Drexel Political Science Professor Available to Comment on Venezuelan Election

As the contest between Venezuelan President Hugo Chavez and opposition candidate Henrique Capriles nears a head at the nation’s October 7 presidential election, Drexel University’s Dr. George Ciccariello-Maher is available for interviews with the news media.

Ciccariello-Maher is an assistant professor of political science in the College of Arts and Sciences’ Department of History and Politics. His new book on Venezuela, We Created Chávez: A People's History of the Venezuelan Revolution, is scheduled for release in Spring 2013 from Duke University Press. The book is a theory-rich “people’s history” of contemporary Venezuela which locates the origins of current political dynamics in the long-term history of Venezuelan social movements, demonstrating that Hugo Chávez is not the cause, but rather the result, of a broader and more fundamental transformative process.

Ciccariello-Maher joined Drexel University in 2010. He previously taught political theory at U.C. Berkeley, San Quentin State Prison and the Venezuelan School of Planning in Caracas. Ciccariello-Maher earned a doctoral degree in political science from UC Berkeley. He received a master’s degree in social and political sciences through the Davies-Jackson Fellowship Program at Cambridge University, and a bachelor of arts with honors, in government and economics from St. Lawrence University in Canton, New York.

Ciccariello-Maher is a frequent contributor to Counterpunch, MRZine, Znet, Alternet and VenezuelaAnalysis.com, and has been a media commentator for such outlets as The New York Times, Al Jazeera, NPR, the Los Angeles Times and the Christian Science Monitor. He is the author of numerous journal articles, book chapters and reviews.

**** Ciccariello-Maher will be available for interviews in the U.S. through October 3, and will then be traveling to Venezuela from October 4-15, where he will be available by email, phone and satellite.****