Video debate: Struggle over Venezuela referendum

Edgardo Lander and Gregory Wilpert
December 2007
While the current process of popular empowerment in Venezuela is very important, the constitutional reform itself was a political error, argues Lander: a constitutional assembly would be much more legitimate and probably bring different results. Wilpert argues the reforms were never that far-reaching.

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Professor of Social Sciences at the Universidad Central de Venezuela in Caracas.

Lander is one of the leading thinkers and writers on the left in Venezuela, both supportive and constructively critical of the Venezuelan revolution under Chavez. He is actively involved in social movements in the Americas that defeated the Free Trade Agreement of the Americas (FTAA).

He is a member of the Latin American Social Science Council’s (CLACSO) research group on Hegemonies and Emancipations and on the editorial board of the academic journal Revista Venezolana de Economía y Ciencias Sociales. He is currently
part of the steering committee of the Hemispheric Council of the Social
Forum of the Americas. 

Among other publications, Lander has written and edited: Contribución a la crítica del marxismo realmente existente: Verdad, ciencia y tecnología; La ciencia y la tecnología como asuntos políticos; Límites de la democracia en la sociedad tecnológica; Neoliberalismo, sociedad civil y democracia.