During the Hugo Chavez’s successive mandates between 1998 and 2013, a specific form of public action was developed in an exponential way which transformed the structure of public policies, especially social ones, in Venezuela: the Bolivarian Missions. This article investigates the policy feedbacks question related to such Missions from the point of view of the governed. Through analysis of the citizen’s perceptions about these public policies, which are differentiated and socially anchored, it becomes possible to understand how they appropriated them, or not, in a context marked by a redeployment of public action. The implementation process of these socialized and politicized public policies and the trail of practical, social and political uses provides a means for understanding the citizen-State relationship in a concrete way. By deploying an in-depth and qualitative methodology, close to those who are governed, this research reveals some of the social and political conditions which enable public policies to contribute to the legitimation of those who govern.
Keywords
- appropriations and uses of public policies
- Bolivarian Missions
- policy feedbacks
- relationships to the state
- Venezuela