David Smilde is a WOLA Senior Fellow and the Charles A. and Leo M. Favrot Professor of Human Relations at Tulane University. He founded the WOLA Venezuela Politics and Human Rights blog and curated it from 2012-2020. He has lived in or worked on Venezuela since 1992, and has researched Venezuela for the past 30 years. He has taught at the Universidad Central de Venezuela and the Universidad Católica Ándres Bello. He is currently working on a book manuscript called Venezuela’s Transition to Illiberalism: Hugo Chávez and 21st Century Socialism, 2007-2012.
All of these are probably over-interpretations, as the clearest takeaways seem to be: how lightly Trump seems to take Venezuela and Guaidó, how poorly informed the administration is about Venezuela, and how little planning they have done for anything other than a quick push for regime change.
After a period in which Venezuela appeared to have fallen out of the mainstream U.S. news cycle, the country is back in focus thanks mainly to John Bolton’s new book. The book has leaked online and includes a 39-page chapter on Venezuela that has raised alarm bells in...
The Maduro government is using the Supreme Court (TSJ) to marginalize the dominant opposition coalition led by National Assembly president Juan Guaidó and create a new opposition more amenable to its plans. On Friday June 12 the TSJ went ahead and appointed the new...
On June 4, the Center for Development and the Environment at the University of Oslo, and WOLA collaborated on a virtual symposium to launch the special issue of the European Review of Latin American and Caribbean Studies, guest edited by Benedicte Bull and Antulio...
The possibilities for broadly accepted legislative elections this year seem to be fading. Venezeula's Supreme Court (TSJ) ruled last week that the National Assembly had failed to name new rectors to the directorate the National Electoral Council (CNE). It is expected...
The muted response reveals once again the political tight-rope walked by Juan Guaidó as he tries to attend to civil society and moderates’ demands to attend to the population’s needs, while keeping on board radicals who think any relief only helps Maduro. Opposition leader Antonio Ledezma, exiled in Madrid, tweeted that as long as Maduro’s “poisonous regime” is in power “no health plan will be worthwhile.”
In the latest WOLA Podcast, WOLA's Adam Isacson interviews Geoff Ramsey and David Smilde on the current state of play in Carcas and Washington.This situation report covers a lot of ground. Ramsey and Smilde explain the current humanitarian situation in Venezuela, with...
Since 2017, the centerpiece of the Maduro government’s political strategy has been to divide the opposition by presenting it with a dilemma: participate in or abstain from unfair elections. It has done this by artfully constructing elections so that conditions are...
Yesterday The Independent published our article calling on the European Union to further engage in the Venezuela crisis. Here is the key paragraph: "The European Union has the potential to break through this tragic situation. If EU countries were to push the United...
This week a paper we have been working on and presenting over the past year came out in print in a special issue in the European Review of Latin American and Caribbean Studies. In it we use the social scientific literature on peacemaking and conflict resolution to...