Can Venezuela move beyond crisis?

Over the course of more than a decade in power, Mr. Chávez implemented a socialist “Bolivarian Revolution,” bending the private sector to the government’s will. With little effort made to diversify from oil, reliance on importing many basic commodities became cemented into the system.  Although there are international groups eager to step in, it has proved difficult for foreign aid to find its way into Venezuela. Without the government’s official declaration of an emergency, aid from organizations such as the United Nations cannot be dispensed. As Dr. Smilde says, welcoming aid would “undermine one of the central tenets of their political ideology” – the hardening of the country’s sovereignty. More…