Debate sobre Venezuela

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En las últimas semanas ha habido un muy interesante debate sobre la situación política en Venezuela. El asunto comienza con el informe de Human Rights Watch:

Una Década de Chávez
Intolerancia política y oportunidades perdidas para el progreso de los derechos humanos en Venezuela (setiembre 2008)
http://www.hrw.org/es/node/76273/section/1

Como recordarán, horas después de la presentación del informe en Caracas, el gobierno de Venezuela expulsó del país a los directores de Human Rights Watch José Miguel Vivanco, director de la división de las Américas, y a Daniel Wilkinson, subdirector de la división. Comentamos sobre esto antes, ver:

http://martintanaka.blogspot.com/2008/09/human-rights-watch-sobre-venezuela.html

En el mes de diciembre, se divulgó una carta abierta criticando el informe de HRW: "Más de 100 Expertos sobre América Latina cuestionan el reporte sobre Venezuela publicado por la organización de Derechos Humanos. Expertos resaltan las exageraciones y las imprecisiones en un estudio 'políticamente motivado' " (16 de diciembre). Entre los firmantes hay muchas personalidades y colegas expertos en Venezuela, entre ellos algunos amigos. Están por ejemplo Atilio Borón, Julia Buxton, Marisol de la Cadena, Noam Chomsky, Héctor Díaz Polanco, Steve Ellner, Arturo Escobar, Daniel Hellinger, Florencia Mallon, Deborah Poole, Gerardo Rénique, Emir Sader, Oliver Stone. Ver:

http://www.rethinkvenezuela.com/downloads/Mas%20de%20100%20Expertos%20sobre%20America%20Latina.htm

[Ver también esta otra crítica al informe de HRW: "Smoke and Mirrors: An Analysis of Human Rights Watch’s Report on Venezuela". October 17th 2008, by Gregory Wilpert - Venezuelanalysis.com]
http://www.venezuelanalysis.com/analysis/3882

Luego vino la respuesta de Kenneth Roth, de HRW, el 29 de diciembre:
http://infovenezuela.org/VenezuelaRespuesta12.29.08.pdf

Luego la réplica de Miguel Tinker Salas, Gregory Wilpert y Greg Grandin, los promotores de la carta abierta, del 13 de enero:
http://hap.bloger.hr/post/academics-respond-to-human-rights-watch-directors-defense-of-venezuela-report-/1192595.aspx

Finalmente está la respuesta de Kenneth Roth del HRW, el 28 de enero de 2009, en la que pone fin a la polémica. La carta todavía no está disponible on line, pero es breve, y básicamente dice que no tiene sentido seguir la discusión porque los argumentos se repiten, y porque los críticos no buscarían un verdadero debate, sino desacreditar a HRW.

Un breve comentario. El informe de HRW puede tener errores, uno puede discrepar con su enfoque, pero no me parece justo desacreditarlo de plano y pedir su retiro. Quienes suscriben la carta abierta parecieran pensar que el gobierno venezolano es solo víctima de calumnias, parecen pensar que no hubiera problemas allí de ningún tipo, que ameriten la atención y crítica de HRW. Creo que a estas alturas hay abrumadora evidencia de que la tesis central del informe de HRW tiene sustento: que la discriminación política ha sido una característica definitoria de la presidencia de Chávez. Creo que el informe es elocuente.

Si quieren más evidencia de esta tesis, recomiendo ver un par de textos:

"The Price of Political Opposition: Evidence from Venezuela's Maisanta"
- Chang-Tai Hsieh, University of California, Berkeley
- Edward Miguel, University of California, Berkeley
- Daniel Ortega, IESA- Francisco Rodriguez, Wesleyan University

"Do individuals who join the political opposition pay an economic price? We study this question using unique information on individual political activity from Hugo Chávez’s Venezuela, the Maisanta database. The names of millions of pro-opposition supporters who signed recall petitions (seeking to remove Chávez from office) during 2002-2003, and the names of progovernment supporters who signed counter-petitions, were made public. Media accounts detail how this information has been utilized by both sides: by the Government to punish opposition supporters and firms, and by the overwhelmingly pro-opposition private sector to discriminate against government supporters in hiring. After linking this political database to both national household survey and manufacturing firm data, we find that pro-opposition individuals experience significant drops in total earnings after 2003. There is extensive churning in the labor market: pro-opposition individuals disproportionately leave public sector employment and progovernment individuals leave private sector employment. Pro-opposition firms have falling total employment, less access to foreign exchange, and rising tax burdens (possibly due to selective audits). The misallocation of resources associated with political polarization between 1999-2004 contributed to a decline of 5% in TFP in our sample. To the extent other regimes can identify and punish the political opposition, these findings may help explain why dislodging authoritarian regimes often proves difficult in less developed countries".

http://www.yale.edu/polisci/info/conferences/Venezuela/papers/PriceOfPoliticalOpposition.pdf

Y también:

"Assessing Popular Mobilization in the Bolivarian Revolution: The Americas Barometer, 2006"
- Kirk Hawkins, Department of Political Science, Brigham Young University

"Much like earlier revolutionary movements in Latin America, Chavismo has become a magnet for social scientists hoping to understand the nature of popular mobilization under radical leftist movements. Current studies of the Bolivarian revolution divide into two groups: sympathetic ethnographic studies that provide rich information at the ground level but little in the way of quantitative data, and critical studies using quantitative data from the top but relatively little on individual-level participation. This paper tries to fill the remaining gap by drawing from the recent AmericasBarometer, a nationwide survey of 1500 respondents conducted in August-September 2007 and sponsored by the Latin American Public Opinion Project. This survey is the first of its kind to include several modules of questions on popular participation in the erstwhile Círculos Bolivarianos, the ongoing Misiones, and a variety of other Bolivarian associations. The preliminary data in this paper provide a mixed assessment. While new Bolivarian programs do possibly invite participation from previously inactive segments of society, and crucial programs such as the Misiones strongly benefit the poor and less-educated, the most meaningful participation seems to cluster among a smaller group of activists. Moreover, many of these new groups of participants seem to be motivated by partisan considerations that reflect the populist discourse and charismatic authority of Chávez".

Estos trabajos fueron presentados en la conferencia "The Popular Sectors and the State in Chávez's Venezuela" (Yale University, 6-7 de marzo de 2008). Otros papers, muy buenos y variados, están también en línea. Ver:

Freed from Illiteracy? A Closer Look at Venezuela's Robinson Literacy Campaign
- Daniel Ortega, IESA
- Francisco Rodriguez, Wesleyan University

Does Clientelism Work?: Electoral Returns of Excludable and Non-Excludable Goods in Chavez's Misiones Programs in Venezuela
- Daniel Ortega and Michael Penfold-Becerra, IESA

Turncoats, True Believers, and Turnout: Machine Politics in the Absence of Vote Monitoring
- Guillermo Rosas, Assistant Professor, Department of Political Science, Washington University in St. Louis
- Kirk Hawkins, Assistant Professor, Department of Political Science, Brigham Young University

Does Party System Collapse Affect Citizen's Experience of Government?
- Jason Seawright, Department of Political Science, Northwestern University

Radio Bemba in an Age of Electronic Media: The Dynamics of Popular Communication in Chavez's Venezuela
- Sujatha Fernandes, Assistant Professor of Sociology, Queens College, CUNY

Caracas: The State, Popular Participation and How to Make Things Work
- Margarita Lopez Maya, Universidad Central de Venezuela (UCV)

Illiteracy Revisited: What Ortega and Rodriguez Read in the Household Survey
- David Rosnick and Mark Weisbrot, Center for Economic and Policy Research

A Response to Rosnick and Weisbrot
- Daniel Ortega, IESA and Francisco Rodriguez, Wesleyan University

http://www.yale.edu/polisci/info/conferences/Venezuela/papers.html

Volviendo al tema de la discriminación política, ver también:

Clientelism and Social Funds: Empirical Evidence from Chávez’s “Misiones”
Programs In Venezuela.
Michael Penfold-Becerra
Associate Professor
Instituto de Estudios Superiores de Administración (IESA)
Caracas, Venezuela
May 2006

ABSTRACT: The latest politician in Latin America to adopt social funds on a large scale as an integral part of his government program has been Hugo Chávez Frías in Venezuela. Based on the literature on clientelism and social funds in Latin America, this paper explores whether Venezuela’s latest experiments with social funds was influenced by political variables. The paper uses empirical data from the distribution of resources for some of the “misiones” programs at the sub-national level to show how increased levels of electoral competition (the possibility that Chávez´s term in office might be recalled), and in the context of weak institutional constraints, the government used these funds clientelistically while at the same time distributing oil income to the very poor. Chávez´s “misiones” served therefore two very different purposes: they were subject to political manipulation (to “buy votes”) and also allowed for a direct distribution of oil rents to the low income population.

http://siteresources.worldbank.org/INTDECINEQ/Resources/1149208-1147789289867/IIIWB_Conference_Clientelism_and_Social_FundsREVISED.pdf