Participatory Populism: Theory and Evidence from Bolivarian Venezuela

Two apparently contradictory features have characterized the group of left-wing populists who have come to power in Latin America in recent years. First, these leaders share a tendency to centralize power in their own hands. Yet at the same time populist regimes have created new opportunities for ordinary citizens to participate directly in politics through the sponsorship of participatory governance programs. These apparently contradictory tactics have led to an intense debate whether the participatory programs sponsored by the populist regimes represent true attempts to deepen democracy or simply another mechanism for reinforcing the hegemony of populist leaders. This paper aims to transcend this contradiction by analyzing participatory fora created in Venezuela under Hugo Chavez. Neither a personalistic conception of populism nor pure participatory democracy conform to the actual design and practices of Venezuelan participatory organizations. I propose a new framework, which I call participatory populism, for analyzing the role of participatory fora in the broader political strategy of Chavez's movement. Using qualitative analysis and public opinion data, I show that local-level participatory self-governance is used to meet the regime's promises of popular inclusion and empowerment, thus justifying hegemonic politics at the national level.