CHARLES UNIVERSITY PRAGUE

FACULTY OF SOCIAL SCIENCES

Institute of Political Studies

Duan Nociar

NATIONAL INTEREST
The U.S. and the Coup in Venezuela 2002
Magister Thesis

Prague 2008

Author: Duan Nociar

Supervisor: Doc. PhDr. Bla Plechanovov, CSc.
Opponent:
Thesis Defense: 2008
Classification:

Bibliographic Notation
NOCIAR, Duan. Inational Interest; The U.S. and the Coup in Venezuela 2002. Prague:
Charles University, Faculty of Social Sciences, Institute of Political Studies, 2008. 94
pgs. Supervisor: Doc. PhDr. Bla Plechanovov, CSc.

Annotation
Magister thesis National Interest deals with national interest in general, its production
and influence on foreign policy. After discussing relevant factors and variables relevant
in national interest formation, theoretical framework is constructed and hypothesis is
tested against the case of the coup in Venezuela that happened on April 2002, where the
U.S. involvement is closely followed.

Anotace
Diplomov prca Nrodn zujem pojednv o nrodnom zujme vo veobecnosti. Je
tu sledovan jeho vytvranie a vplyv, ktor m na zahranin politiku. Po identifikci a
rozbore jednotlivch komponentov vplvajcich na tvorbu nrodnho zujmu je z nich
vytvoren analytick kontrukcia, kto je nsledne testovan na prpade puu, ktor sa
odohral v aprli 2002 vo Venezuele. Tu je podrobne sledovan americk angaovanos.

Keywords
National interest, constructivism, common identity, security imaginary, United States,
Venezuela, coup, foreign policy analysis, identity

Klov slova
Nrodn zjem, konstruktivizmus, spolen identita, bezpenost, Spojen stty,
Venezuela, pu, analza zahranin politiky, identita

Prohlen
1. Prohlauji, e jsem pedkldanou prci zpracoval samostatn a pouil jen uveden
prameny a literaturu.

2. Souhlasm s tm, aby prce byla zpstupnna pro ely vzkumu a studia.

V Praze dne 21.5.2008

Duan Nociar

Acknowledgments
Research for this work was conducted in the library of the Uppsala University in
Sweden and in the library of Institute of International Relations in Prague.

I would like to express my gratitude to Professor Stefano Guzzini, Senior researcher at

Danish Institute for International Studies who inspired my research and introduced me
into the constructivism; to my parents who supported me in many ways while
researching and writing, and to Thomas OHaver who helped to proofread the text.

Above all, I want to thank the consultant of this work, Associate Professor Bela
Plechanovova from the Faculty of Social Sciences at Charles University in Prague, for
her patience and tolerance in letting me write about the topic which I found interesting.

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Index

ACKNOWLEDGMENTS ......................................................................................................................... 5
INDEX ........................................................................................................................................................ 6
INDEX OF ABBREVIATIONS................................................................................................................ 7
INTRODUCTION ..................................................................................................................................... 8
METHODOLOGY .................................................................................................................................... 9
ON LITERATURE .................................................................................................................................. 12
1. NATIONAL INTEREST..................................................................................................................... 16
1.1 ARTICULATION & INTERPELLATION ................................................................................................ 20
1.2 IDENTITY, COMMON IDENTITY/NATIONAL IDENTITY ...................................................................... 23
1.2.1 U.S. National Identity.............................................................................................................. 28
1.3 CULTURE ......................................................................................................................................... 30
1.5 DEMOCRACY - USA AS A LEADER AND NEED FOR STRENGTH ........................................................ 32
1.6 CREDIBILITY, HUMAN RIGHTS AND FREEDOM ................................................................................. 34
1.7 SECURITY IMAGINARY ..................................................................................................................... 35
1.7.1 Energy Security as a Part of Security Imaginary .................................................................... 36
1.8 INTERNATIONAL COMMUNITY, STATES AND ANARCHY .................................................................. 38
2. U.S. FOREIGN POLICY & DOCTRINES ....................................................................................... 41
2.1 U.S. AND THE LATIN AMERICA ........................................................................................................ 45
3. COUP IN VENEZUELA 2002 ............................................................................................................ 50
3.1 OFFICIAL U.S. POSITION TO ITS ROLE IN THE COUP .......................................................................... 50
3.2 ANALYSIS ........................................................................................................................................ 52
3.3 THE ROLE OF INDIVIDUALS AND THE COUP ..................................................................................... 63
4. CHILE 1970S COMPARED.............................................................................................................. 69
5. DEFINING OR DEFENDING THE NATIONAL INTEREST; TRUBOWITZ VS. KRASNER:
FORMATION FROM THE INSIDE OR VICE VERSA?................................................................... 74
6. NATIONAL INTEREST AND ITS LIMITATIONS ....................................................................... 80
CONCLUSION ........................................................................................................................................ 83
RSUM V SLOVENINE ................................................................................................................... 87
PROJECT OF MAGISTER THESIS .................................................................................................... 89
REFERENCES......................................................................................................................................... 95

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Index of Abbreviations

CIA

Central Intelligence Agency

CREB

cAMP Responsive Element Binding protein

CTV

Venezuelan Labor Confederation

EU

European Union

NATO

North Atlantic Treaty Organization

NED

National Endowment for Democracy

NI

National Interest

OAS

Organization of American States

OPEC

Organization of the Petroleum Exporting Countries

PDVSA

Venezuelan state-owned petroleum company (Petrleos de

Venezuela S.A.)

TV

Television

U.S./USA/US

United States of America

UN

United Nations

USD

United States Dollar

WMD

Weapons of Mass Destruction

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Introduction
The main topic of this work is national interest. More specifically, I will try to
describe and analyze the way national interest is produced and which factors influence
its production. Afterwards, I shall map the U.S. foreign policy in recent decades with
concentration on advocating national interests and consequently, analyze how the
national interest influenced U.S. involvement in the coup in Venezuela in 2002. A brief
comparison with the events in Chile will follow regarding the national interest
articulation in this case. After the comparison of two different approaches to the
national interest done by Stephen D. Krasner and Paul Trubowitz that will contribute to
the delimitation of my approach, I shall sum up the output of my work and assess
limiting function of the national interest creating process.
My thesis will claim that the national interest in the given anarchic international
system is articulated by the state and that the formation of the interest inside the state is
limited by the exact same factors, structures and processes by which it is generated.
A basic aim of this work is to demonstrate the power of a constructivist approach to
national interest. This approach begins with the assumption that the state can be treated
as an autonomous actor pursuing goals associated with power and general interests of
society. Moreover, I will show here that national interests are not given or forced but
constructed and path-dependent.
I do believe that the understanding of national interest production will contribute to
more accurate analysis of any real-case situation given. In order to do this, it will be
necessary to scrutinize terms like common identity, security imaginary, process of
articulation and interpellation, culture, role of individuals in decision making process
and other variables that play role in this complicated process.
In addition, I will discuss the extent to which these variables interfere with each other
prior to the stage when the decision is made. In other words, I shall examine how a
communication phenomenon between people influences decision-making process.
The Venezuelan Coup 2002 will serve as a ground for the illustration and testing of
my hypothesis and theoretical framework. The intention is to give detailed insight into
the situation in April 2002 in Venezuela and reveal the role and motives of the U.S.
participation in it. This is to be done by the deconstruction of the U.S. national interest.
It is important to abstain from the generalization in every case because every case
exists in different circumstances. On the contrary, knowing common features or

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variables of national interest enables us to make an accurate analysis of any given case.
I realize that it is difficult to state a simple sentence with general and wide validity and
that stating something specific with general applicability might be quite burdensome.
Being inspired by the book Constructing National Interests: The United States and
the Cuban Missile Crisis by constructivist author Jutta Weldes describing the Cuban
missile crisis and defining U.S. national interests, I decided to elaborate on something
more common identity driven but with the use of several variables presented by her.
Another source of inspiration was Alexander Wendts Social Theory of International
Politics and his role played.

Also Stefano Guzzini and his introduction to

constructivism during my studies at the Uppsala University help with a puzzle concept
of this work. Most importantly, the final form of this work would never exist without
the guidance of my consultant doc. Plechanovov, who deserves my sincere gratitude.
I also realize that this work is guided by its limited extent and my still limited
knowledge. Therefore, shall I base my thesis on the knowledge already revealed to the
world by remarkable thinkers indicated in the literature.

Methodology
My intention in this work is to analyze all factors relevant to national interest
construction and afterwards apply the theoretical framework on the particular case of
Venezuela 2002 where this framework will be tested and discussed. In the text, I will try
to answer the following questions: What is the national interest? How is it produced?
What influences its production? What influence does it have on the foreign policy?
What are its limits?
Similarly as Jutta Weldes did in her monograph Constructing National Interest, I, in
connection to the Venezuelan coup, base my analysis upon investigating: Why did
decision makers understand and behave in a particular way and how did they come to
define and accept as self-evident a particular national interest?
After examination of the term national interest from the historical and theoretical
perspective, my argument in chapter 2 examines how specific representations of
national and international politics and the problems of foreign policy make particular
national interests possible.

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My preliminary claim is that national interest is constructed out of 7 variables or

factors. I argue that understanding articulation and interpellation, culture, democracy,
common identity, credibility deficit, security imaginary and a formatting element of
international politics provide useful tools that allow us to understand how strong and
persuasive specific representations and interests are for the public.
Defining national interest creation via its components is closely related to the
common identity process of articulation and interpellation. Interpellation is boosting
aggregation of meanings produced by articulation and creates a more solid picture of the
national interest policymakers can afterwards use and work with. This approach is
represented also by Jutta Weldes.
Alexander Wendt, David Campbell and Bill McSweeney believe that the national
interest construction is inseparable from the common identity. National identity and
common identity for simplification of the explanation will be considered as the identity
of one state unit due to the complexity of this issue. And for our case the U.S. national
identity will be more closely followed.
Closely to common identity linked phenomenon is culture. To some, it is just a
synonym -- culture is a set of various practices, repeated actions, traditions, etc. Even
though, the borders between the two are indistinct, we could at least agree that culture
can be considered a part of our identity. Moreover, it influences our actions and
therefore is vital to national interest construction. This concept of culture I based on the
concept presented by Valerie Hudson.
Democracy and U.S. as the world leader with a constant need for strength has a
formatting influence on the national interests of the United States. Being a leader
inevitably means that the others have to be in the position of followers. The ones not
willing to be in this position are then considered unfriendly or if necessary - the enemy.
Then, if we do accept that culture of insecurity in the world led by the United States is a
part of U.S. identity, we should also agree that it is in the U.S. national interest to halt
any attempt to undermine a leaders role or simply a threat to security. This position
would be certainly advocated also by David A. Baldwin and Jutta Weldes.
Another set of factors that is an inseparable part of national interest construction is
credibility, the human rights and freedom. The U.S. constant need for strength and its
persistent credibility problem pushes this superpower into a search for new justifications
for its foreign policy actions. Advocating human rights or freedom in the world gives
morality to these actions and consequently, they are perceived as national interest.
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Especially after the revelation of U.S. secret activities, a picture of the U.S. as a world
democratic leader and protector of human rights is severely damaged.
On the other hand, as Robert C. Johansen agrees in his work, all the activities
conducted by the U.S. government prove that the Western Hemisphere is of such a high
priority to the U.S. that it does not hesitate to omit certain principles it normally stands
for. The security imaginary and security phenomenon is one of the most important
variables presented in my NI construction framework. It is activated mainly through
interpellation. It is from ones subject position (role, identity) that the always
heterogeneous reservoir of meanings is opened up for a certain articulation of history
lessons. By omitting this we would miss the sociological link between collective
meanings and the formation of national interests the identity. Moreover, energy
security as a part of security imaginary is especially important to our case study.
The last integral set of ideas contributing to the national interest construction is
international community, states and anarchy. I deal with it the way Alexander Wendt
presented it to the world. By discussing this phenomenon, I am positively answering the
question: Does the character of international system have a significant influence on
national interest formation?
National interest functions as a rhetorical device that generates the legitimacy of and
political support for a state action. Therefore, national interest influences international
system and in return, international system influences the national interest formation.
After providing and discussing a set of conceptual tools for the analysis of national
interest construction, I then closely examine U.S. foreign policy in the past decades with
a particular focus on Latin America. This serves for the examination of how a particular
national interest is advocated by the United States in this area and (if) there were any
constraints for such action.
Drawing on the theoretical material presented in chapter 1, in chapter 3 I do examine
the situation in Venezuela and how the U.S. national interest was employed here and
what was the actual outcome in the coup. In addition, I analyse how the situation was
constrained within the boundaries set by the international and other commitments of the
U.S.
Showing the constraints of the U.S. involvement in Venezuela reveals that energy
security embedded in the security imaginary of the country hinders its behavior that
would otherwise be acceptable from the historical perspective even though with a
different ideological connotations. For this reason, in Chapter 4 the similar involvement
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in Chile is presented and tools of articulation and interpellation used against the core of
the Chilean coup case. The prevailing U.S. understanding of the relations with Latin
America in the changed post-Cold War atmosphere helped to pick the important
particles of the national interest construction since the change itself contains
explanatory potential.
The discussion presented in the chapters 1 and analysis in chapter 2 highlight the
centrality of the identity of the United States to the process of national interest
formation respecting role of its commitments as the world leader.
In the globalized world, where the interconnection of economies and striving for raw
materials is transforming the international scene radically, I examine the national
interest limitations in the Chapter 6 regarding the identity of the United States.
To delineate more precisely how the national interest is created and how it influences
foreign policy, I am adding a chapter 5 based on comparison of works by Krasner and
Trubowitz. This is done in an attempt to highlight the differences in approach to
national interest formation.
In sum, examining particularities of the national interest construction via the process
of articulation and interpellation on different levels, contributes to the common identity
formation that under the actual circumstances produces national interest that is either
enforced or adjusted to comply with expected optimal outcome, even if the action itself
is unsuccessful as it happened in the case of the coup in Venezuela 2002.

On Literature
Discourse on used literature deals with used titles that significantly influenced
formation of my thesis and are directly mentioned in the text.
Beginning with Jutta Weldes and her book Constructing National Interest I want to
stress the influence it had on writing my thesis. To a certain extent, I used her
methodology and few variables used by her to define the national interest. In her
analysis she seems to search for the symptoms of the Cuban missile crisis through
explaining what national interest is, rather than analyzing what was done during the
crisis itself. This book can be considered as a great contribution to understanding of
mentioned crisis as well as to understanding the national interest per se. At the end of
the book, Weldes concludes that the understanding of everyday cultural conditions
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making particular state actions possible is the key to understanding interstate

interaction.
Another Weldes book is an anthology to which contributed authors with a diverse
personal background. Cultures of insecurity is a work in which authors discuss the
issue of national security from numerous perspectives. Moreover, as it appeared to me,
culture of insecurity is a national security prerequisite and national security is
inseparable from national interest creation. This book helped me to understand the
influence security has on the formation of the culture.
Valerie Hudson and her Foreign Policy Analysis is a summarization of techniques
used to analyze and understand foreign policy. It is quite detailed hand-book that made
me understand certain aspects of foreign policy analysis. In addition, to her, national
identity is the answer to the three basic questions: Who are we? , What we do? Who
are they? What she finds quite crucial and I dwell upon it in the chapter 1.2.
Another book under her name is anthology Culture and Foreign Policy that reveals
the influence of culture on foreign policy. The central idea here is that culture provides a
set of various necessary rules and actions that are used for the action. If action is
successful it is remembered and used again in the similar context. If unsuccessful,
action is abandoned. I used her concept and insight in the chapter 1.2 where I deal
with the identity on the various levels.
Psychological approach represented by Deborah Welch Larson in her book, is an
attempt to explain why and how perception of the Soviet Union in the United States
changed, particularly on the level of the U.S. political representation. This book closely
focuses on changes in beliefs of four men who were particularly influential in shaping
the redirection of American foreign policy from cooperation with the Soviet Union to
containment policy (1944 1947). From our perspective the output of national interest
received its final shape in the form of actual foreign policy change thanks to these
individuals as I closely examine in the chapter 3.3 when discussing the individuals in
direct relationship to foreign policy making.
Baldwins book Economic Statecraft written in the last years of the Cold War is a
mixture of knowledge from international relations, foreign policy, economy and
political science carefully structured, and integrated. This study of economics as an
instrument of politics is a significant contribution to the understanding of use of various
economic tools in the international relations. The need for an increased number of
available alternatives/instruments in nuclear age functions as a leitmotiv. Author
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provides an analytical framework within which reliable knowledge about economic

statecraft can be developed to replace the conventional wisdom. Examples in the book
are used to support his claims and hypotheses which drive him to the final conclusion,
that in virtually every case examined, there was a reason to suspect that thorough and
rigorous application of the framework he developed, would lead to conclusions
significantly different from those of the conventional wisdom. Baldwin captures
dynamics of sanction policies in modern international relations upon which I dwell
more largely when assessing and analyzing the U.S. foreign policy in the chapter 2 and
2.1.
Martin Wolfs book Why Globalization Works is from a different social science
area and presents an influential advocacy of globalization with precisely rational
argumentation. Book starts with the proposition that the world integrated trough the
market should be highly beneficial to the vast majority of the worlds inhabitants.
Failure of our world is not that there is too much Globalization but that there is too little.
We need more global markets if we want to raise standards of the poor of the world.
The question remains if this is in accordance to national interests of rich states.
Johansens book The National Interest and the Human Interest I used mainly when
analyzing U.S. foreign policy and the case of Chile in particular. In his book he
concludes that the United States officials ignored human rights in formulating the goals
and means of United States foreign policy whenever human rights came into sharp
conflict with the vested economic and hegemonic interests of government and corporate
officials.
The Bush Doctrine and Latin America edited by Gary Prevost and Carlos Oliva
Campos is another anthology I went trough and used in my work in chapters 2 and 2.1.
It is a collection of (mostly critical) contributions by various foreign policy analysts
regarding U.S. involvement in the Latin America that offer an interesting insight into
motivations of the U.S. in the area.
A compilation called Constructivism and International Relations: Alexander Wendt
and his critics edited by Stefano Guzzini and Anna Leander, except for being an
interesting reading, is a compilation of critiques of Alexander Wendt's constructivist
theory of international relations. Moreover, it includes the comprehensive reply by
Wendt and develops here his idea of a quantum social science, as well as its
implications for theorizing international relations which I am mentioning in chapter 1.2.

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Steve Ellner and Daniel Hellinger in Venezuelan Politics in the Chvez Era dwell
upon policies and politics in the present Venezuela with regard to development in the
past decade. This volume was especially useful when trying to find reliable and nonextremist perspective commenting Chvezs activities in Venezuela.
David Campbells Writing Security examines the way in which the U.S. identity has
been written and rewritten through foreign policies operating in its name. Moreover, it
examines how United States foreign policy helps to produce and reproduce political
identity of the doer supposedly behind the deed. Author here highlights that the very
domains of danger are constituted through writing of threat what I discuss in the chapter
1.7 more broadly. In the same chapter, I use knowledge provided by Bill McSweeney in
Security, Identity and Interest; A Sociology of International Relations, where he
discusses the inadequacy of scientific approach to the security studies in the past
decade. Author employs contemporary trends in sociology and develops a theory of the
international order where the primary role is played by the idea of security offering a
more interpretive approach to understanding and formulating the concept of security
policy.
Scott Burchill is one of the few authors who deal directly with national interest. His
book The National Interest in International Relations Theory is a systematic and
critical analysis of the national interest concept from the perspective of International
Relations theories. Here he mentions realism, Marxism, anarchism, liberalism, English
school and most importantly to us - constructivist perspective. Author believes that the
national interest is a problematic concept and that it fails to explain motivations of
foreign policy which I understand but disagree with.
To offer a different approach to the formation of national interest, I dedicated a
separate chapter for comparison of concepts of Trubowitz and Krasner which should
highlight the difference between my and their concepts of national interest construction.
All in all, there is very few recent works that deal directly with national interest as
with the main topic. Perhaps Burchill, Weldes, Krasner and Trubowitz are the most
often cited in literature. Therefore, I hope that my decision to work with this topic will
contribute with its bit to the discussion on this interesting topic.

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1. National Interest

In this chapter, my intention is to analyze all factors relevant to national interest

construction. The self-regulation of the national interest with regard to circumstances in
Venezuela 2002 will be stressed and discussed.
In the upcoming text, I will try to answer to the following questions:
What is the national interest? How is it produced? What influences its production?
Before I start, I want to note that I dont want to dedicate extensive amount of time to
discussing terms like the nation state, state or nation for purely practical reason related
to desired extent of this work. Therefore, national interest is to be attributed to the
interest of one political unit. In our case the United States of America.
The national interest is best to be understood as a social construction. Process of
interpretation presupposes language shared by at least those that determine state actions.
Or in exact words of Jutta Weldes: The national interest is constructed, is created as a
meaningful object, out of shared meanings through which the international system and
the place of the state in it, is understood (Weldes 1999a:4).
This applies as a certain definition when we are trying to understand the national
interest from the outside. From this perspective it is seen as a final product of the
countrys performance on the international scene if there are any results of such actions.
To better understand the internal workings of the creation process of the national
interest we should track down its origins in modern history to understand its very
nature.
National interest as we commonly perceive it these days emerges with the American
and French revolution, their constitutions and the emergence of civil rights. To simplify
our discussion, nation is to be perceived here as a territory under one ruler with common
language, habits and history. The constitutional rulers of political community were then
able to define and justify their policy in front of the nation. Therefore, intellectual
origins of idea of nation-state are inseparable from its constitutional basis (Burchill
2005:9).
In the following text, the state and nation is to be understood here as a one
inseparable state unit.

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Back in the 19th century Jean Jacques Rousseau was one of the first people to write
about common political expressions of a political community what he calls the general
will. Furthermore he explains that for the will to qualify for this term the will must be
general and must be for the object. Another way commonly used to express the national
interest is raison dtat. For the State representative, to behave in accordance with the
raison dtat he must act in attempt to preserve the power of the state what implies that
the ruler is less than the State, and he takes care of the State (Burchill 2005:13-14, 17;
Meincke 1998:10).
On the other hand, from the moralist perspective, State in its very nature is an ethical
force and a high moral good and Moralists must recognize that the State is not to
be judged by the standards which apply to the individuals, but by those which are set for
it by its own nature and ultimate aims (Treischke 1916:106, 99 in: Burchill 2005:18).
This means that we cannot judge the actions of the state as if it was an individual,
because then comes the responsibility of decision making individuals in question.
Finding the roots and the origins of the national interest in the modern era enables us
to find the most accurate definition of the term itself.
As most of the constructivist would probably agree, the national interest is a product
of shared ideas, national identity, inter-subjectivity and normative practices. Far from
being a set of permanent, objective conditions, the national interests of states are
formed within a cultural context and are the outcome of social interaction. This should
be the focus of those inquiring into the subject. They are not determined in response to
an external given, nor are they fixed. Rather they vary as social conditions and national
identities change (Burchill 2005:210).1
The national interest is thus changing in time with the changing social conditions and
historical memory connected to the national identity. It would be interesting to evaluate
and asset the speed of this changes since all of them appear to be path dependent and
incremental. Changes may be evoked from the inside and from the outside as well and
their speed is in direct proportion to the austerity of the circumstances causing the
change.
Alexander Wendts definition of national interest is more specific and treats nation as
a social organism, as he puts it: I define national interest as the objective interest of

In the sub-chapter later on I will discuss particular components of the National interest based on this definition with
few alterations given by the extent of this study.

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state-society complexes, consisting of four needs: physical survival, autonomy,

economic well being, and collective self-esteem (Wendt 1999:199).
One of the four Wendts variables - the collective self-esteem as constituting factor of
national interest, gives it a truly social dimension.
Of four factors mentioned above three of them are to be found also in realist
interpretation of national interest: Realists of all stripes believe that states do what they
do because it is in their national interest, and that the national interest is self-regarding
with respect to security (Wendt 1999:113). National interest and its respect to security
imaginary will be discussed in the separate sub- chapter.
In addition, realists approach national interest as a combination of human nature,
material capabilities and anarchy. In their view it is more about material basis2 than a
social one (Wendt 1999:114).
One way or another, in the moment when the materialism plays the role in national
interest creation it is necessary to mention the question of strategicness of the goods
for what the interest will be exercised upon. The strategicness of the good lies in its
relative value and its substitutionality for the opponent in case, that markets fail to
provide it. Economically speaking, its marginal elasticity of demand is extremely low.
Still, goods like oil are strategic commodity regardless of their definition.
The most critical attitude to the very existence of the national interests I came across
has Robert Gilpin when he writes: strictly speaking, states, as such, have no interests,
or what economists call utility functions, nor do bureaucracies, interest groups, or socalled trans-national actors, for that matter. Only individuals and individuals joined
together into various types or coalitions can be said to have interests (Gilpin 1981:18).
In my opinion, interest groups are individuals joined together and so are
bureaucracies with their SOPs and trans-national actors as well. Moreover, saying that
interest groups as such dont have interests is for me very hard to understand.
Liberals identify national interests only in proper democratic system, and these then
have pacifying effect on the international system. However, Liberals realize that
particular policies executed by the democratically elected government might have in
fact, very little influence on the final economic outcomes as contrasted to
unaccountable market players who do represent only themselves even though their
power over the output is often decisive. Then, it is not unreasonable to say that the

In standard material terms the national interest is defined by the desire for material security. See Burchill 2005:210

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output of what is in national interest is quite impossible to successfully influence

(Burchill 2005:114, 139-40).
In certain countries (United States) military-industrial complex lobby can have
sometimes decisive influence on the creation of national interests in terms of pressing
administration into interventions in the third world.3 If the lobby has enough leverage on
media (media manipulation), government could afford enormous spending on military
equipment what would be then easy to publicly justify. Citizens will pay almost
anything if sufficient imaginary security threats are created. This will be done via
displaying certain issues as important and valuable and a need to have or to control
them.
This is directly connected to the influencing norms of behavior, social construction of
shared beliefs, principles and the way they work to legitimize certain strategies and
advocate chosen preferences.4
From another focal point we can see the national interest as something that contains
two elements - virtual and material one. Virtual element consists of ideas, power,
emotions and feelings and/or anything non-measurable by standard physics and the
material ones then constituted by measurable parts like goods or needs and desires for
material security. Both of them are ever-present in the national interest. Wendt (Wendt
1999:115) adds ideational part. Under which we can imagine various schemas and
deliberations constituted by shared ideas or culture.5
Constructivist Jutta Weldes sees that national interests are social constructions
created as meaningful objects out of the inter-subjective and culturally established
meanings with which the world, particularly the international system and the place of
the state in it, is understood. More specifically, national interests emerge out of the
representationout of situation descriptions and problem definitions through which
state officials and others make sense of the world around them (Weldes 1996:280).
From her definition it is obvious that in an attempt to understand the content of
national interests per se we will have to deconstruct them onto parts and quarry deeper.
This complex social construction has its origins in the nations culture as well as its
actual position in the international system. Therefore, both of these constituents need to
be discussed.

More on it in in Kofsky 1993; Nathan & Mecken 1997

Well described relations between mentioned variables and international system in: Finnemore 1996
5
See following sub-chapters that elaborate more on this issue
4

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In addition, Headley Bull believes that the national interest comprises a rational
plan of action to achieve agreed ends, which can be contrasted with policies based on
sectional interests, the interests of alliances and international organizations, or the ad
hoc and uncritical pursuit of established policy (Bull 1977:66-67).
Bulls approach then sees national interest being constructed by various sectional
interest according to which nations create alliances or if unnecessary the advocate them
themselves. This is perhaps truth but I see this approach quite reductionist and
simplifying. We will try here to dwell upon the very structure of national interest in
order to understand it. Theorizing about alliances of national interest in the international
system we will intentionally omit due to intended extent of this work.
Since I do argue that understanding articulation and interpellation, culture,
democracy, common identity, credibility deficit, security imaginary and formatting
element of international politics are the key constituents of the national interest, their
importance to the creation process will be discussed in the following subchapters.

1.1 Articulation & Interpellation

Defining national interest creation via its components is closely related to the
common identity process of articulation and interpellation. To understand constructivist
concept of articulation and interpellation, it is required to define both terms precisely
and describe their relation to each other.
Under articulation we generally understand process through which meaning is
produced out of extant cultural raw materials or linguistic resources. Meaning is
created and temporarily fixed by establishing chains of connotations among different
linguistic elements (Weldes 1999a:98).
Moreover, all articulations are social constructions, products of concrete social
practices in specific historical circumstances (Weldes 1999a:100).
From this starting point the subject is addressed though the process of interpellation.
Interpellation is boosting aggregation of meanings produced by articulation and creates
more solid picture policymakers can use and work with afterwards. It is some kind of
incremental snowball effect - the more agents we engage, the bigger and more
powerful a snowball/image we get.

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For instance, articulated abstraction of WMD in Iraq became a serious threat via
interpellation. Interpellation itself is a complicated process by which I becomes We
a part of our shared identity.
Interpellation is ever-present on every level/stage of human society regardless of the
country. In the United States, schools play an important role in socializing US children
into US nationalism not only via singing a national anthem but also through
dissemination of a particular interpretation of U.S. and world history (Weldes
1999a:109).
Interpellation consists of various little and at first sight unimportant particularities.
U.S. liberal economic entrepreneurship-based system promotes individualism. This way
of thinking is imprinted into human minds already in the early stage of childhood.
American fairytales always contain happy ending and are full of superheroes able to
carry away disgrace of the destiny on their own side and win. In contrasts to, for
instance, Central European modest bravery of heroes who are often displayed as
entertaining individuals, actually often mentally inferior ones.6 I admit that this could be
considered as impropriate generalization but to as large extent it works.
Sociological term labeling is a proof that we do often become what we are expected
to be. More specifically in our case - Interpellation refers to a dual process whereby
subject positions or identities are created and concrete individuals are interpellated by
or hailed into those hailed positions (Weldes 1999a:103).
Articulation and interpellation are interesting for us also from the security imaginary
perspective. Because security imaginary is activated mainly through interpellation, it is
necessary to clarify this in connection to articulation what I intend to do in one of the

following chapters.
As mentioned above, communication is the key element in the identity formation and
is a part of identity itself. Linguistic and non-linguistic practices are in reciprocal
relationship they are mutually constitutive and jointly productive of the meanings of
the social world (Weldes 1999a:110).
In addition, examining linguistic artifacts can help us both how and what particular
situation and response to it means. We can do it via examining rhetoric of state officials
and particular state actions in foreign policy.

vejk, A JE TO, and others

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Since the TV news in the United States represent U.S. actions in the world in the
spreading-democracy-everywhere spirit, people tend to believe that they are the ones
who are just and everything different from their way of life is not normal or should be
adjusted. Moreover, running the western hemisphere was for decades (almost two
centuries by now) considered by the Americans as normal.
Moreover, when the U.S. democratizing intentions come at variance with their energy
interests, it seems that general public tends to believe that this problem exists because of
some bad guy who hates the United States.7
This is an overly simplified view, but sufficient enough to clarify how all of this
contributed to the process by which Americans recognize themselves to be belonging to
a particular identity. This identity articulated in the media and widely accepted, played
an important role in finding a sufficient support in the Senate and in the public.
Especially the Cold Wars Cuban missile crisis, when the missiles were placed in Cuba,
these were presented as a lethal Soviet Trojan horse in the Western hemisphere and in
accordance with the widely accepted need to fight international communism.
Another reason why U.S. decision makers can justify at home almost anything related
to managing Latin America is because of them being a part of The American Family
Our nations are the product of a common struggle the revolt from the colonial rule.
And people share a common heritage the quest for dignity and freedom of a man
(Quoted from Kennedy 1962:396 Documents on American Foreign relations,
1961:395-401, New York 1962 in: Weldes 1999a:157).
Presenting Chvez in the U.S. newspapers vary. For instance, the NY times are far
more radical anti Chvez than Washington Post.
For example: Political polarization in which opposition to Chvez became
increasingly harsh was also evident in the coverage provided by the U.S. media,
particularly after his first six months in the office. Leading newspapers such as the New
York times and the Washington Post referred to Chvez as Venezuelan rambunctious
president and a firebrand, his policies as Jacobin, and his movement as containing
anti-American elements. The articles in both newspapers vividly described the
militarization of the government, the politicization of the armed forces, the reliance on
populism, and the purging of all cultural institutions. Sometimes Chvez was
systematically compared with Perus Alberto Fujimori without reference to the basic

Saddam Hussein, Ahmadinejad, Kim Jong-Il, Hugo Chvez etc.

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differences between the two regimes. The New York Times hailed the April 2002 coup
that momentarily ousted Chvez from office8 (Ellner & Hellinger 2003:22).
One way or another, U.S. national interest has its roots in the process of articulation
and interpellation. Taken into account the priorities of the administration, formation of
this interest can be largely influenced by emphasizing what is important and therefore
easily abused.

1.2 Identity, Common Identity/National Identity

All physicists agree upon certain practices of scientific inquiry and upon the principle
that the reality is a constraint on truth
-Alexander Wendt (Wendt in: Guzzini & Leander 2006:217)

National interest construction is inseparable from the common identity and in this
chapter I shall try to explore this phenomenon. National identity and common identity
for simplification of the explanation will be considered as identity of one state unit due
to complexity of this issue.
Scholars did not spent much time dealing with common/national identity issues and
its impact or influence on the foreign policy during the Cold War, only after the collapse
of bipolar world, the diversity of the national features of foreign policy were flagrant
enough for them to notice.
According to Valerie Hudson (Hudson 2007) the national identity is the answer to the
three basic questions: Who are we? What we do? Who are they?
In other words, we will have to answer questions like: What creates and transforms
our beliefs?, What actions we take?, Why, and what distinguishes us from the rest of
the world?
To understand the common identity, it is necessary to go down on the identity of the
individual and discuss the epistemological problematic of it.
A Nobel Prize Laureate Douglas C. North claims that individuals grasp of reality is
imperfect (North 2005:23).

NY times Jan 20 2001, p-19-A, August 30 2000, April 13 2001 p.A-4; April 24, 2001, p.1, April 13, 2002;
Washington Post, May 28, 2000, p.B-1; April 23, 2000, p. B-2; April 14, 2002

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Therefore, it is virtually impossible to get to know the individual well enough to

perfectly asses his or her actions. A good example here would be an experiment with
asking ten people to draw whatever they imagine under the word apple. No doubt
none of the pictures will be identical, even though it is very likely that the pictures will
have several common features.
The existence of this common features enables us to cooperate with each other, and
cooperation makes us - human beings a social creatures. As social beings with shared
system of beliefs, through our perception of the world we can share a living space in a
certain time with other beings. Interaction with these beings via language, gestures
symbols and emotional exchange creates our identity. Identity exists only in relation to
these social connections and even though every individual is unique, its identity is
inevitably a part of phenomena we call common identity.
Taken into the extreme, we can say that when the common identity (or identity of a
certain culture) is threatened, the individual takes it as a threat to its very existence.
When a group identity or colloquially roots is attacked it tends to produce violence
and aggressive backlash in order to preserve the identity. Since our need for identity is
quite a primitive instinct, it might produce more aggression in less intelligent
individuals.9 This would need a further exploration. I had conduced myself several
verbal interviews with Americans and Europeans individually and tried to attack their
English or metric system of measurements respectively. Since this system is a part of
their shared believes and its a way in which they perceive their world, it made some
individuals angry and this was noticeable especially among less clever10 ones.
Backlash arguments were often quite irrational. Especially answers like: they use it like
that on TV too, so it must be true or one inch is more logical because its easier than
2,54cm. Therefore, I believe, individuals do consciously or subconsciously perceive
threat to their identity as an attempt to infirm they reality.
Our understanding and firm trust in reality is essential for every individual because
here it forms and reforms identity commitments from experiences and these result
from forces both within, and external to domestic society (Hall 1999:36).
In our daily reality, our-self is daily bombarded by thousands of images; our-self
instinctively follows successful individuals whose success is in accordance with our
preferences. This is connected to the working process of our memory and brain. I will
9

Lets assume that brain and rationality makes us to abstain from violent response
Very subjective perspective

10

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briefly and tersely explain the process and role of protein-accumulation during CREB
cycle11.
Our mind is set up to remember certain things that are directly connected to our
survival. Actions (even the complicated ones) or events associated with strong emotions
are easy for brain to remember. How is this possible? CREB cycle assures that
important memories are marked with higher amount of proteins while unimportant
ones are during the same cycle marked with a lesser amount. This process influences
the capability of our brain to look the first ones up easily, while the second ones we
either forget or our brain has more difficulties to recall them. Thats how brain protects
itself from being data-overloaded.12 Another positive effect of this process is that
according to this protein accumulation, we have a certain hierarchy of values
according to which we do choose our actions.
Apart from the workings of the brain and common meanings we share, every
individuals behavior is also based on the set of genetic predispositions mixed with
experiences aggregated in certain period of time. Individual is formed like dough by
everything that came across. On the other hand, as rational conscious beings we are
capable to alter our preferences. The preference is based on the system of hierarchy of
values, and hierarchy of the values is partially set by the cultural background and differs
to a certain extent individually.
In the literature on the common identity, so called otherness is one of the key
elements that help to find constraints for the common identity author who deals with it
is David A. Campbell. To him, identity is constituted by fear, search for new frontiers
and otherness. He also argues that Wendt concentrated too much on agents and central
role of a state and marginalized the understanding of identity (Campbell 1998:219).
I would agree with it taking into account his earlier works but not so much in the last
decade. Nonetheless, to Campbell - Identity can only be established in relation to
what it is not to difference. Difference, in turn, is constituted in relation to identity.
Identities, then, are always contingent and relational, and they are performatively
constituted (Campbell 1992:8).
As we see, the identity is nothing given or non-changeable. It is created, formed,
manipulated and abused as well. He explains, that the distinction between difference

11
12

cAMP responsive element binding protein (CREB)

http://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pubmed/9530494

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and otherness can be graphically understood. Difference is defined and exists as a

bridge between identity and otherness.
Then, the logic of identity existence to him requires difference. Moreover, the
potential for the transformation of this bridge (difference) into otherness always exists
(Campbell 1998:70).
Another contribution to our understanding of the difference brings William Connolly.
He claims that the identity is created in connection to series of differences that have
become socially recognized (Connolly 1991:64 in: Weldes 1999:11).
This means that without the realization of differences there is no common identity.
This is quite true if we think about nationalism in a traditional way. Until masses
havent realized and/or were not informed about their lingual or cultural difference
they did not think about it that way.
Certainly, what we call ourselves, says a lot about us. When we formulate them
we include some and exclude others. This is as true of transnational collective identities
as of national collective identity. We cannot formulate an argument regarding who we
are without at least implying an argument about who are not (Hall 1999:299).
Findings of Anne Norton show the equality in the relationship between likeness and
otherness. There is no priority in its creation. The recognition of both in identity
formation is inter-dependent and exists in the same time (Norton 1988:45-46).
In addition, relationship between the society and its identity also perfectly works both
ways. While every society is constituted by its identity, identity describes society as
well (McSweeney 1999:74).
In his recent works, Alexander Wendt writes about the quantum social theory.13 A
part of it is a quantum consciousness theory claiming that the quantum in effect is
consciousness. Consciousness is ever-present in matter all along (Wendt in: Guzzini &
Leander 2006:190).
Apart from this, to him, we have to work on the relations between identity (individual
and collective) to understand the interest. His approach is quite new and to many, quite
a science fiction. To take his side, what in our world today would not had been
considered sci-fi some hundred years ago?

13

Excellent description of quantum theory and its application on society and how to understand it (Wendt in: Guzzini
& Leander 2006:190-192)

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If we would take his approach for granted we could see common identity with a
quantum focal lens peoples brains joined together into superior social brain. Wendt
admits that in case his assumptions are truth, then he offers these three conjectures:
1) Social systems have wave functions that constitute a collective unconscious;
2) These wave functions collapse by a process of intra-actions described by quantum
game theory;
3) Social systems are super-organisms with collective consciousness.
(Wendt in: Guzzini & Leander 2006:200).

Developing this idea even more in connection to his findings of sub-atomic/nonmaterial particles our brain/neurons consists of; in my opinion then, the language as the
medium for communication is the key to the identity and to otherness.
Language as a medium trough which we communicate produces sounds that exist
only if perceived. As we know from the very basic physics, the sound is based on
vibrations on different frequencies. Since every language has at least slightly different
set of sounds these certainly have effect on these sub-material particles in the brain.
From this simple premise, the language is the key to the otherness and it has a
measurable base for non-social scientists too. In short, we are similar to other members
in our group and different from the other language groups, just because we use different
sets of sound waves for communication.
It is a fact that the behavior of people able to speak fluently in more languages vary
when they employ different language in a different societal group. It is called cultural
frame switching.14
Moreover, populations within one territory with one language and media images have
every prerequisite to make populations more homogenous (Wendt 1999:325).
Rethinking the relationship between identities, interests, shared ideas, value
system, hierarchy of these values and circumstances of the events significantly
influences and shapes interests that are seen as political action or a certain policy.
As Burchill put it: Identities inform interests which, in turn, determine actions
(Burchill 2005:195).
Our actions, based on our perception of the world, personal, collective and historical
memory are grounds for mobilizing our collective action. To understand it fully we need

14

More on this issue see Ramirez-Esparza 2006

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to explain patterns of aggregate behavior. This has to do much with the common
identity and search for some master variables of it.
These variables according to Wendt are interdependence, common fate, homogeneity
and self-restraint (Wendt 1999:343).
Still, is the identity changeable? Is it something we can change only via our decision
to do so?
Constructivism treats identities and interests as inseparable, constantly interacting and
in the process. These changes occur when actors stop and redefine themselves and
decide on the new course of actions. Then, radical changes in action planning involve
massive structural changes of the actor. In case that actors identity is threatened,
instinctive defense will not be based on purely rational basis of individual, since a utility
calculation in this case will be group based (Wendt 1999:336-337).
Parts of this group-based calculating unit are intellectuals, political leaders,
journalists and countless others whose voice can be heard and engage in the process of
constructing, manipulating, negotiating or affirming collective image that is limited by
the facts of history15 (McSweeney 1999:77).
On the other hand, all mentioned variables relevant to the national identity
construction in the historical context within which nations must act, create strong biases
toward certain courses of foreign policy action (Hudson 1997:28).
After all above mentioned, we explored main problematic of the common identity in
general and now we should discuss more U.S. national identity more specifically, since
it is relevant to our Venezuelan case.

1.2.1 U.S. National Identity

While discussing national identity, to the United States and their common history
would apply John A. Halls argument that U.S. national/collective identity developed as
a response to ressentiment induced by colonial oppression (Hall 1999:298).
In addition, United States from the very beginning of the colonization of the New
World was a place of refuge for various types of political, ethnic, religious or
ideological individuals or groups of individuals. From the old-fashioned European
perspective, in sum we could call them deviants positive and negative ones too. This

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division depends solely on the perspective because according to a modern philosophy,

things or people in its very nature are neither good nor bad; its only about perspective
that changes.16
Old world with its rigid structure was incapable to offer adequate environment to
free-spirited or differently thinking liberals. United States became home for brave
individuals pursuing their dreams and happiness. In contrast to 18th century Europe,
United States started to evolve as entrepreneurship based political Unit, with few
constraints made by the Constitution and its amendments. Then, what process imprinted
the identity to this newly emerged country that functioned as a melting pot for countless
ethnic, national and religious groups? The answer to this can be as simple as one word
repetition.
As Campbell explains the identity of any particular state should be understood as
tenuously constituted in time through a stylized repetition of acts, and achieved
through a regulated process of repetition (Campbell 1998:10).
All acts in society, constrained by decisions of the courts and written constitution,
repeated on the daily or regular basis affected the final form of the identity.
Jutta Weldes in her book Constructing National Interests claims that there are four
constitutive features of the U.S. identity U.S. leadership, its defense of freedom, its
need for strength and persistent credibility problem (Weldes 1999a:199).
These constitutive features of identity are perceived from the outside and only in
connection to the foreign policy output especially salient in the postwar era. We will
discuss these features later in separate chapters.
Except for their constitutive effect, these features have legitimizing effect too. This is
valid for the intra-state system as well as for the international system.
For the outsider, the U.S. identity in the last century was rewritten several times
through its often contradictory foreign policies. These changes often occurred due to a
fundamental attribution error so common in the international relations.
Fundamental attribution error appears when the action is done by non-us actor.
Policymakers in United States tend to think that every unfriendly country acts the way
United States wouldnt on its place. For instance, Hudson uses example with North
Korea and the United States where the U.S. thinks that North Korea builds nuclear

15
16

and material capability

Among others Castaneda 1991

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weapons because it wants to be aggressive, while North Korea feels threatened by the
United States and by others and builds weapons for its protection (Hudson 2007:51).
A part of the identity of still the only world superpower is the ethics. Accent on
human rights and the rule of law is on the list of U.S. foreign policy priorities. Bombing
Beograd as a response to human rights violation in on hand and a massive support for
authoritarian regimes in other parts of the world on the other could appear quite
contradictory. Although we must not forget that the integral part of the U.S. identity is
its incongruousness. Settled by puritans and various outlaws in the same time, America
inherited many discrepancies. Small and seemingly unimportant example could serve as
an illustration. A legal drinking age here is 21 and the age for joining the army equals to
18. In other words, a 19 year old soldier is obliged to kill people / enemy in the Middle
East/ but has to wait 2 more years to have his first beer.
In terms of identity, there are no small or unimportant differences. Identity either
contains certain aspects or it doesnt. No matter if their consequences are visible in the
everyday life of young Americans or as a result of the foreign policy.
In spite of fundamental attribution error empirically, far from facing profound
uncertainty, states are confident about each others intentions almost all of the time
(Wendt in: Guzzini & Leander 2006:210).

1.3 Culture
They may also be times when a Nation is more confused about what we do than about
who we are.
-Hudson 2007:105

Why is culture indivisible part of our identity and a constitutive element of the
national interest creation? Culture is central to the understanding of our world. Close to
and to some just a synonym to the common identity it is a set of various practices,
repeated actions, traditions etc. Even though the borders between the two are indistinct,
we could at least agree that culture can be considered a part of our identity. Moreover, it
influences our actions. Since there isnt one specific definition of what culture actually
is, it is better to define it in an indirect way.

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For instance, Valerie Hudson sees culture as a living organism. To her, culture
provides set of various necessary rules that are used for the action. If action is successful
it is remembered, and used again in the similar context if not it is abandoned. Hudson
treats culture as an evolving fund of semantic elements that can be combined in
certain ways and not others to define situations. Motivate and plan actions, or release
emotions. Culture shapes practice in both the short and long term (Hudson 1997:29).
But how do we then understand our world? How does it work? One way to
understand it is through the myth theory constructed by Hudson. She believes that
Myths are a system of human understanding; powerful historical memories that help
maintain the values of a community. The relevance of myths lies in their ability to gain
broad acceptance by a community, rather than their degree of rationality or realism. It is
irrelevant whether the myth is true or false. Myth is produced cultural variable and they
foster the natural environment we live in. Also the role of the society in the world is
derived from them. Moreover, every myth consists of several stories to support it. These
can change overtime and they can be used and abused as well (Hudson 1997:75-76).
Understanding of the underlying values of the myths is essential to politicians that
need to manipulate public opinion. Myths do not necessarily need to be consistent and
actually can exclude each other to a certain extent; what is important is if they fall into
the same society (Hudson 1997:92).
Looking back on the culture of the United States we can try to define what it is made
of. It is a community of people with common interests. It is as if there really is a
national interest, represented in the constitution, in territorial expansion, in the laws
passed by Congress, the decisions of the courts, the development of capitalism, the
culture of education and the mass media nations are not communities and never have
been. The history of any one country, presented as a history of a family, conceals fierce
conflicts of interest (sometimes exploding, most often repressed) between conquerors
and conquered, masters and slaves, capitalist and workers, dominators and dominated
in race and sex (Zinn in: Burchill 2005:63).
This quite radical support for the existence of culture is based on crystallizing
antagonisms - on the constant fight between superior and inferior. No matter if it is an
idea or material based power.
American exceptionalism is a strong idea that has formed the mentality of the New
World from the very beginning. It is in direct opposite of the Old Worlds rigid
structure (Tassell in: Hudson 1997:237-239).
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On the other hand, cultural heritage might be quite tricky at times. Culture doesnt
have to do anything with a rational course of actions and might be very destructive (if
abused) as it happened during the first half of the 20th century.
Nations may choose actions more in line with their heroic history than with more
dispassionate norms of strategy and rational choice. They may also be times when a
Nation is more confused about what we do than about who we are (Hudson
2007:105).
Cultural element influences the national interest when doing is in conflict with
being. When this presented in the public, it can influence actual foreign policy course
of action as it happened in the case analyzed in the latter part of this work.

1.5 Democracy - USA as a Leader and Need for Strength

I start this chapter with posing a question: How to measure the value of political
institution? Robert C. Johansen answers it: the value of laws and political institutions,
as of society itself, may be judged largely by the extent to which they protect and
facilitate the fulfillment of human rights and dignity (Johansen 1980:196).
Another question emerging from institutionally based democracy is question Martin
Wolf posed in his book Why Globalization works? and that is: Whether liberal
democracy can be securely established in much of a developing world (Wolf 2005:38).
In other words, has anyone right to spread the democracy?
The answer for the part of the USA and their interests they pursue is a document
published in 1999 called U.S. Department of State Strategic Plan 2000 which stated that
it was in national interest to prevent regional instabilities from threatening U.S. vital
national interestsreduce the threat to the United States and its allies from weapons of
mass destruction (WMD). The national interest under the section of Democracy was to
open political systems and societies to democratic practices, the rule of law, good
governance, and respect for human rights (Ayerbe in: Prevost & Campos 2007:80-81).
It was still Clintons administration that created this document.
Half a century ago in the times of the notorious Cuban missile crisis, missiles were
more of a symbol and an issue damaging U.S. face as a leader of the free world than a
real military threat. The need to remove Soviets from the U.S. sphere of influence was
more important and bigger issue than fear from being wiped out by the nukes.
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The United States as the only leader of the democratic world after the victory in the
WW II, felt the burden of responsibility for the new world order.
These are the important consequences of leadership for the US identity:
-

The notion of leadership clearly provided a warrant for action. It is expected that

leader will act.

-

It is expected both to determine when the action is required and to suggest the

correct course of action.

-

Leader is not only permitted to undertake actions but is obligated to do so. So

called burden of responsibility especially for the hemisphere comes into question here.
-

Defense of freedom elided any view of U.S. actions as intervention in the affairs

of a sovereign Cuba.
(Weldes 1999a:200)
It was more than obvious in the postwar era that the United States inhabited the role
of a global leader. Moreover, U.S. commitment to freedom legitimized almost all
courses of action.
Being a leader inevitably means that the others have to be in the position of followers.
The ones not willing to be in this position are then considered unfriendly or if necessary
- the enemy. Then if we do accept that culture of insecurity in the world led by the
United States is a part of U.S. identity, we should also agree with the fact that any
attempt to undermine leaders role here is an obvious stability/security violation. Taken
into extreme, Chvezs verbal attacks were a verbal attack on their security.
From the perspective of U.S. as a leader it seems that U.S. policymakers can only do
what they can substantiate domestically and internationally (international dimension is
less acute) and what they can afford in terms of ideology as well as in monetary matters.
Representatives of the United States like to claim and consider themselves leaders in
establishing/spreading democracy and supporting the democratization processes
throughout the globe.
The meaning of democracy, the way American society understands it, contains values
such as free elections, rule of majority with the respect towards the rights of minorities,
freedom of press, secure private property rights etc. Paradoxically, in case of Venezuela,
U.S. policymakers behaved contrary to this perception of the basic meaning of the word
democracy, with the exception of the secure private property rights. Moreover, this
raises the question: What action works as an incentive when the democratic values are
violated after which U.S. direct or indirect intervention is inevitable?
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The policy at variance with basic democratic values could be better explained with a
classical realism.
The ambiguous policy of the U.S. gives the impression that regardless of ideology
and rhetoric involved, the United States are trying to maximize their power and
influence in the region anytime possible.
Then, what prevents it from doing so all the time since their military capability is
indisputably big enough to militarily control the whole continent? Limitations for such
behavior I shall discuss in the chapter about the limitations national interest.

1.6 Credibility, Human rights and Freedom

US constant need for strength and its persistent democratic leaders credibility
problem pushes this superpower into search for new justifications for its foreign policy
actions.
Especially after revelation of secret activities, a picture of the US in the world is
damaged and its role as a world democratic leader and protector of human rights suffers
equally. On the other hand, all the activities conduced by the U.S. government proved
that Western Hemisphere is of such a high priority to the United States that it did not
hesitate to omit certain principles it normally stands for.
Especially during the Cold War, the limitations to the foreign policy making in the
Latin America were almost non-existent. Anti-communism and the ideology were
probably the strongest interest promoter and generator.
However this attitude violates any principle of self-determination either in UN
Charter or Charter of OAS. One way or another, in the real world, illegal does not
necessarily equate to immoral. Immoral is very subjective term and to a certain extent
an individual category. Therefore, morality is depended very much on a judging person.
If certain activities are in the United States perceived as in national interest, nobody
feels any guilt for seemingly immoral covert actions. And this is why I claim that the
sum of features in this subchapter is inherent to national interest construction.
David Allen Baldwin says that there cant be equation between 1 billion dollar of
military costs and 1 billion dollar worth of military force. We also can say that 10bn of
economic losses is more than 1bn of military equipment lost. From the economical
perspective it certainly is, but since the use of military equipment causes death, it
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doesnt necessarily have to be truth. In my opinion, there is no economist in the world

with some sense of morality who would be able to calculate the cost of a human life.
I was trying to point out that in connection to U.S. credibility problem it would be
advantageous to rely more on economic statecraft and economic tools in foreign policy
rather than using a military force.
One of the biggest advantages of using economic instead of military statecraft derives
from avoiding the costs associated with military statecraft (Baldwin 1986:129).
Tools used for the pressure on the other states should be chosen carefully and should
cause almost no collateral damage. In addition, problem of credibility is incarnated in
the leadership itself. Freedom in the world is indivisible onto pieces and therefore
extensive involvement of the leader in this fight is unfortunately quite self-defeating for
its extensiveness. U.S. should therefore start thinking more in coalition-building terms.
Nonetheless, the United States is convinced that threat to freedom anywhere is a
threat to U.S. freedom too. This premise became a part of U.S. identity. Therefore, the
export of democracy to Latin America has come to be seen as a legitimate and a
significant goal of U.S. foreign policy (Weldes 1999a:206-207).
In my opinion, credibility problem is the most contradictory and therefore ambivalent
feature of the U.S. identity discussed in our case. Compared to the Cold War, the role
U.S. played in its anti-communist-freedom-safeguarding initiatives in Korea, Vietnam,
Cuba and elsewhere, the defense of freedom in the 21st millennium already gained quite
a different character.

1.7 Security Imaginary

Starting point of anarchy and the security dilemma can be found in all sections of the
classical tradition. It does not demarcate realism from idealism, but IR from
political science. What distinguished realism is a further assumption: its cyclical view
of history. Whereas, in principle, an idealist position would not exclude the possibility
of the international system becoming domesticated, realism would insist that whatever
improvement there is, it can only be temporary. We are bond by and will inevitably
return to the security dilemma in one guise or another.
- Stefano Guzzini (Guzzini & Leander 2006:75)

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Another constituting part of national interest of any country is its security imaginary.
The security imaginary is activated mainly through interpellation. It is from ones
subject position (role, identity) that the always heterogeneous reservoir of meanings is
opened up for a certain articulation of lessons of history. By omitting this we would
miss the sociological link between collective meanings and the formation of the
national interests the identity (or at least for Weldes and some other social
constructivists).
Security imaginary as a term is a neologism and therefore, it is necessary to define it.
The inventor of this technical term - Jutta Weldes uses it for a structure of a well
established meanings and social relations out of which representations of the world of
international relations are created (Weldes 1999a:10).
It is a whole complex of meanings that create reality and since there is security
involved, there must be also a threat or danger of some kind involved.
To Campbell, danger per se is not an objective condition. It is not a thing that
exists independently of those to whom it may become a threat (Campbell 1998:1).
Threat as a part of security is especially important to constructivists, many (all?)
would claim that national interest is not something that exists or is given, but that
national interest is constructed within military/security frameworks (Burchill 2005:101).
Professor Ken Booth offers an interesting premise while discussing the construction
of security threats in connection to identity when he writes that: Identity - who I really
think I am / who one actually believes one is / who they think they are / what makes us
believe we are the same and them different - is basic to many aspects of the discussion
of security (Booth 1994:4).
As we have seen, security imaginary is indivisible from the national interest and
common identity; one influences the other and constructs each other. In other words,
Security imaginary produces its representations and from these, national interest
emerges as the ideological effect of security imaginary (Weldes 1999a:107).

1.7.1 Energy Security as a Part of Security Imaginary

United States need for consolidated relations with such an important oil exporter as
Venezuela, is and for decades to come will be a crucial one. Therefore, one of the goals

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through which national interest is defined in this geographical area is energy security
that has priority to the ideological connotations.
In case, that the coup was successful and US-loyal Venezuelan representation
would have had succeeded, the U.S.A. would have had much stronger influence over
the world oil prices. This was apparently one of the motives for U.S. involvement in the
coup.
The truth of the matter is that American public is very sensitive to the increases in gas
prices and if necessary the American involvement in the coup (no matter what the result
was) wouldnt be too difficult to legitimize at home, since it would be in accordance
with the national interests.
In connection to the national interest we can say that once the national interest is
defined, it functions as a rhetorical device that generates the legitimacy of and political
support for the state action. Or in exact words of Jutta Weldes the national interest
thus wields considerable power in that it helps to constitute as important and to
legitimize the actions taken by the state (Weldes 1999a:4).
Such finding enables vast maneuvering space for policymakers. Especially for the
policymakers in the country on wheels is oil an ace politicians can use quite freely.
Since the security imaginary we already briefly discussed is also to be seen through
the telltale silences, we should examine Chvezs steps and U.S. response to oil industry
nationalization represented by the PDVSA.
Finally, to plug in the oil issue in our attempt to understand interstate interaction we
must understand everyday cultural conditions that make particular state actions possible
(Weldes 1999a:241).
Oil sufficiency and stabile gas prices that are inevitable prerequisites for U.S. (and
not only) stable economic growth and discussion about it in the public made it
inevitable for U.S. policymakers to try to influence events in Venezuela. From this
perspective there were not many clear choices if the U.S. wanted to have an influence
over its energy security that is a part of security imaginary of the country.

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1.8 International Community, States and Anarchy

If men define situations as real, they are real in their consequences
-Thomas 1928:571

This so called Thomas theorem is becoming more popular in the past few years.
Especially in the international relations after Alexander Wendt published his book in
1992 where he wrote his famous discourse about international system claiming that the
character of the international system is anarchy because states make it out of it.
Moreover, since the system is not given or forced, it is no surprise that once there is
an influential and strong idea out in the system, this might change it and states will
behave accordingly to the self-fulfilling prophecy formula.17 This is very similar (again)
to the sociological phenomena of labeling mentioned before. With a difference that
here it is not applied to the individual but to a unitary state actor in the society of
states.
For instance, once states start to see a particular country as a rogue state, this country
become one regardless of its initial intention or behavior, which will lead to its military
build up that will be interpreted differently on the both sides.
From the Wendts perspective, in the international system:
- States are the principal units of analysis for international political theory;
- The key structures in the states system are inter-subjective, rather than material;
- State identities and interests are in important part constructed by these social
structures, rather than given exogenously to the system by human nature or domestic
politics.
(Wendt 1994:385)
Does the character of international system have a significant influence on national
interest formation? On this point, for instance Waltz differs radically from Morghentau.
Waltz claims that more than anything else, it is a structure of the international system
what has the most powerful influence on the national interest. Then personal
responsibility and the character of leaders are more or less marginal (Burchill 2005:43).
On the other hand, to Weldes, national interest is important to international politics in
two ways. First, through this concept policymakers understand the goals to be pursued

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by a states foreign policy and the second, national interest functions as a rhetorical
device that generates the legitimacy of and political support for state action.
In her own words: The national interest thus wields considerable power in that it
helps to constitute as important and to legitimize the actions taken by the state (Weldes
1999a:4).
How are then national interests transformed, changed and influenced? Is it from the
inside by individuals via common identity, or by decision making individuals on the
international scene or some other way?
In my opinion, the national interest and the state identity are tightly interconnected;
change of the one goes hand in hand with changing the other. If the state identity is
collectively transformed within anarchic context by individual, domestic systematic or
transnational factor18 the national interest will be changed all along.
In his book, David Campbell poses interesting question regarding the nature of
foreign policy in anarchic realm of necessity? How was it that we came to understand
foreign policy as an external deployment of instrumental reason on behalf of an
unproblematic internal identity situated in an anarchic realm of necessity? (Campbell
1998:37).
On the international grounds a states foreign policy functions as a bridge between
sovereign states existing in an anarchic world, a bridge that is constructed between two
prior, securely grounded, and nominally independent realms. More specifically
United States foreign policy comes to be understood solely as the external
orientation of a pre-given and settled national identity (Kegley, Wittkopf 1991:3 in:
Campbell 1998:40).
On the contrary, if we foreign policy as a part of the discourses of danger that serve to
discipline the state. The danger ever-present in the identity employs the strategy of
otherness and thus foreign policy needs to be understood as giving rise to a boundary
rather than acting as a bridge (Campbell 1998:51).
With constructivism playing the lead in my work I need to stress that the times of
Kissinger where the diplomacy played the main role in the world politics has changed
significantly.

17
18

See Wendt 1999 or Drulk 2001

More detailed on collective identity change see Wendt 1987

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This change on the field of international relations occurred because western

diplomatic tradition rejects the concept of identity of national interests the field as well
as the premise that interests are necessarily exclusive of each other. Moreover, role of
diplomacy in traditional view is the one that determines in which areas interests are
overlapping each other on the international scene (Bull 1969 in: Alderson & Hurrell
2000:132).
Still, regardless of definitions we use for defining character of international system,
security continues to exist as the most important issue international community deals
with. Security in terms of danger prevention coming from the international terrorism,
struggle for natural resources or possibility of nuclear danger coming from the countries
that are trying to break status quo of nuclear weapons possession plays increasingly
important role.
In the still more globalized world, the role of liberal and democratic state is instantly
reduced to provision of security to its inhabitants. The failure of state to successfully
provide safety and the protection from various dangers could lead to undermining its
identity and legitimacy.
Therefore the constant articulation of danger through foreign policy is thus not a
threat to a states identity or existence: it is its condition of possibility (Campbell
1998:12).
We can see that articulation of danger is important to strengthening identity of state
and often used to legitimize states foreign policy.
It is worth mentioning, how countries bond with other states. The realpolitik norm in
IR is that countries choose their alliances primarily based on national interest rather than
on any sort of enlightened system of values (Boudin 2006:29).

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2. U.S. Foreign Policy & Doctrines

It is not limits to growth in a technological or geological sense, but in a political one,
that will present problems in the future that have been muted in the past.
- Krasner 1978:352

In this chapter, I want to discuss U.S. foreign policy with all aspects relevant to it as
far as their importance is relevant to our Venezuelan case and to extent to which I am
limited by the Master thesis extent.
Once again it is necessary to realize the importance of national interest. What creates
the national interest with the consequences on the foreign policy of the Country
representing half of the world military expenditures and which as investment in
technology incomparable to anyone, the country that cannot be opposed by any
reasonable coalition of powers to counterbalance it?
In the previous chapters I have tried to show and briefly discuss integral parts of the
national interest and its creation. After summing up the discussion above, foreign policy
of the United States of America is a direct output and instrument by which constructed
national interest is executed behind the borders according to its preferences.
These preferences are also based on certain national attributes of the foreign policy.
These are, as defined by Valerie Hudson, for instance size, natural resources,
geography, demographics, political system, military capabilities, economic capabilities
etc (Hudson 2007:144).
There are long performed and inherited concepts that sometimes still influence
decisions of the policy makers in the United States. They work as the templates for the
US action (Tassell in: Hudson 1997:244-253).
Among these are dominant:
-

The No-Transfer Policy of 1811

The Monroe Doctrine,

Continental Expansionism during the 1840s,

The Roosevelt Corollary.

Realization of possession of various kinds of resources (material and non-material

ones) gives to policymaker influential in the decision-making process room for certain
power-disponibility.

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In this case, power per se has a character of a mixed blessing. It comes together with
a great deal of responsibility. In case of the United States where the relation between
power and responsibility is in direct proportion this responsibility is unprecedented.
Moreover, its power gives large freedom of choice. This freedom, philosophically
speaking does not make the choices themselves any clearer or more obvious (Rose
2003:xv).
United States has to be very careful with the tools they use in the foreign policy since
success of missions and its acceptance at home and abroad depend on it.
For instance unilateral intervention to coerce regime change can be a cost-effective
way to deal with rogue states. In military matters, there is the only superpower-the
United States- and it can go it alone if it has to (Moravcsik in: Rose 2003:306).
United States cannot be opposed by a single state or a coalition of states with the
exception of a total nuclear war against Russia. This potential and discrepancy between
the U.S. military potential and the rest of the world will continue to rise in the years to
come regardless of its economical stagnation. Moreover, the United States are
decreasingly dependent on the military allies at least in terms of material and logistic
support.
Why is it so that this country does not necessarily need allies for its actions?
As Andrew Moravcsik noted U.S. defense spending now surpasses that of China,
France, Germany, India, Japan, Russia and the United Kingdom combined, and the
disparity will only grow, since the United States outspends Europe by ratio of 5 to 1 on
military research and development. Washington can now wage war confident of quick
victory, low casualties, and little domestic fallout and its ambitions have expanded
accordingly (Moravcsik in: Rose 2003:307).
This military over-potential certainly gives to policy-makers immense selfconfidence. The problems emerge in the moment when it is necessary to stabilize the
region after military involvement. Here, stability and peace without large support from
regional powers and world powers as well is virtually impossible. Literally, while
winning the war in military terms is not a problem, winning a peace is much more
difficult and more expensive. While this kind of intervention is cheap it will cost much
more in the long run. This would no doubt be the case in Venezuela too.
Globalized world, ever-present media and almost on-line wars make it more difficult
for any power to openly intervene regardless of the national interests.

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Even though, this cannot be taken into opposite extreme because no country of size
like the United States can be purely multilateralist.
On the other hand, the USA should incline toward multilateralism whenever possible
as a way to legitimize its power and to gain broad acceptance of its new strategy (Nye,
Jr. in: Rose 2003:301).
Democratic world leader in spite of all obstacles the power brings with it should not
hesitate to intervene when necessary, but has to judge wisely when such intervention is
beneficial or detrimental (Kuperman in: Rose 2003:100).
There are also other forms of intervention than military that are to be taken into
account.
What is important is to give policymaker a set of alternatives. In any decision making
situation, decision makers always need comparative information about the costs and
benefits of their all feasible alternatives. After all, costs and benefits make sense only
within the context of choice situation. Costs always matter to the rational decision
maker, and cost estimates have to be made in every case. All or nothing is a decision
rule for fanatics, not for rational and prudent statesmen (Baldwin 1986:15, 120).
Foreign policy tools such as economic sanctions should be used for instance to
discourage the proliferation of WMD and ballistic missiles, protect the environment,
promote human rights, support for terrorism, thwart drug trafficking, deter countries
from aggression etc.
In order for these to be used successfully, sanctions should take the form of foreign
assistance reductions and cutoffs, arms embargoes, asset freezes, export and import
limitations, tariff increases, revocation of MFN (most favored nation) trade status,
import quota decreases, votes in international organizations, withdrawal of diplomatic
relations, cancellation of air links, financing, investment prohibitions and diplomatic
visa denials (Haass in: Rose 2003:109).
On the other hand, the use of positive or negative economic sanctions is often very
ineffective, slow and contributes to suffering of domestic population. This is seen on the
example of Cuba, where after the fall of Soviet empire and direct economic support,
Cuba had almost no access to pharmaceuticals, gas or products for basic hygiene, since
the US embargo didnt allow any supplies to come from the American soil.
The alternative to these is best described as constructive or conditional
engagement. involving a mix of narrow sanctions and limited political and economic
interactions that are conditioned on specified behavioral changes might be preferable,
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especially if the goal is to weaken the near-monopoly of an authoritarian leadership

(Haass in: Rose 2003:100).
Needless to add that every policy that is to be executed, essentially needs to contain
some error margin. No matter how serious or exclusive the task is. Without error
margin, there is hardly any progress and positive development possible and this will
cause severe rigidity in the policy-making.
Another part of U.S. foreign policy became co called pre-emptive action; this concept
was designed by Paul Wolfowitz the undersecretary of defense for policy. Clintons
attack over Somalia, Sudan and Serbia was in accordance with this policy.
Moreover, preemptive and unilateral military actions, has long been part of U.S.
security strategy. In Latin America, in last 40 years for this reason there were invasions
into Dominican Republic, Panama etc.(Prevost in: Prevost & Campos 2007:2).
What influence does the public opinion have (if any) on the foreign policy?
Valerie Hudson claims that the space for maneuvering in foreign policy given by the
public opinion of people to politicians is substantially greater since there is a low level
of information sought by the electorate (Hudson 1997:83).
Masco supports this assumption by explaining the attitude of the U.S. officials
towards the public and gives the example of nuclear secrecy.
Everything having to do with nuclear weapons is born secret in the United States
and the division between what is secret and what is not secret is also secret. U.S.
citizens are eliminated from the decision making process, because federal authorities
can argue that, by definition, citizens never have the information necessary to make
informed statements about U.S. national security policy (Masco in: Weldes 1999:223).
From this perspective public opinion is mostly completely absent in the process but it
is not the case. For instance, a public opinion plays its role in restraining foreign policy;
the president can use public support to enforce consent in Congress for his envisaged
foreign policy (Dahl 1950:108 in Hudson 1997:85).
President plays also a crucial role in articulating the national interest. As the first man
of his country his visions are the ones to be followed. In relation to Venezuela 2002, we
can see that United States had already before the coup eminent interest in this part of the
world.
Already in 1998 in the document A National Security Strategy for a New Century
under the Bill Clinton was stated that one of the main strategic objectives is Guarantee

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of access to decisive markets and to the strategic resources, particularly energy

resources.19
It seems that it is in the U.S. national interest to secure markets, increase exports and
create stabile environment for FDI. From this perspective it is more than necessary to
stabilize the country. What needs to be done depends on the hierarchy of the interests
and who decides the priority of them. Is it oil, energy, markets or peace? It all depends
on the circumstances, public opinion and current executive in the USA.

2.1 U.S. and the Latin America

Now my focus will be directed on U.S. policy towards Latin American countries.
This narrower perspective is essential for the understanding our particular case. In this
geographic area has United States played a dominant role for almost two centuries and
therefore has had the greatest historical experience and long-standing discussion of selfdetermination. In this clear geographic area, a careful observer could expect that the
U.S. officials would implement well-informed and sensitive strategies that equally
respect right of self-determination of all countries of the American family.
For a long time (at least since Monroe doctrine) the United States was quite allergic
on extra-continental interventions in Latin America, while intra-interventions
especially by the continental dominator, were quite common.
Self-determination as a process was of great American concern. It dates back to
mentioned doctrine in 1823 in which the United States warned European States of
playing any power games or executing interventions over any states in the Western
Hemisphere. Its attitude was transformed several times via Roosevelt Corollary, Teller
Amendment then the Platt Amendment etc. into a self-proclaimed right of the United
States to intervene and establish virtual de facto control over the governments of some
Latin American societies (Johansen 1980:200).
This leads us to the need of posing a question: Why is in the U.S. national interest to
retain control over the Latin America? Is it only a path dependent policy that some
might find obsolete? Is it ideological and psychological thing? Or is it a security need
that forces the U.S, officials to exert such policies to be safe in the West?

19

http://www.fas.org/man/docs/nssr-98.pdf

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Perhaps it is a Geostrategic factor combined with the need to control material

resources of this part of the world and their inflow to the United States.
David A. A. Dieppa claims that United States in order to maintain its resource flow in
the changing world uses three main control mechanisms to do so. He identifies these
mechanisms:
-

manipulation of information;

privatization of resources;

militarization of the world in order to retain this control

(Dieppa in: Prevost & Campos 2007:208)

Hunger for geostrategic resources might be the central point that national interest is
pointing at. These resources Dieppa divides into three main groups - biodiversity,
petroleum and water. All of them are indispensable for the development of life on the
planet. Their priceless value (except for the oil) consists in extinguishability, nonrenewability, and irreplaceability (again, with the exception of petroleum). The scarcity
and high demand of these resources lead to the creation of diverse means for their
exploitation (Dieppa in: Prevost & Campos 2007:203).
Existence of these precious materials certainly plays a crucial role and work as
guiding lines for U.S. interest in this region. In addition, worsening the situation in the
world and re-privatizing resources in the region leads inevitably the only superpower to
so called preventive wars, joint military exercises, and the creation of military bases
on strategic territories (Dieppa in: Prevost & Campos 2007:212-213).
Constant attention on this area arises also another question: What commitments is
United States willing to sacrifice in order to be able to operate in this area since dully
ratified treaties such as OAS Charter; Declaration of Punta del Este or U.S. constitution
itself implicitly is being constantly violated?

all Treaties made, or which shall be made, under the Authority of the United States,
shall be the supreme Law of the Land20

Article 19

20

http://www.usconstitution.net/const.html#Article6 The U.S. Constitution website

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No State or group of States has the right to intervene, directly or indirectly, for any
reason whatever, in the internal or external affairs of any other State. The foregoing
principle prohibits not only armed force but also any other form of interference or
attempted threat against the personality of the State or against its political, economic,
and cultural elements.21

...improve and strengthen democratic institutions through application of the principle

of self-determination by the people.22

This is just an example of three documents according to which the United States
officials ignored human rights in formulating the goals and means of United States
foreign policy. Unfortunately, whenever the hegemonic and economic interests of
corporate official and government came into an open conflict with human right, the
latter had to clear the way (Johansen 1980:278).
For instance, Plan Colombia is an agreement between US and Colombian officials
signed in 1998 and amended in 1999 which was supposed to be a central to a peace
process in the Colombia. In relation to the presence of illegal crops, the first version of
the plan emphasizes non-military preventive actions and strengthens control initiatives.
Later versions counted increasingly on military actions attempting to eradicate armed
guerillas (Chvez in: Prevost & Campos 2007:95).
In addition, G.R. Chvez claims that U.S. intervention in the southern America is
often done with the cover of opposing money laundering and drug trafficking and this is
just an excuse for looting of natural resources hand in hand with environmental
destruction. In the end, the only one profiting from all this are the northern countries.
Apparently, the Plan Colombia is a great example of it (Chvez in: Prevost & Campos
2007:102).
Such an activity in the region is not an exception. United States constantly attempt to
impose their national interests in this area. The United States use a military plan
NORTHCOM for monitoring and collection of data from the whole Northern America;
the Unified Command Plan 2002 incorporates also part of the Caribbean and areas

21

http://www.oas.org/juridico/English/charter.html#ch4 Organization of American States website

http://www.yale.edu/lawweb/avalon/intdip/interam/intam15.htm Declaration of Punta del Este; Website of Avalon
project of Yale University
22

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adjacent to the Pacific and the Atlantic up to Panama. Authorities of these States
support this regional U.S. project including agreements on U.S. military installments.
The Amazon Surveillance System or SIVAM (from its Portuguese name, Sistema de
Vigilncia da Amaznia) is a complex surveillance system used for monitoring the
legal Amazon area. A technology for this system was sold to Brasilian government
only under the condition, that all data collected by this system will be accessible to U.S.
government (Amayo in: Prevost & Campos 2007:107).
Enrique Amayo added that United States take advantage of this technological
superiority in order to impose their national interests on weaker sates. The question
remains, how many states in the area are not weaker than the USA
In addition, on June 1, 2002, Bush administration released document23 that directly
contradicts Article 51 of the UN Charter (below) about using force only as a form of
self-defense. This new doctrine permits to use the force in case when such act can
prevent hostile act against the United States of America.

Article 51
Nothing in the present Charter shall impair the inherent right of individual or collective self-defence if an armed
attack occurs against a Member of the United Nations, until the Security Council has taken measures necessary to
maintain international peace and security. Measures taken by Members in the exercise of this right of self-defence
shall be immediately reported to the Security Council and shall not in any way affect the authority and responsibility
of the Security Council under the present Charter to take at any time such action as it deems necessary in order to
maintain or restore international peace and security24

forestall or prevent such hostile acts by our adversaries, the United States will, if
necessary, act preemptively.25

In this spirit, but under the Clintons administration, national interests were codified in
so called U.S. Department of State Strategic Plan 200026, published in 1999 where
among national interest described as international affairs goals were to prevent
instabilities from threatening U.S. vital national interests27 on the field of democracy

23

http://www.whitehouse.gov/nsc/nss/2002/nss5.html Document of National Security Council

http://www.un.org/aboutun/charter/chapter7.htm United Nations, Charter of the United Nations
25
http://www.whitehouse.gov/nsc/nss/2002/nss5.html Document of National Security Council
26
http://www.state.gov/www/global/general_foreign_policy/9903_iasp_1.pdf International affairs strategic plan 1999
27
http://www.state.gov/www/global/general_foreign_policy/9903_iasp_1.pdf International affairs strategic plan 1999
p.10
24

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and human rights to Open political systems and societies to democratic practices, the
rule of law, good governance, and respect for human rights.28
While the first mentioned goal obviously violates international law, the latter was
certainly violated in April 2002.
In 2002, the Bush administration gave his support to a conservative coup that briefly
toppled the Venezuelan President Hugo Chvez, and ever since his survival the United
States has stepped up his rhetoric against Chvez, declaring him to be undermining the
Venezuelan democracy in spite of his repeated victories in elections, which were
declared to be fully legitimate by international observers (Prevost in: Prevost &
Campos 2007:3).

28

Ibid.

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3. Coup in Venezuela 2002

History is philosophy expressed through examples.
Deborah Larson (Larson 1985:127)

3.1 Official U.S. position to its role in the Coup

After several speculations in the media on U.S. ties to the putschists, the chairman of
the Western Hemisphere subcommittee of the Foreign Relations Committee and a
Senator Christopher Dodd requested a review of the U.S. officials involvement in the
affair, voicing the concern that the Bush administration appeared to condone removing
President Chvez's removal by force.
An official statement from the office of Inspector General29 was issued in July 2002
as an unclassified report. The report answers five basic questions stated by the Senator
Dodd. I consider this document so important to my thesis that the full text of the output
of this document will follow:
Question 1. What actions did Embassy in Caracas and the Department of State take in response to the events
of April 12-14? Here, I request a detailed chronology of the course of events and the response by Embassy and
department officials, including contacts between Embassy and Department officials and the interim
government and its supporters.

Answer:
Throughout the course of the weekend of April 12-14, Embassy Caracas and the
Department worked to support democracy and constitutionality in Venezuela. Based on
credible reports that (a) pro-Chvez supporters had fired on a huge crowd of peaceful
Chvez opponents, killing some and wounding others; (b) the Chvez government had
attempted to keep the media from reporting on these developments; and, bowing to the
pressures, (c) Chvez had fired his vice president and cabinet and then resigned, the
Department criticized the Chvez government for using violent means to suppress

29

A Review of U.S. Policy Toward Venezuela November 2001 - April 2002

http://oig.state.gov/documents/organization/13682.pdf

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peaceful demonstrators and for interfering with the press. Both the Department and the
embassy worked behind the scenes to persuade
the interim government to hold early elections and to legitimize its provisional rule by
obtaining the sanction of the National Assembly and the Supreme Court. When,
contrary to U.S. advice, the interim government dissolved the assembly and the court
and took other undemocratic actions, the Department worked through the Organization
of American States (OAS) to condemn those steps and to restore democracy and
constitutionality in Venezuela.
Question 2. What was U.S. policy toward Venezuela during the six months proceeding the weekend in
question? By what means was this policy expressed by the embassy and the Department? Were the actions of
the U.S. government - both in the six months before the weekend and during that weekend - consistent with
U.S. policy in support of the Inter-American Democratic Charter?

Answer:
In brief, the policy of the United States toward Venezuela during the operative period
was support for democracy and constitutionality. The Department and the embassy
urged the Chvez government to conduct itself in a democratic and constitutional
fashion, and the Department and the embassy urged opponents of the Chvez
government to act within the limits of the constitution of Venezuela. This policy was
expressed orally in numerous meetings and occasional speeches and press statements
throughout the period. The policy was fully consistent with the Inter-American
Democratic Charter (IADC) (see Attachment 2), the OAS agreement designed to
promote democracy and constitutionality in the Americas.
Question 3. Did embassy or Department officials meet with opponents of the Chvez government in the six
months preceding the weekend in question? If so, with whom, with what frequency, and at what level? Were
any such meetings consistent with normal embassy or Department practice?

Answer:
Embassy and Department officials frequently met with individuals and groups opposed
to President Chvez during the operative period. These meetings took place at all levels
of the Department and the embassy. Such meetings are consistent with normal embassy
and department practice throughout the world.
Question 4. Did opponents of the Chvez government, if any, who met with embassy or Department officials
request or seek the support of the U.S. government for actions aimed at removing or undermining that

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government? If so, what was the response of embassy or Department officials to such requests? How were any
such responses conveyed, orally or in writing?

Answer:
Taking the question to be whether, in any such meetings, Chvez opponents sought help
from the embassy or the Department for removing or undermining the Chvez
government through undemocratic or unconstitutional means, the answer is no. Chvez
opponents would instead inform their U.S. interlocutors of their (or, more frequently,
others) aims, intentions, and/or plans. United States officials consistently responded to
such declarations with statements opposing any effort to remove or undermine the
Chvez government through undemocratic and unconstitutional means. These responses
were conveyed orally.
5. Were U.S. assistance programs in Venezuela during the six months prior to the weekend of April 12-14 either through normal assistance channels or through programs funded by the National Endowment for
Democracy carried out in a manner consistent with U.S. law and policy?

Answer:
OIG found nothing to indicate that U.S. assistance programs in Venezuela, including
those funded by the National Endowment for Democracy (NED), were inconsistent with
U.S. law or policy. While it is clear that NED, Department of Defense (DOD), and other
U.S. assistance programs provided training, institution building, and other support to
individuals and organizations understood to be actively involved in the brief ouster of
the Chvez government, we found no evidence that this support directly contributed, or
was intended to contribute, to that event.

3.2 Analysis
During the coup days in Venezuela, United States were fully occupied with fighting
the War on Terror after 9/11. This became the priority perceived by the wider public as
a necessity. Under these circumstances the national interest priority was to fight
terrorism and seemingly unimportant country as Venezuela was not a direct threat to the
U.S. security but as we will see, a terrorist treat was not completely isolated issue from
the April events in this Latin American country.

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Now, I shall test my hypothesis regarding national interest construction against this
case and analyze how the individual constituents that create national interests fit in the
analysis.
For almost forty years was Venezuela a close ally to the United States of America.
Ever since 1958 when the Pacto de Punto Fijo was signed a minimalist democracy or
in fact a polyarchy favored by the U.S. establishment was considered a transition do
democracy. This form of a weak democracy was preferred to more radical,
participatory, egalitarian regimes (Ellner&Hellinger 2003:29).
According to Sartori (Sartori 1976 in: Ellner&Hellinger 2003:8-9) two dominant
parties with close ideologies with very few differences have a proclivity to achieve
political stability. Sartori identified these aspects that distinguished Venezuela from the
rest of the Southern America:
- A two-party system with minimum ideological differentiation, where
- Political leaders committed to democracy who avoided ultranationalistic rhetoric.
- Venezuelas friendly relations with the United States further confirmed the democratic
orientation of AD and COPEIADs standard-bearer, Rmulo Betancourt, played a
leading role in the hemispheric offensive against Cubas Fidel Castro in the 1960s.
- A mature political leadership that, learning from past experiences, discarded sectarian
attitudes and formed inter-party agreements.
- Major parties of multi-class composition with a predominantly middle-class
leadership.
- An emphasis on party discipline within AD and COPEI.
- A political system sufficiently open to provide attractive opportunity for junior
coalition partners and other small parties.
- Parties that were highly institutionalized rather than vehicles for ambitious leaders.

Much of the countrys wealth came from the oil revenues. In spite of a quite high
proportion of the income from the oil on GDP the distribution and actual gains from this
commodity was problematic. Oil shocks in 1973 intensified the debate on oil industry in
the country and Venezuela urged for the nationalization. Most of the Oil leases were to
expire in 1983 but due to oil prices and production regulation by the OPEC Venezuela
needed to speed up the process (Ellner&Hellinger 2003:30).

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The nationalization of the oil industry became reality already in 1976. Even though,
the practical impact of this ownership-change on the majority of the population was
marginal.
The situation among masses became serious for the first time on February 27 1989
when private drivers in Caracazo had to face 30% increase of oil-price and decided to
double ticket prices and cancelled student discounts. Civil riots were held until the
March 5 all over the country. To tame the situation, military involvement was necessary
and this also showed how fragile the situation in the country is. The final death toll
estimated by the medical personnel went up to 1500 deaths (official count 287 deaths
(Ellner&Hellinger 2003:31).
This should have been a warning signal to the government about the populations
need for urgent changes. The last rebellion of this extent occurred in this Latin
American country after the death of the unelected military strongman Juan Vincente
Gmez in 1935.
From this moment, the popular protests against the neo-liberal approach to the
economy and politics in the Latin America became increasingly flagrant and gained on
intensity as well as on the frequency.30 This situation can be perceived also as a strong
backlash to neo-liberalism of the west represented and imposed by the IMF and the WB.
These movements are also an indicator of local populations disapproval with
traditional politics and an authoritarian political culture to new forms of popular
democratic participation (Vanden in: Prevost & Campos 2007:186).
Even though Latin America as a whole has rich natural resources of all kinds, it is an
undeniable fact, that the abundant natural resources do not guarantee a positive and
progressive economic and political development. There are many cases especially in
Africa but also in Latin America showing, that these are quite often an inhibitor for the
development due to conflicts their exploitation convoys. This was the case (and to a
certain extent still is) in the pre-1998 elections in Venezuela.
For decades Venezuela was perceived by Americans as their stable ally, with similar
cultural background and orientation towards the democracy in accordance with U.S.
national interest goals. Caracazo incident was probably the breaking point where the
30

the Zapatista rebellion in Mexico from 1994 on, the neopopulist Movimiento V Repblica led by Hugo Chvez in
Venezuela, beginning in the 1990s, the national indigenous movement led by the Confederacin de Nacionalidades
Indignas del Ecuador (CONAIE) in Ecuador, and the growth of its related party , Pachakutik , the Movement of
Landless Rural Laborers (MST) in Brazil, the Asambelas de Barrios, the Piqueterosfor more detailed information
see (Vanden in: Prevost & Campos 2007:186)

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wider masses openly started protest against the system and waiting for anti-systemic
opportunity to come.
This did not take long to happen. Hugo Chvez took advantage of falling oil prices
right before the elections 1998 and came up with his vision of socialism and full control
over the petroleum industry in this oil-rich country. This suddenly came into contrast
with U.S. democratic, secure property driven image of an ally always loyal and willing
to cooperate. He won the elections in the Venezuela in 1998 thanks to his ability to
construct a concept of participatory democracy combined with the oil nationalism and
economic development, lead by the leader coming from the masses. His undeniable
charisma enabled him to mobilize majority of the population, and not only the poor.
For his rhetoric, Chvez hasnt acquired the support only from the poor masses, but
also from the sectors of the business community. Insurance companies, public interest
firms, developers and fugitive bankers all these provided Chvez with an extensive
support (Ellner & Hellinger 2003:47).
However, price for this support remains unclear.
Although, U.S. media present Chvez as undemocratic leftist populist, in terms of
proportion of society he represents, he is no doubt a legitimate leader. The new
President tried to widen his legitimacy and strengthen reformed system via
Constitutional Assembly. Assembly opened its workings in August 1999 in attempt to
compose optimal constitution that would represent the will of the majority of the
population. Finally, the constitution was approved with majority of 88 percent in the
referendum that was held in December 1999. Even though, only 38 percent of voters
eligible to vote turned out (Boudin 2006:37-38).
Despite the strong opposition backed by the private media, Chvez was re-elected
with even higher popular support in the general election 2000. His socially oriented
domestic policy for which he had sufficient resources from the increasing Venezuelan
oil revenues secured him a massive support mainly from the poor. Chvez set up
various programs incorporating military personnel into civil sector such as Plan Bolivar
2000 where soldiers were selling goods under the price on the local markets to keep
prices down. As another example serves the program where the air-force was doing
low-cost rural air transport and the navy was aiding fishing industry through the plan
Pescar 2000. Masses oriented activities made Chvez the ultimate Venezuelan ruler
with a massive public support.

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On the other hand, Chvez integrated the military into civil sector as much as he
could and made sure that even here he has enough loyal people to help him to stay in
power.31
Chvez, aware of the U.S. possible involvement 2 years prior to the Coup right after
the catastrophic floods32 refused U.S. military engineer units to enter the Country which
wanted to help to repair Countrys destroyed infrastructure. Chvez also opposed U.S.
attempts to interfere in Columbian internal affairs in an attempt to eradicate drugsproducing cartels that are also an opposing to the local government.
This is another feature of Venezuelan regime incongruous with the standard working
of the democracy. If the military is involved in a daily routine, for the most Americans it
just does not appear to be normal or natural. Not allowing rescue teams on ones state
territory was certainly remembered by the U.S. policymakers from the Cold War era
when Soviets persistently ignored such attempts.
Empowering the poor in the country was not met with understanding in all stratas of
the Venezuelan society. Chvez antagonized a substantial part of the middle class and
large landowners, displaced private shareholders from the oil-industry and other
nationalized enterprises. Negative backlash to his policies was a rear for an attempt to
re-install old order at least on domestic level.

Most of the criticism from the part of the United States towards Venezuela is
connected to violations of the human rights. According to reports by the Human Rights
Watch33 there were several violations of these. Particularly extrajudicial executions and
prison tortures were taking place in Venezuela.
On the other hand, when taken into account the situation in Latin America in general
and U.S. support to authoritarian regimes in this geographic area, the protection of
human rights per se would not be a reason for the support of the putschists. The other
freedom that is certainly a part of the U.S. identity is economic freedom and secure
property rights contrasting with nationalizing steps undertaken by President Chvez.
Nonetheless, this argument looses its strength when we take into account that every
independent and sovereign country should have right to use its own natural resources as

31

Trinkunas, Harold; The Crisis in Venezuelan Civil-Military Relations: From Punto Fijo to the Fifth Republic, Latin
American Research Review 2002 p.69
32
http://archives.cnn.com/2000/WORLD/americas/01/13/venezuela.us/
33
http://www.hrw.org/backgrounder/americas/venezuela_un.htm

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land and oil. This leads us again to the question of energy security of the United States
of America.
To understand U.S. actions from the perspective of the security imaginary that is
indivisible part of national interest producing process, we must take into account that
the steps taken against Venezuela were mostly indirect. Leftist government in
Venezuela with anti-American rhetoric could be barely tolerated. But why then actions
undertaken by the U.S. officials were only indirect?
The pretense for the coup and accelerator of the events was President Chvezs
attempt to remove executive directors of PDVSA from the office. PDVSA is the
Venezuelan state-owned petroleum company whose directorate possessed special
powers and rights and Chvez didnt have much leverage to control it. This attempt to
finish the struggle between the government and the company over the oil-price control
was a culmination point from which the masses of the polarized society started to act.
CTV and business circles opposed to Chvez in a business confederation
(Fedecmaras) called for the active protests and a general strike. CTV broadcasted
advertisements for the protests in ten-minute intervals and the whole crowd assembled
in front of PDVSA. Within hours, up to a million protesters mostly from the middle
class together with the protesting workers of PDVSA were already marching down the
streets towards the Miraflores the presidential palace, demanding Chvezs
resignation.
The second crowd of chavistas - supporters of the President Chvez vast majority of
whose came from the poor barrios, was already formed to meet the opposition and the
gunfire was exchanged among the demonstrators. Military officers attempted to resolve
the situation and used guns34 to support the putschists and in the same time arrested
Chvez. Even though, there is no evidence that he either signed his resignation or
announced it himself, this was announced in the media repeatedly. In the meantime,
these events were reported to the poor barrios via non-television media because of
temporary media blackout.
Later on, the streets were flooded by the massive countless crowd of chavistas and
surrounded Miraflores demanding release of the President and his return to the office.
Despite the U.S. support of the coup there was no recognition of the interim president
Pedro Carmona (up till now the president of Venezuelan Federation of the Chamber of

34

death toll varies between 100 200 deaths on both sides

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Commerce - Fedecmaras) on the side of the Latin American leaders, which was quite
crucial at that time.
After the (especially) lower-ranking officers realized what was happening and after
they recognized unconstitutionality of the situation as a whole, Chvez was released and
within 48 hours from the beginning of the coup he returned victoriously to his office
accompanied by the chanting of the flooded streets (Ellner & Hellinger 2003:24, 50-51).
In sum, on this day April 11 2002, Venezuelan President Hugo Chvez was removed
from his office and ideologically speaking, popularly elected leftist-oriented president
was replaced by the representative of the rightist businessman via military power. This
lead to the upheaval of the pro-Chvez fraction in the streets of Caracas, while quite
large part of military refused to support Carmona. Moreover, the Presidential Guard
loyal to the President de facto peacefully re-took Miraflores presidential palace which
lead to the immediate fall of Carmona and renewal of previous status quo for the cost of
200 lives.35
Chvez, to a certain extent played va-bank even though according to accessible
evidence, he carefully prepared counter-action in advance. He relied on the massive
public support and loyal personnel in the military circles he had. Chvez certainly had
enough information about the coup. The day before the coup in reference to the
Caracazo of 1989 he said: Once before, the poor came down from the hills, now they
will come down again, and because they come to dream, to pray, this will not be
stopped.36 He certainly knew what is at stake and that every such victory only
strengthens his position in the country and allows him to make more radical reforms. In
terms of legitimacy, as mentioned before he is a legitimate leader of the majority of the
country regardless of which stratas favor him the most.
United States understood that their security situation and position in the Latin
America is being altered by Hugo Chvez. This hailed them into position when they
couldnt wait inactively without any attempt to influence the situation. In the same time,
U.S. intervention in the region in accordance with the heritage of Monroe Doctrine
wouldnt by unprecedented. However, U.S. indirect involvement in Venezuelan case
damaged already unpleasant U.S. image in the Latin America and discredited its role on
the grounds of OAS.

35
36

http://www.asambleanacional.gov.ve/ns2/noticia.asp?numn=1837
http://www.narconews.com/venezuelacoup1.html

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We shall infer that what was not publicly spoken by the U.S. officials during the coup
events was U.S. energy dependency (not full) on Venezuelan oil. The United States
realized that Venezuela was the country with the biggest reserves of extra heavy oil
(bellow the Orinoco river basin) in the world. Heavy crude oil reserves in total are
bigger than those of Saudi Arabia. Needless to add that in 2001, Venezuela exported
half of its production to the United States. This constitutes some 15 % of U.S.
consumption.
Prior to the coup in February 2002, President Chvez appointed a board of directors
at the state-controlled oil monopoly PDVSA, what lead to suspicions that he was trying
to exercise direct control over the countrys oil industry.37 What after all, turned to be
the case.
Chvez had also elicited America's wrath by slashing Venezuelan oil output and
helped to rebuild OPEC what caused doubling oil prices to over $20 a barrel. His
opponents had made it clear that they would not abide by OPEC production limits and
would reverse his plan to double the royalties charged to foreign oil companies in
Venezuela, principally the US petroleum giant Exxon-Mobil. The US government felt
immediate pressure due to calls for an oil embargo, made public by Iraq and Libya on
April 8 and 9.38
This was the reason the U.S. needed to secure their source of oil in case things would
worsen in the Middle East. The Carmonas rightist government was supposed to back
U.S. involvement in Iraq and Iran as it did during the first oil shock in 1973.
It is necessary to add, that by invading Iraq, George W Bush had boosted oil prices
and effectively transferred billions of dollars from American consumers to the
Venezuelan government what paradoxically supported Hugo Chvez and his pro-poor
social program.39
How the situation in Venezuela influenced international scene and vice versa? Hugo
Chvez Fras bases the selection of his allies on their anti-American attitude regardless
of their geographical location. Chvez wants to show the world that he is not scared of
the United States and can perform independent foreign policy, even though there is
often no other rational basis for such a partnership. Therefore, United States facing such

37

http://www.sourcewatch.org/index.php?title=Venezuela
http://www.guardian.co.uk/venezuela/story/0,,858072,00.html
39
http://news.bbc.co.uk/2/hi/americas/4871938.stm
38

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animosity from this once traditional ally in this part of the world still being considered
under it dominant influence and full control, had to act.
For decades, United States wanted to establish order in the both Americas that would
guarantee their dominance. This intention was codified in document called Caracas
Resolution of 1954 the March 28 where in its declaration is stated that the domination
or control of the political institutions of any American State by the international
communist movement extending to this Hemisphere the political system of an extra
continental power, would constitute a threat to the sovereignty and political
independence of the American States, endangering the peace of America, and would
call for a meeting of consultation to consider the adoption of appropriate action In
accordance with existing treaties. 40
By the expression extra continental it is stressed that nobody is allowed to interfere
within the the American Family. Moreover, even change from inside is allowed only
with U.S. permission.
U.S. activities on the background of the coup revealed that policymakers understood
the need for undertaking actions preferably in indirect way rather than in a direct one.
This implies that they were aware of the fact, that direct U.S. military presence would
damage U.S. relations with all other OAS member states that are a part of American
Family.
Several factors had indicated that coup was going to happen sooner or later.41 Hugo
Chvez together with his supporters closely related to Fidel Castro must have had
known what was about to happen (Nam 2003:95). According to the investigative
journalist Greg Palast, Ali Rodriguez the General Secretary of OPEC, Venezuelan and a
former leftwing guerrilla warrior, telephoned President Chvez from the Vienna
headquarters of the Organization of Petroleum Exporting Countries several days before
the attempted overthrow in April about the prepared coup. Because of the invasion to
Iraq the OPEC chief warned Chvez that the U.S. would support the coup to break any
embargo threat prepared by some Arab countries. It was likely to act on April 11, the
day a general strike was due to start. It was Venezuela which shattered the oil embargo
of 1973 by replacing Arab oil with its own huge reserves. 42 But still, the United States
are traditional leader in the Western Hemisphere and therefore it cannot afford here (in

40

http://www.yale.edu/lawweb/avalon/intdip/interam/intam10.htm
http://www.narconews.com/alphandary2.html Narconews.com
42
http://www.guardian.co.uk/world/2002/may/13/oil.venezuela The Guardian
41

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moral and credibility terms) direct military intervention. This pretext of the coup days
clearly indicates that the change in Venezuela induced certain pressure on the national
interest making factors and therefore the national interest required certain course of
action in the foreign policy toward this country.
It is important to realize that in December 2002, the Central Intelligence Agency
released documents43 on which the New York Times reported immediately. This is
evidence, that the U.S. bureaucracy had advance knowledge about the coup. These
documents are evidence that the U.S. policy-makers knew in detail what was about to
happen these plans included arresting the President, and that to provoke military
action, the plotters might try to exploit unrest stemming from opposition
demonstrations.44 From this perspective, blaming Chvez for the sharp rhetoric towards
the United States in not in place.
In the official position to the coup events that investigated U.S. activities prior to the
coup, the U.S. administration poured over 3 million dollars into various Venezuelan
opposition organizations and individuals sheltered by U.S. Department of Defense
(DOD). Moreover, it provided training and infrastructure for these. NED National
Endowment for Democracy founded by the U.S. Congress was another supporter to the
opposition groups.45
John Gilman, the director of Wisconsin Committee for Peace and Justice in his article
writes that the U.S. undertook military measures already prior to the coup. Among
others, from Eastern Colombia, the CIA and the U.S. government contracted military
personnel used for counter-narcotics operations and stood by to provide logistic support
for the leading members of the coup. Additionally, U.S. Navy vessels in a training
exercise in Puerto Rico Operating Area stood by in case that the coup against Chvez
leads to military evacuation of the U.S. citizens. Some of the vessels were to provide
additional signals of intelligence support to U.S. special operatives and intelligence
personnel deployed on the ground in close cooperation with the Venezuelan army and
along the Colombian side of the border. 46
After all mentioned above, we can summarize U.S. activities in the following:
- U.S. administration was informed about the upcoming coup

43

http://venezuelafoia.info/cia.html Venezuelafoia.info
http://www.venezuelanalysis.com/articles.php?artno=1333 Venezuelanalysis.com
45
http://oig.state.gov/documents/organization/13682.pdf p.23-32
46
http://www.pww.org/article/view/1408/1/91/ with reference to report of former National Security Officers - James
Madsen and Richard M. Bennet
44

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- U.S. Foreign Service did not inform Chvez about upcoming coup
- U.S. actively supported opposition leaders
- U.S. military was involved in backing operations
- U.S. knew that the coup was illegitimate and recommended its legitimization
throughout early elections
- Private U.S. entities had interests in not loosing their money.
The U.S. role towards the Venezuelan coup 2002 was more or less ambiguous.
Indecisiveness of the administration and oral acceptation of Carmonas short victory
just stressed limitations of the U.S. capability to intervene in the region. In fact, the U.S.
had very few clear options and its partisan policy towards this Latin American country
did not help either.
If we take into account what was happening in the world in the first half of the year in
2002, it is quite clear that U.S. foreign policy and administration was too occupied with
the war on terror, namely U.S. engagement in Afghanistan after the 9/11 attacks and
dealing with possible threat caused by Saddam Hussein and his assumed weapons of
mass destruction.
Summing up the options given by the national interest to the foreign policy makers,
it seems that after a democracy spreading option is exhausted and neither human rights
nor terrorist threat is available to face, the United States are limited to silent partisan,
isolation-creating opposition, supported by the chequebook policy. All in accordance
with domestically legitimized national interests. Moreover, U.S. national interest
construed and influences by the factors and variables discussed earlier seem to be quite
flexible except for it limiting function.
The need for raw materials is being increasingly important component of security
imaginary of this country and increasingly interferes with other values embodied in the
U.S. common identity. Policies connected to the need for oil are then limited by the
constraints set by the particular aspects of the U.S. identity such as credibility and
belonging to the American family. This means that in our case U.S. identity worked
not as an incentive but rather as a brake for crafting more aggressive policies towards
the Venezuela.
In addition, circumstances played also its role in crafting U.S. foreign policy. While
in Chile some 30 years ago a flagrant support to the opposition was possible and to a
certain extent easily legitimized at home as a anti-communist initiative, in Venezuela
this wasnt the case. Ever present media in globalized world limit also covert operations
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when the country leaders are involved. More aggressive course of action from the part
of the United States would cause irreparable damage to its credibility and to its
democratic leadership position.
All in all, United States had motives to wish for a political change in Venezuela and
act to change the situation in 2002. Regardless of amount of hard evidence, the USA
had more than handful reasons to at least try to influence the change.
In Kissingers words, legitimate order prevailed while revolutionary one did not
succeed. Even though, Chvez himself calls himself a revolutionary, but that is a
different story.
After analyzing all relevant fact it is certain, that Chvez expected it and also knew
that United States will play its role there. Therefore, to hear his proclamations and antiAmerican speeches that in this case functions as some form of assurance of the status
quo and signal that no change under any circumstances is possible. Even United States
almost sure about the success of the coup couldnt have foreseen the actual outcome of
the failed coup.
Events of the April 2002 reminded of removal of elected President Allende in Chile
in 1973. Therefore, the comparison, the similarities and differences of that event in
connection to national interest execution will be discussed to the extent necessary later
in this work.

3.3 The Role of Individuals and the Coup

Regardless of role the common identity, cultural predispositions, process of
articulation and interpellation plays in the formation of the national interest, human
individuals play always a significant role on the output of the foreign policy decisions.
To understand how these people act and why, we would have to dig much deeper in
the field of psychology. Although, I will try to stay close to the surface and just sketch
the main variables and perspectives in connection to the foreign policy analysis and
psychological approach to it.

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Human beings are motivated by complex belief systems, requiring analyst to

empathize with these beliefs before human actions can be comprehended and
interpreted47 (Hall 1999:26).
To puzzle it out, we need to penetrate the schema of the mental system of the
decision making individual. The Schema theory introduced to international relations
theory by Deborah Welch Larson says that schema is a generic concept stored in
memory, referring to objects, situations, events, or people. It is a collection of
knowledge related to a concept, to a dictionary definition; schema describes what is
usually the case, not necessarily true (Larson 1985:50-51).
As we can see, in the whole concept of national interest creation truth is irrelevant to
it as long the reality of whatever it is, is widely accepted among the population.
Schema of ones mind consists of memories based on experiences that we collect and
as Larson pointed out hobbies and personal interests influence judgments and actions on
the political level (Larson 1985:289).
These mental preferences stored in memory are quite often altered by mental
illnesses such as narcissism and paranoia. Then, thirst for power, inability to learn and
immunity to criticism are connected to paranoid imaginations. In the case of Stalin or
Saddam Hussein were national interests defined by what was good for them.
So when the role of individual leader does matter? Valerie Hudson identifies these
parameters:
- Whether or not the leader is interested in foreign policy.
- Regime type plays here a significant role
- Seriousness of the situation / how critical the situation is, the more it is the more
leaders are involves
- When advisors have contradictory opinions
- The degree to which a leader has had diplomatic training.
- Style of leadership
- Leaders expertise in a particular issue (usually leaves imprint on the policy)
- The role he plays in a particular group -> devils advocate, mediator, ice breaker etc.
(Hudson 2007:38-9)

47

More in: Nicholas Onuf, World of our making. USC Press 1989

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What then influences the leaders from the inside? As mentioned above it is a memory
and their fixation and emotions. Memory can be divided into shot-term and long-term
memory.
Short-term memory has a limited capacity, usually defined at approximately five to
seven items (Hudson 2007:42).
Depending on their importance, after some time most of is to be forgotten but some
not. It depends on how our brain sees remembering the things that are important to our
survival in the future.48
Long-term memory is used if the events, especially traumatizing and painful are
important enough to be stored here.
Since the emotions and their associations with the events, simply speaking, are more
or less responsible for memory-importance division, we should not overlook their
importance in decision making process. To support this, I will quote McDermott who
claims that individuals who cannot reference emotional memory because of brain
lesions are unable to make rational decisions at all (McDermott 2004:153 in Hudson
2007:45).
Then, no matter how rational we are, we cannot underestimate importance of
emotions because rational49 means the best way possible in accordance to our
interpretation of the world. Then, emotions help us recognize importance of the events.
Another proof of the importance of emotions in the decision making process is the
emergence of the supranational actor European Union. Without extensive suffering
resulting from the disastrous and bloody World Wars would such a diverse community
of nations never agree to aggregate and work together for peace and prosperous future.
Development, regardless if institutional or historical development is path and crisis
dependent. The deeper and more acute the crisis is, the more radical changes are
possible. Fear, insecurity and anxiety are rich sources of inspiration and motivation for
cooperation.
Moreover, as the historical memory disappears, it is increasingly difficult to make the
substantial changes within the European Union. Among member countries it often
seems to be only about gains and looses and who pays what to whom.

48

More in: Eichenbaum 2002

For being rational, zero hypothesis would be - action taken is best and the most advantageous for the decision
making individual under actual circumstances with available knowledge.
49

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People who see in the EU only financial market should answer: How much costs
peace or human life?
Nonetheless, emotions in this respect can be abused as well. Especially when the
first-hand concrete material such as 9/11 attacks or other military activities is available.
For the people, these are much easier to embrace than any theoretical constructs.
Politicians can take advantage of it easier because emotion is one of the most effective
ways by which humans can change goal emphasis(Hudson 2007:45).
This happened when the terrorist attack and events of 9/11 were used as overtone for
the invasion to Iraq. Moreover, while the campaign on Afghanistan is perfectly
understandable, even though Europe has there more soldiers than attacked United
States, invasion to Iraq is hard to justify rationally.
In addition, as long as individuals see themselves as having an allegiance and
commitment to the group, collective memories will be available as a resource for
mobilizing collective action even if they are not believed, in a phenomenological sense,
by individuals, and in this way they can help to explain patterns in aggregate behavior
(Wendt 1999:163).
Another theory mentioned in the literature is so called Cognitive dissonance theory.
Its underlying assumption is that peoples beliefs are highly interconnected and
mutually coherent. Relation between coherence and dissonance is important because
distortion of coherence makes humans to try to restore this coherence (Larson 1985:29).
In connection to that, when people violate their preexisting beliefs, they may change
their attitudes to rationalize their actions (Larson 1985:31).
Reason why we need to take into account individual leaders as relevant to national
interest creation is that they presuppose the mandate they posses as if they themselves
were a single state. This doesnt apply only to the dictators or authoritarians (Baldwin
1986:23).
Jutta Weldes claims that national interest is best to be understood as a social
construction. The process of interpretation presupposes language shared by at least
those that determine state actions. Moreover, the national interest is constructed, is
created as a meaningful object, out of shared meanings through which the international
system and the place of the state in it, is understood (Weldes 1999a:4).
Therefore, it is important to realize, who was responsible for the policy-making in the
U.S. in order to find a culprit of the final output. Since we are limited by the extent of

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this research, for the analysis we will examine just three individuals that significantly
influenced state actions prior to the coup and during it.
The first person who certainly influenced the U.S. attitude towards the coup events
was rightist Cuban-American Otto Reich. Reich has been made ambassador to
Venezuela in 1986. The Democrats and Latin American leaders objected to this
appointment. The objections over passed as Venezuela sought access to the U.S. oil
market. Prior to the coup, Reich was receiving guests from Venezuela who participated
in the coup in the White House. This key policy-maker for all Latin American Countries
discussed in detail the coup with Chvezs opponents. Discussions included information
about its timing and Reich assessed, that chances of success of the operation were
excellent. The Observer goes on further: On the day Carmona claimed power, Reich
summoned ambassadors from Latin America and the Caribbean to his office. He said
the removal of Chvez was not a rupture of democratic rule, as he had resigned and
was 'responsible for his fate'. He said the U.S. would support the Carmona
government.50
The second and also a crucial person in the U.S. administration was interim Assistant
Secretary of State for the Western Hemisphere in the Bush administration
neoconservative lawyer Elliot Abrams. Among other positions he was a senior director
of the National Security council for democracy, human rights and international
operations. Abrams was a Reagan-era Assistant Secretary of State, one of the main
protagonists and theoreticians of the school of Hemispherism.
Hemispherism in foreign policy towards Latin America prioritizes combating
Marxism to everything else. In other words, it is a concept whose main idea is
intolerance of the United States toward the leftist government in Latin America, if the
yare capable to install right wing (often authoritarian) supported by military officers
trained in U.S. military institutions. The outcome of this schools ideology was a
Chilean coup in 1973 as a result of which general Pinochet stayed in power for decades.
Foreign policy in this spirit influenced history in Argentina, El Salvador, Honduras,
Guatemala, Nicaragua etc.
During operations of Contras in Nicaragua, Abrams was a direct subordinate officer
to Colonel Oliver North, notorious for Iran-Contra arms transactions. Congressional
investigations found that Abrams had harvested illegal funding for the rebellion.

50

http://observer.guardian.co.uk/international/story/0,6903,688071,00.html#article_continue

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Convicted for withholding information from the inquiry, he was pardoned by George
Bush senior.51
The third person involved in the policy-crafting for Venezuela was Reagan-era
ambassador to Honduras John Dimitri Negroponte. During his presence in this Central
American country, military aid here grew from 4 to 77.4 million USD a year. The
reason for increased U.S. presence was the aim to establish a base for counterSandinista regime in Nicaragua that had very close ties to the Soviet Union and Castros
Cuba.52 In the months prior to coup in Venezuela, Negroponte was an ambassador to the
United Nations. A diplomatic source (according to The Observer) said Negroponte had
been 'informed that there might be some movement in Venezuela on Chvez at the
beginning of the year.
It is obvious, that all three of these men shared the same attitude towards leftist
governments. Thus national interests was understood by them as a need of America to
keep all countries on the continent capitalist-oriented with close ties to the U.S.
Moreover, experiences they inherited from the cold war certainly influenced their belief
system.
Ergo, when the utmost priority in the foreign policy consists of having U.S. friendly
regimes installed in as many countries as possible, policy-makers are likely to craft such
policies as they already have had experiences with and of which were empirically
tested. Therefore, since they had experiences with influencing state of affairs in the
Latin American countries through military circles and other partisan activities, its quite
likely that they had chosen to support anti-Chvez opposition on every level possible. In
addition, policymakers themselves are members of one identity we could call common
American identity. Any threat to this identity no matter if in the level of security or
ideology is perceived as something negative. And therefore while working on the
executive end of the national interest the certainly at least made an influence attempt to
seize the situation.

51
52

http://observer.guardian.co.uk/international/story/0,6903,688071,00.html#article_continue
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/John_Negroponte

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4. Chile 1970s compared

I dont see why we need to stand by and watch a country go communist due to the
irresponsibility of its own people.
- Kissinger 27/6/1970 (Johansen 1980:260)

The attempt to remove Chvez undeniably evoked direct comparisons to the fall of
the president Salvador Allende of Chile in 1973, in which the United States played an
important role.
Although the United States officially denied involvement in the coup attempt,
suspicions were overrunning. Stratfor, the world leading private intelligence service,
claimed that Washington had two parallel operations (mentioned also in the Description
of the Coup 2002) in support of the coup (La Jornada, April 16, 2002). The significant
differences however, existed in the military circles. The Venezuelan military itself was
divided three ways:
- a hardened anti-Chvez faction,
- a pro-Chvez faction, and
- an institutionalist faction committed to defending the new constitution but not
committed to the president himself.
The Chilean military had only institutional, and as opposed to Venezuela, there was
no significant pro-Allende sector within the Chilean armed forces.
Military point of view offers also another comparison to Venezuelan case. Chilean army
was assured by the U.S. military establishment that in case it needed it, would receive a
full material and financial assistance.
Needless to say, that Chilean army was equipped and to a large extent dependent on
U.S. imports of military material, moreover, many officers were trained and
indoctrinated in the United States and the most importantly Chilean officers doubtless
felt more comfortable collaborating with longtime friends in the U.S. military than with
a Chilean Marxist president, even if democratically elected (Johansen 1980:211).
On the other hand, army circles were not willing to move unilaterally to prevent
Allende since it would be a clear violation of the Chilean constitution (Johansen
1980:207).

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However, the coup 2002 polarized the whole country as well as in the Chilean one in
the early 1970s, giving to poorer stratas of the country many expectations about how
the democracy would work if the wealth distribution coming from oil revenues were
distributed more equally (Ellner & Hellinger 2003:51).
While hostility of the U.S. government to the Allende is proven thanks to
declassification of the relevant documents by the Clinton administration,53 the extent of
the U.S. role in the coup itself as well as in Venezuelan case remains a controversial
matter. CIA planned the overthrow of Allende in already in 1970, immediately after he
took office,54 but claims of their direct involvement in the actual coup are neither
proven nor contradicted - many potentially relevant documents still remain classified.
There is no doubt that the U.S. did intervene in its foreign policy initiatives surrounding
Chile, working to deepen the economic crisis faced by Salvador Allende in order to
create the prerequisites for the eventual coup.55
United States secret diplomacy in Venezuela has its precedent in Chile when
Department of State told the American people that the United States had firmly
rejected any attempt to block Allendes inauguration. One way or another, already
$350.000 had been secretly authorized for an unsuccessful effort to bribe members of
the Chilean Congress to prevent Allendes inauguration (Johansen 1980:202).
In addition, the money was not used in the end since there was a risk of backfire but
was authorized by U.S. officials.56
Chilean situation also received publicity in the U.S. newspapers and Henry Kissinger
on September 16 expressed his attitude very clearly in a background briefing to a group
of newspapers in Chicago where he claimed that Allendes presidency would cause
substantial problems for the United States as well as for the Latin American countries
bordering on Chile. I have yet met somebody who firmly believes that if Allende wins
there is likely to be another free election in Chile So I dont think we should delude
ourselves that an Allendes takeover in Chile would not present massive problems for
us, and for democratic forces and for pro-U.S. forces in Latin America, and indeed to
the whole Western hemisphere (Johansen 1980:208). In other words, Kissinger said that

53

http://www.gwu.edu/~nsarchiv/NSAEBB/NSAEBB8/ch20-01.htm Set of declassified document made public in

1998
54
Codename: project FUBELT
55
http://www.fas.org/irp/ops/policy/church-chile.htm Federation of American Scientists website
56
New York Times Sept 8, 1974:13, 24, US Congress, Senate, CIA Foreign and Domestic Activities

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no matter what the result of democratic election is, there will be another one soon
enough to replace him.
Nixon contacted the head of CIA to instruct him that the CIA have to play a direct
role in organizing coup dtat in order to overthrow unacceptable regime. U.S. also
threatened to use economic sanctions and withdraw military support if Chilean officers
refuse to act before October 24 Congressional vote. CIA also undeniably participated on
kidnapping General Schneider during which he was mortally wounded. According to
Chileans, evidence clearly shows that acts performed there: clearly signaled disrespect
for human rights and involved significant probability of his death (Johansen 1980:209210).
CIA, under the Nixon, intervened on unprecedented level when opposition groups
were supported financially to purchase radio stations and newspapers. In Venezuela
such an obvious activities 30 years later were not possible and in Venezuelan case were
had privately owned media already anti-Chvez for obvious reasons showed in the
Figure 2.1 (Ernest & Hellinger 2003:38) where it is flagrant diminution of the layer of
higher and upper middle class and increase in the class of poor.
To undermine the legitimate Chilean regime and destroy weak stability of the
country, United States passed money to private sector groups which supported various
strikes during the Allende administration. Moreover, taking into account Chilean
peculiar geographic character and transportation network, trucking was absolutely
necessary to maintain an adequate supply of food and other materials for a healthy
economy. After the transportation collapsed unrest in the society was inevitable.
Economic sanctions applied two weeks after Allende took the office with one objective
- to wreck Chilean economy and permanently discredit Allendes socialism with its
centrally planned economy. The plan worked well after all. The United States secured
their influence on the Chilean economy long time before Allende came into power.
Chilean administrations made large-scale purchases from the USA and in the moment
when the Allende came to power what caused that Chile at the time of coup events had
the highest per capita debt in the world (Johansen 1980:213, 216-217).
The reality presented at home differed from proclaimed US foreign policy agenda
quite substantially. Richard Nixon, the U.S. least popular president in the history57
57

http://www.rasmussenreports.com/public_content/politics/people2/washington_lincoln_most_popular_presidents_ni
xon_bush_least_popular Rasmussen Reports Site. According to official polls Nixon is still perceived as the worst
president closely followed by the present president George W Bush. Accidentally, both names are connected to Latin
American coups 1973 and 2002.

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assured American people that United States was willing to live happily with a
community of diversity among Latin American governments. Our relations depend on
their internal structures or social systems but on actions which affect us in the interAmerican system. We therefore deal with governments as they are right and left we
respect the hemispheric principle of non-intervention (Johansen 1980:232).
For our comparison its important to stress that Chvez as well as Allende was elected
through the fair regular democratic elections. In both cases it was unacceptable for the
United States to allow strongly pro-leftist government in the western hemisphere. Such
a government in already quite tense Cold War atmosphere was just unacceptable.
Moreover, Alllendes socialism accepting human rights was more dangerous in
ideological terms than Cuban socialism. Thats why the limitations of the national
interests executions were not functioning on the level of non-intervention and human
rights.
As Paul Sigmund a U.S. critic of the Allende government admitted that until the junta
took power away from Allende in September 1973, Chile had a more open political
structure than our own (Sigmund 1975 in: Johansen 1980:240).
United States in pursuing their national interests preferred to support Chilean
dictatorship while enriching a small Chilean group of collaborators with U.S. economic
interests together with opening markets to cater to middle-class consumers of U.S.
exports, to improve poverty stricken masses of the lower classes.
Such an unscrupulous attitude became even more flagrant after United Nations urged
Pinochets Chile to restore human rights and free the political prisoners. These pressures
came to vein after the United States abstained in Security Council vote. As mentioned
before, even when the brutality of Pinochet regime was convincingly documented and
known to U.S. decision-makers, still even this alternative to Marxist regime was
acceptable. In words of director of the State Department Bureau of Intelligence: Chilean
people were better off under the military government then when governed by Allende
(Johansen 1980:240-241).
Summing up the Chilean coup, Weldes problem of US credibility was evident. This
intervention contributed to a United States image throughout the world of an unfair,
dishonest, manipulative, ruthless giant resisting the rights of the weak and poor pursuing
its own interests whatever and whoever it costs which doesnt serve U.S. security at all.
Secret activities damaged US position in the world as a leader and protector of human
rights. On the other hand, proved that Western hemisphere is of such a high value to the
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United States that almost anything else is subordinated. Those days limitations were
almost non-existent. Anti-communism and the ideology were probably the strongest
interest generator and policy defender in the same time.
In Kissingers words I dont see why we need to stand by and watch a Country go
communist due to the irresponsibility of its own people (Kissinger 27/6/1970 in:
Johansen 1980:260). This also violates any principles of self-determination.
In conclusion, as we could see, the behind the stage operations of the U.S. officials
were very similar to the ones in Venezuela. The difference in them was caused by the
very different character of the world in 2002 that it was in 1973. US-Soviet spheres of
influence were strictly divided and the USA as a leader of the free world could easily
justify such intervention at home. Inactivity would actually undermine its role as a
leader. However other variables as human rights or the fact that Allende came into
power via democratic elections were ignored due to importance of the situation.

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5.

Defining

Duan Nociar

or

Defending

the

National

Interest;

Trubowitz vs. Krasner: Formation from the Inside or

Vice Versa?
I decided to add this comparison to highlight the difference between my concept of
national interest formation and approach of these two authors to it.
Both authors in their books deal with the same issue: The national interest and the
foreign policy of the United States of America. Trubowitz writes about the process how
the national interest is defined, Krasner writes about defending it behind the borders.
However books are written 20 years from each other, their basic claims and assumptions
are not contradictive; moreover I would consider both works quite complementary.
I would start with the newer book that is compared to the older one less complex
and more in-depth oriented. This Trubowitzs book Defining the National Interest
analyzes domestic political fights over Americas national interest. Here author
develops an analytic framework that reveals how patterns of regional competition and
uneven growth have shaped American foreign policy overtime. In the end he concludes
that the regional winners of each period imposed their vision of the national interest on
the whole country. As we can see it is an attempt to link geography and politics. Such
approach is newly discovered by the international relation theorists after being
discredited by the World War II and its low attractiveness during the bipolar division of
the world.
For Trubowitz, the most important source of conflict and tension over foreign policy
isnt anything else but regional diversity (Trubowitz 1998:4). This is the central claim of
his hypothesis that he tries to advocate throughout the book.
Another flagrant difference from Krasner in his approach is moving the scale of the
analysis to the sub-national level, by which he explains the patterns of
conflict/consensus over the national interest and its influence on American foreign
policy (Trubowitz 1998:11).
Trubowitz stands realism on its head. He views the politics inside America as realists
view politics among nations: as a fight for power, wealth, and hegemony. Thus its
close to constructivism since this perspective turns its attention to domestic scene. More
specifically, to sub-national level (Trubowitz 1998:29).

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Conflicts over the foreign policy are to be seen in the context of larger domestic
struggles for regional economic advantage and political power (Trubowitz 1998:6).
In connection to this building consensus at home is at times much harder than
winning support abroad.
Both Trubowitz and Krasner offer quite identical perspective on the relation between
interests (national and corporate) abroad and possibility of putting them through the
congress.
For comparison: In each period, leaders experience great difficulty in building a
domestic political consensus over the national interestthe biggest obstacles to change
lie in the domestic political arena (Trubowitz 1998:2).
Private pressure on public decision-makers has two major obstacles a policy
preference and a policy implementation.
There are many points of access to the decision-making process. Political leaders
must struggle to maintain control when they comfort opposition from large private
corporations lest public purposes be overwhelmed by private ones, or public
instruments of power be used to promote corporate but not national interests
(Krasner 1978:18).
Then, the answer to the question: Why it is difficult to promote national interest in
the U.S. by top decision makers? would be that it is caused by the nature of the
political system.
While the Krasners approach to the national interest formation could be seen as a
dynamic struggle between various interest groups within the country, Trubowitz
identifies it more on the geographical-level basis. Geographical interests divide the
nation among sectional lines what is then studied on the House of Representatives
(Trubowitz 1998:23).
America is then divided into industrial North-east, the West and agricultural South.
There are many examples in the book supporting his claims among others Figure 2.4
(Krasner 1978:61) shows how geographical factor is a determining factor in polarization
in certain questions. Annexation of Hawaiian Island (production of agricultural
products) was strongly opposed by the mostly agricultural states of the south
(Trubowitz 1998:61).
Example closer to the European perception of the U.S. foreign policy is Trubowitzs
claim that in period during the World War II the idea of internationalism of the

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Northeast won because of necessity to expand markets and business circles needed
stability to securely promote trade (Trubowitz 1998:164-165).
It wasnt always a fight of one geographic area against other but sometimes areas
created alliances what reminds some kind of bargaining games. When there was a
Congressional fight over the expansionism and foreign policy towards Latin America,
the West joined the Northeast, after a more-markets-for-your-surplus offer (Trubowitz
1998:91).
Different dimension discussed by both authors is governmental promotion of the
private interests abroad. As Trubowitz says: The more business Americans did abroad
and the more dependent they became on foreign markets, the more they looked to the
government at home for help in promoting their interests. Investors sought greater
protection from unscrupulous foreign leaders as well as from the danger of civil unrest
especially in the underdeveloped countries in Latin America and Asia (Trubowitz
1998:33).
This tendency was visible already in the nineteenth century for instance the
Harrison administration that retaliated by re-imposing duties on exporters who
refused to cooperate with the United States: Venezuela, Colombia and Haiti. This
specific example dates back to late 1880s and the beginning of 1890s (Trubowitz
1998:80).
On the other hand, Krasners argumentation is in accordance with this to the extent
when state and private firms dealing with foreign raw materials investments are at stake.
The important revelation is that state actor promotes its private security of supply only if
the general foreign policy aims are at stake (Krasner 1978:96). This would be also
applicable on our Venezuelan case. On the other hand, if the state interests were of a
higher priority and energy security was at stake, the government acted only indirectly in
order not to interfere with its higher priorities.
Before focusing more closely on the Krasners book, I want to conclude that
Trubowitzs work is certainly a unique and interesting approach to the national interest
formation. In times of high speed communication, outsourcing and literally virtually
based businesses and global markets (although far from being liberal, free and open)
Trubowitzs analyst framework does not apply in the 21st century especially in America.
Its more than obvious that the United States in terms of peoples involvement in
industry, business and tertiary sector became quite unitary especially taken in the

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account that tertiary sector or services in general are reaching 80%.58 Its hard to divide
it into 3 or more unitary, homogenous and coherent parts. Nevertheless, as an approach
for the national interest analysis of earlier historical periods it is an enriching reading.
Krasners book Defending the National Interest written after the first oil-shock and
before the second one, demonstrates the power of a statist approach to foreign policy. In
this work author treats the state as an autonomous actor. State behavior can be then
viewed as the actions of individuals occupying certain positions in the central
government but the interest themselves are formed by the society and countless actors in
it (Krasner 1978:33).
Krasner uses the statist image of state and makes a critical assumption that state is a
set of roles and institutions having peculiar drives, compulsions, and aims (goals) of
their own, and that this complex is separate and distinct from the interests of any
particular societal roup.
All these goals in sum are associated with goals related to beliefs about how societies
should be ordered. All these goals can be labeled as national interest (Krasner 1978:10).
Krasner argumentation concludes that the national interest is a set of transitively
ordered state preferences concerned to promote the general well-being of the society
that persists over a long period of time (Krasner 1978:45).
This is also perceived as a weakness of the American state. Because of the legislation
and the nature of the decision making process, the preferences of central decisionmakers related to the enduring general goals can be quite often frustrated.
For the international system, Krasner uses the universal assumption that it is an
anarchy that places restraints on the freedom of any state given (Krasner 1978:17).
In the foreign policy formed by the national interest, Krasner puts more stress on the
material goals abroad as opposed to purely ideological ones. This comfortable division
is the only one he uses in connection to foreign policy.
Raw materials in the close neighborhood especially in the south always attracted
U.S. investors. Direct foreign raw materials investments by private or state actors ones
in Latin America have attracted American government officials for its political and
economic connotation. When U.S. firm has developed foreign sources, they have signed
formal concession agreements with host-country governments which was clearly an
international contract involving inter-state interaction. As Krasner ads, international

58

https://www.cia.gov/library/publications/the-world-factbook/geos/us.html - CIA world fact book

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resource exploitation has, moreover, sometimes involved the United States in conflicts
with other industrial countries (Krasner 1978:9).
Societal actors and governmental institutions involved in the raw-material
exploitation often included transactions important for its either geo-strategic or
ideological character. In such cases, disputes were resolved mostly in the White House
and the State Department. Krasner believes that these mentioned instances are relatively
insulated from corporate power (Krasner 1978:10, 18).
With the private interests abroad, as mentioned earlier in this comparison, comes to
the question their protection by the government in the case of nationalization, which is
often the case in the third-world countries (not only).
Although U.S. legal doctrine toward nationalization abroad has always been ambiguous
in the respect that officially sovereign countries have the right to nationalize, U.S.
insisted on possibility to intervene if private corporations eschewed appeal by assenting
to the Calvo doctrine, and it has never made clear what would constitute prompt and
adequate compensation (Krasner 1978:149).59
The example of the situation in Iran 1951-55 sustains Krasners claim that U.S.
government acts promptly on the behalf of private corporations when it also in line with
ideological goals.
Only when nationalization was associated with regimes perceived as being
communist were American decision-makers willing to use covert force and proxy
intervention.
Examples as Guatemala in 1954, Cuba and the Dominican Republic in the early
1960s, and in Chile in the early 1970s are often cited to demonstrate that American
policy was dictated by economic interests. However, when examined in the context of
the whole range of American responses to foreign takeovers, as well as military
interventions in areas where American economic stakes were very low (Korea, the
59

The Calvo Doctrine is a foreign policy doctrine which holds that jurisdiction in international investment disputes
lies with the country in which the investment is located. The Calvo Doctrine thus proposed to prohibit diplomatic (or
armed) intervention before local resources were exhausted. An investor, under this doctrine, has no recourse but to
use the local courts, rather than those of their home country. The principle, named after Carlos Calvo, an Argentine
jurist, has been applied throughout Latin America and other areas of the world. The doctrine arose from Calvos's
ideas, expressed in his Derecho internacional terico y prctico de Europa y Amrica (Paris, 1868; greatly expanded
in subsequent editions, which were published in French). Calvo justified his doctrine as necessary to prevent the
abuse of the jurisdiction of weak nations by more powerful nations. It has since been incorporated as a part of several
Latin American constitutions, as well as many other treaties, statutes, and contracts. The doctrine is used chiefly in
concession contracts, the clause attempting to give local courts final jurisdiction and to obviate any appeal to
diplomatic intervention. The Drago Doctrine is a narrower application of Calvo's wider principle.
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Calvo_Doctrine or http://law.jrank.org/pages/4974/Calvo-Doctrine.html

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Congo, Lebanon, and Vietnam), Guatemala, Cuba, the Dominican republic, and Chile)
suggest that deeply held beliefs reflecting Americas Lockean traditions were the
fundamental determinants of American policy (Krasner 1978:221).
A type of policy used abroad to promote a national interest is the best indication of
what is most valued by policy-makers. Costs to the domestic polity are more substantial
than the burdens resulting from economic coercion or diplomacy. Krasner put stress on
importance of cases where power was used and describes cases where the force was
successfully avoided.
In connection to this, I assume that it is important to examine the space in-between.
Specifically, what was the limitation causing not-using the force? How the limits were
pushed in the other case? How about the domestic justification?
Above mentioned finding and questions are also relevant to our Venezuelan case for
its parallel to Chvezs successful attempt to nationalize oil industry PDVSA where the
private U.S. corporations had its shares. After all, U.S. government could have justified
it as a fight against socialism however, it did not.
Since the overt and covert force is extremely costly policy instruments decisionmakers are unlikely to use them unless they perceive vital national interests to be
threatened. Finding the thread, the common element that is shared by all of the cases of
American covert and overt intervention, can suggest the underlying motivations of
American policy makers (Krasner 1978:275-276).
Discussion in the end of Krasners book turns into discussion over the influence on
national interest abroad between private sectors and State representatives. Author
concludes that this influence can easily move from the state to the private sector. When
the state is dealing with large oligopolistic corporations, the private sector might be
quite flexible.
What is relevant to our Venezuelan case is his mentioning the situation that existed
between the United States and Venezuela in 1940s. During this time, the United States
were able to influence situation there without the use of force and protected firms
interests, which were congruent with increasing security of supply. Negotiations
between U.S. private corporation and Venezuela resulted in the passage of a new
petroleum law on March 13, 1943, which ultimately raised royalties and taxes to levels
that approximated a fifty-fifty division of net earnings. The companies in turn got some
old concession confirmed and renewed for forty years (Krasner 1978:208-209).

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6. National Interest and its Limitations

What limits the national interest of the country that represents half of the world
military expenditures and which investment in technology is incomparable to anyone,
the country that cannot be opposed by any reasonable coalition of powers to
counterbalance it?
From what was mentioned in the previous chapters I do claim that the only limitation
restraining national interest to be executed in any form comes from the exactly same
process and includes the same variables as what it creates it.
It is natural to think that if we do not continue to gain against the others, and still
have the capacity to be superior, at least we will try to sustain what we already posses.
Therefore, it is in U.S. national interest to preserve their leadership and dominance in
Latin America.
National interest articulated from the sum of common values trough the process of
interpellation via identity that functions as a bridge to it is limited by values it contains
and therefore does not behave as unguided missile. When the democracy and its
advocacy in the world are at stake, United States as a leader of the democratic world is
expected to act. The same variable restraints it to act openly against the democratic
regimes anywhere and then its activities are limited only to covert operations as we
could witness on the Venezuelan case. Also the human rights and its advocacy in the
world could function as a stimulator for the activity as was to be witnessed in Beograd
but wasnt quite the same in Venezuela since there was no clear evidence for these an in
comparison with other Latin American countries these are not as flagrant.
Identity of the United States as a member of the American family gives it also from
the historical perspective certain authorization to interfere in relations in the Western
Hemisphere and in the same time restrains it if the credibility is at stake. This is directly
connected to the forming element of the international commitments and U.S.
membership in the international organizations such as OAS and UN. These
commitments, as we had opportunity to notice are important indicator of how just or
unjust international policy performs behind the borders. Even though sometimes
violated, Charter of United Nations and Charter of Organization of American Sates still
play an important role that constraints the U.S. foreign policy.

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On the other hand, memberships in both organizations have a different impact on the
policy crafting; applicability of economic statecraft is limited by international
conventions and customary law. For instance, membership of the U.S. in the OAS limits
its use of economic statecraft in Latin America more than its membership in the UN
(Baldwin 1986:342).
United States are certainly capable militarily dominate the whole continent, but even
if capable of a total dominance there are still important terms as legitimacy, democracy
and above mentioned commitments that I claim to be limitation-generators for the
national interest and foreign policy respectively. However, perhaps not publicly, official
presentation of actions can be to a certain extent manipulated and changed.
I do realize that in this work I havent discussed other less or equally important
variables such as international justice, structure of U.S. administration or standard
operating procedures (SOPs), this was due to the extent of this work and my intention to
just sketch the process and illustrate it on one particular case.
Principle of international justice is inseparable from an international order. In an
unjust world, the principle of justice requires change; in a dangerous world the principle
of order constraints both the rate of change and the choice of instruments for promoting
change (Baldwin 1986:368).
But what if the world order and instruments to control it is managed by the same
culprit that causes this injustice? The World Bank, International Monetary Fund, NATO
and U.S. dollar as a main currency of the world trade certainly are the instruments of
such control.
On the behalf of democracy is needless to add that the United States as a democratic
leader cannot afford to openly invade the country ruled by democratically elected
leaders. As a result, this would undermine its credibility abroad as well as at home. I
claim this with the understanding that circumstances are of a crucial importance as
documented by the example of Chile. Here the democratic process lead to empowering
capricious Marxist leader incongruous with the U.S. hegemonic ambitions and its firm
anti-communist position.
Legitimacy is also an inseparable variable for the U.S. identity. If proposed steps are
in accordance with U.S. common identity it helps to legitimize U.S. policy decisions
and helps to ensure their reception as common sense (Weldes 1999a:199).
Legitimacy as a part of a wider democratic concept, on both sides is a constraintcreating variable. If order is democratic or legitimate, U.S. administration will certainly
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have severe difficulties to persuade public about the necessity to invade it, otherwise the
distinction between expansionism and imperialism on the side of the United States will
be very thin. As Franz Schurman put it: Imperialism is a manifestation of ideology, a
vision of how the world should be ordered on a global basis. It has a total world-wide
quality, whereas expansionism is incremental and concerned with material interests
(Schurman in: Krasner 1978:334).
Then, according to present U.S. involvement and character of the U.S. foreign policy
Uniterd States of America comply with characteristic of imperial power.

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Conclusion
As mentioned at the beginning this work, basic aim of this work was to demonstrate
power of constructivist approach to national interest. This approach treats state as an
autonomous actor pursuing goals associated with power and general interests of society.
I tried to show here that national interest is not given or forced but constructed and pathdependent.
After research conduced on this topic prior to writing this thesis I identified several
factors and sets of variables that as I assumed to be directly connected to national
interest construction.
Four of them match the concept employed by Jutta Weldes. These are:
-

The process of articulation and interpellation-

Democracy and the USA as the world leader with a constant need for strength

Human rights with human rights connected to permanent credibility problem

Security imaginary.

The first of them significantly influences common identity. Moreover, this

communication phenomena joins all the other components together and upon it is
dependent the final outcome of the whole process - in our case the U.S. national interest.
While the importance of articulation of danger, threat or any important issue in the
public is quite obvious, often neglected interpellation is boosting aggregation of
meanings produced by the articulation and creates a more solid picture of the national
interest that can be used by policymakers consequently.
As we have seen on our analyzed case, democracy and other adjoined values the
United States advocates and believes that are the ones worth pursuing and spreading
around the world, are a part of the U.S. common identity that I discuss as a separate
variable. Ergo, after testing my framework, this variable could be reclassified into a
wider concept of general advocated values.
The third Weldes variable also belongs to the general advocated values concept,
and as discovered, it plays a crucial role of action limiting generator. As we have seen in
Venezuela, once the human rights or another common identity value advocacy couldnt
play a key role or couldnt function as a base for overt intervention, a foreign policy in
national interest was limited to some behind the stage machinations.

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Security imaginary as a fourth variable that constructs the national interest played a
crucial role in the national interest construction since it served as an incentive for the
action. Activated mainly through interpellation and fuelled by the circumstances
(prepared oil embargo by some Arab countries), it hailed the U.S. policymakers into
position from which they had to act. Moreover, energy security as a part of security
imaginary was not only the incentive but also another important limit generator that
perhaps together with persistent credibility problem hampered U.S. policymakers from
using the military force.
Another variable I used in building my analytical framework proved to be the most
complex, explanatory and the trickiest one to grasp. I tried to develop the common
identity concept in bottom-up direction. Weldes sees common identity as a product of
relevant variables that influence national interest and its outcome. I see it more in
accordance with David Campbells concept based on otherness. In addition, when
employing Wendts quantum social theory when theorizing common identity per se, this
seem to be only another, however a very powerful variable worth of further and perhaps
also quantitative and interdisciplinary research. As visible on Venezuelan case, common
identity variable pointing U.S. attention to being a part of the American Family
functioned as overt action inhibitor.
The second to last part of the mosaic used in my analytical framework and applied
onto the Venezuelan case is culture. To some, just a synonym to the common identity,
culture is a set of various practices, repeated actions, traditions, etc. Even though the
borders between the two are indistinct, I consider culture as a part of our identity.
Following this variable prior the coup days I came into conclusion that cultural
predispositions we posses to a large extent determine our actions and therefore, to
understand them is vital in order to comprehensively seize the national interest
construction.
The ultimate factor I find quite decisive, especially on the far end of the national
interest forming process, is the role of international community. In the anarchic
international system, national interest functions as a rhetorical device that generates
legitimacy of and political support for state action. In return, the international system
influences the national interest formation. How does this apply to our case study? In one
hand, the United States wanted to advocate their power, influence and economic interest
in Venezuela what evoked some influence attempt as David A. Baldwin would call it;
on the other hand, the form of this attempt was influenced by the circumstances and
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international commitments, especially those related to the UN and OAS. In other words,
while national interest requires some sort of action on the international level,
international system itself affects the actual form of it.
In the chapter on U.S. Foreign Policy & Doctrines with even more specific focus on
Latin America, I managed to create some general picture of U.S. actions in the past era
in order to understand eventual deviations in our particular case used for the analysis.
Briefly discussed U.S. activities in Chile in early 1970s for comparison, only stressed
the importance of overall circumstances in the international environment that in this
case had justified character for almost any kind of action since the hierarchy of interest
decided so. Hierarchy of interests is another area that would need more research to be
conducted.
Adding up the comparison of Krasners and Trubowitzs concept of national interest
construction, as assumed at the beginning, contributed to delimitating my own approach
that is diametrically different from theirs. While Krasner believes that national interest
can be perceived as an output of struggle between private and state interests based on
their correspondence or dissonance, Trubowitz sees it as the output of sub-national strife
along geopolitical sectional lines. Moreover, while their approaches can be to a certain
extent complementary, the one I test on the Venezuelan case is more complex and
abstains from any oversimplification.
All in all, national interest is an output of a very complex process of interaction
between its various constitutive components. It is irreducible to parts and the sum of
separate components does not equate to the sum of all parts interconnected. Common
identity based on the otherness consists of countless individual identities that use
common language, symbols, exchange emotions and share rather than compatible
beliefs. This shared identity then works as a national/common interest generator, but
also as a limit generator in order to prevent identity destruction or deformation.
Connecting to that, national interest has a direct influence on foreign policy crafting
although this is influenced by personal characteristics and preferences of individuals
working directly with it.
Constraints drawn by the democratic character and identity of the United States in our
case limited foreign policy only to indirect involvement, support of opposition and
extra-territorial or trans-border cooperation. The national interest that lies in securing
sufficient oil for the U.S. consumers was not too difficult to justify as a common sense,
especially with the war on terror on the background under threatening oil-embargo from
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some Middle Eastern oil producers. The U.S. attempt to influence the situation was
therefore quite understandable.
On the other hand, the democratic identity puts the United States into position, where
they cannot do much about democratically elected and leftist oriented President Chvez.
The majority of the population of this oil producing country afforded Chvez
opportunity to score high in this power game together with the leader of the isolated
Cuba what gives it also an ideological dimension.
Testing my hypothesis regarding national interest phenomenon leads me into
conclusion that seven various set of variables that lead into national interest construction
could be simplified into:
-

Security imaginary

General advocated values

Common identity

Role of international system

All of them are formed, adjusted and joined via process of articulation and
interpellation. Testing of hypothesis also brought up new challenges and questions that
would deserve to be answered. Especially interdisciplinary character of national interest
creation on the subjacent level where individuals interact with each other would need a
further quantitative interdisciplinary research employing researchers from the field of
international relations, sociology, psychology, biochemistry and physics. Questions like
What is the role of language on the creation of common identity? or Is it possible to
transform it intentionally?, How long would this transformation take?, Is the
existence of the common higher consciousness just a myth or is it an underestimated
reality? stimulate my interest even more now. Answers to these questions might bring
us to a higher stage of understanding of international system and dynamics of changes
within it, or might just approve some already known theories and perspectives.

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Rsum v slovenine
Hlavnou tmou mojej prce je nrodn zujem. Primrnym cieom tejto prce je
demontrova silu kontruktivistickho prstupu k tvorbe a definovaniu nrodnho
zujmu. Tento prstup povauje tt za autonmneho aktra vytyujceho si ciele
spojen s mocou a veobecnmi zujmami spolonosti. V prci poukazujem na to, e
tieto nies dan alebo vnten, ale skontuovan a existuj v nveznosti na historick
vvoj. Po vytvoren teoretickho rmca obsahujceho 7 faktorov i sboov
premennch, ktorch vznam a relevantnos v prvej asti prce skmam a objasujem
sa tento teoretick rmec pokam testova na prpade angaovanosti Spojench ttov
Americkch na pui vo Venezuele v roku 2002.
Pre presnejie pochopenie nho prpadu sa v separtnej kapitole venujem americkou
zahraninou politikou na veobecnej rovni ale pozornos venujem aj americkej
zahraninej politike v Latinskej Amerike.
Pre porovnanie prpadnch podobnost i odlinost americkch nrodnch zujmov
sli kapitola, ktor strune analyzuje americk angaovanos na pui v ile na
poiatku sedemdesiatych rokov minulho storoia, kde bol vstup nrodnch zujmov
silne ovplyvnen prebiehajcim bipolrnym konfliktom a preto sa tu vha pouitch
premennch ukzala by znane odlin.
Na zvraznenie odlinosti mjho prstupu k tvorbe nrodnch zujmov som v prci
pouil komparciu krasnerovho a trubowitzovho prstupu ich tvorbe. Na rozdiel od
komplexnosti kontruktivistickho prstupu, Krasner vid ich zklad v prekrvan sa
privtnych a ttnych zujmamov. Trubowitz naopak tvrd, e nrodn zujem je
vsledkom vntrottneho sboja zujmovch skupn pozd oblastnch lni o dva
jeho prstupu vrazn geopolitick charakter.
Po dkladnej aplikci kontruktivistickho analytickho rmca na pu vo Venezuele,
bolo mon identifikova limitujci efekt premennch, ktor vytvraj nrodn zujem
per se.
Pouit premenn s proces artikulcie a interpelcie, demokracia, udsk prva,
sloboda, kultra, spolon identita a security imaginary, dveryhodnos a medzinrodn
spoloenstvo, pouitie ktorch som prevzal z rznych konceptov pouitch Juttou
Weldes, Valery Hudson, Davidom A. Campbellom a inmi. Ich aplikciou som doiel
k zveru, e ich poet by bolo mon zredukova zavedenm kategrie veobecn

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obhajovan hodnoty tesne naviazan na spolon identitu veda ktorch by ostalo len
security imaginary a funkcia medzinrodnho spoloenstva. Je nutn doda, e
kontituenty nrodnho zujmu s tesne prepojen cez proces artikulcie a interpelcie
a ich suma je vyia ako set jednotlivch ast.
Zverom by sa dalo poveda, e zatia o niektor premenn ako integrlne sasti
nrodnho zujmu za danch okolnost ved k nutnosti istej reakcie, in uruj jej
formu a rozsah tak ako to bolo mon sledova na prpade pokusu o ttny prevrat vo
Venezuele v roku 2002.

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CHARLES UNIVERSITY
FACULTY OF SOCIAL SCIENCES
INSTITUT OF POLITICAL STUDIES

PROJECT OF
MAGISTER THESIS

NATIONAL INTEREST;
USA and the Coup in Venezuela 2002

Author: Bc. Duan Nociar

Supervisor: doc. PhDr. Bla Plechanovov, CSc.
Prague 2007

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Introduction
Topic Specification
The main topic of my thesis is National interest. More specifically, I will try to
describe and analyze the way national interest is produced, which factors influence its
production and how it influences foreign policy decisions.
Understanding of the process how national interest is created will contribute to the
more accurate analysis of any real-case situation given. In order to do this, it will be
necessary to scrutinize terms like common identity, security imaginary, process of
articulation and interpellation and how these interfere with and relate to each other and
what influence do they have on foreign policy decisions. To have a complete image of
this, we will also need to analyze the role individuals have at the end of this process. In
other words, from the theoretical perspective, I shall examine how the communication
phenomena between people influence the decision-making process.
In my thesis, I decided to deal with Venezuelan Coup 2002, which will serve as a
ground for the illustration and testing of my hypothesis and theoretical framework.
More specifically, my intention is to give detailed insight into the situation in April
2002 in Venezuela and here the U.S. role and participation is to be revealed and U.S.
National interest deconstructed, defined and limits and possibilities for foreign policy
actions described.
Reasoning
My decision to elaborate on this topic originates in my interest in relations in-between
the state identity and its perception of the outside world and its influence on foreign
policy decisions. Scrutinizing ties between common identity and foreign policy-making
and understanding of these may in conclusion positively influence our ability to
accurately analyze and foresee Countrys foreign policy actions.
Tracking and analyzing actions undertaken by the USA in Venezuelas case is even
more interesting, since we have to deal with the clashes on several levels. On the
ideological level, it is democracy vs. socialism resp. bolvarism. On the geopolitical
level is Venezuela seen as a part of American family and therefore traditional
geographical sphere of the U.S. dominance. Nonetheless, energetic factor is also very
important especially in connection to international markets and the U.S. energetic
security. Thesis intentionally concentrates on bilateral relations between states, because
I want to stress that if state identities and interests are competitive, this will lead to
competition among them, and on the contrary, if identities and interests are cooperative
it will create cooperation.
I decided to write my thesis in English language, since my intention is to continue my
studies on the doctoral level.

Aims and Goals

My central aim in this work is to understand the very logic of national interests
construction. Another goal here is to analyze factors playing the central role in creation
of these and thereby to offer a complete insight (at least in this case) in the foreign
policy decision-making.

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Next aim in my work is to define limits of American foreign policy and to find actors
and elements which create these. Thesis will certainly invoke many questions connected
to this area or perhaps will be a new stimuli for the further research.
This work is inspired by the constructivist Jutta Weldess book Constructing National
Interests: The United States and the Cuban Missile Crisis where there is Cuban missile
crisis and U.S. national interests defined from constructivist perspective. Another source
of inspiration was Alexander Wendts - Social Theory of International Politics and his
role played also Stefano Guzzini and his introduction to constructivism during my
studies at the Uppsala University.
Expected Method of Elaboration
The process of elaboration of my thesis will require the combination of several
methods and these will depend on the desired output and type of information used and
analyzed. My work is intended to be more qualitative than quantitative. One of the
reasons for this is, (according to the research I did prior to writing this project) that there
is a scarce of quantitative data available; those accessible ones lack desired credibility.
Due to issues thesis deals with, analysis will require inter-disciplinary approach. I want
to ask more Why? than How? even though both are equally important if we want to
holistically understand our matter of interest.
From theoretical perspective in the area of international relations it will be an attempt to
impose and test constructivist theories on the real situation rather than to sum up and
use available data to support a new or well known theory. Similar cases will be
compared here to the extent which is limited by the immensity of this work (up to 100
pages). This limitation will probably influence the depth of my study.
Since this work is a case study, the first part will be descriptively analytical, where
the U.S. presence and its involvement in the Venezuelan coup 2002 will be introduced
and will explain all the dimensions this involvement includes.
Separate levels of analysis, which all together will create an analytical framework, are
to be used to deconstruct the U.S. national interest. This way we will be able to read
the situation in Venezuela 2002. Consecutively, on the basis of collected data I will try
to analyze collected data, whose function as parts of a puzzle of the mentioned case.
Common identity, security imaginary and other relevant factors will be examined at
large under the circumstances of our case and relevant theories of various authors will
be tested here.
Thesis as a whole will be directed to the understanding of the national interests
construction per se, and the case study will serve as an illustration of my theoretical
construction.
Working Hypothesis
Actions of the USA in the region and their role in the described events were a result of
circumstances and multiple inter-connections of factors and individuals and their
intersection at times, what resulted in steps and actions undertaken by the both sides.
Preliminary hypothesis: Analysis of the situation through my framework will accentuate
self-limiting function of national interests which causes reduced possibilities in crafting

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of U.S. foreign policy in terms of possible intervention in the region. Democratic

identity, public opinion, need for energetic resources and in our case membership in
the American family are the main limit-generators of the only world superpower.
In fact, we will see that there are only few possible choices when the USA is to execute
one-sided interests. Therefore, indirect involvement might become most useful
alternative of the U.S. foreign policy.
Synopsis
Introduction
Thesis will analyze construction of U.S national interests via testing common identity,
security imaginary, role of individuals and other relevant factors that played a crucial
role in the Venezuelan coup 2002.

Structure:
1) Descriptiveanalytical introduction of the events that took place in the April 2002,
this part will also include the official statements of the U.S. officials and will also
include all relevant facts and figures for better understanding of the situation.
2) On method, concept and testing framework
3) Factors relevant to National interest construction theoretically examined with regard
to circumstances in Venezuela and the self-regulation of national interest is analyzed.
A) Identity its role for understanding of the U.S. national interests (Weldes
compared)
B) Security imaginary
C) Role of individuals and Collective actors in decision-making process.
D) U.S. as a democratic leader
E) U.S. need for strength
F) U.S. credibility problem and the defense of freedom (of all kinds).
D) Process of articulation and interpellation
E) State and the international anarchy What the U.S. make of it?
F) Institutions, Media and Manipulation (Wendt)
4) Limitations of national interest
A) Zero hypothesis US the only superpower
B) Factors, causes, results
Conclusion
In conclusion, I shall sum up and re-evaluate my research and answer, whether my
hypothesis was confirmed or rebutted. Moreover, the overall conclusion will be derived
here. If appropriate, I will alter my hypothesis so it complies with the new findings. I
will formulate new questions which will occur during the research.
Literature (preliminary)
General sources
Lowenthal, Abraham F. - Armies and Politics in Latin America, Meier 1986

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OToole, Gavin. - Politics Latin America, Longman 2007

Hook, Steven W. - American Foreign Policy Since World War II, CQ Press 2006

Periodic literature
Political Science Quarterly
International Affairs
Non-periodic literature
Boudin, Chelsea - The Venezuelan Revolution: 100 Questions-100 Answers
Campbell, David - Writing Security: United States Foreign Policy and the Politics of
Identity
Guzzini, Stefano - Constructivism and International Relations: Alexander Wendt and
his critics
Hellinger, Daniel - Venezuelan Politics in the Chavez Era: Class, Polarization, and
Conflict
Krasner, Stephen D. - Defending the National Interest
McSweeney, Bill - Security, Identity and Interests: A Sociology of International
Relations (Cambridge Studies in International Relations)
Prevost, Gary - The Bush Doctrine and Latin America
Swedberg, Richard - Interest (Concepts in the Social Sciences) Trubowitz, Peter - Defining the National Interest: Conflict and Change in American
Foreign Policy (American Politics and Political Economy Series)
Weldes, Jutta - Cultures of Insecurity: States, Communities, and the Production of
Danger (Borderlines)
Wendt, Alexander - Social Theory of International Politics
Wight, Colin - Agents, Structures and International Relations: Politics as Ontology
(Cambridge Studies in International Relations)
Zehfuss, Maja - Constructivism in International Relations: The Politics of Reality
(Cambridge Studies in International Relations)
Sources
US Department of State

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http://oig.state.gov/documents/organization/13682.pdf
Human Rights Watch
http://www.hrw.org/backgrounder/americas/venezuela_un.htm
Eurolegal
http://www.eurolegal.org/U.S.eur/U.S.pubpol.htm
Observer Guardian
http://observer.guardian.co.uk/international/story/0,6903,688071,00.html#article_contin
ue
Wikipedia
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/John_Negroponte
Venezuela FOI
http://venezuelafoia.info/cia.html
VenezuelAnalysis.com
http://www.venezuelanalysis.com/articles.php?artno=1333
CNN
http://archives.cnn.com/2002/U.S./04/23/pentagon.venezuela/index.html

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References
Secondary Sources
ANDERSON, Bennedict. Imagined Communities: Reflections on the Origin and Spread
of Nationalism. New York: Verso 1991

ANDERSON, Kai; HURRELL, Andrew; Bull, Hedley. On International Society.

Palgrave 2000

BALDWIN, David A. Economic Statecraft. Princeton 1986

BOUDIN, Chesa; Gonzlez, Gabriel; Rumbos, Wilmer. The Venezuelan Revolution,

New York 2006

BULL, Headley. The Anarchical Society: A Study of Order in World Politics.

Macmillan 1977

BURCHILL, Scott. The National Interest in International relations Theory. New York:
Palgrave 2005

CAMPBELL, David. Writing Security. University of Minnesota Press 1998

CASTANEDA, Carlos. Journey to Ixtlan. Washington Square Press 1991

DRULK, Petr. National and European Identities in EU-Enlargement. Prague: Institute

of International Relations 2001

EICHENBAUM, Howard. The Cognitive Neuroscience of Memory: An Introduction.

Oxford University Press 2002

ELLNER, Steve; HELLINGER, Daniel. Venezuelan Politics in the Chvez Era: Class
Polarization & Conflict, London 2003

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FINNEMORE, Martha Anne. National Interest and International System. Cornell

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