Has Hugo Chavez Opened the Door to Authoritarian Rule? (Leiter)

The right-wing media in the U.S.--and not just the far right, but the "normal" right (e.g., The New York Times)--have characterized recent moves by Venezuelan President Chavez to "rule by decree" (for 18 months) as setting the country on the road to authoritarianism.

Chavez has, of course, been a pointed (and accurate) critic of Bush and the U.S., and has created in Venezuela an alternative to the neoliberal paradigm favored by the ruling elites in the capitalist pseudo-democracies.  We have remarked before on the smear jobs in even the "liberal" media, but has Chavez now shown his true colors?  This article takes a more benign view, noting, for example, that:

In Venezuela, the enabling law is completely different [than in other totalitarian instances of such laws]....First, the President is bound by the constitution. He can only issue so-called "law-decrees" in the areas named by the National Assembly, in the time limit the Assembly imposes, and that are consistent with the constitution. In other words, he cannot arbitrarily order someone's arrest or do away with basic civil rights, for example. Some of the laws even need to be submitted to the Supreme Court, which vets the law for its constitutionality.

Second, contrary to popular belief, even though Chavez supporters control all branches of the state, law-decrees can be reversed by the most important power of all:  the citizens. That is, law-decrees can be rescinded by popular vote. According to Venezuela's 1999 constitution all laws can be submitted to a referendum if at least 10% of registered voters request such a referendum. Law decrees have an even lower signature requirement, of only 5% of registered voters (800,000 out of 16 million registered voters).

Third, the National Assembly may also modify or rescind law-decrees, at any time, should it feel the need to do so. This is quite unlike the enabling law in the U.S., known as the "Fast Track" law, where the president may sign international treaties that are automatically binding and not open to revision or rescinding by the population....

Venezuela's enabling laws are thus relatively moderate measures as far as the common understanding of "rule by decree" is concerned. The next and more important question thus becomes whether such a law will lead to law decrees that end up being dangerous for Venezuelan democracy.

Chavez critics who concede the above points imply that even if the power is limited, the lack of separation between executive and legislative will lead to disastrous results. Exactly why this is the case is never explained, other than to say that there are no "checks and balances" between the two. Certainly, with Chavez supporters controlling the legislature, the controls on the presidency are not as strong as they would be if the opposition controlled them, but this is also true for just about any parliamentary system of government and any system in which the executive and the legislature are controlled by the same party. Oddly enough, Chavez critics hardly ever raise such dire warnings about other countries where this is the case.

Actually, of course, these worries were raised in the U.S. when we had one-party control of the executive and legislative branches.  Separation of powers really only acts as a check when the branches are controlled by opposition parties--and even then, as the U.S. again illustrates, the limits on executive power may be of limited significance when the "opposition" party represents just a different wing of the ruling class.

More important than the question about "checks and balances" (which, as we saw, there are in Venezuela, in the form of the citizenry and the National Assembly), is what Chavez will do with the law. The main objectives for passing these laws, according to the enabling law text, is to promote "popular democracy," to make the state more efficient, to eradicate corruption, to increase citizen security, to nationalize strategic industries, among many other things. If this is what the laws will actually do, then what is the fuss about? Presumably Chavez critics believe that Chavez will use the enabling law to pass completely different and tyrannical laws. But is there any evidence that this might happen?

I must say I find this paragraph somewhat incredible:  under the guise of "increas[ing] citizen security," Bush has been trying to establish executive power of Schmittian proportions.  It is rather easy to see how a law that charges the executive to "increase security" or "eradicate corruption" is an invitation to limits subsantive and procedural rights of the citizenry.

On the other hand, the author does finally make a pertinent point about the enabling law in the Venezuelan case:

If we look at the previous instance in which Chavez had the power of an enabling law, in 2001, this is not what happened. The 49 law-decrees that Chavez signed into effect in November 2001 had a democratizing effect, such as the land reform that democratized land distribution, the banking reform that improved access to credit for micro-entrepreneurs, the fishing reform that empowered small fishers to increase their catch because larger fishers have to fish further from the shore, or the hydrocarbons law that increased state revenues from oil production. Based on this previous experience, there is no reason to believe that this time around Chavez will not pass the types of laws that the enabling laws says he will.

What is more, polls by the Chilean NGO Latinobarometro have shown over and over again that despite all of the opposition's dire warnings about Venezuela's supposed slide towards dictatorship, Venezuelans themselves overwhelmingly believe that their government is democratic and is getting more so with every year. Eight years into the "Bolivarian Revolution," and Venezuelans are in second place, after Uruguay, compared to all other countries in Latin America in saying that they are satisfied with their democracy. This percentage has been on the increase throughout Chavez's presidency, rising from 32% in 1998 to 57% in 2006. Meanwhile, the Latin American average was 38% in 2006. This and many other similar poll results flatly contradict the notion that Chavez is steadily heading Venezuela towards dictatorship.

My friend Dick Posner is, unlike me, a big believer in the ability of the blogosphere to correct error and provide insight by bringing together many different sources of knowledge.  This blog is fortunate to have a quite erudite readership, so let us try an experiment in this case.  I would like to invite  informed readers to offer information about the issues discussed above. What will this law mean both "in the books" and in reality?  Is Chavez, an old military man, out to establish a dictatorship?  Or is the law being misportrayed in the U.S. because of the characteristic cowardice of the media?  Post only once!  Comments may take awhile to appear, and only substantive contributions will be approved, of course.

Comments

[Daniel Levine]

This is a relatively minor (though I hope still substantive) point, but the author of the piece you quote mis-characterizes US "fast track" trade authority. "Fast track" legislation requires that (in a nutshell), when the President has signed a treaty, Congress is required to consider implementing legislation within a limited time frame, with debate restrictions, and without amendment (for what it's worth, the point is to give trade negotiators the credibility to make agreements, without their interlocutors worrying that any concessions made will be undone by the legislature). However, implementing legislation must still be passed by Congress - it does not give the president the ability to enter into treaties without any oversight from the legislature.

[Ignacio Prado]

I'm not sure why we should accept this dichotomy:

"Is Chavez, an old military man, out to establish a dictatorship? Or is the law being misportrayed in the U.S. because of the characteristic cowardice of the media? Post only once!"

Both these things are, by my lights, true: Chavez is an old Latin American military man with a populist base who is in love with power, uninterested in the rule of law, and caught up in an atagonistic relationship with private interests (themselves hardly innocent) that are a threat to his power (including an independent press). Chavez earns political points with his base and the anti-US intelligentsia when he says well-deserved nasty things about Bush.

Bush and the US interests that back him are interested in keeping oil cheap and maintaining a political status quo in Latin America that is willing to open up its markets to US products and keep populist sentiment at a lull.

It doesn't strike me that there are any good guys in this fight that actually have any real political influence, but that is just par for the course in Latin America.

Here is the Reporters Without Borders account of Venezuela:

http://www.rsf.org/article.php3?id_article=20544

[Brian Leiter]

I do not know that Reporters Without Borders is a reliable source of information about countries disfavored by the United States:
http://www.zmag.org/content/showarticle.cfm?ItemID=11119

It may well be that, as Mr. Prado notes, "Chavez is... uninterested in the rule of law," but that is exactly the point on which I was seeking evidence from informed observers. Comments on the credibility of Reporters Without Borders (with references, please) would also be welcome.

[Cristian Dimitriu]

The neoliberal policies implemented in Venezuela during the 80's and 90's created (or helped to sustain) massive poverty, exclusion, and discontent among the population. Within that context, it is not surprising that people decide to embrace a political alternative like the one that Chavez proposes.
Although this alternative seems to be bringing some economic benefits to the poor (i.e. subsidized prices, healthcare, direct economic assistance), it does not seem loyal to the principle of political equality that it claims to endorse. Chavez's government is strongly centralized and presidential, the legislative power is very weak and almost everything is controled and decided by Chavez. This does not mean, of course, that Chavez is a dictator or that he will become one. As Wilpert correctly points out in his article, all this is backed by the Constitution of Venezuela.
The problem, however, is that most of the constitutions in Latin America--and Venezuela is not an exception--have been designed in a way that make the concentration of power in the executive possible. Whether Chavez is using this power in a correct way or not is something that we should answer not only by showing evidence that the majority rule is being followed, but also by analyzing if in fact the rights of the minorities (and also of the majorities) are being respected. Human Rights Watch shows here (http://hrw.org/doc/?t=americas&c=venezu) some reports that provide some evidence that freedom of press and the independence of judicial power, among other things, are at stake in Venezuela.
Needless to say, all this is much better than the plans that the US government has in mind for Venezuela.