Dr. Barry Cannon lectures in Politics in the Department of Sociology at the National University of Ireland, Maynooth (NUIM). His publications include Hugo Chávez and the Bolivarian Revolution: Populism and Democracy in a Globalised Age (MUP, 2009) and Civil Society and the State in Left-led Latin America (Zed, 2012), co-edited with Prof. Peadar Kirby, University of Limerick. He has also published articles on Venezuelan and Central American politics in journals such as Third World Quarterly, Democratization, and Bulletin of Latin American Research, amongst others.