Chavismo
[6][7] According to political scientist John Magdaleno, the proportion of Venezuelans who define themselves as Chavistas declined from 44% to around 22% between October 2012 and December 2014, after the death of Hugo Chávez and the deterioration of the economy during Nicolás Maduro's tenure.
[8] In February 2014, a poll conducted by International Consulting Services, an organization created by Juan Vicente Scorza, a sociologist and anthropologist for the National Experimental University of the Armed Forces,[9] found that 62% of Venezuelans consider themselves supporters or followers of the ideals of Chávez.
[12] In a 2017 interview, after being asked if he would take Venezuela's failing economy as an admission that socialism "wrecked people's lives", philosopher Noam Chomsky said: "I never described Chavez's state capitalist government as 'socialist' or even hinted at such an absurdity.
[20] Critics further argue that the government's “winner-takes-all” approach to political power enabled systemic cronyism and repression, stifling opposition through media censorship, judicial control, and the persecution of dissenters.
[26] This concentration of power and suppression of dissent intensified under Chávez's handpicked successor, Nicolás Maduro, who has been described as taking Chavismo in an increasingly authoritarian direction.
In addition to political repression, critics argue that Chavismo's economic policies and the resulting crises have precipitated one of the worst humanitarian emergencies in Latin American history.
[17] A mass migration crisis has seen over six million people leave the country, just over a fourth of the total population, seeking stability and opportunity elsewhere such as Colombia or the United States.
[30] It has been argued that this crisis is rooted in the economic mismanagement and corruption of both Chávez and Maduro's administrations, which neglected to develop industries outside of oil and failed to create a resilient economy.
[17] Chavez has been criticized for creating an economic and political system that ultimately failed to achieve its stated goals of social equality and democratic empowerment.
Politically, Chavismo is accused of eroding democratic institutions and fostering a culture of authoritarianism, with the judiciary, media, and military aligned with the ruling party.
[32] Scholars in this camp adhered to a classical liberal ideology that valued procedural democracy (competitive elections, widespread participation defined primarily in terms of voting and civil liberties) as the political means best suited to achieving human welfare.
The most relevant aspects of the liberal critique of Chavismo are the following: Scholars in this camp generally adhered to a classical socialist ideology that mistrusted market institutions in either the state or the economy.
Radical scholars argue that democracy can only become effective if it is deepened—and they feel that Chavismo is doing this deepening, which requires not only the greater inclusion of poor and excluded sectors in decision making but their remaking into a new "popular" identity that facilitates their autonomy and dignity.
For some of these scholars, deepening also means the adoption of a socialist economy and some argue it requires taking power through charismatic leadership, which would have enough political support to conduct structural reforms (pages 313–319).
[33][34][35][36] In The Weekly Standard in 2005, Thor Halvorssen Mendoza described the core of Chavismo as a "far-reaching foreign policy that aims to establish a loosely aligned federation of revolutionary republics as a resistance bloc in the Americas".
[39] El Universal reported that Brazilian President Luiz Inácio Lula da Silva kept distance from Chavismo, saying that Brazil is not Venezuela and has traditional institutions.
Over the last couple of years, a number of social scientists have done field work in urban barrios, and their findings confirm that this synergy between the central government and participatory local organizations has expanded, not restricted, debate and that democracy is thriving in Venezuela.
This is in sharp contrast to Costa Rica, where a few months ago its Supreme Court, with the support of its executive branch, prohibited public universities from not just opposing but even debating the Central American Free Trade Agreement, which soon won a national referendum by a razor-thin margin.
