Laureano Vallenilla Lanz

{{Short description| Venezuelan intellectual and sociologist (1870–1936)}}

{{Infobox person

| name = Laureano Vallenilla Lanz

| image = Laureano V. Lanz.jpg

| caption =

| birth_date = {{birth date|1870|11|10|mf=y}}

| birth_place = Barcelona, Anzoátegui State, Venezuela

| death_date = {{death date and age|1936|11|16|1870|11|10|mf=y}}

| signature = Laureano Vallenilla Lanz signature.jpg

| death_place = Paris, France

}}

Laureano Vallenilla Lanz (November 10, 1870 – November 16, 1936) was a Venezuelan intellectual and sociologist who occupied the presidency of the congress for 20 years during the Gomez regime.{{cite book|last1=von Vacano|first1=Diego A.|title=The Color of Citizenship: Race, Modernity and Latin American / Hispanic Political Thought|publisher=Oxford University Press|date=2012 | location=Oxford, UK|isbn=9780199746668|pages=83–111|url=https://books.google.com/books?id=hjsjyJhSepoC&q=Laureano+Vallenilla+Lanz+caesarism&pg=PA83}}{{in lang|es}} [https://web.archive.org/web/20040812140858/http://www.ivic.ve/memoria/bios/vallenilla_lanz_laureano.htm "Vallenilla Lanz, Laureano"], biography, Instituto Venezolano de Investigaciones Cientificas. Accessed November 20, 2007.

Political career

Vallenilla Lanz held a number of positions under the dictatorship of Juan Vicente Gómez and was well known as an apologist for his regime. In his best-known work, Cesarismo Democrático (1919; English title: Democratic Caesarism), he justified the caudillo system by stating that due to the character of the Venezuelan people, rule by a dictator was necessary to maintain public order. In his view, this system was democratic in the sense that it was due to the "unconscious suggestion of the majority".pp. 15–17, Rómulo Betancourt and the Transformation of Venezuela, Robert Jackson Alexander, Transaction Publishers, 1982, {{ISBN|0-87855-450-5}}.Leo B. Lott, [https://www.jstor.org/stable/1951677 "Executive Power in Venezuela"], American Political Science Review 50, #2 (June 1956), pp. 422–441.

He was for a time the Envoy Extraordinary and Minister Plenipotentiary of Venezuela to France during the 1930s.{{cite news |author= |title= Venezuela|url= http://gallica.bnf.fr/ark:/12148/bpt6k64749666/f80.item|newspaper=Liste de MM. les membres du Corps diplomatique |location=Paris |date=July 10, 1935 |access-date=May 12, 2016 }}

Ideology

Vallenilla was "largely responsible for developing a body of historical and sociological theory dealing with issues of race, power relations, and social development". He viewed "the popular masses as a backward and unruly social group" and argued that political leadership needed to be "exercised through the mediation of a popular strongman who would channel the energies of the masses during the transition to a democratic order".{{cite book|last1=Aponte|first1=Pedro Rafael|title=The Invention of the National in Venezuelan Art Music, 1920–1960|date=2008|publisher=University of Pittsburgh|isbn=9781109053203|url= http://d-scholarship.pitt.edu/10289/1/APONTE.ETD_2008.pdf|pages=33–36}}

=Democratic Caesarism=

Specifically, Vallenilla argued that race had no biological basis and ought to be understood as socially constructed, particularly through political projects of nation-making. Vallenilla assailed the notion that racial purity provides moral or political legitimacy.

Death

Vallenilla's funeral was held on November 18, 1936, at the Église Saint-Pierre-de-Chaillot in Paris. The remembrance was led by his son Laureano Vallenilla and other members of the family.{{cite news|language=fr |author= |title=Deuils |url=http://gallica.bnf.fr/ark:/12148/bpt6k4093087/f2.item |newspaper=Le Figaro |date=November 19, 1936 |access-date=May 12, 2016 }}