Since January 2026, Venezuela has become the model of the new “successful” imperialist intervention. Indeed, the Chavista authoritarian government has been reenforced by the support of the US intervention while transforming itself to accommodate this new situation. In this context, social mobilization has been visible in different forms: human rights, workers' unions, and divers leftwing organizations currently going through important transformations to build new forms of solidarity from below. The Venezuelan case allows us to put into perspective social sciences literature on authoritarian governance and democratic resilience, by taking a “mezzo” perspective on the relationship between policy and politics. This approach can help us to answer a new question: how to integrate the imperialistic/ neo-colonial concept tool to the study of policy and social movements' interactions and mutual transformations?

Yoletty Bracho has a PhD in Political Sociology from the Université Lumière Lyon 2 (France). She’s now an Impact + postdoctoral fellow at the Université de Montréal (Canada). She specializes on participatory public policy and leftwing activism in Venezuela. She is currently working on her manuscript Faire la Révolution dans l’État : participation et consolidation autoritaire au Venezuela, at the Éditions Terres de feu (Paris).