The increase of supports towards Democratic Socialism especially among youth has been
skyrocketed over the years due to the fact that it is clearer day by day that the approach of
Democratic Capitalism adopted globally failed to narrow the class gap and also failed to resolve
the issue regarding the constant exploitation by private companies. While past iteration of
Socialism has been famous of being a major failure, it is still yet to be prove whether the ideas
of Democratic Socialism will produces the same result. Since the definition of Democratic
Socialism is very vague, they only way to decide its relevancy in today’s world is by studying
the states who already implemented the ideology with Venezuela being one of them. This
research analyzed how exactly Venezuela’s government managed to assimilate the idea of
Democracy and Socialism to form Democratic Socialism under the administration of two
Venezuela’s president, Hugo Chavez and Nicolas Maduro. Moreover, this research also
analyzed Democratic Socialism capabilities in providing solutions for Venezuelan socio-
economic problems and provide sustainability compared to Democratic Capitalism. Lastly, this
research decided the relevancy of Democratic Socialism in 21st century and concluded whether
it is truly the political-economic system for the future. This research was conducted by using
qualitative research design and was paired with the secondary sources data extraction for data
collection process. Some of the contributions of this research is to define the core elements of
Democratic Socialism state which can be found in this research’s theoretical framework and to
provide an unbiased analysis and identify the real factors behind the political-economic crisis
of Venezuela currently. Lastly, this research concluded that the administration of Hugo Chavez
is the only one who implemented a genuine Democratic Socialist policies accordance to the
theoretical framework and Maduro’s administration failed to do so. Democratic Socialism was
also proven to be even more effective and sustainable compared with Democratic Capitalism
in solving Venezuela’s socio-economic problems.
Keyword: Democratic Socialism, Democratic Capitalism, Democracy, Capitalism,
Socialism, Venezuela, Hugo Chavez, Nicolas Maduro.
