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Under the Chávez government, the incorporation and participation of popular sectors, which is the essence of ‘social-based democracy’, has been quantitatively and qualitatively different from socialist government and welfare-state strategies of the past. Venezuela's social-based democracy focuses on education, job skills, ideology, transformation of values and empowerment, achievements which Chavista leaders consider to be imperatives for socialist development. However, Chavista social programmes have been undermined by institutional weakness, are sometimes not cost-effective, and are politicised. Conflicting views among the Chavistas on the role of the state hinge on the issue of whether initiatives from above in favour of social-based democracy represent a viable strategy for far-reaching change. The Venezuelan government's changing priorities after 2007 have detracted from the primacy of social programmes. [ABSTRACT FROM PUBLISHER]

This work puts the accent on the challenge of integrality both in the approach and in the institutional designs of social accountability. It assumes that its specificity lies in its autonomous and political nature, while expressing the regulatory function of society with regard to the State. The first argument is that enforceability of social, economic and cultural rights needs to be introduced in all areas and processes occurring within their actual scope. The second argument is that effectiveness of social accountability -in other words, the fact that it might turn into consequences for public powers- is in large measure determined by the indirect and direct power resources that enshrine the institutionalism of State. Its legitimacy, however, depends on the full autonomy of the social accountability of the State. The way in which this tension between dependence and independence from the State is handled is crucial. This document provides an analysis of how these issues are being addressed in Latin America and also outlines some of the mechanisms already available to meet the challenge of the integrality of social accountability. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]