Bolivarianismo at the cross roads. Analysis of therise and crisis of chavismo from its own concepts

Abstract

The article examines the rise and crisis of chavismo from its ideas and main political concepts. The recent history of the development and official appropriation of the concept of “Bolivarianism” takes a central place. In addition, it presents how the secondary concept of “21st century socialism” emerged in the Venezuelan context, in a tense relationship with the previous notion of Bolivarianism; and how the notion of democracy was articulated in a very particular way with those concepts. It is proposed as a hypothesis that this appropriation is part of an already long tradition of left-wing groups in the peripheries, which seek to nationalize and present themselves as part of a national history that for them would have in its origin pretentious egalitarian, progressive, and revolutionary elements. These close traditions framed in the local past, in the “own”, could according to them serve as a basis for the projection of a different society in the future.