty. After the election, it became evident
that the constituent Assembly was just a weapon to be used in destroying all existing political
institutions in the country and replace them with a system of government beholden to his wishes.
Social inclusion and poverty remain as they were before, while the levels of corruption in the
country increased (Haggard & Kaufman, 2018). The paper is in support that Chavez participated
in crushing democracy in Venezuela.
It is that Chavez was not a dictator, but he participated in crushing democracy in
Venezuela. This is because during his term in the office, all the elections conducted in Venezuela
were generally free and fair (Diamond, 2015). Chavez even conceded defeat in one of the
referendum intended to consolidate his power. The regime of Maduro can be seen as a
dictatorship because he brought many adverse changes in Venezuela such as the elimination of
opposition, rigging of the election, and the killing of street protesters. Chavez crushed democracy
in that during his 14 years in the office as the president of Venezuela, every institution of
democracy such as the media, the opposition, and the court was destroyed, in an attempt of
creating a one-party state (Maya & Lander, 2011).

DEMOCRACY AND DEVELOPMENT 3
During his second term in office, Human Rights activists concluded that the erosion of
human rights protections and the concentration of power had given the government the power to
censor, intimidate, and arraign the Citizens who thwarted his political agenda or criticized his
authority as the president (Legler & Tieku, 2010). The research reports which were published
over the past decade also documented the large-scale censorship, the crushing of independence
of the judiciary, the quashing of the opposition party as well as silencing and banishment of
opponents, and also the imprisonments of the activists such as the Human rights activists. During
this era, such excesses as well as abuses of power were vanishing in most of the countries that
are found in South America. Venezuela as a country stood alone in its greatness of demagoguery
(Forelle et.al, 2015).
The authoritarianism also increased into the economy. Chavez failed to nationalize the oil
industry. This is because of the rapid increase in the rate of corruption in the country. In the year
1999, Jose Vicente who was then the minister of Foreign Affairs in his speech admitted that
corruption had already cost the country too much in social, spiritual, and economic term and that
the new civic power and the new Judicial system will combine to fight corruption (Wintrobe,
2018). And that never happened. During the nine years of Chavez in power, a considerable
amount of money of oil income entered the treasury of the nation. But the country failed to
account for the exact number because of the poor transparency of the accounts (government
accounts). There is also lack of transparency because the petroleum company of the country no
longer presents to the people the financial results. In parallel, during the tenure of Chavez, the
national debt of the country increased to 70 billion dollars. This large amount of money was not
reflected in effective health or public works and education programs. In a country that ought to
be one of the major exporters of agricultural products, Chavez changed farming into the profit-

DEMOCRACY AND DEVELOPMENT 4
oriented business by controlling prices and subsidizing consumption and changed a large amount
of agricultural land into the level of subsistence peasant farms. Because of this, the country
became heavily dependent on food imports as well as experienced severe food shortage
(Kornblith, 2013).
During the ruling of Chavez, inequality in Venezuela decreased as compared to the past
regime when he was not in power. This decrease was because of the money received from the
oil. But, the research found out that inequality dropped in those countries such as Uruguay,
Chile, and Brazil as compared to Venezuela because they had social democratic governments.
And that the government robust democratic institutions and upheld open market economies. The
countries mentioned above (Uruguay, Chile, and Brazil) despite having limited resource
revenues, managed to lower equality and poverty that Venezuela under Chavez was unable to do
so during his term. The three countries also built an institutional legacy that was capable of
sustaining them through the near future.
The approach used by Chavez in his ruling was condemned because of his instant
spending without taking into consideration the long-term investments. For example, once there
will be no flow of oil in the country, then the country will be left with nothing to depend on in
the future. It will encounter broken institution and debt (Singer, 2018).
Conclusion
This paper clearly states that the record of Chavez shows a large gap between the
promises which he gave to the people during his campaign and the reality on the ground. The
first promise of ending corruption is not a reality because a lot of money that belongs to the
people was misused in the process of furthering an anti-United State. The policies used by
Chavez have increased the rate of corruption rather than fighting it. Lack of institutional checks

DEMOCRACY AND DEVELOPMENT 5
and concentration of power in the hands of Chavez have led to an absence of transparency and
accountability in the government. The increased level of poverty, oppression of the Human rights
activists, destruction of the political institution and high rate of corruption discussed in the paper
cannot be won under the regime of Chavez as the president. These issues can only be minimized
by the democratic government that is fully transparent and accountable to all the people.
Steve Ellner’s Analysis
The work of Steve Ellen on ‘political and social Diversity as well as Democracy Road to
change’ examines the development that took place in Venezuela to describe the overall direction
of the Chavista movement and government. Throughout the 13years of the Chavez as the
president of Venezuela, Chavez as acted authoritatively to maintain the overall support of the
general population. At some point, for example, he attacked his associate party for not
supporting his presidential bid in the year 2000. He also attacked those who were against his
ruling as the president more so leaders from the opposition side of the government. The work of
Steve examines essential areas that have influenced internal pro-Chavista as well as current
social groups of the past years. Examples of the essential areas include the tensions within the
labor movements, the expropriations, and nationalizations as well as the consolidation of the
movements, i.e., (CCM) the community council movements. The examination of the
expropriations tries to find out the reason why Venezuela government’s embarked on such
expensive undertaking even if it threatened to weaken all essential social programs as well as
how they affected the strategies of the Charismas. The discussion of the three topics aimed at
showing how conflicting and divergent interests and visions within Chavismo. The expropriation
of large as well as medium-sized organizations has been the feature of the 4th and 5th stages of
the presidency of Chavez (Ellner, 2013). The government used to control basic industry, for

DEMOCRACY AND DEVELOPMENT 6
example, electricity, steel, as well as telecommunications by enacting law and regulations that
control their performance. This transformation influenced different political current and social
groups in different ways. For example, the compensation money paid by the government to the
former owners of the organizations only add additional support to those who were rich and
neglected the plea of middle class and the lower class in the society. These expropriations mainly
support the working class such as the worker's movements. Through mass expropriations,
Chavez and Chavista leadership have tried to retain equilibrium among the social sectors as well
as the various political visions and outlooks that are in the movement. The government of
Chavez recognized the importance of the working class as a major factor of revolutionary
change. Steve Ellen also examines the actions of the opposition camp and the problems that the
heterogeneity of the Chavista movement had cause for the governments. The responsiveness of
the government of Chavez to the Chavista movement developed a policy of negotiations as well
as concessions with influential economic groups. At the same time, the commitment of the
government to democracy prevents suppression in response to disruptions of the economy. The
dissimilarities in interest as well as groups visions’ within the movement of Chavista created
internal tensions. For example, the leaders of UNT raised the banners of absolute security at the
work place, workers’ control, as well as restoration initial system of payments. Therefore, the
government responded to deficiencies by creating complex legal measures that intricate the
difficulties and finally caused extensive expropriations.

DEMOCRACY AND DEVELOPMENT 7
References
Diamond, L. (2015). Facing up to the democratic recession. Journal of Democracy, 26(1), 141-
155. from http://journalofdemocracy.org/sites/default/files/Diamond-26-1_0.pdf
Ellner, S. (2013). Social and political diversity and the democratic road to change in
Venezuela. Latin American Perspectives, 40(3), 63-82. from
https://www.jstor.org/stable/pdf/23466005.pdf?
casa_token=JwQfd3jYbOkAAAAA:fxb3JawISs5VZWm6DEkCZwqHz06ifBCQ9cVve
OOf6cWWrULr9QoGveCGtdrDht9Vo76CbwKRO4zsGQomSp7n5paiZTXuTzW9q6W
OtkWizAHqyjU4Yyjm
Forelle, M., Howard, P., Monroy-Hernández, A., & Savage, S. (2015). Political bots and the
manipulation of public opinion in Venezuela. arXiv preprint arXiv:1507.07109. from
https://arxiv.org/ftp/arxiv/papers/1507/1507.07109.pdf
Haggard, S., & Kaufman, R. R. (2018). Response to Michael Albertus and Victor Menaldo’s
review of Dictators and Democrats: Masses, Elites, and Regime Change. Perspectives on
Politics, 16(4), 1107-1107. from https://www.cambridge.org/core/journals/perspectives-
on-politics/article/response-to-michael-albertus-and-victor-menaldos-review-of-dictators-
and-democrats-masses-elites-and-regime-change/
A41D6CDA0F33789148EE5AFA71F045DC

DEMOCRACY AND DEVELOPMENT 8
Kornblith, M. (2013). Chavismo after Chávez?. Journal of Democracy, 24(3), 47-61.
Legler, T., & Tieku, T. K. (2010). What difference can a path make? Regional democracy
promotion regimes in the Americas and Africa. Democratization, 17(3), 465-491.
Maya, M. L., & Lander, L. E. (2011). Participatory democracy in Venezuela: Origins, ideas, and
implementation. Venezuela’s Bolivarian Democracy: Participation, Politics, and Culture
under Chávez, eds. David Smilde and Daniel Hellinger (Durham and London: Duke
University Press, 2011), 58-9.
Singer, M. (2018). Delegating away democracy: How good representation and policy successes
can undermine democratic legitimacy. Comparative Political Studies, 51(13), 1754-1788.
from https://polisci.uconn.edu/wp-content/uploads/sites/1645/2016/02/CPS-Consenting-
to-autocracy.pdf
Wintrobe, R. (2018). An economic theory of a hybrid (competitive authoritarian or illiberal)
regime. Public Choice, 177(3-4), 217-233.

DEMOCRACY AND DEVELOPMENT 9