Examines the populist movement of Hugo Chavez in Venezuela and argues that populism is primarily a response to widespread corruption.

Kirk A. Hawkins is Assistant Professor of Political Science at Brigham Young University. He is a co-author of Latin American Party Systems (Cambridge University Press). His work on political parties and populist movements has been published in several book chapters and journals, including Comparative Political Studies, Latin American Research Review, and Third World Quarterly.

1. Introduction; 2. Chavismo, populism, and democracy; 3. Measuring the populist discourse of Chavismo; 4. Party system breakdown and the rise of Chavismo; 5. The causes of populism in comparative perspective; 6. Populist organization: the Bolivarian circles in Venezuela; 7. Populist policy: the missions of the Chávez government; 8. Conclusion; Appendix A: the populist speech rubric; Appendix B: test of the sampling technique; Appendix C: test of interaction effects.