Political Science

Reevaluating the Chávez Regime: Participatory Democracy or Rentier Populism?

Document Type

Article

Abstract

This analysis evaluates the Chávez regime by its own standard for democracy and citizenship, what it referred to as protagonistic, participatory democracy. Rather than committing itself to the realisation of this project, and the expanded notion of citizenship that it entailed, the Chávez regime employed the rhetoric of participatory democracy in the service of populist rule. As a result, it failed to promote the participatory form of democracy and citizenship promised in Twenty-first Century Socialism. Accordingly, this analysis demonstrates how the concentration of top-down, executive power characteristic of rentier populism impedes the egalitarian and solidaristic mission of participatory democracy.

Publication Title

Bulletin of Latin American Research

Publication Date

4-2021

Volume

40

Issue

2

First Page

299

Last Page

315

ISSN

0261-3050

DOI

10.1111/blar.13136

Keywords

commnal councils, leftism, missions, paticipatory democracy, personalist party linkage, rentier populism

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