On December 6, 2015, opposition parties in Venezuela achieved an unprecedented victory in the parliamentary elections and won a two-thirds majority. Instead of initiating a process of democratic transition, however, this victory marked the beginning of a new era when President Nicolás Maduro decided to increase the degree of repression and quickly turned Venezuela into a full-scale authoritarian regime. In his new book, Javier Corrales considers the rise of the opposition to be the key factor that pushed Maduro to fully autocratize. He argues that when the balance of power in the party system started to favor the opposition, Maduro either had to liberalize or block the prospects of democratic change. Maduro chose the latter and succeeded because he inherited autocratic tools from Chávez and deployed them innovatively.
Autocracy Rising starts with an overview of the theoretical framework and the central theme of the transition from semi- to full-scale authoritarianism amid the rise of the opposition and the use of autocratic tools by the government. In the second chapter, which is a quick recap of Venezuelan politics before Maduro, Corrales draws from his publications on the Chávez era and focuses on what he calls “asymmetric party system fragmentation” in shaping regime outcomes. He shows how Chávez benefited both from the fragmentation of the opposition parties and their strategic mistakes in the first decade of his presidency. As long as the asymmetric balance of power continued to favor the ruling coalition, Chávez was able to erode liberal democratic institutions and consolidate power.
Next, Corrales provides a detailed account of Venezuela’s economic crisis that affected the entire region. Chapter 3 contains concrete indicators, tables, and charts that outline the extent of the economic crisis in Venezuela under Maduro. In his account of the economic collapse, Corrales prioritizes domestic policy choices over external factors like oil prices and sanctions, as comparative politics scholars typically do. He attributes the collapse to the heavily statist economic model that Maduro implemented with little flexibility. While Maduro and his cronies enjoyed greater access to material resources, average Venezuelans saw a decline in educational and health outcomes in the context of hyperinflation, shortages, and scarcity. This chapter is crucial for the book’s theoretical framework because it explains why Maduro became significantly less popular. Corrales is accurate in saying that authoritarian regimes can tolerate a certain degree of economic downturn, but the severity of the crisis eroded Maduro’s legitimacy even among the hardcore supporters of chavismo.
As expected, the economic crisis fueled the opposition, which was already engaging in acts of party-building and coordination. Toward the end of the Chávez era, the opposition parties realized that the best way to counter autocratization was to unite their forces, despite their ideological differences, under the Democratic Unity Roundtable. Although conventional wisdom suggests that opposition coordination would increase the chances of democratization, Corrales makes a compelling case that it actually increased the ruling coalition’s threat perception and so accelerated autocratization. Increasing opposition competitiveness, hence, resulted in more repression and openly antidemocratic behavior, such as canceling a recall referendum, rigging elections, and banning opposition politicians.
For Corrales, the opposition did all the right things in the second half of the Chávez period and Maduro’s first presidential term but could not prevent the fully autocratic turn. In fact, he argues that their success may have actually caused it! His account of the Venezuelan opposition thus differs from Laura Gamboa’s Resisting Backsliding (2022), which emphasizes the use of “extra-institutional strategies” that backfired and led to the erosion of democracy. Focusing on a different period than Gamboa, Corrales’s coverage of the opposition seems more positive but includes some setbacks too. For instance, Corrales mentions that the opposition under Guaidó was involved in a premature insurrection and maritime invasion, which discredited the revitalized opposition internationally. One of the book’s strengths is Corrales’s careful consideration of alternative perspectives on the successes and failures of the opposition, including a more critical analysis of Guaidó from Michael Penfold, his coauthor of an earlier book, Dragon in the Tropics (2011). Ultimately, Corrales acknowledges that the opposition could not topple Maduro and failed.
Regardless of what the opposition did and did not try, Maduro’s survival in office is extraordinary by Latin American standards and is only rivaled by Cuban leaders. If Venezuela were a democracy, Maduro’s disastrous economic management would have resulted in street protests, impeachment, recall, or resignation, but it was already a hybrid regime when he came to power. In chapter 5, Corrales convincingly shows how Maduro resorted to the preexisting toolbox that included often legal but autocratic practices. In addition to using autocratic legalism to reward loyalists and punish opponents, Maduro resorted to the traditional tools of authoritarianism that include but are not limited to censorship, purges, human rights violations, and suppression of protests. In chapter 7, Corrales demonstrates that Maduro went beyond what was available to him and constantly innovated to stay in power: he purchased the loyalty of the military and the judiciary by granting them more powers and access to corrupt networks.
Between the two chapters that tell a story of autocratic survival, chapter 6 applies the theoretical framework to Nicaragua, Colombia, and Ecuador. Although none of these three countries follows Venezuela’s exact trajectory, Corrales accurately points out that Nicaragua’s turn to full-scale authoritarianism also took place when the opposition was gaining strength. Ortega’s ruthless repression was a response not to a change in the party system but to the emergence of a protest movement. The party-building aspect of the opposition was missing in Nicaragua, yet Ortega still decided to become fully authoritarian. Colombia maintained its low-quality democracy under Uribe, whereas Ecuador is closer to the Venezuelan case in terms of the sequence of backsliding. Corrales attempts to answer why Moreno in Ecuador did not respond to the rising opposition in an autocratic way; however, a more relevant question would be why Correa, the original left-wing populist, peacefully stepped down in the first place. It is true that neither Correa nor Moreno had strong control over the military or a highly institutionalized party, but it is not clear whether they would be as willing as Ortega and Maduro to institute a full-scale authoritarian regime if they had the enabling conditions. The presidents of Ecuador were less committed to the idea of a revolution, and the Cuban influence was much less present there.
I highly recommend Autocracy Rising to scholars of autocratization, opposition, and Latin American politics. Although the book is primarily a single case study, Corrales skillfully situates Venezuela’s descent into authoritarianism and its economic collapse within a global context. The book has short chapters that are easy to read and digest. Its plain language makes it appealing to policy makers or general observers who may encounter topics related to the Venezuelan crisis and need a balanced overview of the relevant developments in the past decade.
