Venezuela's Bolivarian Democracy: Participation, Politics, and Culture under Chávez

Contents

Contents Foreword: Venezuela’s Bolivarian Democracy ix Julia Buxton Introduction: Participation, Politics, and Culture— Emerging Fragments of Venezuela’s Bolivarian Democracy 1 David Smilde 1 Defying the Iron Law of Oligarchy I: How Does “El Pueblo” Conceive Democracy? 28 Daniel Hellinger 2 Participatory Democracy in Venezuela: Origins, Ideas, and Implementation 58 Margarita López Maya and Luis E. Lander 3 Urban Land Committees: Co-optation, Autonomy, and Protagonism 80 María Pilar García-Guadilla 4 Catia Sees You: Community Television, Clientelism, and the State in the Chávez Era 104 Naomi Schiller 5 Radio Bemba in an Age of Electronic Media: The Dynamics of Popular Communication in Chávez’s Venezuela 131 Sujatha Fernandes 6 “We Are Still Rebels”: The Challenge of Popular History in Bolivarian Venezuela 157 Alejandro Velasco 7 The Misiones of the Chávez Government 186 Kirk A. Hawkins, Guillermo Rosas, and Michael E. Johnson 8 Defying the Iron Law of Oligarchy II: Debating Democracy Online in Venezuela 219 Daniel Hellinger 9 Venezuela’s Telenovela: Polarization and Political Discourse in Cosita Rica 244 Carolina Acosta-Alzuru 10 The Color of Mobs: Racial Politics, Ethnopopulism, and Representation in the Chávez Era 271 Luis Duno Gottberg 11 Taking Possession of Public Discourse: Women and the Practice of Political Poetry in Venezuela 298 Elizabeth Gackstetter Nichols 12 Christianity and Politics in Venezuela’s Bolivarian Democracy: Catholics, Evangelicals, and Political Polarization 315 David Smilde and Coraly Pagan Afterword: Chavismo and Venezuelan Democracy in a New Decade 340 Daniel Hellinger References 343 Contributors 369 Index 373 ...