Venezuela's Bolivarian Democracy

David Smilde is Associate Professor of Sociology at the University of Georgia and the president of the Venezuelan Studies Section of the Latin American Studies Association. He is the editor-in-chief of the journal Qualitative Sociology and the author of Reason to Believe: Cultural Agency in Latin American Evangelicalism.Daniel Hellinger is Professor of Political Science at Webster University in St. Louis and the former president of the Venezuelan Studies Section. He is the author of Comparative Politics of Latin America: Democracy at Last? and a co-editor of Venezuelan Politics in the ChÁvez Era: Class, Polarization, and Conflict.

“Taken together, these chapters make a number of important observations…. The book’s main contribution is therefore to highlight some of the tensions that exist within contemporary Venezuelan democracy, and to show the diverse ways in which citizen participation expresses itself. The strength of the book is that it shows that serious empirical research on Venezuela is being undertaken.” - Oliver Heath, Journal of Latin American Studies “[T]he authors of this volume provide rich material that sheds light on the novelty of the strategies pursued by Chavista leaders and the knotty issues brought to the fore by their initiatives.” - Steve Ellner, Latin American Politics and Society “Venezuela’s Bolivarian Democracy makes it clear that, while transforming the political landscape, the ChÁvez era also embodies important continuities with the country’s recent past. The serious problems that the country faces and the social movements that support ChÁvez did not emerge overnight; they are rooted in the inequities of the oil economy that took hold during the twentieth century. This book is a must read for anybody trying to make sense of the ongoing process of change that is remaking Venezuela.”-Miguel Tinker Salas, author of The Enduring Legacy: Oil, Culture, and Society in Venezuela “This book evaluates Hugo ChÁvez’s Venezuela with a clear eye. Through nuanced attention to new empirical research in a rapidly changing context-who speaks, what people believe, who decides, and how power works-it offers a framework for analyzing the intertwined democratic and nondemocratic aspects of politics as it is practiced and lived. This multisited approach-looking from neighborhoods to media, activists to government institutions-could be applied with equal success to the postrevolutionary regimes of CÁrdenas or Castro, the populist governments of Vargas or PerÓn, and the liberal democracies of the present.”-Jeffrey W. Rubin, Boston University “Taken together, these chapters make a number of important observations…. The book’s main contribution is therefore to highlight some of the tensions that exist within contemporary Venezuelan democracy, and to show the diverse ways in which citizen participation expresses itself. The strength of the book is that it shows that serious empirical research on Venezuela is being undertaken.” - Oliver Heath (Journal of Latin American Studies)

• Foreword: Venezuela's Bolivarian Democracy / Julia Buxton ixIntroduction: Participation, Politics, and Culture—Emerging Fragments of Venezuela's Bolivarian Democracy / David Smilde 11. Defying the Iron Law of Oligarchy I: How Does "El Pueblo" Conceive of Democracy? / Daniel Hellinger 282. Participatory Democracy in Venezuela: Origins, Ideas, and Implementation / Margarita López Maya and Luis E. Lander 583. Urban Land Committees: Co-operation, Autonomy, and Protagonism / María Pilar García-Guadilla 804. Catia Sees You: Community Television, Clientelism, and the State in the Chávez Era / Naomi Schiller 1055. Radio Bemba in an Age of Electronic Media: The Dynamics of Popular Communication in Chávez's Venezuela / Sujatha Fernandes 1336. "We Are Still Rebels": The Challenge of Popular History in Bolivarian Venezuela / Alejandro Velasco 1597. The Misiones of the Chávez Government / Kirk A. Hawkins, Guillermo Rosas, and Michael E. Johnson 1888. Defying the Iron Law of Oligarchy II: Debating Democracy Online in Venezuela / Daniel Hellinger 2219. Venezuela's Telenovela: Polarization and Political Discourse in Cosita Rica / Carolina Acosta-Alzuru 24610. The Color of Mobs: Racial Politics, Ethnopopulism, and Representation in the Chávez Era / Luis Duno Gottberg 27311. Taking Possession of Public Discourse: Women and the Practice of Political Poetry in Venezuela / Elizabeth Gackstetter Nichols 30012. Christianity and Politics in Venezuela's Bolivarian Democracy: Catholics, Evangelicals, and Political Polarization / David Smilde and Coraly Pagan 317Afterword: Chavismo and Venezuelan Democracy in a New Decade / Daniel Hellinger 342References 345Index