"In this revealing new study, Eva Golinger employs declassified documents, obtained through the Freedom of Information Act, and a variety of international sources to uncover an ongoing campaign to contain and cripple the democratically elected government of Latin America's leading oil power. [This book] details how millions of U.S. taxpayer dollars are being used to fund groups - such as the National Endowment for Democracy, the United States Agency for International Development, and the Office for Transition - with the express purpose of supporting counter-revolutionary groups in Venezuela. It explores, as well, a build-up of U.S. military troops, operations, and exercises in the Caribbean that threatens the Venezuelan people and government. [This book] exposes Washington's efforts to subvert a socialist revolution for the twenty-first century."--Cover.

Audacious, provocative, and bombastic, few world politicians are as colorful as Hugo Chávez, now making international news for his plans to nationalize U.S. owned businesses and his bold opposition to Washington's economic and trade policies. As Venezuela gains importance as the fifth largest oil exporter in the world, this firebrand leader is quickly moving to the public spotlight by uniting much of South America against the Bush administration and wielding oil as a "geopolitical weapon." To create this rich and objective portrait, Nikolas Kozloff--one of the few American journalists who has spent years in the Andean region--has profiled Chávez's top advisors, leaders of his movement, and other key figures in both Venezuela and the U.S. The result is a timely, exhaustive analysis of Chávez as a political leader, and a nuanced examination of the president moving to the center of the global stage. Includes a new afterword by the author, with insights into Chávez's reelection in relation to wider hemispheric politics.

The emergence of Hugo Chávez in Venezuela has revived analysis of one of Latin America’s most enduring political traditions – populism. Yet Latin America has changed since the heyday of Perón and Evita. Globalisation, implemented through harsh IMF inspired Structural Adjustment Programmes, has taken hold throughout the region and democracy is supposedly the ‘only game in town’. This book examines the phenomenon that is Hugo Chávez within these contexts, assessing to what extent his government fits into established ideas on populism in Latin America. The book also provides a comprehensive and critical analysis of Chávez’s emergence, his government’s social and economic policies, its foreign policy, as well as assessing the charges of authoritarianism brought against him. Written in clear, accessible prose, the book carries debate beyond current polarised views on the Venezuelan president, to consider the prospects of the new Bolivarian model surviving beyond its leader and progenitor, Hugo Chávez.

Although the Kyoto Protocol, an international agreement to address global climate change, has been regarded by many as an unsuccessful treaty both politically and environmentally, it stands as one of the world’s few truly global agreements. Why did such a diverse group of countries decide to sign and/or ratify the treaty? Why did they choose to do so at different times and in different ways? What explains their foreign policy behavior? Amy Below’s book builds off the increasing significance of climate change and uses the Kyoto Protocol as a case study to analyze foreign policy decision making in Latin America. Below’s study takes a regional perspective in order to examine why countries in Latin America made disparate foreign policy choices when they were faced with the same decision. The book looks at the decisions in Argentina, Mexico, and Venezuela via a process-tracing method. Below uses information obtained from primary and secondary documents and elite interviews to help reconstruct the processes, and augments her reconstruction with a content analysis of Conference of the Parties speeches by presidents and country delegates. The book complies with convention in the field by arguing that systemic, national and individual-level factors simultaneously impact foreign policy decisions, but makes the additional claim that role theory most accurately accounts for relationships between variables. Environmental Politics and Foreign Policy Decision Making in Latin America considers a variety of factors on individual, national, and international levels of analysis, and show that the foreign policy decisions are best viewed through the prism of role theory. The book also draws conclusions about the value of role theory in general and about environmental foreign policy decisions in developing countries, which will be of value to both policy-makers and academics.

This book argues the pretext US launched a colonialist war on false pretext which was certain to fail. The officials who launched the invasion are war criminals responsible for the death of nearly a million Iraqis, more than 4,000 US soldiers and the wounding of hundreds of thousands more. Justly the US owes Iraq hundred of billions of dollars in war reparations. The US invasion has vastly increased global terrorism, collapsed the dollar and the US economy, and endangered peace both in the Middle East and around the world.

Politicians enact three main roles in political discourse - narrator, interlocutor and character - to achieve specific goals. This book explains these roles and how they constitute discursive strategies, correlating with political aims. In short: politicians evoke voices in discourse to strategically position themselves in relation to social actors and events. The book describes these strategies and analyzes the manner in which they are employed by three very different politicians - Fidel Castro, Hugo Chavez and George W. Bush. The roles are studied cross-culturally and from different ideological backgrounds. This book explains how political ideologies are constructed, defined and redefined by linguistic means, showing specific ways in which politicians manipulate language to achieve the goals on their political agenda. It applies new methodological approaches to the analysis of political discourse and also contributes to the sparse literature on political discourse analysis of Spanish-speaking politicians.

Hugo Chávez won re-election in the 2012 Venezuelan presidential election, despite a closer margin between candidates than in previous elections. The results were puzzling for those who believed that Chávez’s government had long ago reached its limits, while Chávez’s supporters were struck by the growth of the opposition vote. Thus understanding the Venezuelan election of 2012 has proved to be challenging, with various recent studies focused upon it. Luis F. Angosto Ferrández’s book advances two ideas not previously discussed: the relationship between electoral behavior in Venezuela and contemporary Latin American geopolitics, and the way that relationship is projected through the candidates’ appeal to narratives that situate Venezuela at the core of a heroic Latin American tradition and of a new regional process of integration. This edited volume first contextualizes and explains the results of the last re-election of Hugo Chávez in terms of its geopolitical conditionings and implications. Contributors tackle Latin American geopolitics by analyzing Venezuelan foreign policy and the country's role in continental projects of supra-national integration. Contributors also examine electoral strategy and tactics in order to show how the two main candidates built their campaign on emotional grounds as much on rational ones. This will be connected to the investigation of new narratives of national identification in contemporary Venezuela and how they may have practical implications in the design of policies addressing issues such as indigenous rights, community media and national security. Compiling state-of-the-art research on Latin American and Venezuelan politics, this book will appeal to academics and professionals who specialize in Latin American studies, international relations, democracy, and indigenous peoples.

Who is Hugo Chavez? How can the innumerable charges and countercharges between the Venezuelan and U.S. governments be interpreted? What are the implications for democracy and stability in Latin America? In an attempt to answer these and related questions, the analysis centers on the contemporary geopolitical conflict context of current Venezuelan "Bolivarian" (bolivarianismo) policy. To accomplish this, a basic understanding of the political-historical context within which Venezuelan national security policy is generated is an essential first step toward understanding the situation as a whole. The second step requires an introductory understanding of Chavez's concept of 21st century socialism, and the political-psychological-military ways he envisions to achieve it. Then, a levels of analysis approach will provide a systematic understanding of the geopolitical conflict options that have a critical influence on the logic that determines how such a policy as bolivarianismo might continue to be implemented by Venezuela or any other country in the contemporary world security arena. At the same time, this analysis provides an understanding of how other countries in the Western Hemisphere and elsewhere might begin to respond to bolivarianismo's possible threats. Finally, this is the point from which one can generate strategic-level recommendations for maintaining and enhancing stability in Latin America.

During the forty or so years that preceded Hugo Chavez’s seizing of power, Venezuela had the most stable democracy in Latin America, the fastest-growing economy and the highest standard of living in the region. After Chavez seized power in 1999, however, things have changed radically. Today, Venezuela can no longer be seen as a democracy and rather than attracting immigrants as it once did, Venezuelans themselves are fleeing the country. Yet, somehow, the vast majority of contemporary references to Venezuela and to Chavez’s rule are laudatory. In The Revolutionary Has No Clothes: Hugo Chavez’s Bolivarian Farce, A.C. Clark corrects this warped take on Hugo Chavez and the “Bolivarian Revolution” in Venezuela and skewers those grotesquely admiring portraits of Mr. Chavez painted by panegyrists from Noam Chomsky to Sean Penn. Clark explores Chavez’s embarrassing public displays, perilous policy platforms and close relationships with rogue states to reveal Chavez for what he truly is: a dangerous “buffoon” leading a once prosperous nation down a path to ruin. Most shockingly, Clark exposes both Chavez’s ambitions for asymmetrical warfare against the United States and Venezuela’s insidious lobbying network within our own borders. In the end, The Revolutionary Has No Clothes is the definitive portrait of one of the world’s depraved leaders and a disturbing chronicle of Venezuela’s decline from a prosperous democracy to an autocratic bully-state.