Class/Race Polarisation in Venezuela and the Electoral Success of Hugo Chávez: a break with the past or the song remains the same?

Abstract

Polls have repeatedly shown a class-based polarisation around Chávez, which some political science analysis on Venezuela has recognised. This paper seeks to show, however, that this class-based division needs to be placed in historical context to be fully understood. Examining Venezuelan history from the colonial to the contemporary era the paper shows, unlike most previous work on Bolivarian Venezuela, that race is an important subtext to this class-based support, and that there is indeed a correlation between class and race within the Venezuelan context. Furthermore, class and race are important positive elements in Chávez's discourse, in contrast to their negative use in opposition anti-Chavismo discourse. The paper briefly reviews the Chávez government's policy in tackling the class/race fissures in Venezuelan society, and concludes by asking whether these policies represent a change in the historical patterns of classism and racism within Venezuelan society or are simply reproducing past patterns.

Notes

This paper was first presented at the ‘Current Political Processes in Latin America’ Panel held at the Society of Latin American Studies (slas) Annual Conference, Newcastle University, 13–15 April 2007, convened by Dr Gustavo Emmerich (Universidad Autónoma Metropolitana, México City). Thanks to Dr Emmerich and all those who commented on the paper at the slas panel. Thanks also to the anonymous reviewer who commented on my paper for twq, and to my colleague David Doyle at Dublin City University. Finally this paper would not have been possible without fellowship funding provided by Irish Aid, the Irish government's development programme. All opinions expressed in it, however, are entirely mine.

1 Robert Miles & Malcolm Brown, Racism, London: Routledge, 2003, p105.

2 See Barry Cannon, ‘April 2002: the myth of a united Venezuela’, Bulletin of Latin American Research, 23 (3), 2004, pp 285–302.

3 Richard Gott, ‘Latin America as a white settler society’, Bulletin of Latin American Research, 26 (2), 2007, p 273; and Gregory Wilpert, Changing Venezuela by Taking Power, London: Verso, 2007, p 20.

4 Damarys Canache, ‘Urban poor and political order’, in Jennifer L McCoy & David J Myers (eds), The Unraveling of Representative Democracy in Venezuela, Baltimore, MD: Johns Hopkins University Press, 2004, pp 44–46.

5 Kenneth Roberts, ‘Social polarisation and the populist resurgence’, in Steve Ellner & Daniel Hellinger (eds), Venezuelan Politics in the Chávez Era: Class, Polarization and Conflict, Boulder, CO: Lynne Reinner, 2003, p 66.

6 Canache, ‘Urban poor and political order’, p 46.

7 Carlos Subero, ‘Clases sociales tienen distinto candidato’, El Universal (Seccíon Nacional y Política), 6 April 2000, at http://www.eluniversal.com/2000/04/06/06102AA.shtml, accessed 20 June 2003.

8 Datanalisis, Escenarios Julio, 2001, IV (3), 2003, p 21, Table 4.

9 Greenberg, Quinlan and Rosner, ‘Venezuela, Resultados Estudio de Opinión Pública Nacional: Junio 23, 2004’, at www.rnv.gov.ve/noticias/uploads/encuesta-greenberg-junio-2004.ppt, accessed 15 January 2008.

10 Evans/McDonough Co/Consultores 30.11, ‘Clima Política Votantes Venezolanos: Presentación de resultados', 2007, at http://www.rethinkvenezuela.com/downloads/PRESENTACION_ENCUESTA_NACIONAL_NOVIEMBRE_2007.pdf, accessed 15 January 2008.

11 Roberts, ‘Social polarisation and the populist resurgence’, p 55.

12 WR Wright, Café con Leche: Race, Class and National Image in Venezuela, Austin, TX: University of Texas Press, 1990.

13 Quinta Punto Fijo was the name of the house where the political agreement between the main parties, ad, copei and urd was drawn up after the 1958 coup against dictator Peréz Jimenez.

14 Miles & Brown, Racism, p 37.

15 Ibid, pp 89–90.

16 Ibid, p 11.

17 Ibid, p 105.

18 Ibid, p 117.

19 Ibid, p 118.

20 Jesús Maria Herrera Salas, ‘Ethnicity and evolution: the political economy of racism in Venezuela’, Latin American Perspectives, 32, 2005, p 74.

21 Judith Ewell, Venezuela: A Century of Change, Stanford, CA: Stanford University Press, 1984, p 14.

22 Patrick Wolfe, Settler Colonialism and the Transformation of Anthropology, London: Cassell, 1999, p 163, cited in Gott, ‘Latin America as a white settler society’, p 272.

23 Gott, ‘Latin America as a white settler society’, p 273.

24 Ibid.

25 Ibid.

26 Ibid.

27 Herrera Salas, ‘Ethnicity and evolution’, p 76.

28 Ibid, p 77.

29 Ibid.

30 Oficina Central de Estadistica e Informatica/Programa Naciones Unidas para el Desarrollo (ocea/pnud), Informe sobre Desarrollo Humano en Venezuela, 2000: Caminos para superar la probreza, Caracas: cdb Publicaciones, 2001, p 92.

31 Jun Ishibashi, ‘Hacia una apertura del debate sobre el racismo en Venezuela: exclusión y inclusión esteriotipada de personas negras en los medios de comunicación’, in Daniel Mato (ed), Politicas de identidades y diferencias sociales en tiempos de globalización, Caracas: faces-ucv, 2003, p 34.

32 Ibid, p 48.

33 Ibid, p 49.

34 World Values Survey, ‘Online Data Analysis, Venezuela—1996, 2000: Sociodemographics—Ethnic Description’, at http://www.jdsurvey.net/bdasepjds/wvsevs/home.jsp?OWNER=WVS, accessed 15 January 2008.

35 Ewell, Venezuela.

36 Herrera Salas, ‘Ethnicity and evolution’.

37 Fernando Coronil & Julie Skurski, ‘Dismembering and remembering the nation: the semantics of political violence in Venezuela’, Comparative Studies in Society and History, 33 (2), 1991, p 326.

38 Ibid, p 328.

39 Margarita López-Maya, ‘Venezuela after the Caracazo: forms of protest in a deinstitutionalized context’, Bulletin of Latin American Studies, 21 (2), 2000, pp 199–219.

40 Ibid, pp 50–51.

41 For example, in 1992 unemployment stood at 7.1% as opposed to 6.9% in 1988. Of total employment in 1991, 59.5% was in the formal sector while 40.5% was in the informal sector, as opposed to 61.9% and 39.7% respectively in 1988. Between 1988 and 1991 poverty increased from 46% to 68% and extreme poverty from 14% to 34%. See E Lander, ‘The impact of neoliberal adjustment in Venezuela, 1989–1993’, Latin American Perspectives, 23 (3), 1996, pp 50–73.

42 MBR-200/Pirela Romero, Lt Col A MBR-200, El Arbol de las Tres Raíces, Valencia, Venezuela, 1994.

43 Ernesto Laclau, ‘What's in a word?’, in Francisco Panizza, Populism and the Mirror of Democracy, London: Verso, 2005, pp 324–329.

44 Ibid, p100.

45 Francisco Panizza, ‘Introduction’, in Panizza, Populism and the Mirror of Democracy, p 19.

46 Hugo Chávez Frías, A Dos Años del 4 de febrero, Yare, no publisher, 1994, p 3.

47 Hugo Chávez Frías, Seis discursos del Presidente Constitucional de Venezuela, Hugo Chávez Frías, Caracas: Ediciones de la Presidencia de la República, 2000, p 21.

48 Ibid, p 17.

49 Ibid, p 18.

50 Ibid, p 23.

51 Nicolas Kozloff, ‘A real radical democracy: Hugo Chávez and the politics of race’, October 2005, at www.venezuelanalysis.com/articles.php?artno=1577.

52 ‘President Chávez offers cheap oil to the poor of the United States', interview with President Chávez by Democracy Now!, at http://www.democracynow.org/2005/9/20/venezuelas_president_chavez_offers_cheap_oil, accessed 15 January 2008.

53 Nestor Francia, Antichavismo y Estupidez Ilustrada, Caracas: Rayuela Taller de Ediciones, 2000, pp 109–111.

54 E Gomez, ‘Sólo la presión social puede liberar conciencias', El Universal, 13 February 2002, p 4.

55 Herrera Salas, ‘Ethnicity and evolution’, p 85.

56 Ibid, pp 82–87.

57 Luis Duno Gottberg, ‘Mob outrages: reflections on the media construction of the masses in Venezuela (April 2000–January 2003)’, Journal of Latin American Cultural Studies, 13 (1), 2004, p 120.

58 Ibid, p 124.

59 Ibid, p 115.

60 Ibid, p 131.

61 Wilpert, Changing Venezuela by Taking Power, p 20.

62 Patricia Marquez, ‘Vacas flacas y odios gordos: la polarización en Venezuela’, in Patricia Marquez & Ramón Piñango (eds), Realidades y Nuevos Caminos en esta Venezuela, Caracas: Ediciones del Instituto de Estudios Superiores de Administración, 2005, quoted in Herrera Salas, ‘Ethnicity and evolution’, p 86.

63 Herrara Salas, ‘Ethnicity and evolution’.

64 Norbis Mujica Chirinos & Sorayda Rincón González, ‘Caracterización de la política social y la política económica del actual gobierno venezolano: 1999–2004’, Revista Venezolana de Economía y Ciencias Sociales, 12 (1), 2006, pp 31–57, at http://www.revele.com.ve/programas/indice/ria.php?id=13331&rev=reveecciso, accessed 15 January 2008.

65 Mark Weisbrot, Luis Sandoval & David Rosnick, Poverty Rates in Venezuela: Getting the Numbers Right, at http://www.cepr.net/index.php?option=com_content&task=view&id=61&Itemid=8, accessed 15 January 2008.

66 Ibid, p 10.

67 Terry Gibbs, ‘Business as unusual: what the Chávez era tells us about democracy under globalisation’, Third World Quarterly, 27 (2), 2006, p 272.

68 Programa Venezolano de Educación-Acción en Derechos Humanos (provea), Informe Anual 2004–005, p18, at www.derechos.org, accessed 15 January 2008.

69 provea, Informe Anual 2005–2006, pp 30–33, at www.derechos.org, accessed 15 January 2008.

70 Ibid, p 33.

71 provea, Informe Anual 2006–2007, p 19, at www.derechos.org, accessed 15 January 2008.