The political economy of the bolivarian decade: institutions, society, and government performance in Bolivia, Ecuador, and Venezuela (1999-2008)

Resumo

This article hopes to elucidate some specific features of twenty-first century South American political Bolivarianism by underlining the historical and institutional conditions that made the emergence of a Bolivarian conception of political economy possible, a concept supposedly put in practice by the Venezuelan (Chávez), Bolivian (Morales), and Ecuadorian (Correa) governments. Current socioeconomic and macroeconomic data on Bolivia, Ecuador and Venezuela (from 1999 to 2008, approx.) is scrutinized, in order to elaborate, by inductive means, a more accurate evaluation of the overall performance of Bolivarian governments.