ABSTRACT
This chapter traces the evolution of Venezuela’s outsider-led process under Nicolás Maduro, highlighting how it edged toward authoritarian centralization. To contextualize this evolution, I analyze the changing relative balance of powers between the left-led government and an oppositional bloc comprising domestic and transnational forces, both of whom used an array of institutional and extra-institutional tactics to achieve their agendas/limit their opponents. Moreover, the chapter discusses how a general lack of popular sector autonomy from the newly created left-party meant that bottom-up critique of illiberal behaviors on the part of party-officials was limited. However, despite the slide toward authoritarian centralization, the chapter notes how the party’s organizational structure and the local spaces of popular sector organizing forged at earlier stages of the process may survive a transition in party leadership, indicating that a full return to market democracy is unlikely.
