Isolated from the West, close to Eurasia: Venezuela, Covid-19 and the pospandemic global order

Abstract

The objective of this paper is to analyze the international strategy developed by the regime of Nicolás Maduro in Venezuela to address its internal limitations in the response to the Covid-19 pandemic. It argues that in the context of an economic crisis and international isolation, Maduro’s government needs the aid of China and Russia, two revisionist powers, to deal with the pandemic. Beyond that, however, Venezuela’s policy has also involved a positioning in favor of Russia and China in the struggle to build a new global order. This process has been accelerated by the pandemic and Venezuela has adopted the position of a revolutionary state that has signed up to the demands for a new global order set out by the two revisionist powers.