Atlas / Comparisons / Chavismo vs Putinism

Chavismo and Putinism

Measured distance across six axes

15.7 / 49.0 possible

Different families with real common ground. They agree within three points on AU, SC. They diverge by eight points or more on EC.

Axis by axis

AxisPSUVUnited Russia, sovereign democracyGapReading
EC · Economic organisation−08+0311DivergesCarries the disagreement. Any claim that these two are alike has to explain this.
CU · Social and cultural order+02+097DiffersReal difference, but not the dividing line.
AU · Organisation of power+09+101AgreesEffectively the same position. Not what an argument between them is about.
SC · Scale of decision+08+091AgreesEffectively the same position. Not what an argument between them is about.
ID · Rule of membership+03+085DiffersReal difference, but not the dividing line.
CH · Method and tempo+04−037DiffersReal difference, but not the dividing line.

Each axis runs from −10 to +10; the distance is the straight-line separation across all six at once, out of a maximum of 49.0. How the scoring works →

The evidence behind the widest gaps

A distance figure is worth nothing unless the scores behind it can be checked. These are the artefacts supporting the axes that separate these two most.

PSUV · EC −08

Comprehensive nationalisation across oil, steel, cement, banking, food distribution and land.

  • Documented act or statuteOil service, steel, cement and agricultural processing firms were expropriated between 2007 and 2010.
  • Documented act or statutePrice and currency controls from 2003 produced shortages and, from 2017, hyperinflation.

United Russia, sovereign democracy · EC +03

Coded right of centre: flat taxation and private ownership, contingent on political loyalty.

  • Documented act or statuteA thirteen percent flat personal income tax was introduced in 2001.
  • Documented act or statuteThe Yukos case in 2003–04 established that private ownership is revocable for political reasons.

What this comparison does not establish

Proximity means similarity of stated position. It carries no claim about competence, circumstance, scale of operation, or what either organisation actually did to the people under it. Two organisations can sit close together and produce entirely different histories, because those things are not on any axis and could not be.

Chavismo

1999– · Venezuela

Bolivarian socialism of the twenty-first century, anti-imperialism, popular power organised from above.

Putinism

2000– · Russia

A strong personalised state restoring great-power status, with traditional values against a decadent West.

Distance is not the whole answer. Two organisations can sit the same distance apart for entirely different reasons, and the reason is the content of any claim about them. Open the comparison in the atlas to weight the axes yourself.

Open in the atlas