ABSTRACT

This chapter focuses on the mobilising capacity of conspiracy theories within political discourse, and, in particular, how H. Chavez used them to unify ‘the people’ and coalesce a collective identity, in addition to providing believers with a sense of personal and collective agency. It examines the use of political demonology in the dictatorial governments prior to 1958 to assert that the ‘conspiratorial nature of military politics’ embedded conspiracism into the heart of the Venezuelan political tradition. In scholarly discussions of conspiracy theories, there has been a growing interest in a more utopian approach to the phenomenon, in which conspiracy theories are deemed a positive challenge to democracy. The predilection for conspiracy theories in Venezuela is grounded in far more than an inherent suspicion of the USA and its intervention in the region. It is also rooted in the conspiratorial nature of military politics that has shaped the country political tradition since the early twentieth century.