Aaron Kappeler
Dr. Kappeler is an ethnographic researcher and Director of Admissions for the PhD in International Development at the University of Edinburgh. Prior to joining Edinburgh, he was a Visiting Assistant Professor at Union College, a postdoctoral fellow in the Institute for Advanced Study at Central European University and an adjunct lecturer at the University of Toronto.
Address: Department of Social Anthropology
School of Social and Political Science
University of Edinburgh
Address: Department of Social Anthropology
School of Social and Political Science
University of Edinburgh
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Papers by Aaron Kappeler
character of Venezuelan socialism, and where is it heading? These and many other questions have been raised by Venezuela’s recent elections and accusations
of fraud against the ruling party. In the early 2000s, President Hugo Chávez was widely hailed for deepening Venezuela’s democracy by creating new structures
of popular participation. His supporters also believed Venezuela was building a sovereign economy ‘delinked’ from global capitalist markets. Yet Chávez’s
successor, Nicolás Maduro, has increasingly retreated from these progressive advances, adopting conservative policies that intensify reliance on rent extraction
and political coercion. Inspired by Marx’s analysis of Second Empire France, I argue that the stagnation of the class struggle in Venezuela has led to the
consolidation of a Bonapartist regime, which preserves power through tactics of legitimation that are incapable of winning the active consent of the country’s
majority.
character of Venezuelan socialism, and where is it heading? These and many other questions have been raised by Venezuela’s recent elections and accusations
of fraud against the ruling party. In the early 2000s, President Hugo Chávez was widely hailed for deepening Venezuela’s democracy by creating new structures
of popular participation. His supporters also believed Venezuela was building a sovereign economy ‘delinked’ from global capitalist markets. Yet Chávez’s
successor, Nicolás Maduro, has increasingly retreated from these progressive advances, adopting conservative policies that intensify reliance on rent extraction
and political coercion. Inspired by Marx’s analysis of Second Empire France, I argue that the stagnation of the class struggle in Venezuela has led to the
consolidation of a Bonapartist regime, which preserves power through tactics of legitimation that are incapable of winning the active consent of the country’s
majority.