Democratization

ISSN: 1351-0347 (Print) 1743-890X (Online) Journal homepage: http://www.tandfonline.com/loi/fdem20

Hugo Chávez and the diffusion of Bolivarianism

Carlos de la Torre

To cite this article: Carlos de la Torre (2017): Hugo Chávez and the diffusion of Bolivarianism,
Democratization, DOI: 10.1080/13510347.2017.1307825

To link to this article: http://dx.doi.org/10.1080/13510347.2017.1307825

Published online: 10 Apr 2017.

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DEMOCRATIZATION, 2017
http://dx.doi.org/10.1080/13510347.2017.1307825

Hugo Chávez and the diffusion of Bolivarianism

Carlos de la Torre
Sociology, University of Kentucky, Lexington, USA

ABSTRACT
This article analyses the mechanisms of influence, learning, and emulation used by
Hugo Chávez to diffuse Bolivarianism across Latin America and the world. Different
from autocratic types of diffusion that are instrumental and motivated by self-
preservation, Chávez promoted what he depicted as a superior model of democracy
and a populist strategy of political transformation using constitution making, heavy
state intervention in the economy, and anti-imperialism. Even though Chávez
promoted his script for regime change across Latin America and the Caribbean, his
model was emulated only when opportunities opened up in nations such as Bolivia
and Ecuador that experienced crises of political parties and the institutional
framework of democracy. Bolivarianism was not emulated in nations where political
parties and democratic institutions remained functioning, and where the left and
civil society valued democracy, pluralism, and liberal rights due to brutal autocratic
experiences. Despite its democratizing promises Bolivarianism did not lead to the
radicalization of democracy but to its erosion and its displacement towards
authoritarianism. The fear of Bolivarianism also led to a coup against president
Zelaya in Honduras. Bolivarian strategies of populist rupture crossed the Atlantic and
were adapted by PODEMOS that became the third largest political party in Spain.

ARTICLE HISTORY Received 5 November 2016; Accepted 11 February 2017

KEYWORDS Bolivarianism; populism; authoritarianism; diffusion; learning; emulation; influence

This article analyses the mechanisms of influence, learning, and emulation used by
Hugo Chávez to diffuse Bolivarianism across Latin America and the world. Chávez dif-
fered significantly from Vladimir Putin’s pragmatic, interest-driven approach.1 Con-
trary to Putin’s predominantly defensive posture, the Venezuelan leader energetically
pursued a mission. He promoted what he considered to be a superior model of democ-
racy, an alternative to neoliberalism, and a successful strategy of regime transformation.
Unusually for the post-Cold War era, Chávez thus acted out of ideological goals. Con-
sequently, he confidently tried to spread his recipe and proactively built a web of
cooperation and diffusion that extended throughout and beyond his own region – all
in line with the arguments advanced in the introductory essay.
Chávez’s script involved convening a constitutional assembly to revamp all existing
institutions; promoting participatory models of democracy; replacing neoliberalism
with statist, nationalist, and redistributive economic policies; and building institutions
of Latin American integration free from US influences. Despite these progressive claims,

CONTACT Carlos de la Torre c.delatorre@uky.edu

© 2017 Informa UK Limited, trading as Taylor & Francis Group
2 C. DE LA TORRE

however, Chávez’s strategy entailed the concentration of power and the suffocation of
democracy from the inside. Accordingly, his missionary zeal led to the spread of com-
petitive authoritarian rule.
Chávez was successful in promoting his strategy because he spoke to leftist audiences
by innovating on the old utopias of socialism and revolution. Instead of the nationaliza-
tion of all the means of production, his model of Socialism of the Twenty First Century
combined state, private, and communal forms of property. His strategy of revolutionary
transformation did not use armed struggle, but democratic mechanisms such as elec-
tions and constitution making. He built on populist discourse and strategies to rep-
resent national and international politics as Manichaean struggles between two
antagonistic camps: neoliberalism vs. Socialism of the Twenty First Century; bour-
geois-liberal democracy against participatory real democracy; and US led Pan-Ameri-
canism vs. Latin Americanism free from US imperialism.
Building on Seva Gunitsky’s work, this article identifies the incentives and opportu-
nities that led to the diffusion of Bolivarianism.2 Gunitsky analyses three mechanisms of
influence, namely coercion, economic support, and the lessons of success (“soft
power”). Venezuela is not a major hegemonic power so Chávez could not use coercion
to export his regime. Yet the dramatic increase in the price of oil at the beginning of this
century gave Chávez the resources to increase his influence by expanding networks of
patronage and trade. He sponsored presidential candidates and political parties in Latin
America and Spain, financed Bolivarian social movements, used petro-diplomacy by
creating Petro-Caribe and Petro-Sur and, with Fidel Castro, formed the Bolivarian Alli-
ance for the Americas (ALBA) as a counter-project to US dominated neoliberal trade
initiatives.
Moreover, as Gunitsky stresses, success is contagious.3 Leftist leaders and parties
learned from and emulated some of Chávez’s policies that were successful in rapidly dis-
placing established political parties. They emulated his script of convening consti-
tutional assemblies to create new constitutions that expanded rights while
concentrating power in the executive, and his use of the state to control economy,
the media, and civil society.
Yet despite Chávez’s efforts to export his Bolivarian revolution, it did not rapidly
spread all over Latin America. As Kurt Weyland shows, the increasing complexity
and growth of organizations reduced the influence of dramatic foreign events. Actors
based their decisions on political opportunities caused by “domestic developments
and conjunctures”.4 The opportunity to emulate Chávez came with profound crises
of political parties and the institutional framework of democracy in Bolivia and
Ecuador. Yet where political parties and democratic institutions remained relatively
strong and functioning, emulation did not occur.
Chávez’s Bolivarian revolution was one of several models of leftist transformation.
Bolivarianism was adopted only in nations where the left and civil society had not suf-
fered from repressive dictatorships, which led to reconsiderations of the intrinsic worth
of pluralism and liberal democracy.5 Venezuela, Ecuador, and Bolivia had not experi-
enced bureaucratic authoritarian regimes. Venezuela had a party democracy that
became deeply discredited, military rule in Ecuador was mild and reformist, and
Bolivia underwent brutal episodes of repression, but nothing like the systematic
attacks against the left and human rights that occurred in the Southern Cone or
under Fujimori in Peru. Therefore, differently from the left in Uruguay, Chile, Brazil,
Peru, and to an extent Argentina, many sectors of the Bolivian and Ecuadorean left
 DEMOCRATIZATION 3

did not undergo internal democratization and continued to dream about the socialist
revolution. Chávez gave them a playbook to confront the neoliberal political establish-
ment and establish a new type of regime.
This article is divided in six sections. After describing Chávez’s mission to spread
Bolivarianism, I analyse how Chávez used his economic influence to promote his
regime type by spreading networks of patronage and trade. Then I examine how Evo
Morales and Rafael Correa learned from and emulated Chávez’s script of regime
change. The subsequent section focuses on the domestic constellations of power,
especially the strength of parties and the institutions of democracy, and on whether
the left revalued democracy and human rights. These factors explain why Bolivarianism
was emulated in Bolivia and Ecuador, but not in Argentina and Peru. Then I analyse
how the spectre of a Bolivarian revolution led politicians and the army to make a
coup d’état in Honduras in 2009. Finally, I examine how Chávez’s use of influence
and the example of rapid regime transformation in the Andes crossed the Atlantic
and led to the diffusion of Bolivarianism in Spain with the creation of PODEMOS.
This party challenged the two party system and became the third electoral force.

Chávez’s mission to promote Bolivarianism

Chávez had a sense of mission to liberate his country and Latin America from US
imperialism and the elites that serve its interests.6 His ideology and project of Bolivar-
ianism were built on leftist and nationalist portrayals of Simón Bolívar as an anti-
imperialist hero. Accordingly, he promised to follow in the liberator’s footsteps and
promote the second independence of Latin America. His Bolivarian Revolution was
conceived as a project of democratic transformation based on the rejection of neoliberal
policies, of the surrendering of national sovereignty to US controlled organizations like
the IMF, and of the appropriation of democracy by foreign oriented elites.
Chávez’s government abandoned neoliberal policies, increased direct subsidies for
the poor, and created new social programmes named “missions to save the people”
that provided health care, educational services and scholarships, food stuffs, and
other social benefits. These programmes, funded with extraordinary windfall profits
from oil, reduced poverty from 55.4% in 2002 to 28.5% in 2009.7 Yet these programmes
that rapidly targeted the poor and boosted Chávez’s popularity had major flows in
design, depended on the high price of oil, and were unsustainable overall.8
Inspired by the work of radical thinkers like Antonio Negri, whose book Constituent
Power Chávez claimed to have read over and over again, he invoked the constituent
power of the people to re-found his nation.9 Chávez was elected with the promise to
convene a constitutional assembly that with the participation of social movements
and common citizens was tasked to draft a new charter. The Venezuelan constitution
of 1999 expanded citizens’ rights but simultaneously concentrated power in the
executive.
To displace old political elites, his strategy was to defeat them in elections. Venezue-
lans voted in 16 elections between 1999 and 2012.10 Chávez used populist discourse and
attacked rivals as enemies of the people and the homeland, while transforming elections
into plebiscites on his persona – the embodiment of the revolutionary future, pitted
against the defenders of the old regime.
To secure his hold on power he used his formal legal authority in discretionary
ways.11 He packed the courts and all institutions of accountability with loyal followers.
4 C. DE LA TORRE

In 2004, Chávez put the highest judicial authority, the Supreme Tribunal of Justice, in
the hands of loyal judges. By 2006, hundreds of lower court judges were fired and
replaced by unconditional supporters.12 His government created new laws to regulate
the market, control civil society, reform the educational system, and colonize the
public sphere.
Control of the media was at the centre of his struggle for hegemony.13 Chávez’s gov-
ernment regulated the content of what the media could publish, and took away radio
and television frequencies from critics. The state became the main communicator con-
trolling 64% of television channels.14 In a nation without a tradition of public media,
they became tools in the hand of the government. Chávez used and abused mandatory
broadcasts that all media venues were forced to air, and created his own TV show, Aló
Presidente. Every Sunday he addressed the nation for 4–6 hours. He set the informa-
tional agenda as he announced major policies in a TV show where he also sang
popular tunes and talked about his personal life and dreams. Chávez became an
ever-present figure in the daily life of Venezuelans. He was always on the radio and
on television, billboards with his image adorned cities and highways, and Venezuelans
became polarized by deepening divisions between his loyal followers and his enemies.
Democracy was strangled and undermined from within, and Venezuela became a
competitive authoritarian regime. Even though the moments of voting were clean, elec-
tions took place in tilted electoral fields that overwhelmingly and systematically
favoured the incumbent.15 Chávez attributed to his Bolivarian revolution Latin Amer-
ican and even worldwide significance. Using petro-diplomacy and the sheer power of
the example of his charisma, Chávez embarked on a mission.

Chávez’s mechanisms of influence

Venezuela’s Economic Development Plan of 2001–2007 indicated that foreign policy
would seek to promote participative and protagonist democracy worldwide, and to
create a multipolar world as a corrective to the unipolar world dominated by the
United States.16 The oil boom at the beginning of this century gave Chávez the
resources to increase his influence by expanding his networks of patronage and trade
with many different states at once.17 With different levels of success he financed
leftist candidates such as Cristina Fernández de Kirchner in Argentina, Andrés
Manuel López Obrador in Mexico, Evo Morales in Bolivia, Rafael Correa in Ecuador,
Ollanta Humala in 2006 in Peru, and Daniel Ortega in Nicaragua. He promoted and
funded organizations of civil society that supported his revolution such as the Bolivar-
ian Continental Movement with chapters in Argentina, Bolivia, Brazil, Chile, Colombia,
Costa Rica, Ecuador, Mexico, Peru, Puerto Rico and the Dominican Republic.18 To
create links with social movements and leftist parties, Chávez sponsored what he
named “the diplomacy of the peoples”. He participated in the leftist Forum of São
Paulo founded by the Brazilian Workers’ Party in 1990. Chávez promoted in 2003
the Bolivarian Congress of the Peoples to unite leftist parties and social movements
that resisted free trade and neoliberal agreements.19
The high prices of oil allowed him to expand his networks of trade using petro-diplo-
macy. He created Petro-Caribe in 2005 to provide subsidized oil to Cuba and other
small nations of the Caribbean. In 2005 he also formed Petro-Sur with Argentina,
Brazil, and Uruguay as a mechanism for energy cooperation and integration among
state-owned companies. Chávez’s foreign policy created what Javier Corrales called
 DEMOCRATIZATION 5

“an alliance for tolerance”.20 Nations that benefited from his oil policy supported, or
refused to condemn, his attacks on human rights and civil liberties in Venezuela.
With Fidel Castro, he founded in 2004 the Bolivarian Alliance for the Peoples of Our
America (ALBA) as an alternative to US-dominated free trade agreements. Bolivia
joined in 2005, Nicaragua in 2007, Dominica and Honduras in 2008, Ecuador, Saint
Vincent, Grenadines, and Antigua and Barbuda in 2009 (when post-coup Honduras
left the organization). ALBA had a bank, aimed to create the SUCRE as a rival currency
to the US dollar, and launched teleSur as an alternative to the US dominated inter-
national media.
ALBA was better understood as a political alliance between nationalist and anti-
imperialist politicians than as a traditional treaty between nations. For instance, after
Manuel Zelaya was overthrown in a coup, Honduras abandoned it. ALBA’s success
rested on feeble grounds as it depended on the high prices of oil and on Chávez’s char-
isma. Despite the millionaire spending of petrodollars, many of its grandiose plans for
development never materialized. For example, Chávez did not deliver the money to
build the oil refinery of the Pacific, and Ecuador was forced to turn to Chinese
funding. Similarly, he never transferred the funds to build two aluminium-processing
plants, an oil refinery, two universities, 2000 houses, and an ALBA baseball stadium
in Nicaragua.21
ALBA exchanges worked well between Venezuela and Cuba – a striking example of
authoritarian cooperation in contemporary Latin America. Chávez provided about 68%
of the petroleum consumed in Cuba at heavily subsidized prices.22 In exchange, between
2004 and 2008 Cuba sent to Venezuela 13,000 physicians, 3000 dentists, 4100 nurses,
and 10,000 medical technicians.23 In addition, Cuba provided Venezuela with intelli-
gence services that “played a crucial role in allowing Chávez to stay in power”.24
While membership in ALBA did not impact Bolivia or Ecuador’s trade in a substantial
manner, the benefits for Morales and Correa were political and ideological as they con-
firmed their revolutionary credentials.25

Learning and emulating Bolivarianism: Bolivia and Ecuador

Simmons, Dobbin and Garrett write in their influential article on the international dif-
fusion of liberalism: “there are good reasons to suppose that learning has occurred when
we see highly successful policy changes in country A, followed by similar changes in
countries B and C”.26 Evo Morales and Rafael Correa learned from Chávez’s populist
strategies to effect regime change. First, they followed Chávez in using populist con-
stituent assemblies to “re-found” their nations. They also used his strategy of convening
frequent elections to displace older elites, rally supporters, and consolidate their hege-
mony. Second, Morales and Correa learned to use discriminatory legalism to colonize
civil society, silence critical voices in the public sphere, and harass the opposition. Third,
like Venezuela these governments relied on state interventionism to redistribute wealth
and reduce poverty and inequality. Fourth, they allied with Chávez to reorient their
foreign policy around national sovereignty, anti-imperialism, and Latin American
integration.
Learning “may be facilitated by communication networks among actors”.27 Mem-
bership in ALBA gave presidents and their close collaborators the opportunity to con-
stantly gather and exchange information. Between 2004 and 2015, ALBA presidents met
in 16 summits. ALBA had a political council, an economic council, a social council, and
6 C. DE LA TORRE

a council of social movements.28 The ministers in charge of the economy, social welfare,
international relations, as well as leaders of political parties and social movements loyal
to these governments regularly convened. ALBA became a sort of epistemic community
where presidents and state officials jointly defined solutions and strategies to deal with
all kinds of problems.29 Hence, it is no surprise to see the adoption of Chávez’s strategies
of regime change in Bolivia and Ecuador.

Constitution making and Plebiscitarian elections

Calling for a constituent assembly was not part of the MAS’s original platform, it was a
demand of indigenous social movements from the lowlands and of the coalitions of
social movements after the massive movements against neoliberalism known as the
water war of 2000 and the gas war of 2003.30 The MAS adopted this proposal as a mech-
anism to capture state power,31 and as a tool to strengthen Morales’s hold on power.32
In Ecuador, social movements and the left were dissatisfied with the Constituent
Assembly of 1997 that they perceived as exclusionary and dominated by traditional
right-wing parties. Despite the inclusion of indigenous and Afro-Ecuadorean collective
rights, and the transformation of the national identity from mestizo to multicultural, the
indigenous and other social movements branded the Constitution of 1998 as neoliberal.
They demanded a new constituent assembly that similarly to the Venezuelan assembly
of 1999 would be truly participatory.33
After Morales and Correa won the presidency, they quickly convoked constituent
assemblies, albeit in somewhat different ways. The Bolivian congress followed the con-
stitution and enacted a special law to convene a constitutional assembly in 2006. Correa
followed Chávez’s model of using a referendum to authorize a constitutional assembly.
As in Venezuela, the populist reasoning was that even though the existing constitution
did not allow for such a mechanism, the people’s constituent power had primacy over
constituted power. Congress, however, which was controlled by traditional parties and
lacked a single representative of Correa’s movement, threatened to halt the proposed
referendum. But after securing key institutional support from the Electoral Tribunal
and the Constitutional Tribunal, Correa managed to push his project through, disqua-
lifying 57 legislators opposed to the unconstitutional mechanism used to call for an
assembly.34
The Bolivian constituent assembly, where Evo Morales’s coalition had a majority,
coexisted with opposition parties that controlled congress. Morales’s coalition was
forced to negotiate the content of the constitution. By contrast, in Ecuador like in Vene-
zuela, a charismatic president controlled the process for elaborating the new charter.
The Ecuadorian assembly learned from the protracted conflicts between congress and
the assembly during the constituent process of 1997, and from the clashes between Con-
gress and Morales in Bolivia.35 Correa and his supporters radicalized Chávez’s example
of controlling the constituent process: the Ecuadorean assembly sent the recently
elected congress into recess and arbitrarily assumed all legislative powers.
After drafting the new constitution, the Ecuadorian assembly also followed Chávez’s
model of convening a small congress. This “congresillo” was tasked with naming the
new judicial authorities and the heads of all the institutions of accountability such as
the Ombudsman and the Comptroller. Like in Venezuela, loyal followers of the presi-
dent were put in charge of the electoral power, the judicial system, and all accountability
institutions.
 DEMOCRATIZATION 7

The new Bolivian and Ecuadorian constitutions were approved in referenda. These
constitutions established a different kind of democracy, which maintained elections, but
concentrated power in the hands of the president. Majoritarian mobilization led by a
personalistic leader took precedence over the checks and balances and respect for
basic civil rights inherent in liberal democracy. Mechanisms of horizontal accountabil-
ity by other branches of government and an independent press were replaced by a
variant of vertical accountability involving frequent elections, referenda, and plebiscites.
Morales and Correa also emulated Chávez’s successful strategy of convening fre-
quent elections to consolidate their power, displace the opposition, and create new
hegemonic blocks. As Venezuelans voted in 16 elections between 1999 and 2012, Boli-
vians voted in nine between 2005 and 2016, and Ecuadoreans in six between 2006 and
2014. These elections became plebiscitary referenda on their presidents. Even though
the moment of voting was clean, the playing fields were skewed and strongly favoured
incumbents.

Discriminatory legalism: controlling the media and NGOs

Chávez led the path in enacting laws to control the privately-owned media and NGOs.
In 2000, the Organic Law of Telecommunication allowed the government to suspend or
revoke broadcasting concessions to private outlets when it was “convenient for the
interest of the nation”. The Law of Social Responsibility of 2004 banned “the broadcast-
ing of material that could promote hatred and violence”.36 These laws were ambiguous
and the government could interpret their content according to its interests.
Correa’s government learned from Chávez’s success in regulating the private media.
In 2013 the National Assembly controlled by his party approved a communication law
that created a board tasked with monitoring the content of what the media could
publish. Like Chávez, who used discriminatory legalism to intimidate and harass jour-
nalists and private media owners, Correa sued the owners of newspapers, and the jour-
nalists, who uncovered cases of corruption.
Morales and Correa followed Chávez’s strategy in ending the predominance of the
private media. In Bolivia, media concessions are equally divided between the state,
the private sector, and popular and indigenous organizations.37 Correa followed
Chávez in creating a state media imperium that is in charge of television stations, news-
papers, and radio stations.38 Like Chávez, Correa became the main communicator. The
amount of money spent on publicity, and the number of national broadcasts that all
media are forced to air in these nations, increased dramatically. Chávez and Correa suf-
focated the private media by reducing government advertisement to critical media
venues and by manipulating the subsidies for the price of paper.39
Bolivarian presidents enacted legislation to control and regulate the work of NGOs.
Using ambiguous language, these laws increased the discretionary power of the state to
monitor and even close NGOs. In 2010 the Law for the Defense of Political Sovereignty
and National Self-Determination in Venezuela barred NGOs that defended political
rights or monitored the performances of public bodies from receiving international
assistance.40 Three years later, Correa enacted a decree that gave his government auth-
ority to sanction NGOs for deviating from the objectives for which they were consti-
tuted, for engaging in politics, and for interfering in public policies in a way that
contravenes internal and external security or disturbs public peace. To set an
example, the environmentalist organization Pachama Alliance was closed for deviating
8 C. DE LA TORRE

from the original organization’s goals and for interfering with public policy and secur-
ity.41 Morales followed suit by passing legislation in 2013 to revoke an organization’s
permit to operate if it performs activities different from those listed in its statute, or
if the organization’s representative is criminally sanctioned for carrying out activities
that “undermine security or public order”.42
Laws were used discretionally to arrest and harass leading figures of the opposition in
the Bolivarian nations. Protest was criminalized in Venezuela and Ecuador. Hundreds
of peasant and indigenous activists were accused of terrorism and sabotage in Ecuador.
By incrementally reducing civil rights, by regulating the media and civil society, and by
harassing the opposition, the governments of Venezuela, Bolivia, and Ecuador killed
democracy and replaced it with competitive authoritarianism.

The return of the state

The economic policy of the Bolivarian governments shared a commitment to strength-
ening the state and abandoning neoliberalism. Yet Morales and Correa did not follow
Chávez’s socialist path of enacting legislation to fix prices, or his indiscriminate and
erratic policies of expropriation of private property and takeover by the state. Differ-
ently from Chávez, Morales respected private property and practiced fiscal discipline.
Raúl Madrid writes that Morales’s “governance has been more radical in rhetoric
than in reality”.43
Correa is a pragmatic technocrat with a US PhD in economics. He put the state at the
centre of his developmental strategies, but respected private property. His adminis-
tration built infrastructure, increased spending in health and education, augmented
the minimum wage, expanded public employment, and improved the salaries of
public servants. When the prices of oil were high, Ecuadorians of all social classes bene-
fited from his policies. But with the dramatic collapse of oil prices and with an overva-
lued dollar, his developmental and social policies became unsustainable.

Foreign policy
Similarly to Chávez, anti-imperialism became the foundation for Morales’ foreign
policy initiatives. US ambassador Philip Goldberg was expelled from Bolivia in 2008.
Like Chávez, Morales strengthened relations with China, Russia, and Iran and joined
ALBA. Closeness to the Castro brothers and to Chávez gave Morales pristine leftist cre-
dentials. His image as the first indigenous president allowed small and poor Bolivia to
have a remarkable international presence. Morales contended: “We want Bolivia …
with its political, economic, programmatic, cultural, and ecological proposals, to be a
hope for the entire world”.44
Correa chose an alliance with Chávez and Morales, and not with the leaders of the
moderate left like Brazil’s Lula and Chile’s Bachelet. Like Chávez, he used revolutionary
language, frequently quoted Ché Guevara, and sang revolutionary tunes. Inspired by
Chávez, he resuscitated nationalist heroes to claim that his government was following
in their footsteps. His foreign policy, however, was pragmatic. In 2011 he expelled US
Ambassador Heather Hodges, yet a year later Ecuador and the US named new ambas-
sadors. Correa joined ALBA in 2009 but without abandoning previous commercial
agreements.
 DEMOCRATIZATION 9

Correa used foreign policy to pretend to be a leftist even when his government
accused hundreds of indigenous and peasant leaders of terrorism, opened the
country to mineral resource extraction ventures, weakened the power of unionized tea-
chers and public employees, aimed to destroy the power base of the indigenous move-
ment, and attacked left-wing parties popular democratic movement and Pachakutik.45
Anti-imperialist and anti-US rhetoric allowed Correa to have a leftist image in inter-
national circles.

The reception of Bolivarianism

Even though Chávez promoted his script for regime change across Latin America and
the Caribbean, his model was successfully emulated only in nations such as Bolivia and
Ecuador where there was strong endogenous receptivity to populist solutions to crises of
political representation and to the failures of neoliberal reforms. In addition to these
political opportunities, it was adopted only where leftist parties had not undertaken a
re-evaluation of the intrinsic worth of liberal democracy due to massive human right
violations.
Bolivia and Ecuador experienced crises of political representation and major popular
insurrections against neoliberalism. From 2000 to 2003, Bolivia underwent a cycle of
protest and political turmoil that resulted in the collapse of the party system established
in 1985, and of the neoliberal economic model.46 Coalitions of rural and urban indigen-
ous organizations, coca growers, and middle class sectors fought against water privati-
zation, increasing taxation, the forced eradication of coca leaves, and surrendering gas
reserves to multinational interests. The state increasingly relied on repression, in turn
radicalizing protestors. In 2003, President Gonzalo Sánchez de Lozada was forced to
leave Bolivia and was succeeded by his vice president Carlos Mesa, who had to
resign in 2005: “Neither Morales nor the MAS were actively involved in these uprisings,
which were instead the result of grassroots organizing”.47 Insurgents refused to take
power, and Morales “supported a constitutional exit from the crisis in 2003”.48 He
won the presidential election in 2005.
Similarly, between 1997 and 2005, the three elected presidents of Ecuador could not
finish their terms in office. Populist Abdalá Bucaram lasted six months in power. After
massive protests, he was deposed by Congress in February 1997, accused of mental inca-
pacity to govern. Jamil Mahuad, a Harvard-trained technocrat, faced a similar fate. A
coalition of junior military officers and social movement leaders – including the power-
ful indigenous movement – overthrew the president in 2001. Colonel Lucio Gutiérrez,
the leader of the (ultimately failed) coup, was elected in 2003, in a short-lived coalition
with the indigenous movement and its political party Pachakutik. Yet, he could not
finish his term in office either and was overthrown in 2005.49
These years of partisan decay and political instability opened the door for new
leaders and movements to arise, take power, and follow Chávez’s strategy for establish-
ing political hegemony. These efforts went in a competitive-authoritarian direction
because Morales’s MAS and Correa’s Alianza País were leftwing organizations that
did not re-evaluate democracy. The MAS was an anti-establishment ethno-populist
party that also appealed to mestizo voters.50 While its power base were strong social
movements, it became a vehicle for Morales’s personalistic ambitions. Alianza País
was Correa’s electoral machine “without organic ties with any social sector”.51 The
goal of these parties was the revolutionary overthrow of the neoliberal order, and
10 C. DE LA TORRE

they successfully adopted Chávez’s Bolivarian strategies by concentrating power and

suffocating democracy from the inside.
While Chávez promoted his competitive-authoritarian model across Latin America,
neighbouring countries did not follow. The main endogenous obstacles to the spread of
Bolivarianism were well-established and functioning political parties, and fresh mem-
ories of authoritarianism. In nations where the left and civil society valued democracy,
pluralism, and liberal rights due to brutal experiences with autocratic governments,
Bolivarianism was viewed with suspicion. Its authoritarian potentials and practices
alerted actors to the risks of following its script.
Moreover, where organized political parties remained electorally dominant after the
transition to neoliberalism, as in Brazil, Chile, El Salvador, and Uruguay, populist press-
ures were weak or absent. When populist critics emerged, as in “Mexico with Andrés
Manuel López Obrador in the 2006 election, they did so within an established party
(the Partido de la Revolución Democrática) rather than in opposition to the entire
party system”.52
Argentina under Nestor and Cristina Kirchner shows the difficulties for projects of
Bolivarian re-foundation to flourish in contexts of stronger and denser civil society,
where many citizens and sectors of the left were critical of the legacies of authoritarian-
ism. Nestor Kirchner came to power in 2003 in a conjuncture that could have led to a
populist rupture. Political parties were in crisis, Argentina had just suffered a deep econ-
omic collapse in 2001–2002, and there were strong movements of resistance to neoli-
beralism as workers took over factories and the unemployed occupied the streets and
plundered supermarkets. At that time, Chávez was reaching his peak of popularity
among left-wing intellectuals and activists.53 But despite using a populist language of
re-foundation, the Kirchners were not committed to a populist rupture with democ-
racy.54 Moreover, their ambivalence in following the Bolivarian ideological script
reflected the predictable reaction of social movements and civil society against any sem-
blance of authoritarian policies and practices. For instance, Cristina Kirchner’s attempts
to modify the constitution to allow for another re-election were resisted by civil society
and an independent constitutional court. In sum, stronger democratic institutions and a
complex civil society impeded a populist rupture in Argentina.55
Despite sharing the inequities produced by neoliberal economic policies and the col-
lapse of parties that could facilitate a radical populist rupture, Peru differed from the
Bolivarian nations because of its recent experience with authoritarianism and political
violence. In the 1980s and early 1990s, Peru went through a cycle of terrorism and
counterinsurgency. Shining Path, a Maoist group, seemed on the verge of taking
power. Shining Path violence targeted not only the police and the military, but also
groups of civil society and left-wing activists. In turn, the brutal response of the state
targeted peasants and activists. Alberto Fujimori was elected in 1990 promising to
end hyperinflation and defeat Shining Path. He delivered on both, but at the cost of
establishing an authoritarian government. Hence, in post-Fujimori Peru, the question
of democracy versus authoritarianism became one of the most important issues.
Populist outsider Ollanta Humala won the first round of the 2006 presidential elec-
tion, but was defeated in the runoff by establishment politician Alan García. Humala
was Chávez’s candidate and followed his role model by promising a participatory,
more inclusive political system, a new constitutional assembly, a stronger role for the
state in the economy, and a nationalist foreign policy.56 But Humala’s candidacy was
dogged by allegations that, when he was a military commander, he was involved in
 DEMOCRATIZATION 11

human rights violations. Many citizens doubted that Humala was committed to respect-
ing the rules of the democratic game.57 As García also capitalized on Chávez’s interfer-
ence in Peruvian politics, Humala was not able to distance himself from the Bolivarian
leader. He lost the election because Peruvians saw Alan García as a safer bet and less of a
threat to democracy.
In 2011 Humala renewed his bid for the presidency, but turned away from Chávez
and Bolivarianism. He asked the Brazilian PT for advice on how to run his campaign,
and declared his admiration for Lula and not Chávez. He tamed his critique of neoli-
beralism and, in the runoff against Keiko Fujimori, he presented his candidacy as
pitting democracy against the legacies of her father Alberto Fujimori’s authoritarian-
ism.58 According to Steven Levitsky, Humala’s election signalled the end of the diffusion
and attraction of Chávez’s model of re-foundation.59

Aborting Bolivarianism: the Honduran coup d’état

When Manuel Zelaya won the 2005 elections in Honduras he was not a political out-
sider or a leftist of any sort. On the contrary, he belonged to the Honduran Liberal
Party, one of the two dominant parties, and had served several terms in congress. He
was a landowner and belonged to the business elite. During his first year in power,
Zelaya did not show any sympathies for Bolivarianism. But in 2007 this establishment
politician met Hugo Chávez. To solve an energy crisis in a nation that relied heavily on
imported oil, Zelaya joined Petro-Caribe with the support of the Honduran congress. A
year later he joined ALBA with the backing of congress and its president, the liberal
Roberto Micheletti, who traded support for ALBA for Zelayás endorsement in the
upcoming presidential election. The decision to join ALBA polarized Hondurans.
Business associations, the National Party, the privately-owned media, and the US
Embassy were against, while some unions, peasant groups, sections of his Liberal
Party, and the left supported the president’s decision. When Zelaya signed the ALBA
agreement in front of his guests Hugo Chávez, Evo Morales, Daniel Ortega, and Raúl
Castro, he “announced for the first time that his government was left of center”.60
In 2009, Zelaya for several months called for a popular consultation on convoking a
constituent assembly to re-found the nation. His reasoning echoing Chávez was that
even though such a mechanism was not foreseen in the constitution, the constituent
power of the people had primacy over the constitution. But the opposition accused
Zelaya of intending to follow Chávez’s script and revamp the constitution to concen-
trate power and allow for his own re-election. After his proposal was therefore rejected
by key institutional players, in March 2009, 10 months before the end of his term,
Zelaya “issued an executive decree ordering the National Statistics Institute (INE) to
hold a nonbinding referendum asking Hondurans if they wished to add a ballot item
on the desirability of a constitutional assembly to the November general election”.61
According to Honduran law only congress may call a referendum, and only the elec-
toral branch and not the INE can conduct it. Congress, the Supreme Court of Justice,
and the Electoral Tribunal Board ruled that the proposed nonbinding referendum
was illegal. Nevertheless, Zelaya went ahead with his plan, ordering the armed forces
to provide logistic assistance for the referendum. When the Head of the Joint Chiefs
of Staff, General Romeo Vásquez, refused to obey, Zelaya fired him. The Electoral
Board confiscated the boxes containing the referendum ballots, but Zelaya responded
by leading a demonstration to get a hold of the electoral material. The Supreme
12 C. DE LA TORRE

Court then ordered the military to put Zelaya under arrest. The military overstepped
this rule by exiling the president, who was wearing his pyjamas when he was put on
a military plane to Costa Rica.
Manuel Zelaya overstepped his constitutional powers yet, as the Commission of
Truth and Reconciliation of Honduras argued, there was no proof that the goals of
the president were to dissolve congress and prolong his presidency by installing a con-
stituent assembly.62 It was intense fear of Bolivarianism that led his opponents in the
economic and political establishment and in the military to use any means necessary
to stop Zelaya, including a coup d’état.
The preceding analysis shows that Chávez’s efforts to promote his Bolivarian ideol-
ogy across Latin America led to determined emulation and the resulting spread of com-
petitive authoritarianism only in some countries of the region, yet not others. Despite
Chávez’s success in profoundly transforming Venezuelan politics and despite the
worldwide appeal of his progressive ideology, only countries with fragile party
systems such as Bolivia, Ecuador, and Nicaragua followed in Chávez’s footsteps. In con-
trast, recent experiences with violent autocracy impeded such emulation, as evident in
the Southern Cone and Peru. Thus, while Venezuela’s leader managed to spread popu-
list authoritarianism to a group of countries, his active promotion was far from uni-
formly successful.

Crossing the Atlantic: PODEMOS in Spain

Interestingly, however, the principles of Bolivarianism also crossed the Atlantic Ocean
and inspired the creation of Spain’s left-wing populist party PODEMOS. Its leaders
were political scientists who spent long periods of time in Bolivarian nations working
on their PhD dissertations or as political advisors; they also were fervent readers of
Ernesto Laclau’s theories of hegemony and populism. There is evidence that Chávez
financed PODEMOS. Political scientist Juan Carlos Monedero temporarily stepped
aside from PODEMOS after media revelations that he allegedly received 1.5 million
Euros from Chávez for consulting on how to establish the Sucre as an alternative cur-
rency to the US dollar. Pablo Iglesias, Carolina Bescansas, and Iñigo Errejón were con-
sultants of an academic foundation who participated as advisors in the constituent
processes or in public policy-making in the Bolivarian nations.
PODEMOS came into existence after the massive protest movements of 15 May
2011. Thousands of citizens occupied Madrid, Barcelona, Valencia, and 50 other
cities. They rebelled against traditional political parties and against neoliberal economic
policies that led to an unemployment rate of 22% and 47% youth unemployment. These
protesters demanded the end of austerity programmes and aimed to create a new par-
ticipatory democracy.63
PODEMOS gave electoral expression to this outpouring of discontent and integrated
a variety of other social movements. Its founders created a party with strong local par-
ticipatory mechanisms: the PODEMOS circles. They organized primaries in which all
militants could vote via the Internet. Online, the party attracted “over 370,000
members who debate and vote on programmes, policy and strategy via open-source
platforms”.64
The leaders of PODEMOS were inspired by the Bolivarian model, and by Laclau’s
theory of populism. Even though Iñigo Errejón, one of its ideologues, said that Bolivar-
ianism could not be imitated in Spain due to its different political and economic
 DEMOCRATIZATION 13

environments from the Andean nations, he nevertheless sustains that he and other
party leaders took encouragement from Latin American left-wing populist
experiences.65
Following Chávez’s example and Laclau’s theory, PODEMOS used an antagonistic
discourse that aimed to rupture Spain’s institutional system. They constructed an
enemy, branded as “the caste” that dominated political, economic, social, and cultural
life since the pacted transition to democracy in the mid-1970s. “The caste” stands in
antagonistic relations with the people, understood as the disenfranchised victims of
neoliberalism. When PODEMOS was founded, it advocated for convening a national
assembly that would write a new constitution, end neoliberal economic policies, and
reclaim Spain’s national sovereignty that was surrendered to the technocrats of the
European Union and the IMF. They also promised a better democracy grounded in
the participation of the people, and not in the delegation of power to unreceptive
party elites.66
PODEMOS’ populist strategy paid off. In 2014, less than two months after organiz-
ing the party, PODEMOS gathered 1,260,000 votes and won five representatives in the
European Parliament. In the municipal elections of 2015, PODEMOS and its allies con-
quered Madrid, Barcelona, Valencia, and other major cities. In the national elections of
December 2015, PODEMOS became the third strongest party with 20.66% of the votes
for parliament. In June 2016, in alliance with the left party Izquierda Unida, it became
again the third electoral force with 21% of the vote.
Yet despite these triumphs, PODEMOS is unlikely to capture national power as
Chávez did. Spain has a parliamentary system that forced PODEMOS to ally with
other parties. Differently from the Bolivarian nations where political parties collapsed,
their Spanish counterparts were in crisis but had not disintegrated. Therefore,
PODEMOS felt compelled to de-radicalize some of its demands, such as calling for a
constituent assembly.

Conclusions
As the editors of this special issue write in the introduction and conclusion, it is impor-
tant to distinguish between autocratic cooperation and diffusion that are pragmatic, cal-
culated, and instrumental vs. ideological and missionary models of cooperation and
diffusion such as Chávez’s. The Venezuelan leader’s goal was to promote Bolivarianism
across Latin America and even worldwide. His model was appealing because he prom-
ised a better democracy. Boliviarianism was conceived and perceived as an alternative to
the participatory and legitimacy deficits of liberal democracies and to the inequalities
produced by neoliberal policies. Bolivarian strategies to bring change were rooted in
democratic traditions, not in fascist or communist attacks against democracy. Chávez
innovated on the leftist strategy of revolution, preserving its promise to revamp all exist-
ing institutions as the only mechanism for bringing real, long-lasting change, but using
democratic mechanisms such as elections and constitution making. He built on populist
strategies and discourses linking national and international struggles as part of one con-
frontation between “empire” and its local cronies against the peoples of Latin America
and the global south.
The high prices of oil allowed Chávez to increase his influence by expanding net-
works of patronage and trade. He supported and financed presidential candidates,
parties, and social movements all over Latin America, as well as academics who
14 C. DE LA TORRE

became the leaders of PODEMOS in Spain. He used petrodiplomacy to expand his

influence in the Caribbean and Latin America. He confronted US sponsored trade
agreements by creating ALBA. Petrodiplomacy had instrumental and ideological com-
ponents. In exchange for cheap oil, Chávez gained a defensive shield against inter-
national criticism. Membership in ALBA also gave populist administrations pristine
leftist credentials even when their governments – as in Ecuador and to a lesser extent
Bolivia – criminalized protest and attacked the organized left.
As regards “soft power”, Chávez was at the peak of his popularity and global influ-
ence in the mid-2000s. His script of convening a constituent assembly, using elections to
displace elites, packing the legal system and all institutions of accountability with
cronies, using discriminatory legalism, and strengthening the state to overturn neoliber-
alism were perceived as effective strategies to learn from and to emulate. ALBA pro-
vided the institutional space for populist leaders to meet, gather information and
devise common strategies. ALBA held 16 summits when presidents, their ministers
in charge of the different councils of social, economic, political issues, and social move-
ments were in close contact. It is not an exaggeration to argue that ALBA worked as an
epistemic community to deal with problems and design solutions. Of course, not all
members of ALBA shared the same goals. For some smaller nations in the Caribbean
it was a strategic move to get cheap oil and economic assistance from Chávez. But
for populist leaders like Morales and Correa who shared Chávez’s ideological goals it
was an opportunity to learn from and devise common strategies.
Political opportunities to emulate Bolivarianism opened up when parties and the
institutional framework of democracy were in deep crises, as in Bolivia and Ecuador.
In contrast, Chávez’s model was not adopted where parties and the institutional frame-
work of democracy were reasonably solid, nor where the left and civil society had reva-
lued the intrinsic worth of liberal democracy after brutal autocratic experiences. The
institutional framework of democracy also constrained the attempts to emulate Bolivar-
ianism in Spain. PODEMOS entered into pacts with other parties, de-radicalized some
of its demands such as calling for a constituent assembly, and even claimed in the 2016
electoral campaign that it was following in the footsteps of Social Democracy. It remains
to be seen whether PODEMOS will genuinely transform its approach or whether it will
continue to follow populist strategies as Errejón advocates.
The international hydrocarbon boom accounts for the longevity of the diffusion
wave of Bolivarianism.67 The nations that followed Chávez’s script were rich in
natural resources, and the high prices of minerals and oil explain the relative autonomy
of these nations to challenge US hegemony. Yet oil and mineral dependence also makes
Bolivarianism unstable. The recent price collapse might lead to the dismembering or
weakening of ALBA, which depended more on the will of one politician than on
firm institutions.
Bolivarian presidents created an international network of solidarity and learning
between “revolutionary” nations committed to Socialism of the Twenty First
Century. These supranational connections neutralize international and domestic press-
ures against the repression of citizens and the attacks on the privately-owned media,
NGOs, and social movements. Bolivarianism might have reached the limits to its diffu-
sion in Latin America, but it is unclear for how much longer and at what costs these
regimes will be able to cling to power.
The spread of Bolivarian populism had anti-democratic repercussions, both as a
deterrent and a model. The spectre of a Bolivarian revolution prompted Honduran
 DEMOCRATIZATION 15

politicians and the army to remove Manuel Zelaya from office with a coup d’état. In
nations where Bolivarian ideologies and strategies were adopted, as in Bolivia and
Ecuador, the result was not the radicalization of democracy, but its erosion and displa-
cement towards authoritarianism. The adoption of notions and models of revolution
are at the heart of these processes of democratic erosion. Bolivarian leaders understood
politics as a struggle of us vs. them à la Carl Schmitt. Instead of facing democratic rivals,
they confronted real or imaginary national and foreign enemies. Traditional political
parties, the privately-owned media, the leaders of social movements, NGO’s, and
some economic elites were attacked as enemies of the revolution. The closure of
spaces for contestation and the rhetoric of revolutionary confrontation cornered the
opposition, while power was concentrated in the hands of the presidency.

Notes
1. Vanderhill, Promoting Authoritarianism Abroad.
2. Gunitsky, “From Shocks.”
3. Gunitsky, “From Shocks,” 576.
4. Weyland, Making Waves, 226.
5. Levitsky and Roberts, “Conclusion.”
6. Zúquete, “Missionary Politics of Hugo Chávez,” 100.
7. de la Torre and Arnson, “Introduction,” 28.
8. Weyland, “Populism and Social Policy in Latin America.”
9. Azellini, “Un poder constituyente en movimiento,” 113.
10. López Maya and Panzarelli, “Populism, Rentierism, and Socialism,” 251.
11. Weyland, “The Threat from the Populist Left,” 23.
12. Hawkins, “Responding,” 252.
13. Waisbord, Vox Populista.
14. Corrales, “Autocratic,” 41.
15. Levitsky and Loxton, “Populism”; Weyland, “The Threat from the Populist Left”; Corrales,
“Autocratic.”
16. República Bolivariana de Venezuela, Líneas Generales.
17. Gunitsky, “From Shocks,” 569–70.
18. Eguizábal, “ALBA y América Central,” 221.
19. http://www.rebelion.org/hemeroteca/sociales/031130congreso.htm
20. Corrales, “Autocratic.”
21. Bagley and Defort, “Conclusiones,” 559.
22. Defort, “Los desafíos neobolivarianos,” 157.
23. Ibid., 155.
24. Ibid., 156.
25. Brienen, “La Bolivia de Morales,” 190–1.
26. Simmons, Dobbin, and Garrett, “Introduction,” 798.
27. Ibid., 797.
28. http://www.cancilleria.gob.ec/wp-content/uploads/2013/07/Dossier-de-Prensa-ALBA-TCP.pdf.
29. On the role of epistemic communities on diffusion see, Simmons, Dobbin, and Garret, “Intro-
duction,” 800.
30. Postero, “El Pueblo Boliviano,” 402.
31. Ibid., 410.
32. Madrid, The Rise of Ethnic Politics, 181.
33. Interview with Alberto Acosta, president of the 2007 constituent assembly, July 2015.
34. de la Torre and Ortiz, “Populist Polarization,” 224.
35. Interview with Alberto Acosta.
36. Corrales, Autocratic, 39.
37. Waisbord, Vox Populista, 121.
38. Corrales, “Autocratic”; de la Torre and Ortiz, “Populist Polarization.”
16 C. DE LA TORRE

39. Waisbord, Vox Populista.

40. Corrales, “Autocratic,” 39.
41. de la Torre and Ortiz, “Populist Polarization,” 229–30.
42. Human Rights Watch, World Report 2015 Bolivia.
43. Madrid, “Bolivia,” 240.
44. Lindholm and Zúquete, The Struggle for the World, 47.
45. de la Torre and Ortiz, “Populist Polarization.”
46. Dunkerley, “Evo Morales.”
47. Postero, “Morales’s MAS,” 14.
48. Ibid.
49. de la Torre, Populist Seduction in Latin America, 177–80.
50. Madrid, The Rise of Ethnic Politics.
51. Montúfar, “Rafael Correa,” 299.
52. Roberts, “Parties and Populism in Latin America,” 50.
53. Peruzzotti, “El kirchnerismo,” 396.
54. Ibid., 400.
55. Iazeta, “Democracia,” 285.
56. McClintock, “Populism in Perú,” 225–37.
57. Vanderhill, Promoting Authoritarianism Abroad, 116–29.
58. Tanaka, “A Vote for Moderate Change.”
59. Levitsky, “A Surprising Left Turn.”
60. Cunha Filho, Coelho, and Pérez Flores, “A Right-To-Left Policy Switch?” 524.
61. Ruhl, “Honduras Unravels,” 100.
62. Informe, Hallazgos y recomendaciones, 26–7.
63. Castells, Networks of Outrage and Hope, 110–55.
64. Seguín, “PODEMOS and its Critics,” 20.
65. Errejón and Mouffe, Construir Pueblo, 71.
66. Seguín and Faber, “Can PODEMOS Win in Spain?”
67. Hawkins, “Responding,” 257.

Disclosure statement
No potential conflict of interest was reported by the author.

Notes on contributor
Carlos de la Torre is professor of Sociology at the University of Kentucky. He was a fellow at the Gug-
genheim Foundation, and at the Woodrow Wilson International Center for Scholars. He is the author
of 12 books and edited volumes including Populist Seduction in Latin America, Ohio University Press,
2010, coeditor with Cynthia Arnson of Latin American Populism in the Twenty-First Century, The
Johns Hopkins University Press, 2013, editor of The Promise and Perils of Populism. Global Perspectives,
The University Press of Kentucky, 2015. He is editing the Routledge International Handbook of Global
Populism.

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