Inevitable outcome of the Populist Left or Economic War: Causes and Character of the Venezuelan Crisis from 2012

委内瑞拉可能是最近最神秘的政治转型，它是有关民粹主义和左翼政治计划可行性的辩论的参考点。学者们将“粉红浪潮”定位为该地区左翼政府挑战华盛顿共识的主要部分（见Grugel和Rigirozzi, 2009; Panizza, 2009），“玻利瓦尔革命”因其在改善一些社会指标方面的成功而受到同情者的称赞，包括贫困，扫盲和获得医疗保健。这场革命以“21世纪”的形式复兴了社会主义思想，先于发达经济体中自封的社会主义政治家的复兴。然而，现在，专家们更经常提到委内瑞拉来联合诋毁，这是因为它目前正处于严重的危机之中。这场危机于2012年底开始出现，并在查韦斯总统去世后加剧，它有四个方面：1。政治上——政府和反对派之间似乎存在难以解决的分歧，抗议活动频繁发生，而且往往是暴力的；2. 2 .制度性——有广泛的关于制度性功能失调的报道；3 .经济——委内瑞拉本已高企的通货膨胀已经达到恶性通货膨胀的水平，国民收入自2012年达到峰值后急剧下降；社会——自危机爆发以来，许多社会指标，如贫困和获得医疗保健的机会，都在恶化，使过去十年取得的成果付诸东流。该项目的中心研究问题将是“委内瑞拉危机的决定因素是什么？”这个关键问题在文献中没有得到充分的论述。几乎没有学术性质的著作，但存在两大思想流派，它们与反对派/政府的轴心密切相关。第一种是从宏观经济民粹主义理论（Dornbusch and Edwards, 1989）出发，声称危机是查韦斯主义民粹主义本质的不可避免的结果（例如Edwards, 2010; Hausman and Rodriguez, 2014; Nagel, 2014; Lopez Maya, 2014）。这一文献的一个关键限制是，它忽视了查韦斯主义出现的背景（见Buxton， 2014），确定的决定因素并不总是被充分证明是原因而不是结果，并且它没有解释“民粹主义特征”决定一系列政策的机制。主要的竞争学派借鉴依赖理论，认为危机是国内精英与美国协同工作的“经济战”的结果（例如Curcio， 2015,2017; Serrano, 2016）。至于民粹主义学派，这些作者经常提出的主张没有得到现有证据的充分证明。回答这个问题，不仅对解除有关委内瑞拉的辩论至关重要，对解除有关左翼经济政策可行性的更广泛辩论也至关重要。通过全面识别和讨论危机的原因和特征，由此产生的论文旨在成为委内瑞拉文献和“玻利瓦尔革命”性质的重要补充。此外，它的目的是提出可以提出的问题，或提供潜在的假设，在类似的情况下进行测试。这包括其他“粉红潮”国家、石油经济体和经历左翼民粹主义政治转型的发展中国家。

Possibly the most enigmatic recent political transformation, Venezuela is a reference point in debates on populism and the viability of left wing political programmes far beyond its shores. Located by scholars as a leading part of the 'Pink Tide', the wave of leftist governments challenging the Washington Consensus in the region (see Grugel and Rigirozzi, 2009; Panizza, 2009), the "Bolivarian Revolution" was lauded by sympathisers for its success in improving a number of social indicators, including poverty, literacy and access to healthcare. Reviving the idea of socialism but in a "21st Century" form, the revolution preceded the resurgence of self-styled socialist politicians in advanced economies. Now, however, Venezuela is more often mentioned by pundits to denigrate by association, and this is because it is currently in a deep crisis. This crisis, which began to emerge in late 2012 and accelerated after the death of President Chavez, has four dimensions: 1. Political - there are seemingly intractable divisions between the government and opposition, and recurrent, often violent, protests; 2. Institutional - there are widespread reports of extensive institutional dysfunction;3. Economic - Venezuela's already high inflation has now reached hyperinflationary levels and national income has fallen dramatically since its 2012 peak;4. Social - many social indicators, such as poverty and healthcare access, have deteriorated since the onset of the crisis, reversing the gains made over the previous decade. The central research question for this project will be "What are the determinants of the Venezuelan crisis?". This crucial question has been insufficiently tackled in the literature. There is little of scholarly quality written, but two main schools of thought exist, which correspond closely to the opposition/government axis. The first draws from the theory of macroeconomic populism (Dornbusch and Edwards, 1989) and claims the crisis is the ineluctable result of the populist nature of Chavismo (e.g. Edwards, 2010; Hausman and Rodriguez, 2014; Nagel, 2014; Lopez Maya, 2014). A key limitation of this literature is that it disregards the context in which Chavismo emerged (see Buxton, 2014), identified determinants are not always adequately proven to be causes rather than effects, and it does not explain the mechanisms through which the "populist features" determine the set of policies. The main rival school draws from dependency theory and argues that the crisis is the result of an "economic war" by domestic elites working in tandem with the US (e.g. Curcio, 2015, 2017; Serrano, 2016). As for the populist school, these writers often make claims inadequately proven by the presented evidence. Answering this is fundamental in lifting debates not just on Venezuela, but also in wider debates on the viability of left- wing economic policies. By comprehensively identifying and discussing the causes and character of the crisis, the resulting thesis aims to be a significant addition to the literature on Venezuela and the nature of the "Bolivarian Revolution". In addition, it aims to raise questions that can be posed to, or provide potential hypotheses to be tested in, similar cases. This includes other "Pink Tide" countries, and oil economies and developing countries experiencing left-populist political transformations.