I should comment on this weekend’s events in Venezuela, after Hugo Chávez closed down an opposition television station (RCTV) by not reinstating its license. There were, of course, significant protests in Venezuela (broken up by government security forces). Greg Weeks has a short, but excellent post on the subject—followed by some interesting comments [Ed. here’s another good thread from Boz].
It’s interesting, of course, how many are still reluctant to admit that Chávez (regardless of one’s stance towards his social policies) is clearly consolidating power around his person (and not really around any institutions) in ways that threaten long term democracy. Perhaps it’s because many Chávez critics are too quick to paint him as the next Stalin/Hitler (and he’s certainly not there, yet). One should ask: What would happen to the “Bolivarian revolution” w/o Chávez? If a “social revolution” can’t continue w/o it’s central leader, is it really a “popular” (or “mass”) movement? Because the phenomenon of chavismo suggests that the focus is more on Chávez the man, than on the ideas.
There’s no denying that press freedom has been significantly curtailed in Venezuela. Or that following the neutering of the courts & the legislature, Chávez faces little horizontal accountability (and I’m of the persuasion that vertical accountability is effectively meaningless w/o institutionalized horizontal accountability).1 And it’s important to note that Chávez did control several other state-run television channels—so it’s not as if the opposition dominated the airwaves (it was already slowly being squeezed out).
Sadly, there’s nothing really new here. In many ways, Chávez closely resembles Juan Domingo Perón. Perhaps more people should read that history (and avoid the Castro comparisons). I highly recommend Mariano Ben Plotkin’s Mañana es San Peron: A Cultural History of Peron’s Argentina
-----
PS. As of today (and off & on for the past few days, from what I’ve read) the RCTV website is also down.
PSS. The Christian Science Monitor has an interesting story comparing the similarities of press crackdowns in Iran, Russia, and Venezuela.
1 Horizontal accountability refers to the checks & balances imposed (primarily) on executives by other institutions. See O’Donnell, “Horizontal Accountability in New Democracies,” Journal of Democracy 9 (July 1998). Vertical accountability refers to the constraints voters place on executives (or other elected figures). But because those in power can manipulate public opinion, O’Donnell (and others) place greater emphasis on horizontal accountability. Vertical accountability can help make a regime “democratic”—horizontal accountability can ensure a regime is “liberal.”
