Conceptual stretching and the foreign imposition of democracy: lessons from Venezuela

Abstract

ABSTRACTThis paper addresses the conceptual stretching of democracy by its foreign imposition and is unpacked in three sections. The first includes a brief historiography of the conceptual debate surrounding democracy, in which two main schools of thought will be sketched. Minimal definitions are explored through the work of Joseph Schumpeter and maximal ones through that of Robert Dahl. The second evokes Venezuela’s recent political history to illustrate how the United States has, at different times, employed various definitions and standards of democracy in intercourse with the Venezuelan regime. In particular, el Caracazo and the failed 2002 coup attempt are considered. The third seeks to establish how US oscillation between standards erodes the value in democracy’s reference points, and draw out some of the implications of this for academics in terms of the broader crisis in meaning brought on by globalization and intimated by Giovanni Sartori’s concerns over conceptual stretching. By way of conclusion the paper considers Piki Ish-Shalom’s call for a recommitment to Gramscian hegemony by academics, and the establishment of a “criteria of reasonableness” for assessing definitions of democracy. The extent to which academics are capable of contributing to Gramscian hegemony, or normativity, is briefly contemplated. It is argued that by insisting on the common will as the basis of democracy, as opposed to circumnavigating it with a naïve proceduralism inherent to minimal definitions, maximal concepts of democracy are better suited to contribute to the establishment of such a “criteria of reasonableness”.