Venezuela has become what authors Ana L. Mallen and María Pilar García-Guadilla call in this volume an ‘extreme’ case of polarisation that has reached ‘a pathological degree’ (p. 14), manifesting itself on political and social fronts. As the authors point out, extreme polarisation predates Hugo Chávez's advent to power in 1998 and in fact became widespread following the ‘Caracazo’ disturbances in 1989, when mass looting throughout the country sent shock waves through middle- and upper-class communities. It is ironic that of all Latin American nations, Venezuela would become the most extreme example of polarisation in the years of the ‘Pink Tide’ governments in the early twenty-first century. Throughout the latter half of the previous century, scholars as well as many Venezuelans considered the nation ‘exceptional’ in that it was allegedly free of deep-rooted class and racial tensions.

Mallen and García-Guadilla examine the dimensions and manifestations of extreme polarisation mainly during the early years of the Chávez government. According to the authors, both the opposition and the Chavistas perceived the interaction between the two sides as a ‘zero-sum game’ and an ‘existential struggle’, a term used throughout the book. Neither of the two groups was monolithic and thus, for example, the opposition took in ‘ideological tendencies ranging from Chicago School capitalists to state-centered social democrats’ (p. 100). The intensity of the clash between Chavista and anti-Chavista camps, however, ‘came to limit the expression of this plurality’ (p. 100) within the opposition as internal differences were ‘hidden from the public, ensuring the presentation of a single view’ (p. 104). Another manifestation of the polarisation was the spatial divides or ‘spatial balkanization’ (p. 138) described in the chapter ‘Political Ghettos in Caracas’.

The polarisation left no room for compromise and thus undermined the position of political actors who attempted to occupy a space between the two extremes, including those who the authors label a ‘loyal opposition’. One example of an opposition moderate was Claudio Fermín, a former presidential candidate of Acción Democrática (Democratic Action, AD). The anti-Chavistas harshly criticised Fermín's critical position, which was hardly pro-Chávez, but was ‘seen as strengthening the government and undermining the Opposition’ (p. 104). The Carter Center and Jennifer McCoy, the director of its America programme, suffered a similar fate as a result of the centre's validation of the official results of the 2004 presidential recall election, which favoured Chávez. The authors discuss a comparable dilemma in the chapter ‘The New Student Movement: Dreams of Unity’. The student movement that emerged following Chávez's landslide re-election in 2006 represented a ‘loyal opposition’ (p. 120), which, unlike much of the opposition's political leadership, did not seek Chávez's ‘departure or resignation’ (p. 134, fn. 6). The movement generated considerable hope in a nation that was, in the words of one student leader, ‘immersed in hatred, intolerance and the use of weapons’ (p. 122). The hopefulness, however, was quickly dashed as a result of ‘the logic of the polarization in Venezuela’ (p. 122).

The authors demonstrate how the semantic implications of key terms widely used during the period reinforced polarisation. The use of loaded terms and ‘the simple choice of words to describe … events’ (p. 107) defined political positions. The opposition, for instance, described the situation leading to the short-lived overthrow of Chávez in April 2002 as a ‘power vacuum’, while the Chavistas called the action a ‘coup d’état’. Furthermore, both Chavistas and opposition members used pejoratives not only to describe specific aspects of the other side such as ideology, but to demonise ‘the totality of the group’ (p. 109).

Mallen and García-Guadilla argue that the participatory political model embodied in the Venezuelan Constitution of 1999, which some call radical democracy, contributed to polarisation. That model puts forward the concept of the ‘sovereign’ which refers to the people as a totality. According to the authors, the notion aggravated polarisation in that ‘there was no room for a divided sovereign’ (p. 140); both sides in Venezuela were convinced that they represented the ‘sovereign’ and, by the same logic, their adversaries betrayed national interests. Furthermore, ‘an unintended result of the model of participatory democracy’ was that it intensified polarisation by promoting mobilisations as each side attempted to ‘demonstrate its power and socio-political legitimacy’ (pp. 10–11).

Although the authors stop short of a comparative theoretical analysis, their observations and arguments represent a critique of Rousseauian thinking, which is associated with radical democracy in that both models privilege popular participation and the direct input of the people in decision-making. According to its detractors, Rousseauian thinking rules out pluralism and tolerance of diverse positions, contrary to the essence of liberal democracy. Nevertheless, defenders of radical democracy, such as Chantal Mouffe, would not endorse the type of polarisation that characterises Venezuela. Mouffe welcomes sharp, well-defined conflict as healthy and as representing the quintessence of democracy, but warns against head-on clashes that undermine stability and feed on intolerance.

The authors recognise that a broader explanation for polarisation in Venezuela needs to focus on the intensity of class tensions. Class conflict not only encompasses a clash of economic interests but also a cultural divide. The authors, however, tend to view the two as separate factors rather than part of the same dynamic. They argue that ‘contrary to many analysts, the polarization that overtook Venezuela cannot be explained in terms of class alone’ (p. 138). They add that ‘competing class interests cannot alone explain’ the polarisation since it was also the product of ‘social interaction based on patterns of exclusion and inclusion’ (p. 138). The patterns that the authors refer to, however, were themselves class-driven.

In the recent past, political polarisation in all its dimensions has intensified in the United States and Western Europe. The topic of polarisation is thus of much current relevance. Mallen and García-Guadilla make an important contribution to our understanding of the phenomenon by systematically and objectively examining it in the context of a nation subject to intense and, at times, internecine conflict over a period of two decades.