This article raises a set of problems that Venezuelan society has historically presented regarding the need to incorporate the Armed Forces into a definitive process of institutionalization and avoid violence for political change. The crisis that we have been experiencing in Venezuela in the first two decades of the twenty-first century has its deepest nature in the intervention in politics of the military and its struggles, covertly and sometimes openly, for control of the state and society. Now, trying to get the military to peacefully transition to the definitive modernization of Venezuelan democracy depends on the capacity of society as a whole to ask the right questions and on the capacity of the leadership of the ruling civilian elite to change the political culture. This essay aims to be a modest effort to explain and understand Venezuelan civil–military relations. When Latin America seemed to have solved the problem of the place that the military should occupy in society and the state, of subordination to the civil sector and military security and defense, Venezuela in the first two decades of the twenty-first century finds itself going through one of the most serious crises in all fields of social life, as a result of the intervention of the military in politics and its indiscriminate and massive participation in development. Today, the struggle of civil society is focused on beginning the complex and difficult process of finding the origin, continuity, and spread of the praetorian virus and eradicating all the conditions that have allowed its development. The answer to the question: what role does politics play, and in particular, security and defense policy in the relationship between civilians and the military? is a more complex problem if it refers to the role of the military in democratic societies. Fortunately, on the intervention of the military in politics and praetorianism, there are extraordinary studies by authors such as S.E. Finer, Amos Perlmutter, Eric Nordlinger, among others, and for the Venezuelan situation Domingo Irwin. In institutionally backward democratic political systems, the military can conspire and fight to seize state power and dominate society. Thus, for the Venezuelan situation, the problem of military intervention in politics has a cultural nature, as proposed by S.E. Finer’s theoretical model in “the second order of political culture.” Finally, although the term praetorianism presents some drawbacks; in a few words, “Praetorianism is a frequently used word to characterize a situation in which the military class of society exercises independent political power, resorting to force or threatening to resort to it.”

The Venezuelan Armed Forces and the Praetorian Temptation

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发表日期：

2025年

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Hernán Castillo

摘要

This article raises a set of problems that Venezuelan society has historically presented regarding the need to incorporate the Armed Forces into a definitive process of institutionalization and avoid violence for political change. The crisis that we have been experiencing in Venezuela in the first two decades of the twenty-first century has its deepest nature in the intervention in politics of the military and its struggles, covertly and sometimes openly, for control of the state and society. Now, trying to get the military to peacefully transition to the definitive modernization of Venezuelan democracy depends on the capacity of society as a whole to ask the right questions and on the capacity of the leadership of the ruling civilian elite to change the political culture. This essay aims to be a modest effort to explain and understand Venezuelan civil–military relations. When Latin America seemed to have solved the problem of the place that the military should occupy in society and the state, of subordination to the civil sector and military security and defense, Venezuela in the first two decades of the twenty-first century finds itself going through one of the most serious crises in all fields of social life, as a result of the intervention of the military in politics and its indiscriminate and massive participation in development. Today, the struggle of civil society is focused on beginning the complex and difficult process of finding the origin, continuity, and spread of the praetorian virus and eradicating all the conditions that have allowed its development. The answer to the question: what role does politics play, and in particular, security and defense policy in the relationship between civilians and the military? is a more complex problem if it refers to the role of the military in democratic societies. Fortunately, on the intervention of the military in politics and praetorianism, there are extraordinary studies by authors such as S.E. Finer, Amos Perlmutter, Eric Nordlinger, among others, and for the Venezuelan situation Domingo Irwin. In institutionally backward democratic political systems, the military can conspire and fight to seize state power and dominate society. Thus, for the Venezuelan situation, the problem of military intervention in politics has a cultural nature, as proposed by S.E. Finer’s theoretical model in “the second order of political culture.” Finally, although the term praetorianism presents some drawbacks; in a few words, “Praetorianism is a frequently used word to characterize a situation in which the military class of society exercises independent political power, resorting to force or threatening to resort to it.”