scholarly journals Regional human rights institutions struggling against populism: The case of Venezuela

2019 ◽  
Vol 20 (2) ◽  
pp. 141-160
Author(s):  
Gonzalo Candia
Keyword(s):  
Human Rights ◽  
Political Culture ◽  
Latin American ◽  
American History ◽  
The State ◽  
Latin American History ◽  
Full Control ◽  
State Apparatus ◽  
Hugo Chavez

AbstractLatin American history is full of populist experiments. The result of this history is a political culture across the continent characterized by conflict and polarization. The most recent wave of Latin American populism is represented by neo-populism. Neo-populism identifies itself as the “socialism of the 21st century.” Its most representative expression is the Chavista regime, which was led first by Hugo Chávez, and then by Nicolás Maduro. This Article, after examining what populism is, considers how regional human rights institutions of the Americas have dealt with the Chavista regime. In doing so, this Article describes the efforts deployed by both the Inter-American Commission and the Inter-American Court of Human Rights to keep Chávez under control. This Article concludes that regional human rights supervision, being relevant in the context of the Venezuelan experience, was finally incapable of either preventing or stopping the authoritarian path adopted by Chávez. This was because: (a) early supervision over the Chavista regime did not avert its leaders from abusing human rights afterwards; and (b) intensifying regional supervision over the regime became paradoxically self-defeating after it took full control of the State apparatus.

The Saamaka Maroons of Suriname

2016 ◽  
Author(s):  
Richard Price ◽  
Sally Price
Keyword(s):  
Full Article ◽  
Human Rights ◽  
Latin American ◽  
French Guiana ◽  
Moral Dilemmas ◽  
The State ◽  
Forthcoming Article ◽  
Latin American History ◽  
The Past ◽  
Amazonian Rainforest

This is an advance summary of a forthcoming article in the Oxford Research Encyclopedia of Latin American History. Please check back later for the full article. Fifty years ago, we began wide-ranging anthropological and historical work with Saamaka Maroons, the descendants of slaves who had escaped from the plantations of coastal Suriname in the late 17th and early 18th centuries and established an independent society and culture deep in the Amazonian rainforest. Then a colony of the Netherlands, Suriname became an independent republic in 1975. Events of the 1980s and 1990s—most notably a civil war between the State and the Maroons and the subsequent decision by the State to exploit the timber and mineral riches of the Saamakas’ traditional territory—have led to wrenching changes for people who were once the masters of their forest realm. As the most visible and activist academic supporters of the Saamakas, the authors were barred from Suriname by the national government and, since 1986, have been condemned to continuing work in neighboring French Guiana (Guyane), where tens of thousands of Saamakas in exile have become part of a complex multi-ethnic society driven by strong assimilationist policies authored in Paris. During this same period, the authors have become increasingly involved in activism, assisting the Saamaka people in Suriname in their struggle to protect their territory, which has unfolded before the Inter-American Court of Human Rights. What are the moral dilemmas posed by this activist work? What has it been like writing Saamaka ethnography and history from the excentric location of Guyane? How do we imagine the book that we will never get to write, about changes and continuities in Saamaka life over the past fifty years?

A Reappraisal of the Sources of Inca History: The Works of Ake Wedin

1968 ◽  
Vol 25 (2) ◽  
pp. 174-179
Author(s):  
Magnus Mörner
Keyword(s):  
Latin American ◽  
American History ◽  
The State ◽  
Historical Reconstruction ◽  
Latin American History ◽  
Inca Empire ◽  
History Of ◽  
State Of Research ◽  
Thick Layers

A. Wedin’s Works in General Although the history of the Inca empire has received more attention from scholars and laymen than almost any other aspect of Latin American history, the state of research is far from satisfactory. The writings of generations of students of Inca history have deposited thick layers of myths. It is urgently required that these layers be removed before any serious historical reconstruction can be undertaken. However, the task is risky. Perhaps only quagmire is to be found beneath.

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