Abstract:
This paper elaborates a conceptual relation between populism and governance. Although the relation has been treatened implicitly in some scientific publications, its details have not been worked out yet. The main question of the thesis is: Is good governance likely to exist in populist regimes? As a side effect, this study shows how and which populist structures influence governance quality
As the populism of the Venezuelan president Hugo Chávez was the first to appear in the new wave of Latin American populism and is the most prominent one now, his government has been chosen as object of the empirical exemplification. Furthermore, this analysis gives an insight into the country’s governance quality of which, despite the considerable amount of current publications dealing with Venezuela, there is a lack of.
Firstly, the two terms good governance and populism will be introduced. Secondly, the coneptual relation between them needs depth anaysis. As a next step, various indicators will be analysed to point out the trends in governance quality under Chávez: Is it poorer or better governance? The paper ends with a review of the assertions infered from the elaborated conceptual relation.