Venezuela in Crisis: A Backgrounder

Abstract

This essay provides a rigorous but readable background for one of the most pressing geopolitical issues in twenty-first century Latin America ‒ the humanitarian crisis in Venezuela under President Nicolás Maduro of the United Socialist Party of Venezuela (PSUV). To this end, this essay analyzes and connects three distinct political phenomena in Venezuelan history whose interrelated development explains the country’s current instability: Puntofijismo (1958-1998), Chavismo (1998-2013), and Madurismo (2013-present). It first describes the collapse of Puntofijismo, Venezuela’s pacted democracy and oil-dependent petro-state to contextualize the rise of Hugo Chávez’s political project in 1990, Bolivarianism. The paper then considers how Chávez’s regime continued and ruptured with Puntofijismo through clientelism, exclusionary politics, and the creation of an illiberal hybrid regime. Based off of these foundations, the essay situates the current student protests, military repression, and humanitarian crisis under President Maduro. Using both English and Spanish-language source material, this paper lays bare the current complex reality that is Venezuela.