Blackwell Reference Online

Extract

Bolivarianism refers to Simón Bólivar (1783–1830), Venezuelan liberator and general who fought for independence throughout South America and promoted the unification of the continent. Bolivarianism occurred in various South American countries, but its heart and stronghold is in Venezuela, where most movements and the government define themselves as Bolivarian and the transformation process is called Bolivarian Process or Bolivarian Revolution. In twenty-first-century Venezuela Bolivarianism has become a set of political ideas and collective experiences and values without a clearly defined program or theoretical framework, and thus is a work in progress rather than a meticulous ideology or theory.Venezuelan president Hugo Chávez, the modern exponent of Bolivarianism, traces the ideology to the thought of Karl Marx, Antonio Gramsci, Leon Trotsky, and Mao Zedong, to the Italian philosopher Antonio Negri, and even Jesus Christ. Bolivarianism reaches across a wide ideological spectrum reflecting the large diversity of political, social, cultural, and religious influences feeding it. Chávez views his role as providing a political framework rather than expounding a political dogma.The diverse forces converging in the process of the Bolivarian Revolution are seen by political analysts Luis Bonilla-Molina and Haiman El Troudi as historical currents for change, a variety of leftist and emancipatory ... log in or subscribe to read full text