Abstract

LOPEZ MAYA, Margarita. Venezuela: Hugo Chávez and Bolivarianism. Revista Venezolana de Economía y Ciencias Sociales [online]. 2008, vol.14, n.3, pp.55-82. ISSN 20030507.

This article attempts to characterize the current Venezuelan government by responding to the following questions: a) What sort of Left-wing is it? b) Why did it achieve power and has been able to preserve it during ten years? c) What are the basic features of its proposal for society? d) What is its conception of international affairs and its foreign policy e) In what direction will the Bolivarian movement develop after the rejection of its proposed Constitutional Reform? The author concludes arguing that there has been little structural change in the economy. The Bolivarian revolution appears to have revived once again the so-called Magical State which during most of the twentieth century held out the promise of modernization while depending on the oil rent and failing to create a solid national basis for it.

Keywords : Venezuela; Chávez; Bolivarian Project; Left; Modernization; Foreign Policy; Constitutional Reform.