About

VENEZUELA CONFLICT AND PEACEBUILDING RESEARCH NETWORK

The VCP Research Network is led by Yoletty Bracho (University of Avignon, France), Rebecca Hanson (University of Florida), David Smilde (Tulane University) and Verónica Zubillaga (REACIN – University of Illinois, Chicago). It brings together people working on conflict, violence, and peacebuilding in Venezuela during the period of Chavismo.

Our first CIPR supported project starting in 2015 focused on criminal violence in Venezuela and understanding its dramatic increase despite decreases in poverty and inequality— factors often used to explain violence. In our book The Paradox of Violence in Venezuela (Pittsburgh 2022) we developed a multidimensional explanation that sees violence as a complex outcome arising from intra-state struggles and fragmentation, concentrated disadvantage, as well as destabilized criminal markets and the multiplication of armed actors.

This book pushed us in several directions. In the process of writing and editing, the character of violence changed. Police violence increased dramatically after 2015 and became part of the political conflict, as well as a central issue in the International Criminal Court case against Venezuela. In 2021 (Notre Dame University) and 2022 (Caracas) we held two conferences on violence and transitional justice. In 2023 (Lyon, France) and 2024 (Bogotá, Colombia) we held conferences on violence and peacebuilding in Venezuela and Colombia. These experiences led to the book Busqueda de Justicia en Venezuela (Caracas: REACIN- Amnesty International-CIPR).

A second direction deriving from our project on violence was the concept of “revolutionary governance,” which we argued was key to explaining conflict; state transformation; policing and justice in Venezuela.  We are currently working on a project called “Revolutionary Governance and Contestation in Venezuela” that builds upon recent developments in scholarship on revolutions, and aims to provide a new, broader discussion for understanding the past quarter century of Chavismo in Venezuela. With support from CIPR and the Stone Center for Latin American Studies we organized a conference by that name at Tulane University in October 2025.

The VCP Research Network aims not just at producing research, but at public engagement in Venezuela and abroad. As we have developed our research projects, we have engaged in media work, diplomatic advocacy and community engagement to share our reflections beyond the academy and contribute to transforming the conflict in Venezuela. Our work has appeared in outlets such La Silla Vacia (Colombia), Le Grand Continent(France); El País (Spain); New York Times (US); Foreign Policy (US), The Conversation (US).

After the January 3 U.S. military operation in Venezuela, we set aside our other commitments to work on a report containing recommendations regarding what could lead Venezuela’s political transition to become a democratic transition. Our starting assumption is that a sustainable democratic transition requires more than just economic stability and elections. It will require mutually reinforcing advances in multiple fields of governance all at the same time, or at least in rapid succession. We have a team of twenty-one scholars writing this report with the goal of broadening the field of players involved in Venezuela’s transition. In addition to the Trump administration and the Delcy Rodriguez government, a democratic transition will require robust involvement of the Venezuelan opposition movement, as well as the diplomatic involvement of multilateral institutions, regional governments and nations of the European Union. We will be presenting a working draft of the report at the Latin American Studies Association congress in Paris on May 28 and meeting with European diplomats while there.