Raul Castro s Exit, Biden s Arrival And The Future Of Venezuela
With Trump now out of the picture, Cuba and Venezuela both in economic shambles are once more toying with piecemeal liberalization, Clarín s international affairs chief explains.
-Analysis-
Power and authority are not necessarily synonymous. Force is not authority, and can even indicate weakness. The philosopher Max Weber observed that dominance is only legitimate when people recognize and accept authority. In some democracies, rulers have compensated the fading of legitimacy with higher doses of authoritarianism. The pandemic has exacerbated this distortion.
This is the conjuncture facing several experiments in governance that are imperfect, populist or downright dictatorial. Cuba, Venezuela, China, Russia, Vietnam, Saudi Arabia, Iran and Turkey all fit these labels to a greater or lesser extent.