Chavismo

Venezuela analyst Steve Ellner in his new book unties the knots of Venezuelan history providing the reader a better understanding of the present. The book offers a penetrating examination of chavismo's stages, internal currents, and strategies, as well as Chávez's foreign policy.

Leading academic scholars and grassroots activists gathered at historic Howard University in Washington, DC, from April 18-20 for the national symposium, "What's Up With Venezuela: Participatory Democracy or Democracy as Usual?" The meeting provided an opportunity for 200 solidarity activists from across the United States to study the revolutionary changes sweeping through Venezuela.

None of the news organizations commented on, nor appear to have inquired with Clinton or her staff, whether she is aware that Venezuelan President Hugo Chávez won presidential elections in 1998, 2000, and 2006, survived a recall referendum in 2004, and accepted defeat in a constitutional reform referendum last year. Neither do the news organizations appear to have asked for Clinton's definition of "dictator" or "rogue regime," or by what definition Chávez or Venezuela would qualify.

Chávez holding Venezuela's 1999 constitution. (ABr, CC) How should the narrow defeat of the referendum to amend Venezuela's 1999 constitution be interpreted? Does the fact that 50.7% of voters rejected the omnibus package of 69 proposed constitutional amendments indicate that Venezuelans as a whole are tired of Chávez and wary of going any further along the path towards "socialism of the twenty-first century"?

An analysis of developments in Venezuela under the Chávez presidency sheds light on the viability of policies, movements and struggles in developing countries designed to bring about far-reaching transformation and to challenge domination from the north.

With an increasing number of presidential primaries occurring around the country in the very early part of 2008, those of us concerned with Latin America are forced into an earlier-than-ever examination of the candidates' stances on foreign policy. Though we might have expected that Latin America would be overshadowed entirely by the continuing wars in Iraq and Afghanistan, or emerge only in the context of immigration, hemispheric relations have come up surprisingly often in early campaigning. So what do the candidates talk about when they discuss Latin America? In a word, Chávez.

Latin America has been the cutting edge of struggles worldwide against neoliberalism. Several alternatives to the dominant model of global capitalism appear to be emerging in the region. A new model of revolutionary struggle and popular transformation from below for the 21st century may be emerging, based on the Venezuelan experience, but more broadly, on mass popular struggles in Ecuador, Bolivia, and elsewhere.

Venezuelan President Hugo Chávez has long been demonized by the Western media as a "leftist firebrand" (the U.K. Independent), "militaristic strongman" (Financial Times), and as "Venezuela's demagogue" (The Washington Post).

Hugo Chávez's resounding victory in well-monitored elections earlier this month shows that the self-styled socialist's controversial leadership and big social spending have genuinely won over Venezuela's poor majority. But Chávez has raised eyebrows by dedicating his victory to the Cuban revolution and declaring the beginning of a "new society." Is this declaration, as many critics are suggesting, code for the launch of a full-fledged communist state, Cuban-style?

One is hard-pressed to miss the slogan "With Chávez, the people are the government" in the Venezuelan capital of Caracas, stamped as it is on government posters that paper the city. The statement claims the achievement of a perfect democracy and implicitly suggests the opposite: Without President Hugo Chávez, Venezuelan democracy would not exist.

The Sabana Grande in eastern Caracas is one of the city's most famous streets, and it has seen many changes in its short life. Until the 1940s, most of it still lay under sugarcane fields. But by its 1970s heyday the shopping boulevard was the scene of a flourishing café culture that for many Caracas intellectuals of a certain generation has passed into legend, a relic of a safer, wealthier, more cosmopolitan city.