Venezuela and Democratic Governance

Venezuelan President Nicolas Maduro aboard the USS Iwo Jima. Courtesy of Wikimedia Commons.

On January 3rd, 2026, Venezuelan President Nicholas Maduro was captured by United States special forces, and transported to New York City to face drug charges. These include narcoterrorism and conspiracy to import cocaine into the United States. At the time, whether Venezuela would transition to a democratic government was an open question. Opposition leader and Nobel Peace Prize winner María Corina Machado expressed a desire to return to Venezuela for elections, while Maduro’s vice president, Delcy Rodríguez, took control of the government immediately after Maduro’s capture. Many Venezuelans supported the arrest and had high hopes for a democratic future. Three months later, the question has seemingly been answered: democratic transition is not happening.

Venezuela’s current authoritarian regime began with President Hugo Chavez, who took office in 1999 amidst the “Bolivarian Revolution,” named for independence leader Simon Bolivar. Chavez promised social welfare, an end to the existing government he condemned as corrupt and oligarchic, and the democratization of both the state and economy. Winning the 1998 elections with 56.2% of the vote, Chavez instead presided over a period marked by the concentration of power, the erosion of checks and balances, and the creation of a repressive government apparatus. While he greatly expanded social programs to deliver on his promises to the poor and middle classes, he also nationalized most of the Venezuelan economy and delivered these industries to other members of his party. This led to an economic downturn that resulted in shortages, a decline in production, and a concentration of wealth within Chavez’ government. 

When Chavez died in 2013, his protege, Nicholas Maduro, took control of the regime and spent the next decade consolidating power, all while presiding over an economic crisis that led nearly a fifth of the country to emigrate. While Chavez politicized the military, turning it into a base of support for his regime, Maduro extended this by incorporating criminal gangs into the state apparatus. By paying off the military, criminal networks, and local paramilitary groups (called colectivos), Maduro aimed to make his government coup-proof through transactional agreements with each armed group. Meanwhile, Maduro pursued limited economic liberalization, though always at the whims of his own party, often garnering the accusation of “crony capitalism,” a free market system that benefits only wealthy friends of the government. 

Under Maduro’s presidency, more than 7.7 million people left Venezuela, nearly 20% of the country’s population.. This was in large part due to worsening economic conditions, including hyperinflation rising above 130,000% and GDP shrinking by 71% from 2012 to 2020. Furthermore, crime rose significantly, with the murder rate peaking in 2017 at 89 deaths per 100,000. Government officials were known to have ties to some criminal groups responsible for this increase in violence, including Las Claritas Sindicato, members of ELN and FARC, and Tren de Aragua, though Maduro had turned against Tren de Aragua by the time of his deposition. The 2024 elections, which most international observers and Venezuelan citizens believe were rigged by the government, only compounded this mass exodus, prompting an additional 600,000 Venezuelans to leave the country in the wake of increasingly violent repression from the state.

In the months prior to January 3rd, Maduro and the U.S. President Donald Trump exchanged a series of barbs, threats, and sanctions that suggested imminent U.S. action in Venezuela. At the same time, the United States launched several attacks on unidentified boats allegedly carrying drugs across the Caribbean from Venezuela. As the threat of military action intensified and U.S. ships deployed to waters near Caracas, Maduro fled to a safehouse. He was captured during the unexpected U.S. attack on Caracas, and taken to New York for trial.

Immediately after the intervention, Trump announced that the U.S. would “run” Venezuela and that U.S. firms would develop Venezuela’s oil reserves to reclaim oil that he claims was “stolen” after Chavez took power. However, direct U.S. rule did not materialize, and Maduro’s vice president, Delcy Rodriguez, was sworn in as president two days after Maduro was captured.

Since January 3rd, some elements of the regime have changed. Most significant of these is Venezuela’s relationship with the United States. Under Rodriguez, Venezuela and the United States have undergone a rapprochement that would have been unthinkable under the Maduro regime. Rodríguez met and shook hands with CIA director John Ratcliffe on January 16, which some interpreted as the United States sidelining Venezuelan opposition. Rodriguez hosted the U.S. Chargé d’Affaires Laura Dogu on February 2, who reiterated Secretary of State Marco Rubio’s three-phase plan for the rebuilding of Venezuela, with democratization being the last of these stages. The Venezuelan president also toured oil fields with Energy Secretary Chris Wright and closed a mining deal with U.S. Secretary of the Interior, Doug Burgum. With regards to U.S. relations, Venezuela appears to have undergone a full revolution.

With specific regards to oil investment, U.S. firms remained initially cautious of any investment in Venezuela. Massive up-front costs of renovating Venezuela’s ancient oil infrastructure deterred many U.S. investors from taking up Trump’s offer. ExxonMobil CEO Darren Woods called the country uninvestable. While some companies, such as Shell and Chevron, have expressed interest, and a few ships carrying Venezuelan oil bound for the United States have been launched, U.S. oil executives have said that this oil will probably not make a dent on rising energy prices following the war on Iran.

Additionally, over 600 political prisoners have been released since Rodriguez took power, though it is not known how many political prisoners remain. However, the Venezuelan regime has been known to continuously re-imprison political opponents and constantly imprison new people, ensuring the number of political prisoners remains the same; this is called the revolving door effect. With this in mind, it seems unlikely that the prisoners released by Rodriguez truly marks an end to political imprisonment in Venezuela.

What then remains unchanged in the regime? Seemingly, everything else. UN investigations have found no institutional relinquishing of power, with the same structures that existed under Maduro continuing under Rodriguez. Those in the Maduro regime responsible for humanitarian crimes, including torture, have remained in power. Elections do not appear to be on the horizon. While Maria Machado has expressed her plans to return to Venezuela, Rodriguez said Machado "will have to answer" if she returns, implying that the country is no more open to dialogue with the opposition than it was when Machado was initially barred from running for office in 2024.

All of the laws that were used to repress opposition under Maduro remain in place. Some experts have expressed concern about “adaptive authoritarianism,” a scenario where the regime remains in power, even if it changes a few superficial faces of its control. The United States has the power to either push for a democratic transition or to stabilize the existing authoritarian power structure. Considering the repeated meetings between Trump administration officials and the new Venezuelan president, along with the sidelining of the democratic opposition led by Machado, it appears the United States has largely chosen to stabilize the existing regime.

With so little substantially changing within Venezuela, the most significant result of the intervention appears to be the Venezuelan dictatorship cozying to the United States–except, perhaps, for former president Maduro’s ongoing drug trial in New York, which has been recently tied up in deciding whether Venezuelan government funds can be used to finance the former president’s legal fees.