Dragon in the Tropics: Hugo Chávez and the Political Economy of Revolution in Venezuela

Why this matters here

Javier Corrales and Michael Penfold analyze Chávez-era Venezuela through oil rents, institutional concentration, electoral polarization, and patronage that made loyalty material as well as symbolic. When Interpretation No Longer Matters follows how continuous media recognition—policy, grievance, and naming of enemies as one event—saturated the public sphere around a leader’s name. Their political-economy account is the source; the book asks what happens when that name survives every platform as the frame that still organizes meaning.