Abstract
Populism is mostly seen as inimical to institutions, even more so in cases like Venezuela, where populism is intertwined with authoritarianism. This is why research on populist regimes rarely extends to institutional aspects of legitimacy and regime durability. We address this blind spot and show that durable populist regimes have an institutional side, too, even in a context of extreme personalism and severe repression. We lay out how crucial features of populism like the personal myth of the populist leader are reproduced and institutionalized from above on the level of symbols, discourse and mass beliefs. Accordingly, we contend that the institutional side of a populist regime is to be found mainly on the ideational level. Authoritarianism needs not to be a hindrance in this regard, to the contrary: Manipulation and control of public discourse eventually help strengthening and reproducing the regime’s ‘third face of power’ through symbolic and narrative structures. This becomes evident considering the Venezuelan case. After the election of Hugo Chávez to the presidency in 1998, the country entered a period of populism with increasingly authoritarian traits. Until his death in 2013, Chávez used his charismatic appeal to build a personal myth that outlasted his presidency. This myth and the ideational legacies left by him became further entrenched by his successor, Nicolás Maduro, in such a way that Venezuela can be regarded as an institutionalized authoritarian-populist regime.
This research was supported by a grant from the Bavarian University Center for Latin America (BAYLAT).
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Kestler, T., Latouche, M. (2022). Venezuela: The Institutionalization of Authoritarian Populism. In: Oswald, M. (eds) The Palgrave Handbook of Populism. Palgrave Macmillan, Cham. https://doi.org/10.1007/978-3-030-80803-7_32
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