From populism to legalized authoritarianism. Historical comparative analysis between Venezuela and Nicaragua

Venezuela and Nicaragua have very different socio-economic, political and institutional trajectories. However, in the contemporaneity they share the qualification of minimal democracies by different analysis. For this reason, we set out as a research objective to analyze the evolution of Venezuela and Nicaragua political systems from an historical compared perspective, emphasizing the chavismo and orteguismo configuration and government. The used research method is a Comparative Historical Analysis (CHA). The article states that although the features of the phenomena of populism and legalized authoritarianism temporarily overlap, it is observed that at the beginning of Chavez and Ortega presidential periods, populism stood out and then became more authoritarian