Institutional Conflict and the Bolivarian Revolution

Abstract

A case study of the shift in Venezuela’s attitude toward the negotiation of the Free Trade Area of the Americas sheds light on Jorge Castaneda’s distinction between a “wrong left” and a “right left” in Latin America. Castaneda’s reliance on the “origins” of Latin American leaders as the primary explanation for their governance styles is both deterministic and incomplete. By employing Nicos Poulantzas’s “relational” approach to the state, which conceptualizes the state as a strategic field of social relations, it becomes possible to conceive that the policies and governance styles of leftist governments in Latin America are as much the result of pressures emanating from the institutions of the state as of the origins of their leaders.Un estudio del caso del cambio en la actitud venezolana a las negociaciones del Acuerdo de Libre Comercio de las Americas demuestra la distincion que hiciera Jorge Castaneda entre una “mala izquierda” y una “buena izquierda” en America Latina. La dependencia de Castaneda en el...