Scorched Earth: The Political Economy of Venezuela’s Collapse
April 13 & 27, 2025
Class Description
During the past decade, Venezuela suffered the largest peacetime economic collapse documented in world history, with a magnitude equivalent to that of three Great Depressions. This set of lectures delves into the causes of the country’s collapse, tracing it to the conflict for power between the country’s dueling political factions. I argue that economic collapses can be traced to the adoption by political actors of scorched earth political strategies, in which they choose to harm the economy as a by-product of their fight over power. When this happens, we see the phenomenon of economically destructive political conflict unfold, in which political actors turn the economy into their battlefield. I argue that even developed countries can fall prey to this type of conflict, and discuss the possibility that a similar scenario could ensue in the United States.
About Francisco Rodríguez
Francisco Rodríguez is the Rice Family Professor of the Practice of International and Public Affairs at the University of Denver’s Josef Korbel School of International Studies. A native of Venezuela, he is also the founder of Oil for Venezuela, a non-profit organization focused on finding solutions to Venezuela’s humanitarian crisis. He received a Ph.D. in economics from Harvard University and has taught economics and Latin American studies at the University of Maryland at College Park, the University of Notre Dame and Wesleyan University. He has held prominent positions in the public and private sector and international organizations and is the author of four books and more than sixty research articles. His most recent book, Scorched Earth: The Political Economy of Venezuela’s Collapse 2012-2020, will be published in Spring 2025 by University of Notre Dame Press.