Does anybody have any interesting insights into Venezuela?
For now, what I’m planning to tell the students on Tuesday is that Venezuela was kept together by Chávez’s charisma. His uncharismatic successor can be saying and doing the same things, and people will find them annoying because he isn’t Chávez.
It seems from everything I’ve read that Venezuela has been experiencing a free fall in every respect since Chávez’s death: the inflation is ridiculous, the crime rates are soaring, the popular discontent is mounting.
So what is the conclusion we can draw? The whole thing was kept together only by Chávez’s personality?
I welcome any contributions because I’m not extremely knowledgeable here.
Clarissa's Blog 
What about Chavez’s economic policies? If inflation is growing that quickly, that tells me that his successor isn’t doing the same things, even if he is saying the same things.
Much of what I’ve read comes from student protesters (I think) who complain that the successor is uneducated. That’s all I’ve got, though. The censorship issue is driving me insane.
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Meanwhile, in Australia:
http://www.theguardian.com/commentisfree/2014/feb/28/if-g4s-is-to-blame-for-manus-violence-the-government-has-blood-on-its-hands
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Having spent lots of time in Venezuela between 1997 and 2001, I try to keep up with what’s happening there. There are few English language bloggers still writing from Venezuela. Daniel Duquenal (pseudonym) is, I think, the best of the few and I often cite his analyses. In this post, he tried to explain the roots of the problems in general terms.
Mass media coverage is generally poor and usually — but not always — along ideological lines. I attempted to explain why here, with excerpts from a Huffington Post article castigating the left and another from the Buenos Aires Herald that explains — perhaps intentionally — why the coverage is as it is.
Here is a link to one of Daniel’s more recent posts in which he tries to sort things out.
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Very good links, thank you, Dan.
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From one of Dan’s links: “A pro-Chavez academic writing in The Nation argued that the massive street demonstrations across the country “have far more to do with returning economic and political elites to power than with their downfall.”
– It’s interesting how the supporters of popular protests begin to hate them when the protesters’ demands are not to their personal liking.
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