Venezuela without Chavez?

I'd argue more corrupt. With a continued management of oil revenues for and by elites, you'd essentially see a slowly evolving kleptocracy. At best, a corrupt autocracy along the lines of the Persian Gulf states. The repeated lesson of oil states around the world is that due to concentrations of wealth, and the ease of international transfer of funds, they're highly prone to corruption. First world states like England avoid this trap, third world states generally don't.

And I just can't see a more democratic Venezuela. It's pretty clear that Perez showed the direction that the elites were headed.

I think its a mistake to ignore the underlying social and demographic issues and simply assume that institutional politics would continue on its normal course. Rather, institutional politics are the cork that bobs along on the surface, it doesn't control or direct the currents beneath. In this case, the institutional politics had gotten pretty waterlogged. The elite consensus was just about out of ideas and initiatives.

I don't see the perpetuation of the elite consensus or institutional politics of the past era as producing anything more than a steadily deteriorating kleptocracy in the long run.

And I have some doubts, given underlying social trends, that this emerging kleptocracy would have managed to maintain itself.

Ultimately, I think Venezuela would eventually drift into the sort of 'people power' crises that overthrew the Bolivian government and upset Argentina.

You might end up with a genuine radical in power, as opposed to a modified keynesian.
 
Why equally? While certainly a possibility, a decade is plenty of time for differences to emerge, and there's always the argument that more even democracy has its own anti-corruption effect.

Your correct. But in a decades time, a lot can happen. Whether that's good or bad is out of my sight. Latin American nations are well known for rampant corruption since, well, ever.
 
Narco-terror? I doubt it.


I don't. :(

Venezuela shares a lengthy border with Columbia, is close to the other Andean coca producers, has a coastline which opens into the Caribbean. Add in the extensive ship/air/personnel traffic needed to maintain oil exports plus the traffic handling to legitimate import stream paid for by oil exports, and Venezuela is made to order as a transit point to North America, Europe, and west Africa.

With an increasingly kleptocratic, oil funded elite sharing power in a consensus which shuts out the lower classes out of the political process, various "people power" movements are going to arise and just how do you think those movements are going to fund themselves? Bake sales? ;)

The FARC are not an exception.

Once those various reform and "people power" movements get into bed with the trafficking devil, the devolution of what once were political movements into cartels vying for territory and transit routes will quickly occur and narco-terror will not be far behind.
 
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