Venezuela Corrales 2009

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Changes in Regime Type and Venezuelas NewForeign Policy

Paper prepared for theVenezuela Strategic Culture Workshop

July 2009

Javier Corrales

Visiting Scholar, David Rockefeller Center for Latin American Studies, HarvardUniversity, Associate Professor of Political Science, Amherst College


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This essay explores how one particular variablechange in regime typehas influenced

Venezuelas foreign policy.1 I will argue that Venezuelas change from a flawed but nonetheless

pluralistic democracy into a semi-authoritarian regime (Corrales 2005; Corrales and Penfold

2007) helps explain two types of foreign policy change. The first type of change has to do with

objectives. In particular, I will argue that two of Venezuelas new foreign policy objectives

closer ties with non-democracies and active support for political groups and governments with a

certain ideologyare a direct outgrowth of regime change. In many ways, the change in regime

necessitates these foreign policy objectives.

The second way that regime change has shaped foreign policy is to enhance the states

capacity to go against tradition and wishes. No doubt, there are continuities between this

administrations foreign policy and that of previous ones. But to my mind, the differences are

more consequential than the continuities. In addition, many pillars of Chvezs new foreign

policy are at odds with majority sentiment in Venezuela. Chvezs ability to break from both

historical tradition and majority sentiment, I argue, is also the result of regime change. Without

the rise of semi-authoritarianism, it would not have been possible for Chvez to introduce this

type of foreign policy.

By stressing the role of regime type, I do not mean to imply this is the only variable that

influences all of Venezuelas foreign policy aims and capabilities. I recognize that Venezuelas

desire to soft-balance the United States, to pressure Saudi Arabia, and to seek allies in Latin

America has sources other than regime type, such as the presidents ideology, Venezuelas

declining oil production, the spread of leftist populism abroad (Romero and Corrales,

1Throughout this essay, I will mostly quote my work, not because I feel that I have the only say in the matter, but because the

quoted texts include a wide bibliography on the relevant topic.


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For more information on the Strategic Cultures program at Florida International Universitys Applied Research Center please

contact Brian Fonseca at 305.348.2330 or [email protected].

forthcoming). However, regime type does play an independent role in certain areas. The

purpose of this essay is to specify what those areas are.

Venezuelas New Foreign Policy: Breaking with History and with the Majorities

Under Chvez and especially during the demi-decade oil boom of 2004-2008,

Venezuelas foreign policy experienced significant breaks with the past. The change did not

occur necessarily at the level of activism itself, but at the level of aims.

IR experts who study Venezuela agree that between 1958 and 1998, the Venezuelan state

displayed a fairly active foreign policy, always fueled by oil revenues. This did not change

under Chvez, except perhaps in degree. That is, Venezuelas foreign policy under Chvez did

not go from passive to active, but rather, from active to perhaps hyperactive.

The real departure in foreign policy occurred at the level of aims (Romero and Corrales

Forthcoming). Historically, through both aid and institution-building initiatives, Venezuelas

foreign policy aimed at promoting democratic movements and governments, especially those

fighting or emerging from right-wing dictatorships, and collaborating with the United States in

democracy-promotion initiatives in the hemisphere. With Chvez, Venezuela started placing

emphasis instead on ties with non-democracies. And instead of promoting democratic groups

fighting authoritarian governments, Chvez started to support (with money and advice) only

those movements and governments with a certain ideological bent, namely, those that were

interested in fighting capitalism, political parties and institutions of checks and balance (e.g., Evo

Moraless MAS party in Bolivia; Rafael Correas PAIS party in Ecuador), or those that were


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eager to refrain from criticizing Venezuela (e.g., Nstor Kirchners and Cristina Fernndezs

Peronist Party in Argentina).

Chvezs foreign policy represents a break not just from the past but also from majority

opinion. This is evident from polls conducted both by international and local pollsters. A

famous international study of attitudes toward global powers in 47 countries indicates that 56

percent of Venezuelans in 2007 expressed having a positive image of the United States (Pew

Global Attitudes Project 2007). Venezuelas majoritarian sympathy toward the United States

is similar to that found across close U.S. allies in the hemisphere such as Canada, Mexico, and

Chile (see Table 1). Furthermore, Venezuela has one of the worlds highest number of

respondents with favorable views of U.S. cultural exports (see Table 2). In short, Venezuelans

might not be as overwhelming pro-U.S. as many Africans, but the majority is certainly not as

anti-U.S. as the Venezuelan government.

The Pew poll does indicate that the positive image of the U.S. has declined from a record-

high of 89 percent in 1999-2000. This decline could be a sign that Chvez is succeeding in

planting anti-U.S. sentiments across the population. However, this is all subject to interpretation.

On the one hand, one could say that this decline is evidence of the spread of chavismo ideology

within Venezuela. On the other hand, the decline could also be the result of growing

disappointment with U.S. policy of passivity toward Chavismo. If the latter is the case, then

even this decline of sympathy toward the United States reported by the Pew poll would not

necessarily contradict the evidence of dissonance between Chvezs foreign policy stand and

peoples stand.

Further evidence of this dissonance is evident from locally conducted polls. A poll by

Keller y Asociados in the third quarter of 2008 shows that the majority of Venezuelans


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disapprove many of Chvezs specific foreign policies such as buying weapons from Russia and

assisting Evo Morales. Venezuelans also want to discontinue other Chavista foreign policies,

such as the lack of cooperation with the U.S. on counter narcotic operations (see Table 3).

There is no question that most polls still show that Chvez is popular (though far less so

than two years ago, see Figure 1). Polls also show that some of his domestic policies such as

Barrio Adentro and Mercal missions, subsidies to businesses and organizations, openness to

imports, the expansion of state employment, are also popular. But polls show consistently that

major aspects of his foreign policy are unpopular. The rest of this paper shows how the change

in regime type both incentivized and permitted Chvez to introduce this foreign policy break

with tradition and popular opinion.

How Regime Change Explains Change in Foreign Policy Aims

One of the effects of regime change in Venezuela was to give rise to two new objectives

in foreign policy: a preference for cultivating relations with authoritarian regimes and an

obsession with spending heavily abroad. The former is to be expected of any autocracy. The

latter is more peculiar to the case of Venezuelaa semi-authoritarian petro-state surrounded by

democracies.

Ties with autocracies: A state that endeavors to concentrate power in the executive

branch and simultaneously reduce accountabilityas all autocracies do by definitionmust

necessarily increase ties with non-democracies. This is an outgrowth of the same logic of

minimizing accountability that all autocracies pursue. Political and business ties with

autocracies allow the state to keep state secrets more easily than would be the case in relations


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with democracies, whose states themselves are subject to domestic scrutiny, by definition.

Keeping secrets is simply harder in relations with democracies than with autocracies.

Autocracies thus place a greater premium on ties with equally closed regimes, and Venezuela,

which now considers China, Iran, Syria, Cuba, and Russia as its strategic partners, is another

example.

Co-opting allies and buying silence. An autocracy surrounded by non-autocracies faces a

particular foreign policy challengebeing ostracized and criticized by its neighbors.

Autocracies operating in democratic regions therefore must deploy an active campaign to

neutralize these potential criticisms and even win them over as allies. One way to do this is to

deploy lavish foreign aid in the region, which Venezuela can afford to do because of oil revenues

. Precisely because the region is predominantly democratic, Chvez must invest heavily in

efforts to buy cooperation, or at least, silence the criticism coming from these democracies.

If Chvez were surrounded by non-democracies, his foreign spending in the region might not

have been as large as it has been since 2003. Furthermore, to buy the silence or non-criticism of

social progressives abroad, this foreign aid must adopt the veneer of progressive values. For this

reason, much of Venezuelas foreign aid is billed a developmental, poverty-reduction aid

(Corrales Forthcoming).

In short, the rise of semi-authoritarianism in Venezuela explains the need for closer ties

with non-democracies (to keep secrets). The fact that this regime type emerged in a mostly

democratic neighborhood, where progressive forces are strong, explains Venezuelas specific

preference for expanding foreign aid in the region (to prevent neighbors from criticizing

Venezuela), spending specifically on one type of political movement (anti-liberal forces) and

proclaiming that this aid is developmental (to seduce social progressives worldwide).


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How Regime Type Explains Change in State Capacity to Break from Tradition and Public

Opinion

The rise of autocracy also shapes foreign policy by granting the Executive branch two

vital instruments that enhance implementation capacity. The first instrument is

monopolization of foreign policy decision-making. The second is embedding key

institutions with like-minded staff. Both instruments, if deployed thoroughly, can strengthen

the states capacity to carry out profound departures in foreign policy.

1. Monopolization of foreign policy

Authoritarianism, by definition, allows the ruler to displace multiple actors from

decision-making processes, including foreign policy. In a recent study of Brazil, Cason and

Power (2009) suggest that a factor that allowed presidents since the 1990s to change Brazils

traditional foreign policy was a process of de-monopolization: democratic presidents were able

to diversify the number of actors who participate in foreign policy away from the stranglehold

that the Ministry of Foreign Relations (Itamaraty) exercised in foreign policy prior to the 1990s.

Democracy allowed new actors to join in, especially from the business sector and Congress. A

similar process of de-monopolization took place in Mexico in the 1990s, with technocrats,

exporters, and parties other than PRI gaining access to foreign policy decision-making, thus

ending the stranglehold of the foreign ministry and the PRI over Mexicos foreign policy. In

these cases, de-monopolization liberated presidents from strong veto players.

One can argue that the opposite processmonopolizationtook place in Venezuela

under Chvez, with the result of liberating the Executive branch from the stranglehold of

multiple veto players. In the 1990s, Venezuelas foreign policy involved a broad array of actors:


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traditional political parties, business groups especially exporters, labor groups, professional

diplomats, intellectuals, PDVSA managers, finance sectors leaders, technocrats, etc. With the

rise of autocracy in Venezuela, these actors began to be excluded from foreign policy decisions.

Thus, the Executive branch became liberated from the need to negotiate with multiple actors, and

this enhanced the discretion of the Executive branch. The displacement of three actors in

particularparties, export-oriented sectors, and the Congress/Courtshad weighty

consequences worth bearing in mind:

a) Declining influence of parties. In pre-Chvez Venezuela, the two leading parties

played an important role in foreign policy. AD had strong ties with international social-

democracy and the international socialist; COPEI had ties with international Christian

Democracy. The strong presence of AD and COPEI in Venezuelas foreign policy ensured that

Venezuelas foreign policy was balanced (i.e., the president could not easily support one

democratic ideology to the detriment of another), geared toward party-building rather than party-

destroying political leaders, and focused on building liberal democratic and multilateral

institutions of cooperation. By excluding parties, Chvez has eliminated these balancing and

institution-building pressures from foreign-policy circles.

b) Exclusion of export-oriented actors. In the 1990s, a new set of actor began to take

part in Venezuelas foreign policy: technical experts and exporters interested in diversifying

Venezuelas traditional exports and modernize the economy (Corrales and Cisneros 1999).

These actors became defenders a foreign policy of aperturato international investment, ties with

advanced economies, and general good-will toward other market-economies. With the rise of

autocracy, these groups were displaced as well.


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c) Declining influence of congress and the courts. Since Immanuel Kant, IR

scholars are familiar with the argument that republican institutions such as parliaments,

independent courts, and even the press influence foreign policy by creating mechanisms of

accountability and inserting veto points that force presidents to negotiate and maybe avoid

sectarianism. In an authoritarian regime, these institutions become relegated. In the specific case

of Venezuela, the Congress became unicameral (which reduced to one the number of legislative

veto players) and fully dominated by an obsequious and undemocratic ruling party (which

reduces the willingness of the Congress to hold the executive accountable). The courts, for their

part, lost their independence (which reduced the chances of any non-state actor from challenging

the states impropriety. Consequently, the Executive received free rein to implement its own

foreign policy preferences, and this includes extra-budgetary spending that is quite large, free of

scrutiny, and non-contested by other actors, since these no longer participate in foreign policy

decisions.

2. Embedding Institutions

A second instrument employed by authoritarian regimes is to embed specific

institutions with certain ideologies and like-minded staff (see Corrales and Feinberg 1999). The

process of monopolization just described made the need for embedding some key institutions

even more necessary. Monopolization liberated the President of the need to negotiate with

multiple players, but it introduced the risk of leaving the presidency at the mercy of the very few

institutions that retained some capacity to influence foreign policy. In Venezuela, these

remaining institutions were PDVSA and the Central Bank (which influence the external


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economic relations), the foreign ministry (which conducts diplomacy), and the military (which

influences security policy). Chvez needed to find a way to embed these few lingering

institutions with like-minded staff. Although all administrations, democratic or otherwise, can

change the ideology of their bureaucracies, autocracies can go farther and faster. This is because

they can resort to politicized and often unconstitutional hiring and firing practices. In Venezuela,

this process of legal and illegal embedding of institutions with like-minded ideologues has been

especially salient in three institutions:

A.) PDVSA. With the firing of 20,000 experts in 2003 and the rehiring of 40,000 (hear

say), the professional character of this firm has been all but dismissed. In addition, the

independence of PDVSA has been compromised, symbolized by the fact that the president of

PDVSA, Rafael Ramrez, is also the Ministry of Energy and a Vice President in the ruling party.

A similar process of independence erosion has affected the Central Bank. Thus, two of the

actors that most significantly influence Venezuelas international economic relations have lost

their ability to express, let alone, implement, their own policy preferences.

B.) The Foreign Ministry. One of the first policies of the Chvez administration

unbeknownst to most analystswas to purge the Foreign Ministry (Boersner 2007).

Professional diplomats were replaced with ideologues.

This policy was started as early as 1999. Although less known that then purging of PDVSA, the

politicization of the Foreign Ministry was just as powerful in helping Chvez change

Venezuelas foreign policy.

C.) The Military. It is unclear how far Chvez has gone in de-professionalizing and

embedding Venezuelas armed forces. There is no question that there have been significant

purges and political promotions in the armed forces, but it is not clear whether the armed forces


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today have become as ideologically monolithic and aligned with the Executive branch as has

PDVSA and the foreign ministry. Nevertheless, Chvez continues to work at altering the armed

forces security doctrine.

Historically, the security doctrine of Venezuelas armed forces centered on devising war

plans vis--vis Colombian armed forces, and in the 1990s, Colombian guerrillas. Chvez has

tried to make the armed forces embrace instead his signature anti-American stand, including

preparing for an asymmetrical war against the United States. Specifically, Chvez is training

officers to think as follows: the U.S. is a good friend of Colombia; Colombia is a national threat

to Venezuela; therefore, the United States is a threat to Venezuela.

However, it is not clear yet whether this indoctrination is taking root. There is plenty of

evidence that Venezuelas armed forces reacted unenthusiastically to Chvezs call for war

against Colombia during the 2008 March crisis between Colombia and Ecuador, and this is a

sign that this institution is not as war-eager as Chvez would want it to be.

There are many reasons that the Venezuelan armed forces might not have adopted the

same bellicose attitude toward Colombia and the United States as Chvez would want. But one

key reason is that the armed forces are major beneficiaries of both the licit and illicit trade with

Colombia and the United States. The Venezuelan economic boom of 2003-2008 yielded a

formidable expansion of both licit and illicit trade across the Colombian border. There are

reports that many Venezuelan troops, stationed along the border, are the primary beneficiaries

and brokers of all this trade. In addition, the trade with the United States has allowed the state to

spend heavily and to condone significant corruption. Again, there is evidence that the military

has been a main beneficiary of these economic transactions.


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If there is any merit in the theory that economic interdependence acts as a force for peace,

then one can assume that the Venezuelan armed forces, implicated as they are in both licit and

illicit gains from trade, are unlikely to exhibit the belligerence toward Venezuelas main trading

partners that Chvez professes.

The one major mystery surrounding the armed forces will now be the drug trade.

Everything indicates that the recent expansion of drug production Bolivia and Peru, together with

Colombias greater success in reducing drug production and trade, is having a major impact on

Venezuela: the country has become a safe haven for the transshipment of drugs, especially now

that Colombia is less available and that the DEA is not operating in Venezuela. The key mystery

is what role the armed forces are playing in this. Are they becoming complicit in this trade, or

will they fight hard against this trend. If the latter, the armed forces may come to adopt anti-U.S.

policies, or at least, less eagerness to cooperate with the U.S on behalf of drug interdiction. On

the other hand, if the armed forces become a victim rather than a partner of rising crime, it could

become a major demander of restoring cooperation with the United States.

Thus, it could very well be that, paradoxically for a military-government such as Chvez,

the military might be the one remaining institution that is less aligned with Chvezs new foreign

policy.


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IV. Conclusion

1. Regime change in Venezuela explains two of Venezuelas new foreign policy aims:

close ties with autocracies, and lavish, unconditional spending across the hemisphere to buy the

silence of governments or to promote like-minded political groups running for office.

2. These new aims represent a complete departure from a 40-year foreign policy tradition

of promoting democracy and institution building, and from what the majority of Venezuelans

would prefer.

3. Chvezs ability to break so decidedly with historical trajectories and with majority

opinion is also the result of changes in regime type.

4.The two most important effects of the rise of authoritarianism in helping the Executive

branch achieve this foreign policy break have been the monopolization of decision-making

power (to the detriment of parties, business groups, and technical experts) and embedding key

institutions with like-minded ideologues (PDVSA, the foreign ministry, and to an unknown

extent, the military).


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Table 1

Source: Pew Global Attitudes Research Project (2008).


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Table 2

Source: Pew Global Attitudes Research Project (2008)


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Table 3

Do you approve or disapprove these policies? Approve Disapprove

Resuming drug interdiction cooperation with the U.S. 68 28

Buying sophisticated weapons from Russia 38 54

Food-for-oil swap with Central America 38 59

Aid to Evo Morales in Bolivia 27 58

Allow a Russian military base in Venezuela 13 73

Source: Keller y Asoc. 2008. Estudio Nacional de Opinin Pblica, Third Quarter,

Caracas.


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Figure 1

Source: Datanlisis (2009).


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Rollback of Itamaraty: Explaining Change in Brazilian Foreign Policy Making in the

Cardoso-Lula Era."International Political Science Review30(2): 117-140.

Corrales, Javier. 2005. "In Search of a Theory of Polarization." European Review of Latin

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2122.

Corrales, Javier and Richard E. Feinberg. 1999. "Regimes of Cooperation in the Western

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Corrales, Javier and Michael Penfold. 2007. "Venezuela: Crowding Out the Opposition."

Journal of Democracy.

Pew Global Attitudes Project. 2007. "Global Unease With Major World Powers; Rising

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Romero, Carlos and Javier Corrales. Forthcoming. "Venezuela's Foreign Policy." U.S. Latin

America Relations, ed. Jorge I. Domnguez and Rafael Hernndez Routledge.

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