Securitization in Populist Rhetoric: Venezuela-USA Relation Under Chavez and Maduro

The securitization theory challenges traditional approaches to security in International Relations and asserts that issues are not essentially threatening in themselves; instead, by referring to them as “security” issues, they become security problems. This element of the securitization aspect can be traced in populism when a case is framed and presented as an existential threat to the referent object. The populist leaders securitize external actors as a major threat to deviate attention from their weak and inefficient policies and use the media to construct, intensify, and dramatize the issue to influence public opinion when there is the right environment. The rise of leaders like Chavez and Maduro in Venezuela has been at the forefront of populist studies; both leaders portrayed Venezuela as a region that is slowly escaping the binds of an economic and social model imposed on it by the United States and international financial institutions in the 1980s and 1990s and to which a large part responsible for the gap between the rich and poor in the region. This research would add to how both the leaders, through their speech act, fueled populism which subsequently affected the USA-Venezuela relations. The research question lies in understanding the impact of populism on Venezuela’s relationship with the USA during the regime of Chavez and Maduro. The aim is to examine the role of populism in triggering crises and fostering the right environment for its call to succeed by influencing public opinion. The research will try to understand the populist themes these leaders used in their speeches to securitize the USA as a major threat to influence the audience and justify their actions and policies. The research highlights that securitization is inherently embedded in Populism and attempts to prove the correlation between the two variables by examining Chavez and Maduro’s speech acts.