Hypotheses
Hypothesis #1: As President Chávez has increased military prerogatives in state areas, the
militarization of Venezuelan politics has also increased.
Hypothesis #2: If the following conditions emerged in Venezuela: 1) an excluding political system; 2) the breakdown of legitimacy, efficacy, and effectiveness of previous regimes; and 3) the eruption of political violence, then militarization of Venezuelan politics has also emerged in the last five years.
Type of Study
This work falls within the qualitative explanatory parameters of analysis.
Operationalization of Variables
Variable number one, military prerogatives, is an ordinal variable as its value is measured in different magnitudes. The magnitudinal scale is ordered as low, medium, and high. Variables two, three and four are contextual items (nominal).
Sampling Issues
Venezuela was chosen as the case study of this work because its current juncture is significant for the study of civil-military relations in the region. Variables such as high military prerogatives granted by the government, failure of previous regimes to deliver efficient policies and political violence are critical to the political change that the country is experiencing. More importantly, the likelihood that the breakdown of legitimacy of previous regimes encourages military occupation of the state via elections is essential for the analysis of democratic performance in the region.
Data Collection
Following qualitative data collection methods, this work uses content analysis, empirical observation and interviews conducted in field research in Venezuela. Also, secondary sources, government documents, periodicals, and Internet sites were used to collect the data. Specially, government entities’ electronic sites were culled to obtain official information.
Data Analysis
As a qualitative research, the data analysis includes: 1) examination of historical information through process tracing in order to explore the chain of events; 2) the use of pattern-matching method to fit the data collected into the pattern of the causal model/hypotheses; and 3) interpretation of qualitative information, drawn from the interviews with eight Venezuelan military officials, both active and non-active. Those interviews were conducted according to the snowball method of recruiting participants. Finally, the rational choice framework is approached and explained in depth in Chapter Three of this work to investigate why the Venezuelan political space militarized during the presidency of Hugo Chávez.
Limitations and Biases
The limitations and biases that may affect this study lie mainly on: 1) the research Rational Choice method used to address the second research question; and 2) on the time period of analysis that covers the 1999-2003 period. The rational choice method, even though a powerful tool, reduces the rational decision problem to a simple matter of selecting among a set of given alternatives. It leads the researcher to study the actor’s behavior and to select from alternatives based on assumptions of rationality. These assumptions have extraordinary explanatory power, but they can also be misleading. Therefore, the source of bias in this work may be drawn from the analysis of the choice made by President Chávez in the militarization of Venezuelan politics. Another source of bias may be the span of time. Since this work deals with recent political occurrences in Venezuela, things can change from day to night. Even though the time limit of this thesis is the year 2003, every-day happenings can detour the chain of events presented throughout the work.
CHAPTER II - MILITARIZATION OF POLITICS IN CHÁVEZ’S GOVERNMENT
I. THE ORIGINS OF HUGO CHÁVEZ AND THE REVOLUTIONARY BOLIVARIAN MOVEMENT
Hugo Rafael Chávez Frías established his first political contact with members of the Venezuelan left when he was 15 years old. In 1970, he entered the Military Academy, where he graduated in 1975 in the first professional promotion that emerged from the Andrés Bello educational plan. Ever since Chavez began his studies at the military academy, he has been captivated by the civil-military vision. Moreover, as he notes, when he graduated in 1975 he already carried “a political ideal based on the close relationship between the military and the people” (18). This conception was fostered within the military school.
In ideological terms, Chávez does not assume Marxism, Socialism, or liberalism to guide his “process.” Instead, he defines himself as revolutionary and Bolivariano (advocates and preaches Simón Bolívar’s ideals of liberty and patriotism). His attempted coup ex-partner, Francísco Arias Cárdenas, claims that Chávez’s study is not profound and much less doctrinal. In fact, his limited political knowledge comes from shallow readings of the Marxist classics and Douglas Bravo’s Bolivarian Revolution (Arias 34). The theoretical base of the Bolivarian Revolution is the Árbol de las Tres Raíces (The Three-Rooted Tree). This model – also called the EBR System - defends three patriotic roots: 1) The building of new institutions in order to create a republic “based on our own (Venezuelan) models.” This root is represented by the R as in Robinson, the alias used by Simón Rodríguez, creator of this notion and Bolívar’s teacher (Ortega 4037). 2) The invention of justice according to “Venezuela’s own reality” and the defense of national sovereignty as a precedent to other Andean countries. This root is recognized by the letter B, as it was Bolívar who diffused ideas of liberty (4039). 3) The struggle against the oligarchies and the Venezuelans’ hegemony over their own land and political destiny. Letter E represents this root. It comes from Ezequiel Zamora, an 1840-1850 Federal Wars leader who created an Agrarian Reform program in favor of the peasants (Harnecker, Hugo Chávez 26).
This project was developed by the most respected figure of the Venezuelan left, Douglas Bravo. The original idea was a political program developed in the 1960s to penetrate the Armed Forces and entice young officials to launch revolts. After being expelled from the Communist Party (PCV) in 1966, Douglas Bravo created the Venezuelan Revolutionary Party, PRV. In 1970, this party institutionalized the “Three-Rooted Tree” model and ushered it in the “Revolutionary Doctrine of the Bolivarian Thesis” (Garrido 29).
In 1982 Hugo Chávez became involved with rebel groups formed within the Armed Forces. His older brother Adán Chávez, a PRV member at the time, provided the first link between Chávez and revolutionary officers. The civil sector of PRV insisted there had to be a major social movement that would justify both the military revolt and civil society’s active participation. Chávez disagreed. According to him, civilian participation was not necessary. Moreover, he thought that civilians were an “annoyance.” His objective was to call on the civil sector only after the officers had conquered power (Garrido 11-14). Such behavior explains the high militaristic character of the February 4th coup and the prevalence of military men in his current government.
Also, in 1982 Chávez and three other officers – Felipe Acosta Carlés, Jesús Urdaneta Hernández, and Raúl Baduel - made the famous “Oath at the Guere’s Rain-Tree.” The four officers, emulating Bolívar’s Oath in the Sacred Mount, swore “to rescue the values of the fatherland, dignify the military career, and fight against corruption” (Harnecker, Militares 234, 264; Zago 21). From this oath they formed the “December 17th Movement,” that became the MBR-200 five years later. Felipe Acosta Carlés died in the events of the Caracazo. Jesús Urdaneta Hernández participated in the February 4th coup and is now a fervent member of Chávez’s opposition. Raúl Baduel is currently General Commandant of the Armed Force (Harnecker, Hugo Chávez 26).
