Bernie Terron
Case Analysis # 1

Over the past years Venezuela has been one of the countries that has been showing the potential to become a powerful country, if they had the right leaders. Unfortunately, this isn’t the case. Under Chavez, Venezuela was in order, being this said with Chavez Venezuela wasn’t as prosperous as they should be with the resources they have. Now, that Chavez currently passed away almost a year ago I will be looking at Venezuela’s new aspect with the tools we learned in class.

In class we have been learning at looking at issues or problems happening at the global level with different lenses. The three types of lenses we have learned are realism, liberal, and identity. With Venezuela’s current status, the best lens to look at Venezuela would be liberal even though the other two can be used. This lens will utilize to look at Venezuela’s current situation after Chavez’s death in a liberal aspect.

Liberal lens takes a look at all the parties involve and also I will go from the domestic level of analysis view. Venezuela’s internal problems are caused by political, economic and cultural characteristics, which is what the domestic analysis is. Venezuela under its current president Nicolas Maduro hasn’t had the best economy/ relation the country has seen with the US. Starting with Venezuela stopped donating free oil through a charity program to the US, which gave free oil to families in need for the winter. (Fox Latino News) Before this was announce in few media sources, Chavez was seen as anti-American or dictator by most newspapers and American sources. Even though under Chavez the US was getting 200 gallons of oil at 40% off for eligible households, which eventually change to 100 gallons for free. (Fox Latino News) Now that this has stopped under Maduro’s legacy and it seems to not be creating a great image for him as well for Venezuelan’s in the US eyes.

Also, under Maduro’s legacy the government has gotten worse in the corruption department as well as the police. It can be argued that is not all Maduro’s fault but he is the president, which points the finger from all the community to make changes. One example of how Venezuela is getting because of corruption is the increase of bad police corruption and homicides. Venezuela is now on the one of the most dangerous countries to live in not just because of the homicide rate but also for other reasons. The most current homicide was of Miss Venezuela Monica Spear who was robbed and gun down with her ex-husband in one of the high ways in front of her 5 year old, who was founded wounded but survived. (BBC News) This shows that crime is through the roof and robbers will attack anyone, the more popular the better because more likely they will have money. The problem is that most part of the police is corrupt and most of the time crimes go unpunished. (BBC news) Stories like this one, makes tourism decrease, as well makes everyone that lives in Venezuela feel unsafe and wants to move to close by countries.

Corruption has made almost everyone that has power in Venezuela taken part in it, and has led to affect everyone in the country in almost every aspect. All the powerful people steal the money that should be going to the community. The results are power food and supplies shortages. For power outs it has hit twice in Caracas in the past year but it’s more common for black outs in the rest of the country. For supplies and food that are on shortage are toilet paper, sugar, milk, and certain medicines. (BBC News) The result from shortages has given people the idea of getting resources and reselling than at a much higher value. These products can commonly be found at black markets. In the black market they have about everything from basic needs to electronics. The problem is because everyone wants them, most likely cases is sellers are going to get top money for them. Also, Dollars can be found at the black market but at 10 times for the usual