Bolivarian Venezuela: Emerging patterns of civil-military relations in historical perspective

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My research investigates the relationship between civilians and the military that has emerged in Venezuela since the election of the late Hugo Chávez in 1998. Although some studies have examined these relations through the prism of military subordination to civilian control, we are yet to present a multidisciplinary assessment of the civil-military model under chavismo to understand its full implications.In 1958, the main political parties in Venezuela signed the Pact of Punto Fijo, which successfully pushed the military back into the barracks. This arrangement was successful insofar as military and civilian elites shared common goals (return of democracy, guerrilla fighting, etc) but the model reached its limits as the political system itself experienced a legitimacy crisis in the 1980s, ultimately leading to the failed coup d'état attempt by Chávez in 1992.Freed from prison and elected in 1998, Chávez ushered in a new era for the involvement of the armed forces in Venezuelan politics. His ideology, which blurs distinctions between civilian and military, has parallels with the idea of 'civic soldiers', a concept that refers to the dual nature of Cuban ruling elites after the Cuban Revolution. This new direction was initially met with opposition, and Chávez was deposed in a short-lived coup in 2002, facing a string of rebellions in 2002 and 2003.After re-consolidating power in the mid-2000s, he then initiated a process of transformation of the Venezuelan military by purging the institution of dissident officers, rewarding loyalty and weakening its command. The armed forces were given the direct management of state-owned companies and control of natural resource-rich areas, while also being placed under strict surveillance by intelligence agencies. One key development in the mid-2000s was the deepening of military ties between Havana and Caracas, with Cuban officer directly advising and training their Venezuelan counterparts.Crucially, the broad lines of the transformation of Venezuela's armed forces - reframing the military's mission, stripping its autonomy and reinforcing ideological realignment - had been applied successfully in Cuba by Raul Castro, who headed the Ministry of Defence until 2008. The Cuban model has enabled chavismo to outlive the death of its founder, much like "raulismo" ensured loyalty from the FAN without having to rely on Fidel's personal charisma and ascendancy over soldiers.In order to examine civil-military patterns in Venezuela, I will use within-case study methods to draw comparisons between different periods of Venezuelan history: early and late puntofijismo (1958-1998); the early Chávez years, between 1999-2012; and 2013-2020 (the Maduro years). Three foci will frame the analysis: firstly, how the military mission has been reframed in the context of national development and economic sovereignty, giving the armed forces a high stake in the regime; secondly, how the military's ability to pose an existential threat to the regime has been affected by changes that decreased its autonomy and created counterbalances to its power (e.g. the Bolivarian Militia and intelligence surveillance); and finally, how ideological indoctrination has occurred through a newly created network of military institutions, a new military training curriculum, and the recruitment and promotion of officers ideologically aligned with the regime.My research goals are i) to provide a historical and comparative institutional analysis of the key aspects that defined the institutional path taken by the armed forces in Venezuela; and ii) explore, through process tracing, the connections between events in Venezuela and elsewhere in Latin America. To my knowledge, never has such a holistic framework been applied to the study of civil-military relations in Venezuela since Chávez.