Ambassador Alvarez of Venezuela

The Venezuelan Ambassador to the US, Bernardo Alvarez, came to speak to the UMD School of Public Policy yesterday at my invitation. He spoke about the situation in Venezuela, the media representation (70% of the domestic media is owned and operated by the opposition), participatory democracy, and the willingness to engage with the US on serious policy problems. I'm developing a program between Venezuela and the university that will be centered on a more robust discussion of concrete policy issues and new theoretical approaches that will extend across the currently tense political lines.

Now, I'm wary of the politics involved here. They play out in a few ways. First, an ambassador is an international representative of the existing government. He/she cannot make major policy statements that go beyond the government's own positions. Alvarez, however, I find to be an exceptionally talented and critical representative when criticism of the country is warranted and helpful.

I think we're now going to see something very important happen in Venezuela. A number of elements converge at the same time post-election.

First, Manuel Rosales, the opposition candidate, was magnanimous in his concession. There was pressure from the right in Venezuela to contest the election as unfair as a strategy of destabilizing the government and de-legitimizing the elections. But the government was extremely careful for this election. The pre-election polls sponsored by the government were transparent and accurate, the voting was fair with a huge turnout, and the international monitoring was intense. This was an election with far fewer problems than the last several elections in the US. Rosales, I hear, not only conceded the election gracefully, but also vowed to continue to build a serious opposition party in Venezuela and engage the government democratically. This is a hugely positive sign. It is also positive that Rosales' campaign acknowledged many of the chavista concerns about the country.

And the chavistas? My contacts within the Venezuelan government say this is excellent news. They desire a strong, democratic opposition, knowing full well what a one-party system of government entails for a robust democracy, whatever the party. Now, one might take one of the old opposition lines and say that the Chávez government only wants the appearance of a multi-party government for the sake of its own legitimacy. I think we have to keep this in mind. All I can say from what I know is that I believe the sentiment from the chavistas to be genuine. For one thing, they are extremely interested in participatory and deliberative forms of democracy. Deliberative democracy is feeble if there are no conflicting, alternative ideas. They know they face huge problems, and they know these problems can only be overcome through a fuller participation of all segments of society.

Second, then, I think the chavistas understand that Chávez's charisma and the government's populism only go so far. Yes, this is what has maintained the chavistas in power. As always, we ought to be skeptical about populist politics, at home and abroad. Yet, given the serious problems Venezuela faces, and now that the election is over, the chavistas know that populism alone doesn't create good policy. Chávez uses the rhetoric of "accelerating the Bolivarian revolution" - an avatar of chavista populism. But note below what this has meant thus far for those of you who worry about orthodox notions of economic growth and investment. Further, I think this is actually going to entail a more coherent and concrete approach to policy analysis and problem-solving for Venezuela and, by extension, other poor, developing nations. The chavistas are seeking good ideas that fit the particular circumstances of Venezuela, and they are not holding onto either older notions of neoliberal economic development nor older ideas about communist revolution. Those options have been basically eliminated through a rather pragmatic approach to what works and what doesn't in the context of actual problems faced. What remains of "revolution" is largely the sense that poorer countries' domestic affairs ought not to be determined entirely by foreign governments and organizations. We're talking about people seeking some new way of articulating a democratic politics of decency and autonomy for the future. They need advice and assistance, theoretically and in terms of concrete policy. But there is also a lot to learn for "developed" countries from the Venezuelan process.

This will require critical monitoring on the part of those of us who find recent Latin American developments fascinating. The risk remains, of course, that Chávez becomes another in a long line of populist dictatorial leaders, that corruption continues to run rampant, and that domestic issues such as the high crime-rate in Venezuela remain unresolved. But I honestly do not believe that total power is what the chavistas are after. And the possibilities for finally pulling Latin American countries out of debt and building governments that reflect the interests and needs of all the members of their societies are quite promising.

UPDATE:

My colleague, Peter Levine, was also at the talk. He took more interesting notes than I did. Please see his post here. One point of criticism from Peter is this:

However, I left the speech more suspicious than ever that Chávez represents a false populism that equates "the people" with the party, that disparages pluralism, and that blames the media and elites for all criticism. So far, charisma and oil revenues have kept the government popular, but what happens next?

I agree with the suspicion and, unfortunately, we didn't have the time to address this issue during the question/answer session. It is, put differently, a question I wanted to raise.

Some comments on part of this from me:

There are a few ways we can take the identification of "the people" with the Chávez government. Knowing many of these folks, I tend to think they basically mean that, for once, the majority of people (the poor), long excluded from Venezuelan politics, have brought this government to power. This identification becomes ambiguous and dangerous, however, when it is equated with the figure of Chávez.

For instance, when I was in Caracas, I visited one of the poorest and most violent neighborhoods to see their community projects and talk to locals. The community projects are impressive and constructed in such a way that they are designed to wean themselves from government support through providing healthcare, education, and skills. Many of them have small factories run by the community - very basic, like making t-shirts and shoes. The factories start with government funding, but the structure is set up so that training includes operating and maintaining equipment, providing basic skills for the poor and unemployed, training others in creating business plans and managing companies, and meeting periodic production quotas set by the community with the advice of the government. The quotas are designed to turn the factories into autonomous profit-making enterprises.

But.. I'm straying from my point. The point is that I also spoke with three women who operated a soup kitchen out of their tiny home. They distributed free food to the extremely poor and received government funding to do so. I was talking with one of the women in particular. She told me - referring to the government program to send blind Venezuelans to Cuba for laser eye surgery - that one of her relatives was blind and went to Cuba for the surgery. The relative returned home able to see again. I forget her exact words, but it was something to the extent of "Chávez took my dear blind relative and miraculously gave him sight again!" I looked at the portrait of Jesus with palms open prominently displayed on the stained wall....

This stunned me. And, I think, the chavistas have allowed this kind of trinity-like identification to develop between Chávez, the poor, and Jesus Christ. This is where the greatest danger lies, I think, for the chavista project becoming a kind of religion built around a charismatic leader. I see traces of the same sentiment also among those who should know better. And it's where Peter's suspicion is right on, I think.

As for pluralism and the critique of the media, the context is different than in the US although we deal with the same issue of the fact and representation of pluralism and the same knee-jerk criticism of the media from all political corners. All I can say here is that it is indeed the case in Venezuela that the media is 70%-owned by the opposition. The "unelected" opposition media has been at the core of disrupting elections and calling for boycotts. And the language used against Chávez is worse than Chávez calling Bush "the devil." The Chávez government has not shut down these media outlets, so claims from the right in the US that Chávez caps free speech - to the extent we mean a free media here - are patently false.

The issue of pluralism is tricky. For a long time, the country has been run by elites mostly from a European background. Chávez is a mestizo, and in the figure of Chávez in this sense, the majority of the people - mestizos themselves - find a kind of identity of themselves. There are two sides to this coin: first, it has meant that the poor have felt empowered (as Chávez has told them, "you are real citizens too; you have real power too; you have real dignity"); second, it opens the door to the image of Chávez as a savior, an image of which Chávez does not seem interested in disabusing the public.