Skip to main content
The Morning Star Shop
What is to be done?
GAVIN O’TOOLE surveys the literature that provides compelling analysis of resistance to neoliberal hegemony
RECALCITRANT CONSERVATIVE ELITES: Supporters of opposition presidential hopeful Maria Corina Machado in Caracas, Venezuela, last week

IN A brilliant reassessment of the challenges posed to liberal democracy by the radical governments that came to power in Bolivia and Venezuela, scholar John Brown makes an incisive observation.

His book, Deepening Democracy in Post-Neoliberal Bolivia and Venezuela (Routledge, £130), examines the democratic gains enjoyed by hitherto excluded popular sectors under the anti-system outsiders Evo Morales and Hugo Chavez.

Nonetheless, their authoritarian reflexes comprising a form of “illiberal de-democratisation” vexed observers — not least the Anglo-American scholarly establishment — who had bought into a particular species of democracy under neoliberalism as the “only game in town.”

The 95th Anniversary Appeal
Support the Morning Star
You have reached the free limit.
Subscribe to continue reading.
More from this author
castro
Books / 8 August 2025
8 August 2025

GAVIN O’TOOLE welcomes the reissue of a seminal work of revolutionary theory that have genuine relevance in the current context

FORGOTTEN GENOCIDE: Regina Jose Galindo, “¿Quien puede bo
Book Review / 10 December 2024
10 December 2024
GAVIN O’TOOLE explores the resistance expressed by central American artists to their own erasure by US imperialist policies 
CHAVEZ FOREVER: A rally by Chavistas in Caracas supporting t
Book Review / 28 August 2024
28 August 2024
Here’s an antidote to the Venezuela election-induced tantrums of Western elites. GAVIN O’TOOLE reviews it
SHORT-LIVED AUTONOMY: Thousands of hippies gather on ‘Hipp
Book Review / 21 May 2024
21 May 2024
GAVIN O’TOOLE applauds an analysis of culture that explains why political conflicts today are focused more on values and identity than the economy and social questions
Similar stories
Freed Palestinian prisoner Hatem Quaider, 39, is greeted by
Book Review / 14 February 2025
14 February 2025
CARLOS MARTINEZ welcomes the publication of the writings of the great Palestinian author, political theorist and spokesman for the PFLP
A drawing made at the event Scottish Circus, Fruitmarket Gal
Best of 2024 / 3 January 2025
3 January 2025
A landmark work of gay ethnography, an avant-garde fusion of folk and modernity, and a chance comment in a great interview
FORGOTTEN GENOCIDE: Regina Jose Galindo, “¿Quien puede bo
Book Review / 10 December 2024
10 December 2024
GAVIN O’TOOLE explores the resistance expressed by central American artists to their own erasure by US imperialist policies 
CHAVEZ FOREVER: A rally by Chavistas in Caracas supporting t
Book Review / 28 August 2024
28 August 2024
Here’s an antidote to the Venezuela election-induced tantrums of Western elites. GAVIN O’TOOLE reviews it