Realism vs. Idealism applied to the case of Venezuela
Description
Think of yourself as a blogger. For each discussion board response, you need to write a substantial response. Your response should include two paragraphs.
The first paragraph should indicate what you learned from the posted content, highlighting several ideas that you found interesting. Ask yourself in writing the first paragraph of each response:
What did I learn about the topic from the content – videos or articles? The more you demonstrate what your learned that you otherwise did not know about the topic, the better off you are. What ideas and/or information in the content did you learn and find interesting? In the second paragraph you should offer an educated opinion on the topic.
Realism vs. Idealism applied to the case of Venezuela. Read the following brief article and post a response.
Venzuela is an oil rich country. But despite being on of the wealthiest countries in the world by the mid-1990s, more than half the Venezuelan population was below the poverty line by 1998. In 1998, Hugo Chávez’s political coalition ran on a platform that promised to rid the country of corruption, help the poor, and reduce the power of elites. He pledged to write a new constitution and remake Venezuelan democracy.
In mid-1999 Chavez won a landslide victory as the Venezuelan people chose a Socialist path. In the 15 years that followed his election, Chavez’s government succeeded in lifting a large proportion of Venezuelans out of poverty through generous social program funded by the proceeds of oil production and sale on the international market.
Then Chavez died and Nicholas Maduro, himself a Socialist in President Chavez’s administration, ran for election. He was democratically elected, though the plunged into economic crisis, mainly because international oil prices, the main source of funding Socialist economic policies, plummeted. A socioeconomic, political and humanitarian crisis followed.
Venezuelans faced escalating hyperinflation, starvation, disease, crime and mortality rates, resulting in massive emigration from the country. According to economists interviewed by The New York Times, the situation is the worst economic crisis in Venezuela’s history and the worst facing a country that is not experiencing war since the mid-20th century, and is more severe than that of the United States during the Great Depression, of Brazil’s 1985–1994 economic crisis, or of Zimbabwe’s 2008–2009 hyperinflation crisis.
What should the United States do? Does the United States’s policy toward Venezuela be guided by Idealism, that is, to overthrow the regime and install a government that is more capitalistic and democratic? Or, should its policy be guided by Realism, that is, to accept that Venezuelans elected a Socialist president and as a sovereign nation, Venezuela has the right to determine its own destiny?
With live in an interdependent world in which global problems like global warming, security threats, infectious disease and so on no know boarders. In areas of the world like Yemen, Venezuela and Syria where there is conflict and mass suffering that is caused by different groups vying for political power, should American foreign policy be guided by idealism or realism or some combination of the two?
