Counter‐hegemonic regionalism and higher education for all: Venezuela and the ALBA

Abstract

This paper employs new regionalism theory and regulatory regionalism theory in its analysis and theorisation of the Bolivarian Alliance for the Peoples of Our America (ALBA) as a counter‐hegemonic Latin American and Caribbean (LAC) regionalism. As (initially) the regionalisation of Venezuela's Bolivarian Revolution, ALBA is centred around the idea of a twenty‐first century socialism that replaces the ‘competitive advantage’ with the ‘cooperative advantage’. ALBA, as a set of multi‐dimensional inter‐ and trans‐national processes, operates within and across a range of sectors and scales whilst the structural transformations are driven by the interplay of state and non‐state actors. The Venezuelan government's Higher Education For All (HEFA) policy, which is being regionalised within an emergent ALBA education space, assumes a key role in the direct democratic and participatory democratic processes upon which a bottom‐up construction of counter‐hegemony depends. HEFA challenges the globalised neoliberal higher education agenda of commoditisation, privatisation and elitism. Rather than producing enterprising subjects fashioned for global capitalism, HEFA seeks to form subjectivities along the moral values of solidarity and cooperation.