Circulations révolutionnaires, légitimations croisées : Cuba-Nicaragua-Venezuela

Abstract

Studying the circulatory flows between three governments that present themselves as “revolutionary” – Cuba (1959), Sandinista Nicaragua (1979-1990 and 2006-) and Chavist Venezuela (1998-), both during the Cold War and after the turn of the 21st-century – allows one to better grasp the transnational dimension of these “revolutions”, which have rarely been studied outside of their national space. First of all, these circulations are revealed to have favored the emergence of an historic revolutionary community that reconstituted itself with Venezuela in the 2000s. Next, revolutionary governments put them to political use to advance their intersecting strategies of legitimation vis-à-vis local and international audiences. However, the political opposition to revolutionary governments also puts these circulations to political use, delegitimizing the latter by accusing them of damaging national sovereignty. ■