The authors of this book ask two related questions: how to explain the extreme polarization of Venezuelan politics, and how to understand the relation between this polarization and the idea of direct democracy, which has been central to the legitimating rhetoric of Chavismo from the beginning. The answers are potentially of interest, but the authors pose the questions in a highly problematic way, which leads to inconsistent and sometimes contradictory results.

The issues are posed together throughout the book, so it is worth beginning by asking what constitutes polarization, how the authors conceive of “direct democracy,” and what the relation is between them. The argument, in a nutshell, is that polarization reflects the fragmentation of the public sphere, which is related (whether cause or effect is not clear) to the rise of a kind of rhetoric that shapes views of reality in mutually exclusive terms. This further reinforces polarization and undermines the potential legacy of the kind of participatory democracy promoted by Hugo Chávez. At the same time, the goal of direct participative democracy had seeds of weakness and contradiction built in from the get-go.

The authors are inconsistent about the causes of polarization. Is it the result of economic inequalty? Does it respond to rhetoric that paints the “other” as evil? Does it follow from a new geography of politics or cause it, with some areas totally Chavista, others pure opposition? For the authors, words shape reality. Thus, “As the political conflict intensified, even everyday acts, cultural styles, and social interactions came to be interpeted politically, undermining the ability of Venezuelans to accept the plurality inherent in their society” (143).

The authors reject the notion that extremes of polarization have been deliberately induced and sustained from the beginning and that polarization is the end result of an existential struggle, although they pull back from this slightly in chapter 6, on the new student movement, where they speak of the students “hitting the wall of the existential struggle” (132). They seem to accept the notion of existential struggle less as a reality than as a framework into which events are fitted (143). Another look might suggest that for almost 30 years, the course of politics in Venezuela has indeed been an existential struggle, in which each side has reason to believe that its survival is in danger. This is not just a matter of the two sides knowing each other better. They know each other very well. Talk of existential conflict is not just rhetoric.

With rare exceptions (at points in chapter 2), the authors regularly conflate the rhetoric of direct democracy (or to use the Chavista term, democracia protagónica y participativa) with a vigorous reality of multiple instances of deliberative democracy that shape public life. Is this true? On the evidence presented here, it is difficult to tell. At no place in this book is there any presentation of systematic data on precisely what participation has been like in this supposed new order of things. At critical moments, such as the short-lived 2002 coup, local initiatives (e.g., local radio) did play a key role in mobilizing support. But in the long run, this image of self-moved participation has to be set in the context of what has been a hypercentralized political system with an increasingly critical role for military and so-called security forces in the administration of ordinary life (from running ministries to managing food distribution).

The authors devote considerable attention to the 1999 National Constituent Assembly (ANC), promoted by Chávez through a referendum. The ANC set the terms of the regime and wrote the constitution of the newly renamed Bolivarian Republic. This material offers interesting insights into the regime’s legitmating rhetoric, in which protagonic and participative democracy is depicted as superior to and, above all, more authentic than bourgeois representative democracy. Indeed, the term representative does not appear in the 1999 Constitution.

The subtitle of the book, “The Paradox of Direct Demoracy,” suggests that this new form of participatory democracy has had unanticipated and paradoxical results. In the Chávez-inspired view of things, participation is mediated through the leader, who embodies the general will. There is little room here for a concept of civil society independent of the state. “Ironically,” the authors write,

But why is this ironic? A more comparative view would show that top-down efforts to promote “popular participation” centered on “the leader” commonly end up with something more like transmission belt arrangements, in which participation brings access to benefits in return for support. The experience of the Peruvian military’s system of popular participation after 1968, SINAMOS, is relevant here. Others, like Perón or Torrijos, celebrated by many, also fill this command and control model.

Something like this is acknowleged briefly toward the end of the book, but stated in a way that assumes that direct “protagonic” democracy was in fact a reality and not simply a rhetorical device. After citing a series of Maduro decrees regulating and controlling food distribution, the authors state,

In chapter 3, “Political Ghettoes in Caracas,” the authors present a lot of material on the political geography of the country, which separates social life into mutually exclusive groups: neighborhoods, sources of information, circles of friends, travel routes, and the like. All this is compounded and reinforced by overlapping elements of class, race, and political stance. The information is exclusively Caracas-based, and one would like to know how this plays out in other major urban areas, like Maracaibo or Valencia. Even in a nation as capital-city–dominant as Venezuela, surely there are important things going on outside the capital.

The authors’ presentation throughout is accompanied by a heavy dose of references to social theory (Pierre Bourdieu, Paul Ricoeur, Nancy Fraser, Jürgen Habermas, and many others). But does it really help to cite Erving Goffman (106) on the presentation of self to make sense of the competing imagery of regime and oppositon: red shirts, national flags, Chavistas or escuálidos? Is this really well understood as a need for performance? Does it help to ground understanding of the public sphere in terms of the body (143)? The Venezuelan situation is, of course, not unique: in Colombia, well into the 1950s, wearing a red (Liberal) tie in a blue (Conservative) area was an invitation to danger. The visible symbology of Trump rallies—MAGA caps, red jackets, pertinent signs—provides another set of visible experiences.

This book was finished in 2013. In the last chapter, the authors try to bring the narrative quickly up to date, with disappointing results. As I noted earlier, the authors are all over the map in terms of polarization and its future prospects. They suggest that economic decline (the collapse of petroleum prices) may have been a central factor in the rise of extreme polarization by making goods scarce and competition for access more intense. But they also suggest (with no apparent basis) that current shortages of food might “chip away at the antagonism” (150). The logic of this is unclear: if scarcity leads to competition and polarization, why would more intense scarcity ameliorate polarization?

If we reflect on the arguments and evidence of this book in light of events since the death of Hugo Chávez, a few things become clear. The authoritarian tendencies and bad policies that have put Venezuela and its people into such dire straits all evolve out of policies and programs put in place by Chávez himself—political and economic time bombs, if you will, that have all exploded in the past few years. If polarization is a core problem, it can be understood only in the context of the creeping but now accelerating imposition of an openly authoritarian regime. When the opposition began doing better in elections, promising candidates were disqualified. When referenda were set in motion, the process was subject to innumerable delays and obstacles and finally just canceled. When the Bolivarian Constitution allowed the opposition to gain an important role, that constitution, with all its rhetoric, was simply scrapped, and a new one imposed through rigged elections.

Political scientists and sociologists have exhausted themselves searching for categories: hybrid democracy, semidemocracy, gray area, electoral authoritarianism, populist. But plain speech is better. Not so long ago, Venezuela was an optimistic, open society, a hopeful magnet for generations of immigrants. Now it is a brutally improverished, deeply divided, and violence-ridden country with severe deficits in health, welfare, and nutrition, from which people flee by any means in search of a better life. This lamentable transformation is the gift of Hugo Chávez and his coalition, sharpened and shaped by Nicolás Maduro.

There is no paradox here. The polarized politics of Venezuela are the result of deliberate choices and destructive policies.