Learning from Venezuela’s Missteps in Building Urban Popular Power: Decentralization, Participatory Budgeting, Communal Councils and Comunes

REPORT MARÍA PILAR GARCÍA-GUADILLA AND CARLOS G. TORREALBA M. Learning from Venezuela’s Missteps in Building Urban Popular Power Once-hopeful experiments in local democracy have largely succumbed to the crushing crisis gripping Venezuela. What can we learn from their demise? E fforts towards so-called participatory democ- which the government interpreted as necessary and racy, deepening of democracy, or participation consecutive stages to achieve 21st century socialism, to include those excluded locally or even set off a chain of multiple conflicts that, together with nationally have been a key element in the discourse of other factors, made the project inviable. progressive governments in Brazil, Uruguay, Ecuador, Bolivia, and Venezuela, among others. However, the From Decentralization to notion that local participation practices enrich repre- Participatory Budgeting sentation, and there are multiple successful examples, is not unique to progressive governments. What is novel is the attempt to spread from the local level to I n 1989, as a response to civil society demands for greater participation, the government of Carlos Andrés Pérez of the Democratic Action party passed the national, as Hugo Chávez proposed to do with local and national decentralization laws. The laws 21st century socialism. also aimed to neutralize serious conflicts, like the The Venezuelan experience, perhaps the most rel- February 1989 Caracazo protests against a series of evant of the progressive governments, had limited neoliberal economic measures decreed by President reach due to constitutional ambiguity around the Pérez, which paved the way for the 1992 coup attempt relationship between representative and participa- led by Hugo Chávez. tory democracy. In its conflicts with the opposition, As a result of decentralization and following the the government maintained that the first should be groundbreaking experiences of Porto Alegre and subordinated to the second. Another reason was the Montevideo, some local governments implemented lack of consensus in praxis within the Chavista proj- participatory budgets and other participatory ways ect around different participation approaches at the of managing public resources a decade before Hugo local and national level. The approach to participation Chávez came to power. This happened in left-leaning at the local-municipal level—which we call Grams- municipalities such as Ciudad Guayana and Cara- cian—involves compatibility between representative cas, as well as in others that were not leftist, such as and participatory democracy. Meanwhile, the national Chacao and Petare. level favored an orthodox Leninist approach that pro- Even though the first attempts at participatory poses the leading participation of “the people” at the budgeting came from leftist local governments, national level as a substitute for local and regional participatory budgeting does not have ideological representative democracy. This duality in approaches, origins. It was the product of decentralization policies 348 NACLA — Report on the Americas | VOL. 51, NO. 4 © 2019 North American Congress on Latin America (NACLA) — 348-354, http://dx.doi.org/10.1080/10714839.2019.1692960 A woman at the El Arañero commune (CARLOS G. TORREALBA M.) the Inter-American Development Bank (IDB) pro- The reach in these cases was limited, because only a moted in Latin America. These policies took hold very small percentage of the local budget was distrib- in the 1980s after a depleted economic development uted through participatory mechanisms. model and a crisis of political legitimacy drove the In contrast, leftist governments such as in the Caroní region into economic and financial crisis. municipality of Guayana City under mayor Clemente In Venezuela, decentralization stimulated new Scotto (1993-1998) and in Caracas under Aristóbulo forms of articulation between the state and civil Istúriz (1993-1995)—both members at that point society, confining the resolution of certain conflicts of the Radical Cause party—managed to involve affecting general governance to the local sphere. For the population beyond the budget. Participatory example, participatory budgeting was a tool of par- processes included monitoring government manage- ticipatory control in the Caracas Metropolitan Area’s ment, recovering neighborhoods’ history and their Chacao municipality—one of the richest areas in inhabitants’ identities, and defining socio-territorial the country—under the government of Mayor Irene communities and creating socio-spatial maps delin- Sáenz (1993-1998), who won the local elections with eating them. Nonetheless, just as happened with the support from a coalition of traditional parties. Other participatory budgeting in non-progressive local municipalities of the Caracas Metropolitan Area also governments, these local governments’ notion of par- implemented participatory budgeting, such as Sucre. ticipation and ability to transfer power and resources WINTER 2019 | NACLA — Report on the Americas 349 faced limits due to both the 1989-1990 decentralizing organizations, in budget planning and municipal laws in which they were based and the eminently rep- management. Like other progressive Latin American resentative character of the 1961 Constitution. examples such as Porto Alegre or Montevideo, com- munal councils involved a Gramscian conception of Participation Clashes with Representation participation, as representative democracy—coun- W ith Hugo Chávez in power, the discourse of local management emphasized participatory and protagonist democracy at all levels, institution- cilors or political party representatives voted into office—ultimately held the last word. As a result of their institutionalization in 2006, the alized in an extensive network of bodies, including communal councils separated from the CLPPs and Local Public Planning Councils and communal coun- linked directly to the Comisión Nacional Presidencial cils at a microlocal and local level, and communes at del Poder Popular, in charge of stimulating participa- a supralocal level. tion among organized communities. This distanced The Local Public Planning Councils (CLPP), them from the decentralized model of public man- enshrined in the 1999 Bolivarian Constitution and agement. A new 2009 law replacing the 2006 law regulated in 2002 legislation, marked one of the defined communal councils as leading actors in gov- first mechanisms of decentralization for citizen erning and improving their surroundings, and also participation in the municipal sphere. Proponents as instruments to build popular power and a socialist considered them a tool that would speed up partic- model. As a result of this change and the socialist defi- ipatory planning and promote decentralization at a nition, from 2009 onward, the communal councils local level. In addition to participatory mechanisms, tended to standardize ideologically in favor of Chávez they incorporate the principle that civil society shares while excluding opponents. In contrast to the expe- a responsibility in local governance and in mixed riences of Porto Alegre, Medellín, and other places forms of participation where the mayor, councilors, that practiced greater pluralism, our research shows assemblies, and civil society organizations all inter- that communal councils monopolized the plurality act. Despite the CLPPs great potential to include represented in preexisting social organizations and civil society, to foster a socio-political plurality, and integrated them in a subordinate fashion. to smoothly combine representative and participa- Another big difference compared to the majority of tory democracy, they had a short lifespan because other Latin American experiences is that aside from mayors and councilors rejected them. Furthermore, participating in the participatory budgeting and other the CLPPs became redundant when Chávez proposed municipal activities, the communal councils could and institutionalized communal councils in 2006, receive direct financing from the national, regional, because their functions overlapped. or local government. In some cases, this funding was As with the CLPP, the communal councils have a sizable. In the absence of transparent auditing mech- constitutional basis and originally were part of the anisms, the communal councils’ ideological and CLPP. The communal councils multiplied across organizational homogeneity led to shady practices the country and became the most important partic- and corruption. They also competed with munici- ipatory body for local management. Initially, they pal councils for funding, given that both had similar were associated with decentralization and defined sources of financing, which means that money trans- as spaces for participatory planning and resource fers to communal councils undermined municipal management aimed at improving local surround- budgets. Their ideological affinity with 21st century ings. They took hold in both working-class and socialism encouraged them to mobilize in favor of middle-class neighborhoods, where residents had the government, especially in times of political crisis. a say and could participate, along with other social 350 NACLA — Report on the Americas | VOL. 51, NO. 4  Like progressive experiences in Brazil, Uruguay, in 2018 and 2019 suggests that the number of active Argentina, Colombia, and Chile, among others, Ven- communes in the country does not exceed 500. ezuela’s communal councils are important examples Communes can function as a larger territorial of participation that enrich representation at the space that goes beyond the local-municipal or even local level. However, centralization, dependence on regional level, as established in the constitution. government financing, and changes in the communal From a sociopolitical perspective, the communes are councils’ role and relationship to municipal govern- incompatible with Gramscian conceptions of repre- ments have stoked resource competition at the local sentative and participatory democracy that guided level. This has hindered them becoming the beacons the communal councils, instead tending toward an of popular power Hugo Chávez envisioned. Addi- orthodox Leninist conception of democracy at the tionally, they have not been able to go beyond the national level. This implies the dismantling of repre- communal or microlocal level. sentative democracy at the local and regional levels, substituted by communal democracy at the national The Communes Substitute Liberal level. In practice, mayors’ and governors’ offices or the Representation Ministry of Communes have directly promoted the T he radicalization of the Chavista project designed a “new geography of power,” rooted in the con- cept of the Communal State and the communes as formation of communes from above. Since members of the ruling PSUV party have held most of the senior positions in these institutions, conflicts and tensions mechanisms to solidify popular power and achieve with the government have emerged, even though local, supralocal, or national transformations. After most of the communes are pro-government. Other voters rejected this proposal in a referendum on con- tensions revolve around the issue of territorial bound- stitutional reform in late 2007, the Chavista-majority aries, which infringes on territorial regulations set in National Assembly approved the communes law as the constitution, and questions of overlapping duties, part of a package of laws dealing with popular power. as roles are not clearly defined. This all complicates The communes are self-governance and direct defining the degree of participation a municipality or participation bodies within a geographically-defined governorship may have. space and with a mode of production that is socialist, Legally and politically, the communes have fos- sovereign, and based on communal social property. tered interesting experiences in self-governance, Like the communal councils, the government directly solidarity-based economies, and communal alliances. funds communes. Made up of geographically adjacent But the initiative has not achieved the desired eco- communal councils, the communes’ larger size and nomic and political impact at the national level given broader area of activity led to a need for delegations that even the most developed communes struggle to to complement direct democracy. The aggregation achieve total economic independence. The continued of communes into federations, confederations, and existence of some communes, primarily rural ones, communal cities together forms the Communal State. is the result of dual strategies: they participate both Figures on the number of communes and com- as a commune and as part of a wider regional plat- munal councils are unreliable. According to form of the commune movement. Amid the acute official statistics, there were 3,181 communes and economic crisis, these organizations suffered budget 48,114 communal councils as of October 2019, but deficits and cuts. Both communes and communal many of these organizations only exist on paper given councils have tended to fizzle, mostly replaced by that, in practice, they do not carry out any of the the Local Committees for Supply and Production defining activities of these organizations. Qualitative (CLAP)—discretionary and clientelist food assistance information we gathered from commune members distribution committees with no participatory voice. WINTER 2019 | NACLA — Report on the Americas 351 Limits of Progressive Municipal Politics Social—the socio-productive bodies that serve as the under Chavismo basis of the communes—as well as the financing and D espite some isolated success—limited in number, reach, and significance—organizations created under Chávez for local and national participation the progressive transfer of responsibilities. In the face of a lack of strong grassroots organi- zations—in contrast to the case in Argentina with and governance have not attained the long-term Peronism or in Brazil with the Workers’ Party— objectives of local democracy. If anything, their participatory local governance policies under Hugo accomplishments have been volatile. Currently, lack Chávez in Venezuela fostered an extensive organiza- of funding has deactivated most of the communal tional network and particular legislation that aimed councils and many communes. to solidify the power of organized communities, or Participation and self-governed development at the so-called popular power. Nonetheless, notions and local level has been very limited because municipal expressions of participatory democracy at the local authorities have not relinquished power. Further- and supralocal levels gradually transformed. Con- more, planning and local-municipal control under ceptions of participation as a complement to liberal Hugo Chávez and Nicolás Maduro has been rife representation—as in the case of CLPP and the with tensions and contradictions with regards to communal councils—gave way to participation as democratization and participation, decentralization, a substitute to liberal or electoral representation, as autonomy and empowerment, institutionalization, was the case with the communes. and inclusion, among other factors. Although most communes act as political cir- While the communal councils did not manage to cles of the PSUV, our empirical research confirms displace municipalities—in fact, they were able to that around 30 percent have active spokespersons work together if they shared ideological affinity—the who defend communal autonomy and participate communes have fought municipalities over political in multiple political organizing spheres. On the one power since the beginning. The two are structur- hand, members of the communes create organizing ally incompatible, considering how the Communal spaces, such as territorial corridors linking adjacent State was formulated. Both the commune and the communes and the National Network of Commune mayor feel they can legitimately compete and dispute Members, which acts as a social movement. These power; the mayor because he or she was voted into corridors function as spaces of resistance and struggle office through representative democracy, and the for acknowledgment of their demands and their exis- members of the commune because they were chosen tence as autonomous political subjects. On the other by the organized community through participatory hand, the government creates other spaces such as democracy. These conflicts run the gamut: from the state blocks, communal cities, and the national com- territorial boundaries of the commune, to the consti- munal parliament, which tend to act more as support tution and management of Empresas de Producción bases for the government than as spaces of resistance. Despite some isolated success—limited in number, reach, and significance—organizations created under Chávez for local and national participation and governance have not attained the long-term objectives of local democracy. If anything, their accomplishments have been volatile. 352 NACLA — Report on the Americas | VOL. 51, NO. 4  Beyond the experiences of the CLPP and the com- their prominence, while also impeding participation munal councils, which responded to decentralization and deactivating existing activism. Additionally, the processes, subsequent policies have tended to bolster government’s behavior towards communities orga- participation without decentralizing. The project of nized in communal councils and communes has been the Communal State entails the centralization and the ambivalent. Funding, though limited, is available, concentration of power, despite the fact that without and there is a favorable legal framework and spaces political and economic decentralization, local and for participation. However, in practice there are also national democratization is hard to achieve—if not mechanisms that disincentivize, reduce, or smother impossible—and the risk of authoritarianism grows. participation. The communal councils effectively If we understand autonomy as the diversification replaced the CLPP and some grassroots organizations of relationships between movements and institu- Chávez previously created, such as the Urban Land tions—and not the absence of this relationship—then Committees, and in turn, the communes replaced autonomy should be evaluated looking at whether or the communal councils. The communes then entered not social organizations’ agency is amplified through into competition with less institutionalized and more their relationships with governments. In the case ideological entities, such as the Unidades Batalla of the communes, aside from some exceptions, the Bolívar-Chávez (UBCH) that surfaced in 2014 as a type of relationships the communes have established pro-government counteroffensive to opposition pro- with the state wind up undermining their agency tests that year. The UBCH took charge of mobilizing and, therefore, their response capacity. The ironclad PSUV voters and in many cases have operated as political grip of the PSUV or the ministries, munic- grupos de choque, or clash groups. On occasion, they ipalities, or governors’ offices in charge of financing have acted as communes in spite of their differing further hinders communal activity. objectives and the fact that they do not meet require- Nonetheless, the communes’ responses to con- ments to qualify as communes. flict with municipal authorities vary depending on The CLAPs then displaced both the communal their formation processes and institutional or infor- councils and the communes in the face of economic mal networks. Communal councils and, above all, crisis and lack of funding. CLAPs are distinctly communes with members with prior organizational party-based and clientelist entities geared towards experience have tended to prioritize autonomy and government supporters with Carnet de la Patria to be more confrontational with public powers. They identification cards as proof of their allegiance. Dis- also draw on a mix of both bottom-up and top-down tributing food staples at highly subsidized prices to dynamics to resolve conflicts with institutions. On the alleviate extreme shortages, CLAPs discouraged grass- other hand, grassroots organizations that maintain roots participation, because—as commune members just one type of bond—and particularly if this is with explained—it is more cost-effective to accept CLAP the most authoritarian wing of the PSUV—show less perks and secure basic food staples than it is to be autonomy and do not challenge the municipal gov- actively involved in solving collective problems. ernment they keep ties with as openly as those with The weakening of communal councils and com- multiple ties. munes has also been furthered by registration controls, Venezuela institutionalized participatory orga- excessive bureaucracy, exclusively productive—not nizations with special laws, but from 2002 to 2019, participatory—dynamics, a growing dependency on there has been a dual process of both institutional- the state economy, corruption, ministry-imposed sec- ization and deinstitutionalization. New organizations toralization that stokes internal division, and constant formed and juxtaposed existing ones. This process changes in field promoters and civil servants. This has weakened and stripped existing organizations of process of deinstitutionalization cannot be attributed WINTER 2019 | NACLA — Report on the Americas 353 only to the Left. The government of Jair Bolsonaro in significantly to the failure of Venezuela’s partici- Brazil is currently working to deinstitutionalize fed- patory projects, the government’s role in limiting eral public administration councils in an attempt to the population’s direct participation in governance weaken organized opposition. Councils dealing with at all levels has not been studied much. Likewise, human rights, transparency and anti-corruption, little attention has been paid to the consequences of agroecology, biodiversity, and Indigenous rights are excluding grassroots organizations and pre-existing among the most threatened. social movements, even though this exclusion or sub- The continuation of representative democracy ordination to the communal councils and communes mechanisms alongside participatory efforts could underscored organizational weakness, lack of coor- lead to negative evaluations of participatory exper- dination, inefficiency, and corruption. Coupled with iments. But the opposition between participation internal leadership struggles spurred by government and representation is a false dilemma, because rep- entities and the PSUV, this weakened and diminished resentation dynamics take place even in spaces of the ability of participatory processes to accomplish direct participation, even if only through alternative their constitutional mandate to “include the excluded forms of representation such as spokespersons. In through participatory democracy.” the communes, each member acts as a represen- Finally, while it is true that local democracy does tative of his or her communal council. In turn, the not necessarily have to be municipal in nature, it commune’s executive spokespersons serve as repre- should embed itself with democracy at the national sentatives for the commune in other spheres, such level. The vision and reach of participation in the as the national communal parliament. The processes Chavista model is more radical than the rest of the to elect representatives to participatory budget- Latin American progressive experiments. And in ing councils in Porto Alegre and the participatory Venezuela, debates on participation continue within budgeting working groups in Caroní also exem- the context of a representative democracy that has plify this representation-participation relationship. yet to die and a participatory-protagonist democracy In the Chavista experience, the problem is that this incorporating the local into the national that has yet “unavoidable” representation has frequently involved to be born. n n the imposition of a centralized and vertical logic— from the government, PSUV, or other agencies—and Translated from Spanish by Emily Corona. this has undermined popular organization. Given that participatory democracy was the flag- María Pilar García-Guadilla is a professor at the Univer- ship of progressive governments, one of the most sidad Simón Bolívar in Venezuela and founder and activist important pending challenges is unpacking the of environmental and feminist movements. Her last book representation-participation relationship. In the (co-authored with Anna L. Mallen) is Venezuela’s Polarized Venezuelan case, differing interpretations and lack Politics: The Paradox of Direct Democracy under Chávez of consensus at the different levels of government— (First Forum Press-Lynne Rienner, 2017). be these positions at the local-regional or national level, or within the PSUV, the social organizations Carlos G. Torrealba M. has completed a Bachelor’s degree that shape councils and communes, or the grassroots in philosophy at the Universidad Central de Venezuela, a organizations and displaced social movements—led Master’s in political sociology at the Intituto de Investiga- to contradictions and severe conflicts that debilitated ciones Dr. José María Luis Mora in Mexico, and a doctorate the participatory democracy project at all levels. in social sciences research at FLACSO México. Despite the fact that growing authoritarianism and participation along party lines have contributed 354 NACLA — Report on the Americas | VOL. 51, NO. 4  The Urban Informal Media, Politics, and Immigrants, Indigenous Economy Revisited Democratization in Latin America People, and Workers Pursuing Justice Latin American Perspectives is a multidisciplinary journal that welcomes a variety of theoretical and political perspectives to analyze capitalism, imperialism, and socialism in the Americas and strategies to transform the region’s sociopolitical structures. Most issues focus on a single problem, nation, or region, providing an in-depth analysis from scholars and participants in social change. “Throughout the decades, Latin American Perspectives has been fulfilling a role of featuring critical thinking on Latin America. LAP explores in an analytical way the pillars of U.S. Imperialism, its domination, philosophy, and tragic consequences by building socialist and progressive thought. 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