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Venezuela: Popular Sovereignty Versus Liberal Democracy

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Venezuela: Popular Sovereignty Versus Liberal Democracy VENEZUELA: POPULAR SOVEREIGNTY VERSUS LIBERAL DEMOCRACY Michael Coppedge Working Paper #294 - April 2002 VENEZUELA: POPULAR SOVEREIGNTY VERSUS LIBERAL DEMOCRACY Michael Coppedge Working Paper #294 - April 2002 Michael J. Coppedge (BS, Randolph-Macon College; MA, Yale University; PhD, Yale University) Associate Professor of Political Scienceat the University of Notre Dame. Coppedge studies Latin American parties and party systems, Venezuelan politics, the consequences of electoral laws, democratic diffusion and other causes of democracy, the measurement of democracy, and other methodological issues. His book, Strong Parties and Lame Ducks: Presidential Partyarchy and Factionalism in Venezuela (Stanford, 1994), identifies institutional problems underlying the crisis of Venezuelan democracy. He is now writing a book- length critical survey of the literature on causes of democratization that emphasizes tradeoffs involved in choices of methods. He chairs the Kellogg Institute’s Quality of Democracy Working Group. Coppedge is a past recipient of Fulbright-Hayes, Tinker, and World Society Foundation grants; he has taught at Johns Hopkins SAIS, Princeton, Yale, Georgetown, and at universities in Argentina and Spain. ABSTRACT In order to evaluate accurately the state of democratic governance during the first years of the Chávez presidency, one must sharpen the distinction between democracy narrowly defined as popular sovereignty versus the more conventional notion of liberal democracy. Venezuela was no longer a liberal democracy in every respect. Instead, it became an extreme case of delegative democracy. The president enjoyed widespread popular support for almost everything he and his followers did, and this fact qualified his government as “democratic” in the narrow sense of popular sovereignty. But the systematic elimination of constraints on presidential action after 1998 increased the risk that Venezuela would cease to be a democracy by any definition in the future. Governability also suffered because the new formulas regulating relations between government and opposition, among branches of government, and between state and civil society were both unstable and far from mutually acceptable. Chávez and his supporters saw themselves as agents of a deliberate and self-conscious revolutionary process and believed that expediency and unilateral impositions of new rules were justified by the need for a radical break with the past. Needless to say, this attitude also condoned a cavalier disregard for the rule of law, extending even to the constitution. RESUMEN Para evaluar con precisión el estado del ejercicio democrático del gobierno durante los primeros años de la presidencia de Chávez uno debe hacer más nítida la distinción entre la democracia definida estrechamente como soberanía popular versus la noción más convencional de democracia liberal. Venezuela ya no era una democracia liberal en todo respecto. Devino, en cambio, un caso extremo de democracia delegativa. El presidente disfrutaba de amplio apoyo popular para casi cualquier cosa que él o sus seguidores hicieran, y este hecho permitía calificar a su gobierno como "democrático" en el sentido estrecho de soberanía popular. Pero la eliminación sistemática de las restricciones sobre la acción presidencial después de 1998 aumentó el riesgo de que Venezuela dejara de ser una democracia, bajo cualquier definición, en el futuro. La gobernabilidad también resultó afectada porque las nuevas fórmulas que regulaban las relaciones entre el gobierno y la oposición, entre las ramas del gobierno y entre el estado y la sociedad civil eran tan inestables como lejos estaban de ser mutuamente aceptables. Chávez y quienes lo apoyaban se reconocían como agentes de un proceso revolucionario deliberado y consciente y creían que la conveniencia y la imposición unilateral de nuevas reglas estaban justificadas por la necesidad de un quiebre radical con el pasado. No hace falta decir, esta actitud también justificaba una indiferencia altiva respecto del el estado de derecho, que alcanzó aún hasta la constitución. Opinions about the state of democratic governance in Venezuela during the first three years of the government of Hugo Chávez Frías were polarized. On one side, critics came close to labeling it a dictatorship. For example, Allan Randolph Brewer Carías wrote that the 1999 constitution “lays the constitutional groundwork for the development of political authoritarianism, buttressed by regulations that reinforce centralism, presidentialism, statism, state paternalism, partisanship, and militarism; with the danger of the collapse of democracy itself.”1 On the other side, Chávez claimed to be restoring a truly democratic regime to Venezuela: [W]e will advance in the construction of a true democracy, of a true political, economic, and social system which we will build because they destroyed it during these last years… We are now going to demonstrate the daring and intelligence of the Venezuelan people who are building with their own hands a true democracy, where justice, liberty, equality, and fraternity prevail.2 The truth is more complex and subtle. In order to evaluate accurately the state of democracy during the first years of the Chávez presidency, one must sharpen the distinction between democracy narrowly defined as popular sovereignty versus the more conventional notion of liberal democracy. It is also necessary to look beyond the rules and institutions of Venezuela’s 1999 constitution to consider the way they were used. On first inspection, Venezuela still had a liberal democratic regime. Understood more deeply, it was no longer a liberal democracy in every respect. Instead, it became an extreme case of delegative democracy—a regime in which there is no “horizontal accountability,” that is, no effective check on the president by the congress, courts, or other powers between elections.3 The president enjoyed widespread popular support for almost everything he and his followers in the Fifth Republic Movement (Movimiento V República, MVR) did, and this fact qualified his government as “democratic” in the narrow sense of popular sovereignty. But the systematic elimination of constraints on presidential action after 1998 increased the risk that Venezuela would cease to be a democracy by any definition in the future. 2 Coppedge The attack on horizontal accountability also damaged the governability of the regime. Elsewhere I have defined governability as “the degree to which relations among strategic actors are governed by stable and mutually acceptable formulas.”4 Governability suffered because the new formulas regulating relations between government and opposition among branches of government, and between state and civil society were both unstable and far from mutually acceptable. Chávez and his supporters saw themselves as agents of a deliberate and self-conscious revolutionary process and believed that expediency and unilateral impositions of new rules were justified by the need for a radical break with the past. Needless to say, this attitude also condoned a cavalier disregard for the rule of law, extending, as we shall see, even to the constitution. Popular Support Popular sovereignty—the idea that a government should do what most citizens want it to do—is the oldest and most literal definition of democracy, although not necessarily the best one.5 Contemporary theorists now consider popular sovereignty neither sufficient nor strictly necessary for democracy. But even though popular sovereignty has fallen out of favor with scholars and mainstream politicians, it has a long pedigree as one legitimate standard for democracy. Furthermore, few scholars would disagree with the claim that democratic governments must respect the popular will at least some of the time, especially when it is deeply felt, widely shared, and coherently expressed.6 Qualified in this narrow way, popular sovereignty is a necessary characteristic of democracy. In this respect, the Chávez government’s credentials were solid despite his past disloyalty to Venezuela’s democratic regime. Hugo Chávez Frías rose through the ranks of the armed forces in the 1980s and 1990s. He was a star student at the military academy who considered himself an intellectual and took it upon himself to maintain a dialogue with intellectuals of the left. As early as 1983 he had formed a conspiracy with other junior officers that was critical of the Venezuelan regime for betraying the ideals of the country’s founding father, Simón Bolívar. By 1992, members of this conspiracy had risen Coppedge 3 to positions of command; Chávez had been promoted to Lieutenant Colonel and commanded a paratrooper division close to the capital. In February of that year, they attempted to overthrow the government of President Carlos Andrés Pérez by force, but were narrowly defeated. Nevertheless, Pérez was such an unpopular president that the coup attempt made Chávez a hero in the eyes of many Venezuelans. Ever since March 1998, when he became the front-runner in the presidential race, Hugo Chávez was the most popular politician in Venezuela and his agenda was endorsed repeatedly in elections and opinion polls. He won the December 1998 presidential election with 56.2 percent of the vote, the most decisive electoral victory since Rómulo Gallegos’s win in 1947. In April 1999, he sponsored a referendum seeking permission to summon a constituent assembly (Question 1) and to design an electoral law for the election of constituent assembly delegates (Question 2). He wrote
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