Venezuela: Crisis, Change and Consequences

The Institute for Latin American Studies at Columbia University has dropped three videos from its webinar series on Venezuela (there are apparently three more in the works). Above you will find the video of the last of them in which I participated with Victoria Murillo and Roberto Patiño, with the moderation of Brian Winter. In her comments, Vicky discussed how unusual this U.S. intervention was: the first in South America, the first to leave a regime intact; and caste some pessimism from the literature. Petrostates have a hard time democratizing since they provide resources to authoritarian leaders. And, the transitions literature led by O’Donnell and Schmitter suggests you need a moderate opposition to negotiate a transition, yet the current leader María Corina Machado is a radical. Nevertheless, she points to the uncertainty of all transitions, which points to the importance of agency and leadership.

I followed with an overview of all three of the main actors in this drama and continued the skepticism regarding whether they are interested or have what it takes to push forward a transition to democracy. Chavismo has their economic, political and security interests at stake in continuation of the authoritarian regime. The Trump administration has Venezuela as one of its few successes and is unlikely to want to upset that with an electoral process anytime soon. María Corina Machado has not altered her leadership in any substantive way and will likely continue to be marginalized.

Roberto Patiño pointed out another complication in that, if Marco Rubio is a candidate for president in 2028, he will likely have to step aside as secretary of state. He pointed out that if there is not progress in terms of elections, the Venezuelan opposition will have to take to the streets.

This was preceded by a stellar panel on violence and security with my collaborators Rebecca Hanson and Verónica Zubillaga. Becca spoke about the pluralization of violent actors in recent years. Verónica talked about various community strategies for deal with violence. Elizabeth Dickinson of the Crisis Group talked about the curious fact that none of the armed actors active in Venezuela have acted out with this transition. She speculates that this is because their motivations are more economic than political.

Tiziano Breda of the Armed Conflict Location and Event Data initiative showed hard data revealing the decline in violence and the decline in armed groups in recent years in the face of increased government crackdown. This confirms what many have been saying in recent years: that the government’s violent anticrime initiatives have led armed actors to band together into larger collectives that end up with a monopoly of violence in larger spaces with a net decrease in violence as markets are no longer contested to the same degree.

The first webinar looks at the historical development of this conflict with the always illuminating Margarita López Maya and Dorothy Kronick. Margarita talked about the history of U.S.-Venezuela relations, Dorothy about the more immediate history of the 2024 elections. Caitlin Andrews Lee described how the charismatic leadership that Hugo Chávez developed turned into repressive authoritarianism under the decidedly un-charismatic Nicolás Maduro. Michael Shifter casted doubt on any illusions that the Trump administration had democracy on its mind suggesting Trump is motivated by power, money and stability and seems to see democracy as a messy distraction.