Populist citizenship in the bolivarian revolutions

Abstract

This article analyzes the contours of populist citizenship as an alternative to neoliberal models of citizenship as consumption, and to liberal models that protect pluralism. It compares how political, socioeconomic, civil, collective, gender, and GLBT rights were imagined and implemented in Venezuela, Bolivia, and Ecuador. It explains why despite the expansion of some rights, populists’ use of discriminatory legalism to regulate the public sphere and civil society led to the displacement of democracy toward authoritarianism.