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Various United Nations organizations and representatives have released declarations about the deterioration of the Venezuelan and Nicaraguan situations since 2017. The United Nations Security Council, the General‐Secretary, and the Office of the High Commissioner for Human Rights have been particularly active on these issues. The positions of the selected institutions and their representatives were diverse, and sometimes contradictory, and the polarized contexts in which such declarations have been made emphasized diversity. Based on a sociological approach of international organizations, this article demonstrates that the United Nations as an actor is not a coherent and unique entity. To understand the difficulties the organization faces in dealing with the Venezuelan and Nicaraguan crises, it seems indispensable to go beyond the traditional dichotomy between states and institutions, and power politics. Indeed, institutions are plural—the United Nations through states is conservative and cautious, whereas the United Nations through the individuals and staff is more assertive and critical of the Venezuelan and Nicaraguan governments.

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The Venezuelan participation in the United Nations Security Council (UNSC) in 2015 and 2016 was expected to be a challenge for the institution, as the Maduro government adopted controversial positions at the General Assembly (UNGA). However, Venezuela contestation line did not appear clearly at the UNSC. Drawing upon an in-depth qualitative study, Erving Goffman's work, and literature on contestation in international organisations (IOs), we interpret this apparent inconsistency from the concept of interaction order. We argue that the UNGA and the UNSC each constitutes a specific interaction order that influences the way contestation practices are channelled. The contestation practices Venezuelan representatives set up at the UNGA hardly work during the UNSC official sessions, where they adapt their practices to its interaction order. Venezuelan representatives also use informal and backstage actions to express their dissent, without avoiding being called into order. Venezuela's moderation at the UNSC results from an invisibilisation of contestation by interaction practices.