Hugo Chavez: a neo-populist phenomenon of the 21st century’s Latin America

Abstract

The neo-populism is a socio-political phenomenon, which is characteristic of Latin America in the 21st century, but it has a clear legacy of populism found throughout the entire region in the twentieth century. Hugo Chavez was a political and military figure recognized for his social policies and practices, marked by personalism and the appeal to a direct relationship with people while planting a leftist political discourse called “Socialism of the 21st century”. This paper aims to conceptualize, from the sociological and political theories, the present situation in Latin America, with a special focus on Venezuela, and argue that Chávez must be regarded as the most outstanding figure of the neo-populism of the early twenty-first century.