Julia Buxton

• Central European University

The aims and outcomes of the Bolivarian Revolution in Venezuela are fiercely contested. A sympathetic view sees the possibility of Left revolutionary transformation as destabilised by aggressive US and domestic opposition actions. Detractors trace an authoritarian path from President Hugo Chávez’s election in 1998 to an inevitable socialist implosi...

Just another brief piece on Venezuela and the on going limitations of the opposition movement / Guaido in NACLA

Fissures between the ruling Partido Socialista Unido de Venezuela (PSUV) and its grassroots base widened amid disaffection with the dismal economic performance of President Nicolás Maduro's government and the trend of militarization in his administration. Economic crisis and chronic insecurity accelerated migration. Opposition strategies of violent...

Jill Hedges, Evita: The Life of Eva Perón (London and New York: I.B. Tauris, 2017), pp. xiii + 256, £20.00; $30.00 hb. - Volume 50 Issue 2 - JULIA BUXTON

Following an overview of social protection policies in Latin America, this chapter considers the specific case of Venezuela with a focus on the presidency of Hugo Chávez (1998–2013). After analysing the ideological, political and economic drivers of the social protection system introduced by the government, the chapter highlights continuity with a...

Key Points • Recent years have seen a dramatic growth in the sale of a variety of illicit substances on Dark Net drug markets, with on line sales projected to increase exponentially due to expanding internet availability, evolving technologies and the profusion of social media. • This new form of retail market poses a major challenge to not only la...

The 2008 presidential campaign in the United States raised expectations that the election of the Democratic Party candidate Barack Obama would lead to substantive change in the direction and execution of U.S. foreign policy. This has proved not to be the case. In relation to Obama’s Latin American policy, it is possible to speak of an entrenchment...

This chapter focuses on the “progressive” European perspectives of Hugo Chávez and his Bolivarian revolution. It studies the two stages of progressive alignment with the Bolivarian process, the first commencing with the failed coup attempt of April 2002, and the second dating roughly from the recall referendum of 2004. Venezuela exemplifies an inte...

This article explores the opposition to the UN Stabilization Mission in Haiti (MINUSTAH) articulated by the government of Venezuelan President Hugo Chávez Frias and the broader Bolivarian critique of militarized intervention and the liberal peacebuilding agenda. It argues that the structural drivers of South and Central America's embrace of peace o...

Venezuela has produced the most well-known and controversial neoliberal alternative in South America. Not since the Cuban revolution of 1959 has the tenets of the hemisphere’s political economy been so fundamentally challenged as under Hugo Chávez’s Bolivarian Revolution. Bolivarianism is a repudiation of the free trade, free market principles, and...

This paper outlines the institutional history of the international narcotic drug control regime. It details the evolution of the control system, from its foundations at the beginning of the twentieth century - a period of mass, unregulated narcotic drug use - to the current period. The paper argues that the contemporary control model is ill-positio...

No Democratization and its editors have played a valuable role in addressing and analysing the rise of democracy promotion.1 More recently, broader attention has focused on the challenges facing, and the limitations of, the activities that are undertaken by governments and non-governmental organizations with the aim of spreading and upholding democ...

No This scholarly examination of the worldwide web of narcotics today provides students, social workers, health providers, law enforcement officers and policy makers with an up-to-date, overall exploration of the world of drugs. Vast resources are pumped into the 'war on drugs'. But in practice, prohibition has failed. Narcotics use continues to ri...

Venezuela is not a country that is typically associated with political violence. The upheavals encountered during the development process in other Latin American countries largely bypassed Venezuela. The violence associated with the emergence of mass party politics in the 1920s and 1930s in countries such as Mexico and Argentina had only a muted ec...

Since the election of Hugo Chávez Frías to the Venezuelan presidency in 1998 on a platform of ‘revolutionary’ change, the country has been wracked by political turmoil and violence between pro- and anti-government groups. While the political crisis has been reported and portrayed as a new phenomenon that has emerged as a result of Chávez's policy p...

It's an oil producer of some note and Washington is pursuing a policy of regime change, but the troubles of Venezuela have gone largely unnoticed. Constitutional procedures to remove the president lumber on but are unlikely to produce domestic peace and stability. There is a risk it could become a failed state.

No The victory of former lieutenant colonel Hugo Chavez in the Venezuelan presidential elections of 1998 was criticized as a blow against the country's deep-seated democratic tradition. It is claimed that this simplistic argument fails to recognize the extent of democratic deterioration in the country and the limitations imposed by discredited poli...

Following a pacted transition to democracy in 1958, Venezuela was viewed as a bedrock of democratic stability in Latin America. High rates of political participation and extensive partisan alignment underlined enduring support for the two dominant parties. Sustained economic growth was enjoyed in the 1960s. But a boom in Venezuela's oil economy in...

A trip to the market: the impact of neoliberalism in Latin America -- Institutions and democratic consolidation in Latin America -- Electoral and party politics -- Global and regional linkages -- The military in Latin America: defining the road ahead -- Guerrilla movements -- NGOs and the retreat of the state: the hidden dangers -- The human rights...

The paper examines the terms populism and neopopulism in political science and the applicability of their use in the context of Venezuelan politics. It is argued that the recently elected government of Hugo Chávez can be termed populist and further to this, that this denotes continuity with the characteristics of the regime that he has replaced. Th...

No Since the election of Hugo Chávez Frías to the Venezuelan presidency in 1998 on a platform of ‘revolutionary’ change, the country has been wracked by political turmoil and violence between pro- and anti-government groups. While the political crisis has been reported and portrayed as a new phenomenon that has emerged as a result of Chávez's polic...

Analysis of a diverse range of Latin American countries in a period of intensive political and economic change. Moving beyond historical narratives, the volume explores the application and impact of free market policies, examining the factors which influenced or inhibited their adoption in the 1980s and 1990s