The Crooked Line: From Populist Mobilization to Participatory Democracy in Chávez-Era Venezuela

Abstract

This article challenges the widely held view that populist mobilization and participatory democracy are incompatible. Ethnographic data from Chavez-era Venezuela show that while populist mobilization cannot directly generate participatory democracy, it can set in motion a process that indirectly leads to this result: By creating but failing to fulfill expectations for participatory democracy and falling short in other ways, a poorly performing local populist regime can precipitate a grassroots backlash that, under certain circumstances, can lead to the election of a post-populist regime with the interest and ability to successfully implement participatory reform. My data show that this can occur in municipalities led by the Left or Center-Right, complicating the idea that successful participatory democracy requires a Left party.