Roberts 2003

Roberts, Kenneth M. 2003. "Social Correlates of Party System Demise and Populist Resurgence in Venezuela". Latin American Politics and Society. 45 (3): 35-57.

• Peru’s attempt at populism in 1980s ended in inflationary spiral and political upheaval (35)
• many assumed populism was now dead, thanks in part to to Washington Consensus (35-36)
• Rise of Washington consensus undermined the party and labor institutions that had been the left in LA (36)
• void left after these parties collapsed was filled by personalistic leaders who cultivated direct relationship with the masses
• appears to be a dialectical relationship between the demise of traditional representative institutions and the eruption of new forms of populism
• Chávez was a master of the politics of antipolitics
• he capitalized on and deepened public antipathy toward established institutions
• Populism asirse most forcefully during times of political and economic crisis, when established patterns of representation are breaking down and have yet to be replaced with new ones (37)
• first period in the 1920s
• another period in the 1980s
• BUT, given Venezuela’s strong institutions, no one would have guessed they would crumble and be replaced by populism (38)
• these were founded on a mix of corporatist and clientelistic linkages that could not withstand the decline of the oil economy and several attempts at market liberalization (38-39)
• then successive administrations by each dominant party failed to fix the economy (39)
• Dominant theories provide no reason why Venezuela’s system would collapse (41)
• institutionalism, structuralism, rational choice, and political culture
• all focused on two critical variables, design of political institutions and oil money
• BUT Coppedge (1990) argues that over-institutionalization can be just as problematic as under-institutionalization
• Cartelization and bureaucratic routinization made the AD overly rigid, restricted its ability to adopt economic reforms (Levitsky 2001 and Corrales 2000) (42)
• along the lines of Crisp (2000) parties became frozen in status quo, allowing them to control policymaking and keep new groups out of politics and new issues off the agenda
• undependable oil revenues eventually left parties unable to fund their clientelistic relations (structural approach)
• political culture: oil created rentier mentality, people supported democracy only as long as the money flowed...when money stopped, no one cared for democracy (Romero 1997)
• Venezuela’s parties were more bureaucratic, but they did not differ significantly from other LA countries in their societal bonds (43)
• their bonds were made through ISI, and were strained by the 1980s (43-44)
• Venezuela’s system was set up more along corporatist lines, to complement clientelism (44)
• in 1980s Venezuela avoided hyperinflation because labor tempered its demands thanks to connections between unions and parties (45)
• Economic and political trauma worse in countries with labor based parties, as old forms of representation totally erode
• to replace corporatist linkages, many parties had to form larger networks of more contingent clientelism (46)
• VENEZUELAN CASE
• post-1958 party system had corporatism and clientelism (46-47)
• everyone participated in distribution of oil rents, capitalists, campesinos, middle-class, workers (48)
• by 1970 two dominant parties were almost indistinguishable from each other
• plunging oil prices in the 1980s emasculated campesino and unions, and new independent union movement stripped out more voters from corporatist system (48-49)
• neoliberal reforms in 1989 generate violent backlash, military repressed riots (49)
• organized labor lost its ability to channel opposition to neoliberal reforms because they stayed too close to party (49-50)
• Venezuela’s parties were unable to maintain balance of: distributing enough payouts to reproduce collective identities, but not so much as to harm macroeconomic health (50)
• parties continuing use of patronage in hard times increased their delegitimization (51)
• Prolonged economic crisis + social change = erosion of corporatist and clientelist linkages
• both parties lost legitimacy since neither were able to fix the problem (52, 53)
• Chávez replaced party-based mediation between state and society with direct, personalistic relationship between president and masses