The Confrontational ‘Us and Them’ Dynamics of Polarised Politics in Venezuela

The Confrontational ‘Us and Them’ Dynamics of Polarised Politics in Venezuela PDF Author: Ybiskay González Torres
Publisher: Rowman & Littlefield
ISBN: 1538144492
Category : Political Science
Languages : en
Pages : 212

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Book Description
This book provides a theoretical framework for understanding polarised politics. Contrary to the common understanding that polarisation is associated with populism and illiberal democracies, this book demonstrates that polarisation is by no means the result of one anti-democratic side of the conflict. By proposing this analytical inquiry, this book advances a new theoretical framework to characterise politics as either polarised or not. This framework is a unique approach that integrates people’s agency and socio-historical constraints to explain polarisation in depth. Drawing on Foucault’s concept of discourse, subject, and governmentality, and Laclau’s concept of logics and hegemony, this framework focuses on how to distinguish polarised politics from another form of politics. As a technology of power, polarisation can be performed by a variety of actors and is governed by a broad, conscious end, that is organising society by reducing the possibilities of alternative ways of thinking, speaking and doing politics to two options. This study takes a deep dive into the political polarisation in Venezuela, a country with almost two decades of conflict between Chavismo and the Opposition disputing the meaning of democracy, and with the most critical crisis in the Americas as a result of polarisation. With close attention paid to the logics or rationalities of power to explain what lies behind definitions of democracy. This analysis allows us to observe the rationalities and dynamics beyond what is said, in particular, the book explores hegemonic logics (myths, fantasies of threats and promises) used by both political groups to create a political identity.

The Confrontational ‘Us and Them’ Dynamics of Polarised Politics in Venezuela

The Confrontational ‘Us and Them’ Dynamics of Polarised Politics in Venezuela PDF Author: Ybiskay González Torres
Publisher: Rowman & Littlefield
ISBN: 1538144492
Category : Political Science
Languages : en
Pages : 212

Get Book Here

Book Description
This book provides a theoretical framework for understanding polarised politics. Contrary to the common understanding that polarisation is associated with populism and illiberal democracies, this book demonstrates that polarisation is by no means the result of one anti-democratic side of the conflict. By proposing this analytical inquiry, this book advances a new theoretical framework to characterise politics as either polarised or not. This framework is a unique approach that integrates people’s agency and socio-historical constraints to explain polarisation in depth. Drawing on Foucault’s concept of discourse, subject, and governmentality, and Laclau’s concept of logics and hegemony, this framework focuses on how to distinguish polarised politics from another form of politics. As a technology of power, polarisation can be performed by a variety of actors and is governed by a broad, conscious end, that is organising society by reducing the possibilities of alternative ways of thinking, speaking and doing politics to two options. This study takes a deep dive into the political polarisation in Venezuela, a country with almost two decades of conflict between Chavismo and the Opposition disputing the meaning of democracy, and with the most critical crisis in the Americas as a result of polarisation. With close attention paid to the logics or rationalities of power to explain what lies behind definitions of democracy. This analysis allows us to observe the rationalities and dynamics beyond what is said, in particular, the book explores hegemonic logics (myths, fantasies of threats and promises) used by both political groups to create a political identity.

The Right in the Americas

The Right in the Americas PDF Author: Julián Castro-Rea
Publisher: Taylor & Francis
ISBN: 1000910741
Category : Political Science
Languages : en
Pages : 273

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Book Description
The Right in the Americas discusses the origins, development, and current state of conservative and right-wing movements in ten countries in the Americas. The growth of the right is one of the most important issues of the moment in global politics. Within the context of democracy erosion, rejection of traditional politics, and economic uncertainty, right and extreme-right actors are capable of offering misguided answers and hope to a significant part of a country’s population, who will trust their promises and bring them to power with their vote. This dynamic has repeated itself in an astonishingly consistent pattern across the Americas. This book analyses eight Latin American countries - Argentina, Brazil, Chile, Colombia, Honduras, Mexico, Uruguay, and Venezuela - along with Canada and the United States, two G7 countries. It demonstrates that conservatism is in fact a hemispheric phenomenon, promoted and invigorated by the regional hegemon—the United States of America—both as government and as civil society. Beyond this regional scope, the peculiarities of each case study are explored in detail, providing solid historical background, while at the same time uncovering their commonalities and cross-pollination. This study will be of great interest to scholars of conservatism, right-wing politics, comparative politics, and North American and Latin American politics.

Political Handbook of the World 2022-2023

Political Handbook of the World 2022-2023 PDF Author: Tom Lansford
Publisher: CQ Press
ISBN: 1071853058
Category : Reference
Languages : en
Pages : 3505

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Book Description
The Political Handbook of the World 2022-2023 provides timely, thorough, and accurate political information, with more in-depth coverage of current political controversies than any other reference guide. The updated 2022-2023 edition continues to be the most authoritative source for finding complete facts and analysis on each country′s governmental and political makeup. Tom Lansford has compiled in one place more than 200 entries on countries and territories throughout the world, this volume is renowned for its extensive coverage of all major and minor political parties and groups in each political system. It also provides names of key ambassadors and international memberships of each country, plus detailed profiles of more than 30 intergovernmental organizations and UN agencies. And this update will aim to include coverage of current events, issues, crises, and controversies from the course of the last two years.

Affective Assemblages and Local Economies

Affective Assemblages and Local Economies PDF Author: Joanie Willett
Publisher: Rowman & Littlefield
ISBN: 1538150719
Category : Political Science
Languages : en
Pages : 195

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Book Description
What becomes visible if we look at peripheral, deprived rural regions through the lens of a complex adaptive assemblage? Affective Assemblages and Local Economies uses ethnographic research and qualitative interviews with members of the public and some policy makers to examine this question. Over a year-long project in Cornwall in the South West of the UK, and the South West of Virginia, USA, the book considers what becomes visible if we understand the region through the words of ordinary people, rather than planners and policy-makers. Drawing on the Deleuzian affective assemblage, it builds the concept of the Region-Assemblage to examine the deep interconnectedness between people, objects, organisations and the processes that we find in the regions that we observe.

Global Trends 2040

Global Trends 2040 PDF Author: National Intelligence Council
Publisher: Cosimo Reports
ISBN: 9781646794973
Category :
Languages : en
Pages : 158

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Book Description
"The ongoing COVID-19 pandemic marks the most significant, singular global disruption since World War II, with health, economic, political, and security implications that will ripple for years to come." -Global Trends 2040 (2021) Global Trends 2040-A More Contested World (2021), released by the US National Intelligence Council, is the latest report in its series of reports starting in 1997 about megatrends and the world's future. This report, strongly influenced by the COVID-19 pandemic, paints a bleak picture of the future and describes a contested, fragmented and turbulent world. It specifically discusses the four main trends that will shape tomorrow's world: - Demographics-by 2040, 1.4 billion people will be added mostly in Africa and South Asia. - Economics-increased government debt and concentrated economic power will escalate problems for the poor and middleclass. - Climate-a hotter world will increase water, food, and health insecurity. - Technology-the emergence of new technologies could both solve and cause problems for human life. Students of trends, policymakers, entrepreneurs, academics, journalists and anyone eager for a glimpse into the next decades, will find this report, with colored graphs, essential reading.

Confrontational and Cooperative Regional Orders

Confrontational and Cooperative Regional Orders PDF Author: Ariel Gonzalez Levaggi
Publisher: Routledge
ISBN: 0429584296
Category : Political Science
Languages : en
Pages : 247

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Book Description
This book explains cooperative and confrontational regional orders in the post-Cold War era. Applying a push-and-pull framework to the evolution of regional orders, the book’s theoretical section compares regional dynamics and studies the transformation and authority of governing arrangements among key regional actors who manage security and institutional cooperation. This presents a novel approach to comparing non-Western regional orders, and helps forge a better integration between International Relations disciplinary approaches and area studies. The empirical section analyzes Central Eurasia and South America within the period 1989-2017, using case studies and interviews with decision-makers, practitioners and experts. The volume demonstrates that soft engagement strategies from extra-regional great powers and internationalist domestic coalitions framed in a stable democratic polity are forces for peaceful interaction, while hard engagement strategies from great external powers plus nationalist coalitions within democratic backsliding in key regional powers present negative outlooks for regional cooperation. This book will be of much interest to students of regional security, comparative politics, area studies and International Relations.

International Mediation in Venezuela

International Mediation in Venezuela PDF Author: Jennifer McCoy
Publisher: US Institute of Peace Press
ISBN: 1601270682
Category : History
Languages : en
Pages : 322

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Book Description
International Mediation in Venezuela analyzes the effort of the Carter Center and the broader international community to prevent violent conflict, to reconcile a deeply divided society, and to preserve democratic processes. From their perspective as facilitators of the intervention and as representatives of the Carter Center, Jennifer McCoy and Francisco Diez present an insider account of mediation at the national and international level.

Equality in Politics

Equality in Politics PDF Author: Julie Ballington
Publisher: Inter-Parliamentary Union
ISBN: 9291423793
Category : Women
Languages : en
Pages : 118

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Book Description


Shifting the Balance

Shifting the Balance PDF Author: Abraham F. Lowenthal
Publisher: Rowman & Littlefield
ISBN: 0815705638
Category : Political Science
Languages : en
Pages : 207

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Book Description
In early 2009, at the start of a new administration in Washington, the Brookings Institution Press published The Obama Administration and the Americas: Agenda for Change, offering a roadmap for a fresh approach to U.S. relations with its neighbors. Now, at the midway point of that presidential administration, the editors of that insightful volume follow up with Shifting the Balance: Obama and the Americas, an authoritative and critical look at what President Obama and his team have done in regard to Latin America and the Caribbean, how they have been received in the region, and what steps should be taken in the future.

Dragon in the Tropics

Dragon in the Tropics PDF Author: Javier Corrales
Publisher: Rowman & Littlefield
ISBN: 0815705026
Category : History
Languages : en
Pages : 209

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Book Description
Since he was first elected in 1999, Venezuelan President Hugo Chávez Frías has reshaped a frail but nonetheless pluralistic democracy into a semi-authoritarian regime—an outcome achieved with spectacularly high oil income and widespread electoral support. This eye-opening book illuminates one of the most sweeping and unexpected political transformations in contemporary Latin America. Based on more than fifteen years' experience in researching and writing about Venezuela, Javier Corrales and Michael Penfold have crafted a comprehensive account of how the Chávez regime has revamped the nation, with a particular focus on its political transformation. Throughout, they take issue with conventional explanations. First, they argue persuasively that liberal democracy as an institution was not to blame for the rise of chavismo. Second, they assert that the nation's economic ailments were not caused by neoliberalism. Instead they blame other factors, including a dependence on oil, which caused macroeconomic volatility; political party fragmentation, which triggered infighting; government mismanagement of the banking crisis, which led to more centralization of power; and the Asian crisis of 1997, which devastated Venezuela's economy at the same time that Chávez ran for president. It is perhaps on the role of oil that the authors take greatest issue with prevailing opinion. They do not dispute that dependence on oil can generate political and economic distortions—the "resource curse" or "paradox of plenty" arguments—but they counter that oil alone fails to explain Chávez's rise. Instead they single out a weak framework of checks and balances that allowed the executive branch to extract oil rents and distribute them to the populace. The real culprit behind Chávez's success, they write, was the asymmetry of political power.