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，是关于民粹主义和左翼政治计划可行性的辩论的参考点。学者们认为，“粉红浪潮”是左翼政府挑战该地区华盛顿共识的浪潮的主要部分（见Grugel和Rigirozzi，2009年; Panizza，2009年），“玻利瓦尔革命”因其在改善贫困，识字率和获得医疗保健等一些社会指标方面的成功而受到同情者的称赞。这场革命以“世纪”的形式复兴了社会主义理念，先于发达经济体自封的社会主义政治家的复兴。然而，现在，委内瑞拉更经常被专家们提到通过联想来诋毁，这是因为它目前正处于深刻的危机之中。这场危机于2012年底开始出现，并在查韦斯总统去世后加速，有四个方面：1。政治-政府和反对派之间似乎存在难以解决的分歧，经常发生暴力抗议活动; 2.机构-有广泛的报告说，机构功能失调;3.经济-委内瑞拉已经很高的通货膨胀率现在已经达到恶性通货膨胀水平，国民收入自2012年的峰值以来急剧下降;社会-许多社会指标，如贫困和获得医疗保健的机会，自危机爆发以来已经恶化，扭转了过去十年取得的进展。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？".这一关键问题在文献中没有得到充分解决。几乎没有学术质量的书面，但存在两个主要的思想流派，这两个流派密切对应于反对派/政府轴心。第一种观点借鉴了宏观经济民粹主义理论（Dornbusch and Edwards，1989），并声称危机是经济学民粹主义本质的必然结果（例如Edwards，2010; Hausman and Rodriguez，2014;内格尔，2014;洛佩斯玛雅，2014）。这一文献的一个关键局限是，它忽视了Cumbersmo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，它没有解释“民粹主义特征”决定政策的机制。主要的竞争学派借鉴了依赖理论，认为危机是国内精英与美国合作的“经济战争”的结果（例如Curcio，2015，2017;塞拉诺，2016）。至于民粹主义学派，这些作家经常提出没有得到现有证据充分证明的主张。承认这一点不仅对解除有关委内瑞拉的辩论至关重要，而且对有关左翼经济政策可行性的更广泛辩论也至关重要。通过全面确定和讨论危机的原因和性质，所产生的论文旨在成为对委内瑞拉和“玻利瓦尔革命”性质的文献的重要补充。此外，它的目的是提出问题，可以提出，或提供潜在的假设进行测试，在类似的情况下。这包括其他“粉红潮”国家、石油经济体和正在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.