The evolving crisis in Venezuela: origins, dynamics and possible solutions

Margarita López Maya
Professor at the Central University of Venezuela

Venezuela is undergoing a deep and global crisis with roots in structural problems related to the oil rentier economy that has shaped society and the political order since the first decades of the 20th Century. It has made Venezuela extremely vulnerable to the international market prices of hydrocarbons, and created a highly consumerist society and an inefficient and corrupt Petroestado.

All these features were present before Hugo Chávez won the 1998 elections. He offered to the Venezuelans to overcome these problems through a deep transformation that implied first going to a "participatory and protagonistic democracy” and in his second administration to a “revolutionary democracy” that would transform Venezuela into a 21 Century Socialism.

In this talk, the interplay between "chavismo" and the structural problems will be analyzed in order to understand the current crisis and sketch possible ways out of it.

This keynote is part of the NorLARNet Conference 2016, which will take place at Grand Hotel Terminus in Bergen 1 - 2 September 2016.

The lecture is open for all interested, without any previous registration.