Explore the vast range of titles available.

In the final 15 years of the Punto Fijo era (1958–1998), as state institutions and socioeconomic conditions deteriorated, the executive class of Petróleos de Venezuela S.A. broke free from state control. In his 15 years as president of Venezuela, Hugo Chávez reasserted the state's control over the company and reestablished a fiscal regime that brought the country enormous financial benefits. It is a legacy, however, that has an uncertain future. En los últimos 15 años de la era del Punto Fijo (1958–1998), mientras las instituciones estatales y las condiciones socioeconómicas se deterioraban, los ejecutivos de Petróleos de Venezuela S.A. se independizaron del control estatal. Durante sus 15 años como presidente de Venezuela, Hugo Chávez reafirmó el control del estado sobre esta compañía y reestableció un régimen fiscal que le rindió grandes beneficios económicos al país. Se trata, sin embargo, de un legado que tiene un futuro incierto.

Upon his death in March 2013, Hugo Chavez left behind a significant but highly contested legacy. It could hardly be any other way in polarized Venezuela. Even in the scholarly arena, discussion of Chavez too often paints him in hagiographic or villainous Manichean terms. Not surprisingly, his legacy is being contested and constructed by those who live on in Venezuela, not least by Nicolas Maduro, his designated successor, who was elected president in 2013, officials of the Chavista Partido Socialista Unido de Venezuela (United Socialist Party of Venezuela-PSUV), and the many Bolivarian activists within Venezuela who claim that \"we are all Chavez now\". For his part, President Maduro has struggled to maintain his political footing as leader of the diverse coalition of pro-Chavez groups and to resist pressures from different groupings within the opposition. Even without the drastic decline in global oil prices, maneuvering within such a political context would have been difficult for any successor.

President Barack Obama's campaign rhetoric suggested a significant shift away from the militarist intervention practiced by U.S. administrations since the Reagan presidency, and his emphasis on multilateral diplomacy was endorsed by some key foreign policy elites. Focusing on home-grown obstacles to the hoped-for change in Latin American policy, such as domestic ideologies and narrow corporate interests, may underestimate the role of Latin American resistance and of the global shifts that have presented alternatives to the multilateral diplomacy of the OAS and the regional economic integration of the proposed Free Trade Area of the Americas. The Bolivarian agenda offers a direct challenge to neoliberal globalization as promoted by the United States under presidents of both parties. While for a number of reasons it is unlikely to bring U.S. hegemony in Latin America to an end, it has facilitated alternative forms of cooperation for economic integration and security, and this poses a significant dilemma for the Obama administration.

Venezuela is just one of several Latin American countries where mass protest movements drove elected presidents from office, motivated at least in part by a sense of betrayal or frustration as elected leaders attempted to implement neoliberal policies (see Roberts and Rossi in this volume). As Roberts puts it, what occurred in some countries was a “basic rupture of the constitutional order” and “a sharp turn away from neoliberal orthodoxy.” Certainly that applies to the course of events following the forced resignation of President Carlos Andrés Pérez in early 1993. The backlash against the government also undermined the hegemony of

The ways in which electoral politics and defense of a revolutionary regime were made compatible in Venezuela are examined. After a review of some theoretical perspectives on elections and social change, a comparison of the Venezuelan case with earlier episodes of electoral politics in a revolutionary context (Nicaragua and Chile), and a review of the political and constitutional issues that had to be resolved to allow the recall election to take place, polling data that demonstrate the class-polarized nature of the vote is examined. The sustainability of the Chavista success story is also assessed by comparing aggregate results for the recall and the subsequent regional elections of October 31. Despite the sweeping victory of Chavista candidates in these elections, the level of mobilization of progovernment voters fell significantly. Although this can be attributed in part to electoral fatigue, it is argued that it also reflects the incomplete institutionalization of the participatory, \"protagonist\" democracy. Failure to advance on this front may make Chavismo vulnerable to defeat in future elections and referendums.

PDVSA sought to attract large infusions of foreign capital through joint ventures and operating agreements. Critics charged that the apertura effectively privatized activities that in past would have been regarded as concessions, and some of their concerns were later borne out. For example, under cover of operating agreements for reactivating marginal fields, foreign companies often drilled into more productive reserves farther below. Companies were not paid a straightforward fee for services, but were paid on a sliding scale pegged to the market price of oil, relieved of any obligation to pay a royalty (which was shifted to PDVSA) and taxed at the lower rate (34 percent instead of 67 percent). Joint-risk exploration contracts offered access to two percent of Venezuela's total land area, but fees were less than half of what was offered in concessions offered for merely 8.2 sq. kilometres by the military dictatorship in 1957. \"Strategic associations\" to develop heavy oil in the Orinoco would pay royalties at only one percent, justified because of the high cost of production. Critics contend that the real purpose of boosting production was to provoke a crisis with OPEC. Technically, \"Orimulsion\" would not count against Venezuela's OPEC quota, but as it would compete with lighter grade crudes on the market, inevitably OPEC would object.1 After 1935, when the dictator Juan Vicente Gomez died, conservative elites in Venezuela claimed that democracy could be viable only after a period of social modernization lifted the civic capacity of the majority poor. Advocates of mass, universal suffrage, and direct election insisted on immediate democracy. Only such a state would demand from foreign companies a \"just share\" of oil profits to the nation; only such a state would \"sow the oil\" in a developmental project to lift living standards and create a modern, inclusive society, one sustainable after the nation's \"natural wealth\" was exhausted. This latter vision, articulated by [Romulo Betancourt] and AD, prevailed and was institutionalized after the fall of the military dictatorship in 1958 in the constitution of 1961. A series of elite pacts, especially the power-sharing \"pact of Punto Fijo\" among non-Communist political parties, signed just before the first post-dictatorship elections of December 1958, laid the basis for a populist system, known as puntofijismo. However, the same system of pacts attenuated popular influence over elected officials. As long as oil fuelled economic growth and opportunities for social mobility, this mattered little. [Luis E. Giusti] and many of his acutele in the company began their careers in the pre-nationalization era working for the Shell subsidiary (Maraven); they became known as the generation de Shell.7 Their first steps were to widen a loophole in the nationalization law, which otherwise reserved the oil industry to the state. Article 5 allows for \"associations\" between PDVSA and private entities in \"special cases and when it suits the public interest,\" requiring that the state company retain control over such associations. In addition, the 1943 law required that congress and the president review and approve such contracts. In 1990, the company (not the ministry) obtained a supreme court ruling that not only cleared away that requirement but also all pre-nationalization legislation that might conflict with the apertura under article 5. This removed legal bases for critics to challenge reductions of royalty, international arbitration of contract disputes, sliding rates of taxation, etc. PDVSA executives then \"satisfied\" the legal obligation for state control with ineffectual joint committees of control instead of majority ownership of shares. To further cement the apertura, PDVSA's contracts for services and partnership made the company legally responsible to absorb any additional costs imposed as a result of new government regulation or changes in the tax and royalty regime. Effectively, the company had abrogated the ministry function of managing relations between the nation and foreign capital, and to consolidate its role it made itself hostage to its partners.