Chavismo

Chavismo, also known in English as Chavism or Chavezism, is a left-wing populist political ideology based on the ideas, programs, and government style associated with Hugo Chávez and later Nicolás Maduro. It combines elements of socialist patriotism, Bolivarianism, and Latin American integration. People who supported Hugo Chávez and Chavismo are known as Chavistas.

Policies

Several political parties in Venezuela support Chavismo. The main party, founded by Chávez, is the United Socialist Party of Venezuela, usually referred to by the four letters PSUV). Other parties and movements supporting Chavismo include Fatherland for All and Tupamaros.
Broadly, Chavismo policies include nationalization, social welfare programs and opposition to neoliberalism. According to Chávez, Venezuelan socialism accepts private property, but seeks to promote social ownership as well.

Support

According to political scientist John Magdaleno, the proportion of Venezuelans who define themselves as Chavistas declined from 44% to around 22% between October 2012 and December 2014, after the death of Hugo Chávez and the deterioration of the economy during Nicolás Maduro's tenure. In February 2014, a poll conducted by International Consulting Services, an organization created by Juan Vicente Scorza, a sociologist and anthropologist for the National Experimental University of the Armed Forces, found that 62% of Venezuelans consider themselves supporters or followers of the ideals of Chávez.
By 2016, many Chavistas became disenchanted with the Bolivarian government under Maduro and sought to emigrate from Venezuela to a more stable country.

Criticism

Despite its claim to socialist rhetoric, Chavismo has been frequently described as being state capitalist by critics. In a 2017 interview, after being asked if he would take Venezuela's failing economy as an admission that socialism "wrecked people's lives", philosopher Noam Chomsky said: "I never described Chavez's state capitalist government as 'socialist' or even hinted at such an absurdity. It was quite remote from socialism. Private capitalism remained... Capitalists were free to undermine the economy in all sorts of ways, like massive export of capital." Critics also frequently point towards Venezuela's large private sector. In 2009, roughly 70% of Venezuela's gross domestic product was created by the private sector.

Normalization

According to El Pitazo "normalization of Chavismo" is a political and sociological concept used by analysts, journalists, and the Venezuelan opposition to describe the processes and actors that contribute to the acceptance and legitimization of the Bolivarian Revolution, led by the United Socialist Party of Venezuela and Nicolás Maduro, despite criticisms regarding its authoritarian nature and democratic backsliding in the country. Analysts say this involves the progressive adaptation of various internal and external sectors to the stabilization of Chavista political control. This process, they argue, occurs through the reduction of political confrontation, transforming what much of the international community has classified as a political and humanitarian crisis into a situation described by some as "authoritarian peace".
According to Infobae, the use of the term intensified beginning in 2019, following the failure of the "maximum pressure" and international isolation strategy promoted and led by Juan Guaidó and his international allies. Faced with the impossibility of an immediate democratic breakthrough or regime change, parts of the Venezuelan opposition and global actors began to incline toward negotiation and coexistence. This led, among other things, to the return of the Unitary Platform to the electoral arena in the 2021 regional elections, and to the end of the "interim government" in late 2022 by the so-called "G4", composed at the time of Primero Justicia, Acción Democrática, Un Nuevo Tiempo, and Voluntad Popular, which were the majority opposition parties holding the absolute majority in the National Assembly elected in 2015.
The concept regained relevance after the 2024 presidential election, a process widely questioned by observers and parts of the opposition due to alleged irregularities and the disqualification of the unitary candidate, María Corina Machado. The National Electoral Council did not publish detailed voting results, while the opposition published over 80% of voting records verified by independent organizations, which declared the victory of Edmundo González Urrutia.
While the majority opposition bloc, represented by Machado and González, has promoted actions to disregard the official result by seeking international support and the designation of the Cartel of the Suns as an international terrorist organization, with the ultimate goal of achieving a peaceful transition to democracy, the sectors referred to as "normalizers" have advocated for the tacit acceptance of the official 2024 result and the continuation of electoral participation under CNE-imposed conditions. This faction argues that the institutional path must be followed and that it is necessary to "preserve spaces" rather than promote abstention, which they claim has failed in past attempts. Examples include the participation of Un Nuevo Tiempo and in the parliamentary and regional elections of 2025. This stance is criticized by the Unitary Platform, whose members believe that these actions consolidate the Chavista regime's power while using these actors as a "façade of political pluralism".

Academic views on ''Chavismo''

Academic research produced about Chavismo shows a considerable consensus when acknowledging its early shift to the left and its strong populist component. However, besides these two points there is significant disagreement in the literature. According to Kirk A. Hawkins, scholars are generally divided into two camps: a liberal democratic one that sees Chavismo as an instance of democratic backsliding and a radical democratic one that upholds Chavismo as the fulfillment of its aspirations for democracy. Hawkins argues that the most important division between these two groups is neither methodological nor theoretical, but ideological. It is a division over basic normative views of democracy: liberalism versus radicalism

Liberal democracy approach

Scholars in this camp adhered to a classical liberal ideology that valued procedural democracy as the political means best suited to achieving human welfare. Many of these scholars had a liberal vision of economics, although some were moderate social democrats who were critical of neoliberalism. Together, they saw Chavismo in a mostly negative light as a case of democratic backsliding or even competitive authoritarianism or electoral authoritarian regime. The most relevant aspects of the liberal critique of Chavismo are the following:

Failure to ensure free and fair elections due to fraud or frequent changes of electoral rules. The government also violates principles of electoral freedom, especially during and after the 2004 presidential recall election. Many of these violations would be possible due to bias within the National Electoral Council.
Violation of civil liberties. A number of civil liberties saw significant reverses under the Chávez government, including the right of association and freedom of expression. Some of the most significant setbacks are in media freedom, where Chavism has used several means to constrain the operation of commercial media.
Infringement of separation of powers. Liberal scholars argue that Chavismo eliminates the separation of powers between the branches of government by manipulating to produce a super majority to the supreme court. Besides, by 2006, the government had fired hundreds of judges in lower courts as well and threatened to remove and prosecute any judge who dared to rule against the government.
Political discrimination and exclusion of opposition parties. Under Chavista governments, state resources are used to favor the incumbent, the opposition parties lack access to media, and legal institutions are captured by the incumbent. Besides, many sources cited by liberal scholars suggest that the government's participatory initiatives are used as campaign infrastructure.
Undermining the rule of law. Liberal critics present three majors examples to sustain that: the politicization of the judiciary and the bureaucracy violated due process and facilitated the growth of corruption; the state's willingness to intervene in and expropriate private industry, often through dubious legal means, served to weaken property rights; and levels of violent crime skyrocketed.
Radical democracy approach

Scholars in this camp generally adhered to a classical socialist ideology that mistrusted market institutions in either the state or the economy. They saw procedural democracy as insufficient to ensure political inclusion and emphasized participatory forms of democracy and collective worker ownership in the economy. They tended toward descriptions of the movement that celebrated its participatory features or analyzed its potential weaknesses for accomplishing its revolutionary goals. Most of these scholars supported Chavismo and helped constitute the civilian wing of the movement. Radical scholars argue that democracy can only become effective if it is deepened—and they feel that Chavismo is doing this deepening, which requires not only the greater inclusion of poor and excluded sectors in decision making but their remaking into a new "popular" identity that facilitates their autonomy and dignity. For some of these scholars, deepening also means the adoption of a socialist economy and some argue it requires taking power through charismatic leadership, which would have enough political support to conduct structural reforms.