Social Programs in Venezuela Under the Chavista

Governments
Innovative Policies, Social Inclusion and Institutional
Weakness
Hugo Chvez election as Venezuelas president in 1998 as a political outsider with 56
percent of the vote attests largely to his appeal among those excluded from the nations
political, economic and cultural life. Most of these so-called marginalized
Venezuelans work in the informal economy, while others belong to the rural work force.
Their important political role is significant because it helped shaped the social programs
that the Chvez government implemented, particularly their innovative and
experimental aspects.

Marginalized groups everywhere traditionally refrain from voting.1 Most who work
outside the formal economy lack the organizational experience, self-confidence and
discipline of the middle and working classes. The latter, for instance, belong to labor
unions and thus attend meetings regularly and participate in strikes, activities requiring
discipline and organizational skills. In Venezuela, convincing members of marginalized
groups to go to the polls, promoting their participation in other arenas and retaining
their active support over time represented major challenges for the Chavista
government, coupled with overcoming skepticism and apathy. Its response was to
implement social programs flexibly and avoid hard-and-fast rules.2

Defining the nations political system as a participatory democracy in the 1999

constitution, the Chavez governments social policies promoted broad participation,
incorporation and empowerment. All three benefited the populations popular or non-
elite segments, but were especially intended to help the marginalized sectors.
Participation was the least class based while incorporation and empowerment meant
more to marginalized people than to groups already incorporated and empowered.

Eduardo Silva and Federico Rossi, in Reshaping the Political Arena in Latin America,
compare the incorporation strategies of twenty-first century pink tide governments
with those of the newly created Latin American democracies in the first half of the
twentieth century. While the latter incorporated the working class into the political and
cultural life of the nation, the former have attempted to incorporate excluded and
marginalized sectors.3

An evaluation of the Chavista governments attempts to achieve incorporation yields

mixed results. Along these lines, it is useful to examine valid criticisms formulated by
both members of the opposition and some government supporters since neither the
exaggerations of success nor the sweeping condemnations voiced by opposition parties
in Venezuela tell us what has happened and why. Only an impartial examination can
provide lessons that might both influence social policy going forward in Venezuela and
shed light on what is happening or could happen in other pink-tide states or beyond.
Indeed, incorporation of the excluded and semi-excluded takes on a special significance
amid globalization, which has everywhere given rise to alternative structures partly or
completely outside of the formal economy and to opportunities for livelihood that arent
legally recognized.4

The Rule of Flexibility

Flexibility is important in the implementation of social programs designed for
marginalized sectorsand not just in developing countries. The excluded and semi-
excluded also constitute an important bloc of the developed-world population. In the
United States, workers from racial and ethnic minorities are typically the last hired and
first fired, as are immigrant workers. Some of those who feel excluded participate in
such mass protests as the Occupy Movement and Black Lives Matter Movement.
President Chvez giving a speech in 2009 about the Missions programs

In Venezuela, many of the numerous innovative programs put into practice in nearly two
decades of Chavista rule have been informed by the governments commitment to
flexibility. But in practice, the record is decidedly mixed. On the one hand, the policy of
flexibility did encourage participation. On the other, in some cases it encouraged
paternalistic and clientelistic relationships that led to the squandering of resources since
recipients of public funding have few incentives to fulfill their end of the bargain such
as in the case of allocations to create micro-companies. The flexibility policy also often
impeded the institutionalization of social programs, which were largely makeshift and
outside of existing executive branch structures.

The following government programs and initiatives in Venezuela were especially

meaningful for the marginalized bloc of the population due to their flexible
implementation.

The Communal Councils

The Communal Council Law passed in April 2006 helped jumpstart the creation of
communal councils throughout Venezuela. Representatives of the Ministry of Social
Development and Popular Participation (which in 2009 became the Ministry of the
Communes) sent social workers (promotores) to communities to encourage them to
organize communal councils. These designated promoters told community members
that about 60,000 U.S. dollars (in bolvares) would be allotted to each community for
infrastructural and social projects, but that the money had to be channeled through
communal councils. This procedural tactic generated enthusiasm and momentum for the
creation of communal councils, which proliferated throughout the nation. By early
2007, about 20,000 communal councils had been formed.5

Councils are intended to be anything but hierarchical. Those in charge of the communal
councils daily decision making are called voceros (spokespeople). Equal in rank, all
perform their duties free of charge and belong to just one of various communal council
commissions-- including an electoral commission, a social controllership that
monitors spending, and an employment commission that enlists and seeks hiring
preferences for qualified community members. All decisions are ratified in an
assembly of citizens, which represents the communal councils maximum instance of
decision-making (Article 6 of the 2006 law).

Lengthy funding procedures for the communal councils are designed to prevent the
squandering of moneya problem in many of the worker cooperatives that the Chavista
government promoted before 2006 (see below). The state generally allocates money to
the councils in two payments or more and inspects the results at each stage, taking
photographs midway through the job. Besides providing advice, the promotores
employed by the governorship or the Fundacomunal office of the Ministry of the
Communes inspect work on the project to confirm (using social criteria) that it
benefits the anticipated number of families. Other ministries carry out inspections of a
technical nature. Passing these inspections qualifies the council for additional funding to
complete the project or begin work on a new one. Fundacomunal and the Consejo
Federal del Gobierno (which receives a fixed percentage of the national budget known
as the situado to finance state, municipal and communal council-sponsored projects)
both keep registries of communal councils that the governorship and other state offices
can check in order to avoid funding councils in bad standing.

Does this system of checks and controls work? The threat of suspension of public
funding weighs heavily on voceros and other community members who have invested
considerable time and effort in the councils formation. These procedures, however,
have not proven to be totally effective in part because there has been no effort to
proceed judicially against those guilty of unethical practices.6

The Organic Communal Council Law of 2009, which replaced the 2006 law,
restructured the councils to enhance collective decision making. From the programs
outset, the officials elected to the communal councils were called voceros because of the
absence of maximum leadership roles (unlike the cooperatives, each of which was
headed by a president). But before the 2009 law, one vocero was often considered
communal council president by virtue of his or her control of the councils financial
body--the Communal Bank.

One problem was that the Communal Bank, a cooperative by law, was relatively
autonomous. For that reason, the 2009 law eliminated the Communal Bank and
channeled funds to the councils through regular banks. As an extra safeguard, a team of
three voceros from different communal council commissions now has to sign
community project requests for itemized expenses, whether it be for material or labor.
The request along with the required documentation is then taken to the state body that
finances the project, which in turn instructs the Bicentenario Bank (created by the
government in 2009 to favor those Venezuelans traditionally refused credit) to issue the
check. Leandro Rodrguez, an adviser for the National Assemblys Committee on
Citizen Participation, called the new procedure time-consuming and at times
complicated, but 100 percent necessary. The 2009 law (in Article 57) also paved the
way for the participation of the National Controllership in order to ensure
transparency.7

In the name of maximizing participation, the 2006 law established relatively small
geographical boundaries for the communal councils. Each represents only 200 to 400
families. The notion of the smaller the better actually has deep roots: in the 1980s and
1990s, the Presidential Commission for State Reform (COPRE) facilitated the breakup
of dozens of municipalities in order to promote decentralization.89

The governments strategy of allocating resources and distributing goods through the
communal councils encourages participation. One indication is the relatively high
attendance over the years at the communal council citizen assemblies, which are open
to all community residents. These meetings choose priority public works projects for
which the council then solicits public funding. The assemblies also select the recipients
of different housing programs on the basis of personal need. Finally, the assemblies are
where community members learn such details as the delivery dates and cost of food
items sold at reduced prices through the Ministerio de Alimentacin programs to
alleviate food shortages.

Many state civil servants in Venezuela believe, as did President Chvez, that allocating
money directly to the communal councils to carry out public works projects is better
than contracting with construction companies. According to this line of thinking, the
communal council can monitor projects to ensure high quality most effectively when it
controls the resources and makes important decisions. To that point, staff in state
funding bodies add that organized criminal groups posing as labor unions often strong-
arm construction firms to hire their own members, who end up receiving salaries
without having to worknot a problem in public works run and staffed by community
residents.

More generally, councils insist that all but the most specialized jobs be filled by
community residents, whether public works projects in the neighborhood are carried out
by construction firms, communal councils or the state. As the voceros point out,
numerous unemployed or semi-employed skilled workers, including plumbers,
electricians and masons, reside in even the poorest barrios.10 By the same token,
councils insist that the state provide them with the construction plans for public works
in their community so they can monitor projects, an activity referred to as social
controllership (contralora social).

Periodically, the Chavista governments attempted to revitalize social programs and

overcome lethargy by providing new benefits and introducing innovations under the
slogan reimpulso (new push forward). Renovating the communal councils and
diversifying their functions served these ends.

One example of reimpulso marked President Chvez third term in office. Starting in
2006, Chavez promoted the creation of social production companies (empresas de
produccin social - EPSs) under the jurisdiction of the communal councils. EPSs were
formed in construction, gas distribution, public transportation and the manufacturing of
cement blocks, among other sectors. During the same period, the federal government
encouraged clusters of councils to form communes expressly to carry out large-scale
projects. The Law of the Communes of 2010 facilitated this process through the Plans
of Communal Development, whereby state planning bodies and the EPSs interface
with the communes in order to allow them to become financially self-sufficient.11

With the launch of the Great Housing Mission in 2011, the communal councils
mandate was expanded. As before, they picked some of the beneficiaries of new houses
and renovation materials by giving priority to the elderly, pregnant single women,
disaster victims, and the disabled. When the Maduro government began to emphasize
the goal of food sovereignty in 2015, the communal councils assumed new roles. Not
only did the government prioritize those communal councils with agriculture-based
EPSs, but councils throughout the country participated in the state-sponsored house-to-
house food distribution program.

Through policy and law, Maduros administration also gave the councils a role in
enforcing price regulation of basic commodities. Communal council voceros began to
accompany the consumer protection agency (the Super-Intendancy of Just Prices, or
SUNDDE, which in 2014 replaced INDEPABIS) when it inspected commercial
establishments to monitor prices-- and to close down for 24 or 48 hours any stores that
overcharge.

In short, the constantly expanding roles of the communal councils bolster their image
and generate enthusiasm among the people they represent. In the process the councils
have established a working relation with diverse bodies at the neighborhood level. As
one scholar wrote, Perhaps the most interesting innovation of the communal councils is
that they are designed to integrate the wide variety of committees that have formed in
communities over the course of the Chvez presidency.12

Worker Cooperatives
Another government-promoted program with social objectives in the Chavez years was
the worker cooperative movement. After the movement received a massive injection of
state credit between 2004 and 2006, official attention and priorities shifted to the
community councils. The cooperative movement took in large numbers of poor people
with little experience in the formal economy. By joining cooperatives, they learned
administrative skills and were exposed to new attitudes toward cooperation and
solidarity. Breaking with the tradition of wage labor, the experience of profit-sharing
also inevitably influenced the thinking of cooperative members. The new way of
thinking and acting was reinforced by legislation requiring cooperatives to undertake
work in the communities where they are located, such as maintenance service in schools
and the distribution of Christmas presents to children. In an additional break with the
past, government spokesmen have credited cooperatives, such as those of fishermen,
with challenging the market control of monopoly companies.13

Beginning in 2005, Chvez traveled throughout Venezuela to formally authorize loans

for cooperatives. In televised Regional Cabinet Meetings, recipients of funding
discussed their plans and answered questions posed by the president. At the same time,
the government established the Vuelvan Caras program to provide training sessions of
6 to 24 months to build the skills of those interested in forming cooperatives. Many who
took up the offer were graduates of the governments makeshift high school and
university educational programs known as the Robinson and Sucre Missions (see
below).

Besides training, government provides contracts, loans and tax exempt status to
incentivize coop formation. For instance, numerous large cooperatives now perform
maintenance work for local government and for such state companies as the oil industry.
That said, many cooperatives are basically private companies that disguise themselves
as cooperatives to take advantage of these benefits.14

The availability of these opportunities notwithstanding, few authentic cooperatives are

big enough to handle large government contracts. Most boast little more than five
members, the minimum number established by law. Many consist of members of an
extended familywhich, whatever else, guarantees mutual trust among associates.

Breaking with the tradition of wage labor, the experience of profit-sharing also
inevitably influenced the thinking of cooperative members. The new way of thinking
and acting was reinforced by legislation requiring cooperatives to undertake work in the
communities where they are located, such as maintenance service in schools and the
distribution of Christmas presents to children.

One of the few large cooperative enterprises, and perhaps the most publicized one, is the
complex Fabricio Ojeda located in western Caracas on land ceded by the state oil
company, PDVSA. Soon after its founding in 2004, the complex had 150 workers (all
but one of them women) in the textile factory Venezuela Advances and 75 in a shoe
factory. The complexs health and educational facilities serve the residents in the
surrounding communities. As for how this enterprise works in house, one supervisor
asked about high worker absenteeism in Venezuela Advances stated: If the worker
has a legitimate health problem, they can get time off and will receive the same salary
as everyone else. But at the end of the year our cooperatives surplus [profits] are
divided up and distributed to each worker on the basis of the number of days worked.
For perspective here, in the previous year, the surplus that workers received in
December nearly equaled their annual salary.15

For several reasons, many of the initial cooperatives foundered. By 2007 some 48,000
functioning cooperatives remained out of the 140,000 registered the year before.16
While many cooperatives never got off the ground,17 in other cases the cooperatives
president pocketed state loans or down payments for contracts.18

To turn the situation around, the Ministry of the Popular Economy sought greater
control over the surviving cooperatives. From 2007 on, cooperatives were required
every three months to gain approval for a Certificate of Fulfillment of Responsibilities
issued by the Ministry. The paperwork, which included a balance sheet signed by a
certified accountant, proved to be time-consuming. Cooperatives also had to
demonstrate that they met their financial obligations to government agencies, including
the social security system, the housing authority and the national job-training institute
INCE. Often, cooperatives asked each member to handle one or two of the required
documents so no individual would get too bogged down.

The new requirements were a well-intentioned effort to clamp down on abuse and lack
of commitment, which resulted in the waste of public resources. But many cooperative
members and social activists criticized the government for careening from one extreme
to another, from excessive leniency to onerous requirements.19

The Mission Programs

In 2003, the government created the Mission program, partly outside ministerial and
legal structures. First came programs in health and education and then, in 2011, housing
construction. The Barrio Adentro mission, staffed largely by Cuban doctors, provides
free medical service, including dental care and medicines, some from Cuba. Barrio
Adentro got its start when Cuban doctors came to Venezuela after heavy flooding in
December 1999 that particularly devastated the coastal state of Vargas. The programs
origin in crisis exemplifies the reactive nature of the missions more generally and also
underscores the need for flexibility. After the deluge, some 12,000 Cuban doctors, some
veterans of the 1999 flood, initiated the Barrio Adentro Mission by establishing
residences and consultation offices throughout Venezuelas poor neighborhoods.

The educational mission programs range from literacy classes (Mission Robinson) to
high school education (Mission Ribas, which is largely funded by PDVSA) and
university education (Mission Sucre). Some students in these programs receive a
modest stipend tantamount to a scholarship. The Robinson and Ribas Missions use
video cassettes (mainly produced in Cuba) and facilitators in lieu of teachers. Mission
Robinson II, started later, enables literacy program graduates to enroll in primary
school.
Mission Ribas: victory is necessary

Like other missions, all are community oriented. Nearly every semester, for instance,
Sucre Mission students in the social sciences take Projects courses in which they
work with community councils to design proposals that are sometimes submitted to
state financing bodies.

The education missions operate on a shoestring budget. Implementing them, the

government privileges quantity over quality so per student expenditures are dwarfed by
those of the established educational system. Using video cassettes and facilitators in
place of teachers reduces costs, but also quality. Furthermore, the Ribas and Sucre
Missions lack the organizational infrastructure of traditional public schools. Except
where campuses have been built, the education missions hold classes in public schools
at night and at military bases, with minimum clerical assistance.20

Given lowered standards in the mission schools, students in these programs run the risk
that their degrees wont be recognized. (By the same token, the community medical
program Medicina Integral Comunitaria is suffused with politically driven
resentment against the Cuban doctors who serve as teachers.) Since the danger of
worthless degrees would undoubtedly grow were the political opposition to return to
power, the government has reached admissions agreements with public universities
under the jurisdiction of the Ministry of Higher Education. Under this arrangement,
which the autonomous universities have rejected, public universities supervise exams
and theses and issue diplomas in their names without reference to the Sucre Mission.

The prospect of a university degree in the name of an established university has drawn
hundreds of thousands of underprivileged young people into the Sucre Mission
program, but it is also controversial. Many in the opposition argue that granting mission
students what North Americans call a community college degree (known in Venezuela
as tcnico superior) instead of a university degree would be more appropriate. This
proposal would undoubtedly make the program less attractive and sharply reduce
enrollment. The granting of a regular university degree to the graduates is a calculated
decision that takes into consideration the importance of the incorporation of the
formerly excluded sectors of the population, and especially young people.

Two features of the mission programs reinforce the strategies discussed above with
regard to the community councils and other government social policies. First, since the
programs were makeshift and experimental in some ways, and were often run out of
parallel structures (such as in the case of the educational missions, which were largely
outside of the grip of the Education Ministry), bureaucratic requirements were less
onerous. This made them more attractive to excluded and semi-excluded groups.
Second, various missions have gradually gone beyond their original objectives. Some
have entered new stages. Barrio Adentro, for instance, first added specialized medical
attention, then opened diagnostic centers, and after that branched out into specialized
hospitals. These advances and the reformulation of objectives reflect the Chavista
strategy of continually deepening the revolutionary process by introducing new
programs, slogans and goals. They also reinforce reimpulso by renewing participants
enthusiasm.

Input from Below

Various programs implemented by Chvez evolved out of proposals from the rank and
file of the Chavista movement or sprang from grassroots experiences. For instance, the
community councils partly grew out of the Water Committees (Mesas Tcnicas de
Agua) that emerged from 1993 to 1996 in barrios throughout Caracas during the
mayoral rule of future Chavista leader and vice-president Aristbulo Istriz. The mesas
worked closely with the mayors office to improve the water supply to barrio
households. As another example, the communes actually emerged as a result of local
initiatives prior to the Law of the Communes passed in 2010, as documented by social
scientists George Ciccariello-Maher and Dario Azzellini.21

Another proposal that emerged from the Chavista movements ranks led to the
formation of the Comits Locales de Abastecimientos y Produccin (Local Supply and
Production Committees CLAPs), which deliver basic food items house to house at
subsidized prices. The idea came out of the attempt by Chavistas to analyze the causes
of their sweeping defeat in the December 2015 National Assembly elections. The
Chavistas attributed the disappointing outcome to scarcity of basic commodities and the
deficient system of food distribution. Members of the Chavista party, the United
Socialist Party (PSUV), and its allies were placed in charge of the CLAPs.

Was this step in keeping with the principles of inclusion and participation? Government
supporters justified the move on grounds that CLAPs are basically adjuncts of the state.
In addition, politically, the CLAPs function was to combat the alleged economic war
waged by the governments enemies in the private sector so the Chavistas were loath to
trust them to run the committees, particularly because large sums of money were
involved. Nevertheless, the distinction between the CLAPs as an arm of the state and as
a social movement was blurred, especially since in many communities some of the
organizations participants belonged to the opposition and thus did not consider
themselves to be government representatives.22

Various programs implemented by Chvez evolved out of proposals from the rank and
file of the Chavista movement or sprang from grassroots experiences.

Criticisms and Lessons

True to its social strategy of encouraging participation, particularly of marginalized
groups, the Chavista government has tried to avoid rigidity in applying rules and
regulations. This practice, however, stymies creation of both viable institutional controls
of the money allocated and effective mechanisms to penalize members of community
councils and cooperatives who prove unscrupulous or negligent in handling public
funds.

One thorny issue is the Chavista governments reluctance to take punitive measures
against wrong doers, particularly in low-income groups. As Congressional advisor
Leandro Rodrguez points out, community activists who accuse fellow communal
council members of misspending money often complain of lengthy delays in court
procedures, which entail a freeze on additional funding for the council. Beyond that is a
lack of formal links between the community councils social controllership
commission and the National Controller, who according to law should be providing the
communities with legal information. All that said, state agencies have implemented
thorough inspection procedures and mechanisms to avoid granting funds to community
councils that havent satisfactorily completed previous projects.23

In general, the nations sharp political polarization holds back the institutionalization of
the Chavistas social programs and other initiatives. Intense ongoing political
confrontation pressures the Chavista government to avoid strengthening institutions by
establishing institutional rules, regulations and constraints, which may cut into its social
base of support.

True to its social strategy of encouraging participation, particularly of marginalized

groups, the Chavista government has tried to avoid rigidity in applying rules and
regulations. This practice, however, stymies creation of both viable institutional controls
of the money allocated and effective mechanisms to penalize members of community
councils and cooperatives who prove unscrupulous or negligent in handling public
funds.

The second prong of the governments social strategy, the massive incorporation of low-
income Venezuelans in diverse programs, in some cases represents a zero-sum game
favoring some groups at the expense of others. In the case of the Sucre Mission, for
instance, the losers are graduates of the traditional universities who must compete in
job markets swamped with mission graduates who drive salaries down even though
their diplomas may have been easier to obtain. Similarly, from a purely cost-benefit
perspective, allocating money directly to the communal councils poses a dilemma. The
performance of private contractors with their experience and technology is typically
superior, but the experience obtained by the councils advances the goal of popular
participation.

Popular participation and mobilization embody the concept of majority rule (or radical
democracy), which underpins the discourse and some of the policies of the Chavista
government and bolsters its democratic credentials. Radical democracy in the tradition
of Rousseau is often criticized by liberal thinkers for holding back institutional checks
and balances while failing to distinguish clearly between civil society and the state.
Certainly, that happened in the case of Venezuelas CLAPs.

...radical democracy and institutional checks (such as the separation of powers) should
not be considered incompatible. Indeed, their reconciliation is essential if social
programs are to be run efficiently and honestly and, equally important, if they are to
succeed.

The Chavista governments social programs evidence the tensions between institutional
checks and radical democracy. As noted here, the flexibility principle guided the
governments social programs aimed at popular incorporation particularly of the
marginalized sectors in such programs as the cooperative movement and the education
missions. In practice, the policy of flexibility worked the best in makeshift structures
functioning on the margins of established institutions.24

The system of checks and balances, though associated with liberal democracy, is a sine-
qua-non for institutionalizing the Chavista model in a way that avoids the bureaucratic
socialism that the Chavistas so adamantly reject. More generally, radical democracy and
institutional checks (such as the separation of powers) should not be considered
incompatible. Indeed, their reconciliation is essential if social programs are to be run
efficiently and honestly and, equally important, if they are to succeed.

1. In the 1960s and 1970s, Venezuelan elections were characterized by high rates
of participation even among the poor due to obligatory voting requirements. This
pattern changed in the 1980s and 1990s when electoral participation
significantly declined.

2. Sidney Veba and Norman H. Nie, Participation in America: Political

Democracy and Social Equality, 1972 (New York: Harper and Row)

3. Eduardo Silvia and Federico M. Rossi, Reshaping the Political Arena in Latin
America: From Resisting Neoliberalism to the Second Incorporation, 2017
(Pittsburgh: University of Pittsburgh Press)

4. Roger Burbach, Orlando Nuez and Boris Kagarlitsky, Globalization and its
Discontents: The Rise of Postmodern Socialisms, 1997 (London: Pluto Press)

5. George Ciccariello-Maher, Building the Commune: Radical Democracy in

Venezuela, 2016 (London: Verso), 107 and Gregory Wilpert Venezuelas
Experiment in Participatory Democracy, in Thomas Ponniah and Jonathan
Eastwood (eds.), The Revolution in Venezuela: Social and Political Change
under Chvez, 2011 (Cambridge MA: Harvard University Press), 110

6. Cristobal Valencia, We are the State! Barrio Activism in Venezuelas

Bolivarian Revolution, 2015 (Tucson: University of Arizona Press), 147-153

7. Leandro Rodriguez, personal interview, 2011 (Caracas, September 15)

8. Steve Ellner, Deepening of Democracy in a Crisis Setting: Political Reforms

and Electoral Process in Venezuela. Journal of Interamerican Studies and
World Affairs no.4, (1993-94), 1-42.

9. Actually, the new municipalities that emerged represented mostly wealthy

communities. This was the case with the capital city of Caracas, which was
broken up into five municipalities. This development, like other reforms
designed to promote decentralization during those years, was inspired by the
then prevailing thinking of neoliberalism.

10. The system in Venezuela in which social organizations make

recommendations to companies for the hiring of employees dates back in time.
The 1973 oil workers contract allowed contractor companies to hire 80 percent
of their employees from union-supplied lists, a percentage that was retained in
subsequent collective bargaining agreements.

11. George Ciccariello-Maher, Building the Commune: Radical Democracy in

Venezuela, 2016 (London: Verso), 84-99
 12. Gregory Wilpert Venezuelas Experiment in Participatory Democracy, in
Thomas Ponniah and Jonathan Eastwood (eds.), The Revolution in Venezuela:
Social and Political Change under Chvez, 2011 (Cambridge MA: Harvard
University Press), 109-110

13. Lucena, Hctor, Sindicatos cooperativas: encuentros y desencuentros, in

Lucena (coordinator), Cooperativas, empresas, estado y sindicatos: una
vinculacin necesaria, 2007 (Barquisimeto: Universidad Centroccidental
Lisandro Alvarado and Universidad de Carobobo), 74-76

14. Lucena, Hctor, Sindicatos cooperativas: encuentros y desencuentros, in

Lucena (coordinator), Cooperativas, empresas, estado y sindicatos: una
vinculacin necesaria, 2007 (Barquisimeto: Universidad Centroccidental
Lisandro Alvarado and Universidad de Carobobo), 215-216

15. Steve Ellner, The Trial (and Errors) of Hugo Chvez. In These Times 31,
2007, no. 9 (September): 26

16. In a work published in 2013, Dario Azzellini stated that the Chvez
government had promoted the creation of 70,000 operative cooperatives
(Economa solidaria en Venezuela: del apoyo al cooperativismo tradicional a la
construccin de ciclos comunales. Revista Idelcoop, no. 210: (2013), 29).

17. The governments all-out campaign to promote the formation of cooperatives

may have been hasty and premature. It encouraged many Venezuelans to create
and register a cooperative even though they lacked a clear idea of the challenges
involved, or a long-time commitment to the undertaking. The problem was
aggravated by the absence of a tradition of cooperatives in Venezuela (Azzellini,
2013: 22).

18. Steve Ellner, The Trial (and Errors) of Hugo Chvez. In These Times 31,
2007, no. 9 (September): 26

19. Angel Rodrguez, Cooperativas de mantenimiento y servicio de Enelbar, in

Lucena (coordinator), Cooperativas, empresas, estado y sindicatos: una
vinculacin necesaria, 2007, (Barquisimeto: Universidad Centroccidental
Lisandro Alvarado and Universidad de Carobobo), 217-249

20. Kirk A. Hawkins, Venezuelas Chavismo and Populism in Comparative

Perspectives. Cambridge, 2010 (England: Cambridge University Press), 200-205

21. George Ciccariello-Maher, Building the Commune: Radical Democracy in

Venezuela, 2016 (London: Verso) and Dario Azzellini, Communes and Workers
Control in Venezuela: Building 21st Century Socialism from Below, 2017 (Brill:
Leiden and Boston), 245-246

22. The case of the CLAPS as well as the community councils puts in evidence
the ongoing and perhaps inevitable tension between governments favoring far-
reaching structural change and social movements, which attempt to assert a
 degree of autonomy. Since 2014, when the price of oil sharply declined and
pressing economic difficulties set in, the political opposition has made inroads in
numerous community councils that the Chavistas had originally dominated.

23. Leandro Rodriguez, personal interview, 2011 (Caracas, September 15), and
Margarita Lopez Maya and Luis E. Lander Participatory Democracy in
Venezuela: Origins, Ideas, and Implementation, in David Smilde and Daniel
Hellinger (eds.), Venezuelas Bolivarian Democracy: Participation, Politics, and
Culture under Chvez, 2011 (Durham N.C.: Duke University Press)

24. see discussion by David Smilde Introduction: Participation, Politics, and

Culture Emerging Fragments of Venezuelas Bolivarian Democracy in Smilde
and Daniel Hellinger (eds.), Venezuelas Bolivarian Democracy: Participation,
Politics, and Culture under Chvez, 2011, (Durham N.C.: Duke University
Press), 3-18.

https://thenextsystem.org/learn/stories/social-
programs-venezuela-under-chavista-
governments