Dragon in the Tropics: Hugo Chavez and the Political Economy of Revolution in Venezuela

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 Venezuela’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. Resumen: Crisis en Venezuela: Actores, transiciones y vias En esta introduccion, presentamos las principales contribuciones de esta coleccion especial, cuyo objetivo es abrir un analisis a los amplios procesos politicos y economicos que sustentan la reciente crisis de Venezuela. Destacamos la transicion de una democracia limitada a un regimen autoritario y algunas de las posibles vias hacia la democratizacion. Explicamos ademas como la transicion politica que ocurrio en la ultima decada estuvo influida por las condiciones estructurales de la economia venezolana, explicando el colapso de la economia rentista venezolana y algunos de los procesos emergentes que alimentan el fortalecimiento del autoritarismo. Por ultimo, analizamos como estas transformaciones se han visto afectadas por un orden internacional cambiante con actores y dinamicas emergentes en una agitacion del orden global. Los articulos de esta coleccion especial situan la crisis de Venezuela en debates teoricos mas amplios enraizados en perspectivas comparativas e historicas.

https://www.erlacs.org/articles/10.32992/erlacs.10587/galley/10925/download/

The crisis in Venezuela: Drivers, transitions, and pathways

Oil-rich Venezuela is being hit by the largest crisis in living memory. Now, more than 4.8 million Venezuelans have fled the country in search of food and safety. News about migration and humanitarian aid dominate. Yet, many Venezuelans stay and seek alternative strategies to cope with scarcity and insecurity. Ad hoc solutions mainly depend on alternative economies in the borderlands that do not always fit within frameworks of human rights and rule of law, but do provide relief and produce opportunities along with new inequalities that (un)willingly sustain the crisis. Amid collapsing state infrastructures, these transborder economies tie into the global trade of basic supplies, narcotics, drugs, natural resources and human trafficking that operate in the interface of the legal and the illegal. The complex humanitarian crisis in Venezuela is as much about poverty and scarcity as it is about wealth and abundance benefiting only a very few. An ‘anthropology of abundance’ allows us to grasp these underlying socio-economic dynamics that turn crisis management into crisis maintenance.

https://rai.onlinelibrary.wiley.com/doi/pdf/10.1111/1467-8322.12561

Hunger in the land of plenty: The complex humanitarian crisis in Venezuela

The Bolivarian project, which arrived in the political scene after the 1998 presidential election, has been analyzed many times based on the social achievements provoked by high oil prices, which, in turn, brought it high levels of revenue, representing close to 95 per cent of the total exports of Venezuela in 2012. The government then spent a lot of money, and helped low-income populations through social programs (missions, among others). A strong opposition coming out of the business sector radicalized the Bolivarian movement to the point that, in 2005, the government declared itself a socialist regime. By using government indicators, this work will examine critically some fundamental aspects of the Venezuelan economy during the Bolivarian period. Because this country’s major source of income comes from oil, this paper will emphasize its analysis on the effective distribution of revenue inflow.

Crítica a la política económica del “socialismo del siglo XXI” : apropiación privada de la renta petrolera, política de importaciones y fuga de capitales

This article analyzes the current situation in Latin America after the end of the global commodity boom. It argues that the countries of the region have not been able to take advantage of the favorable conditions of booming commodity markets in order to attain a structural change in the economy, significantly decrease social inequalities and strengthen progressive political projects in the region. The current crisis is also the result of wasting this historical opportunity which has been exacerbated by the effects of coronavirus. The recent decrease in natural resource prices in 2020 demonstrates the urgency for a structural change in the region especially thinking about an ecological transformation which could lead to sharply reducing demand for some natural resources.

América Latina después del auge de las materias primas: ¿qué queda del Neo-Extractivismo?

Rentier societies: keys to understand the Venezuelan crisis The consequences of natural resource dependency remain a controversial topic in Development Studies. Generally, the debate focuses on the economic and political effects of natural resource-dependency, framing the debate in a curse versus blessing dichotomy. This article presents in the first part a critical reexamination of this debate and introduces the ‘rentier society’ concept, which includes social and sociocultural issues. Rather than judging these societies based on Eurocentric criteria, the approach aims to understand the particularities of natural-resource dependent societies. In the second part of the article the analytical model will be applied to the case of Venezuela. In this vein, the article offers tools permitting a better understanding of rentier societies in general and the Venezuelan reality in particular. Resumen Las consecuencias de la dependencia de recursos naturales siguen siendo un tema polemico en los estudios de desarrollo. Generalmente el debate en esta area se centra en los efectos economicos y politicos de la dependencia economica de recursos naturales, poniendo el foco en la dicotomia de una maldicion frente a la bendicion de los recursos naturales. Este articulo presenta en la primera parte un analisis critico de este debate e introduce el concepto de la sociedad rentista, que incluye tambien factores sociales y socioculturales y que busca entender las particularidades de las sociedades dependientes de recursos naturales en vez de juzgarlas en base a criterios eurocentricos. En la segunda parte del articulo se aplica el modelo de analisis al caso venezolano. De esta manera, el articulo ofrece herramientas que permiten entender, por un lado, las sociedades rentistas y, por otro lado, la realidad venezolana.

/pdf/sociedades-rentistas-claves-para-entender-la-crisis-3v5vu96emq.pdf

Sociedades rentistas: Claves para entender la crisis venezolana

Liebe Leserinnen und Leser,die positiven Auswirkungen von körperlichem Training auf die Gesundheit sind
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Stefan Peters

Papers

Sociedades rentistas: Claves para entender la crisis venezolana

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