Gabriel Hetland is assistant professor of Latin American, Caribbean, and US Latino Studies at University at Albany, SUNY. His writings on Venezuelan politics, participatory democracy, capitalism, labor, and social movements have appeared in Qualitative Sociology, Work, Employment and Society, Latin American Perspectives, Jacobin, The Nation, NACLA, and elsewhere.
He may have been a dominant, charismatic leader, but Chavismo is an internally diverse, deeply rooted movement that will not disappear anytime soon.
Through participatory budgeting, can Occupy bring the movement for direct democracy into the heart of government power?
One town’s participatory budget has attracted activists and officials from around the world.