Abstract

The chapter explores authoritarian constitutionalism through its iconography. Considering a popular picture of former Venezuelan President Hugo Chávez, the chapter reveals how images can build a narrative to justify the necessary authority to enact a new constitution. Instead of focusing on the typical institutional problems of constitutional analyses –separation of powers and fundamental rights – the piece underscores that constitutions are important as they tell stories about the past and knit expectations about the future of a political community. The narrative power of constitutions might be grasped if we pay attention to the iconography that accompanies their enactment and their use. In the Venezuelan case, narratives of exclusion and the reconstruction of authority in 1999 were important for triggering constitutional reform, and they were made possible through the deployment of ordinary tools of modern law such as the invention of traditions, mythology and taboos.