Venezuela: The Democratic Experience [Unknown Binding ed.] 0030218411, 9780030218415

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CO

• VO

987

Venezuela : the democratic experience* edited by John D* Martz, David J* Myers* — -*■ New York : Praeger» 1977* xxii, 406 p* ; 25 cm* —(Praeger special studies in international politics and government)

/

Includes index* Bibliography: p* 392—399* ISBN 0-03-021841-1 : $24.50

1* Venezuela—"Politics and government—1935—* I* Martz, II* Myers, David J* POCK CARD 2025065 320.9/87/063

790306

r Qf 77-7509 SF 9898743

D.

edited by

The Praeger Special Studies programutilizing the most modern and efficient book production techniques and a selective worldwide distribution network—makes available to the academic, government, and business communities significant, timely research in U S. and international eco¬ nomic, social, and political development.

The Democratic Experience

PRAEGER SPECIAL STUDIES IN

Venezuela

INTERNATIONAL POLITICS AND GOVERNMENT

Praeger Publishers

New York

London

jg.

PUBLIC LIBRARY

Library of Congress Cataloging in Publication Data Main entry under title: Venezuela: the democratic experience. (Praeger special studies in international politics and government) Bibliography: p. Includes index. 1. Venezuela—Politics and government—1945—Addresses, essays, lectures. I. Martz, John D. II. Myers, David J. JL3831.V45 1977 320.9'87'063 77-7509 ISBN 0-03-021841-1 ISBN 0-03-023061-6 student ed.

A paperback edition of this work has been made possible in part by a grant from the Publications Commission of the Republic of Venezuela.

PRAEGER SPECIAL STUDIES 200 Park Avenue, New York, N.Y., 10017, U.S.A.

Published in the United States of America in 1977 by Praeger Publishers, A Division of Holt, Rinehart and Winston, CBS, Inc.

789

038

987654321

© 1977 by Praeger Publishers

All rights reserved Printed in the United States of America

PREFACE John D. Martz David J. Myers

Until the past two decades, little significant social science research had been undertaken in Venezuela. Not surprisingly, the upswing in such investiga¬ tion coincides with the emergence of a democratic regime, for earlier dictator¬ ships distrusted both the findings of social science and the political leanings of social scientists. The post-1959 democratic reformist regime, while revolu¬ tionary in the context of Venezuelan political development, has been of mar¬ ginal interest to the outside world. Until recently, Cuba’s developmental socialism, Brazilian military reformism, and Chile’s “Peaceful Road to Social¬ ism” had excited greater interest and passion among observers of Latin Amer¬ ica than the equally important democratic reformist experiment in Venezuela. What explains the relatively low interest in post-1959 Venezuelan democ¬ racy? Four factors seem central. First, the region historically has been a backwater of Latin America, which from the perspective of most North Atlan¬ tic nations is itself a backwater of western civilization. In recent years, as will be copiously documented throughout this volume, mineral wealth, especially petroleum, has facilitated a shedding of the backwater image. Development of the petroleum deposits, however, was historically in the hands of North American and English corporations. This high degree of dependency on pri¬ vate capital from the North Atlantic, generally considered undesirable, is a sound reason for Venezuela’s lack of appeal as an arena for research by social scientists. The principal concern of most who undertook social science re¬ search prior to 1959 was either to document the evils of preconceived depen¬ dency theories or to justify the authoritarian tactics of dictators such as Generals Juan Vicente Gomez or Marcos Perez Jimenez. A third factor accounting for outside disinterest is Venezuela’s lack of a great Indian culture such as those found in Peru, Mexico, or Guatemala. Such cultures added an element that many social scientists from the North Atlantic found hard to resist. Thus, scholars attracted to the region by the romanticism of Spain’s conquest tended to overlook Venezuela. Finally, Venezuela lacks the size and population of Brazil, Mexico, Argentina, or even Peru. Its single claim to importance, from the standpoint of North Atlantic and other policy makers, has been the country’s petroleum reserves. Predictably, therefore, it is the new muscle of the oil-producing nations that from time to time now facilitates Venezuela’s intrusion onto the front pages of European and North American newspapers. We also would be less than candid if we failed to acknowledge that the present energy crisis will likely account for much of the interest in this study. The present volume undertakes an in-depth examination of politics in contemporary Venezuela. It consists of three basic sections, the first of which v

examines key variables or constellations of variables that influence political behavior. This section on political environment begins with John V. Lombar¬ di’s discussion of the patterns of Venezuela’s past. His essay places the present regime in historical context, revealing it to be a sharp break with the country’s political traditions. In the following chapter, R. Lynn Kelley profiles the formal division of contemporary constitutional powers at the national level, speculating on the realities they both reveal and conceal. Enrique A. Baloyra then examines political values and their dissemination throughout the polity. His work reveals that while most Venezuelans are mindful of their politicians’ shortcomings, they nevertheless give qualified allegiance to the existing demo¬ cratic system. Part I closes with James A. Hanson’s analysis of economic change since 1950. Petroleum revenue is shown to have stimulated impressive but irregular economic growth during this period, thus promoting a higher standard of living. The concepts of articulating and aggregating political demands unite the volume’s second division. Venezuela’s party system, central to the post-1959 experiment, is analyzed by John D. Martz for the decade and a half following the overthrow of General Perez Jimenez. He concludes that skillful leadership in Accion Democratica and the Social Christian COPEI has been a primary cause of the unexpected persistence of Venezuelan democracy. Gene E. Bigler then examines the military and its interaction with democratic reformist gov¬ ernments. Daniel H. Levine does the same in terms of the Church, while major associational interest groups—business (Jose Antonio Gil), labor (Stuart I. Fagan), and students (Robert F. Amove)—are also studied. In general, these essays document relatively open political maneuvering, fierce competition, and the rewarding of major participants with important benefits. As with its North Atlantic counterparts, therefore, democratic reformism in Venezuela is shown to be responsive to organized pressure groups. Bureaucratic mechanisms through which demands must be channeled provide the focus for William S. Stewart. Chronicling the continuing administrative expansion, he describes efforts to upgrade personnel and identifies major impediments to increasing public-sector productivity and responsiveness. Part III centers on policy making and its implications for Venezuelan political development. The policy process is described and analyzed for pe¬ troleum (Franklin Tugwell), education (Gordon C. Ruscoe), and primate city resource allocation (David J. Myers). Ildemaro Jesus Martinez then evaluates policy making at the local level, cautioning that the spotty performance of district councils may prove the Achilles’ heel of the present regime. This is followed by analyses of two different dimensions of policy: the Indians (Nelly Arvelo de Jimenez, Walter Coppens, Roberto Lizarralde, and H. Dieter Heinen) and foreign policy (Charles D. Ameringer). The cumulative picture reveals great skill by the democratic reformist elites in discovering the most politically expedient or establishment-strengthening outcome. However, in VI

many instances the final policy choices were wasteful of resources. Only the country’s abundant mineral wealth allowed the government to follow a course of attempting to give everything to everybody. The system, therefore, has exhibited tolerance for a large margin of error. This leads us to assert in our concluding chapter that for the short- and medium-range future the present system will likely continue. In the long run, however, we are less than sanguine about the prospects for Venezuelan demo¬ cratic reformism. While these concluding generalizations represent the views of the editors, they are derived from the work of the 18 other contributors, who are among the most knowledgeable specialists in the field. Their essays are published here for the first time. While the collection does not include separate treatment of two additional important topics—peasants and urbanization— these appear in several chapters, most notably those by Fagan, Martinez, and Myers. Overall, therefore, we believe that the present volume constitutes the most comprehensive cross-section of political analyses dealing with contempo¬ rary Venezuela yet to appear in English.

VII

CONTENTS

Page PREFACE

v

LIST OF TABLES AND FIGURES

xiv

GLOSSARY

xvi

EDITORS’ NOTE

xxii

PART I: THE ENVIRONMENTS OF AN EMERGENT SYSTEM Chapter 1

2

THE PATTERNS OF VENEZUELA’S PAST John V. Lombardi The Main Historical Patterns The Mature Colonial Society: 1560-1830 The Commercial-Bureaucratic Outpost: 1830-1920 The Technological Empire: 1920 to the Present Notes

5 6 11 17 20

VENEZUELAN CONSTITUTIONAL FORMS AND REALITIES R. Lynn Kelley

27

The Executive Under Accion Democratica Under COPEI The Legislature Historical and Structural Dimensions Interpreting Legislative Evolution The Judiciary The Future of Liberal Democratic Structures Notes 3

3

PUBLIC ATTITUDES TOWARD THE DEMOCRATIC REGIME Enrique A. Baloyra Attitudes Toward the Democratic Regime Cleavage Patterns and Their Implications Demographic Cleavages Cultural Cleavages viii

28 28 35 37 37 40 42 44 46

47

48 51 53 54

Chapter

Page Socioeconomic Cleavages and Constraints Partisan Constraints Other Sources of Constraint Conclusions Notes

4 CYCLES OF ECONOMIC GROWTH AND STRUCTURAL CHANGE SINCE 1950 James A. Hanson The Broad Outline of the Perez Jimenez Era The Provisional Junta and the Betancourt Era Growth and Structural Change During the Leoni Years The Caldera Administration, the Return of Action Democratica, and the Future Notes

56 58 59 62 63

64

64 74 81 83 87

PART II: ARTICULATING AND AGGREGATING INTERESTS 5

THE PARTY SYSTEM: TOWARD INSTITUTIONALIZATION John D. Martz From Fragmentation to Monopolization Doctrines, Ideologies, and “El Status” Elements of Systemic Consolidation Notes

6

THE ARMED FORCES AND PATTERNS OF CIVIL-MILITARY RELATIONS Gene E. Bigler

93

94 101 106 111

113

Armed Intervention and Regime Change, 1830-1958 Andean Hegemony Caudillism to Praetorianism The Emergence and Consolidation of New Patterns of Civil-Military

114 115 116

Relations The System of Civilian Control Presidential Leadership Political Oversight Challenges to the Consolidation of Civilian Control Adjusting the System of Civilian Control Breaking the Rules of the Game Democratic Performance and Public Opinion

119 120 121 122 124 124 127 129

Notes

1^2

IX

Chapter

Page

7 ENTREPRENEURS AND REGIME CONSOLIDATION Jose Antonio Gil The Structure of Venezuelan Business The Entrepreneurial Groups Business Associations Business, Politics, and Public Policy Business and Democracy: Some Concluding Comments The Actual Influence of Business The Business Collectivity: Legitimacy, Representativeness, and Access Recent Economic Decisions: Business and Political Development Notes

8 DEMOCRACY AND THE CHURCH Daniel H. Levine

134

135 135 140 145 152 152 153 155 156

158

Growth and Change Elite Perspectives and Priorities Two Recent Conflicts Conclusions Notes

159 162 168 171 172

9 UNIONISM AND DEMOCRACY Stuart I. Fagan

174

History and Structure

175

Recent Changes in the Political System and the Labor Movement Labor Relations Since 1958 The Party-Union Linkage and Worker Benefits Conclusions Notes

181 184 189 192

10 STUDENTS IN POLITICS Robert F. Amove

193

195

Societal Definition of the Student Role

197

Structural Incorporation of the Student Role into National Politics Organization of the Student Role Student Politics as a Steppingstone National Regulation of the Educational System Sphere and Modes of Student Influence Students as Efficacious Political Actors Breakup and Transition Conclusions Notes

198 198 203 204 206 208 210 212 213

x

Chapter 11

page PUBLIC ADMINISTRATION William S. Stewart

215

Parties, Patrons, and Patronage Bureaucratic Strategies Reforming the Bureaucracy Institutional Reform Conclusions Notes

220 222 225 227 230 234

PART III: POLICY AND PERFORMANCE 12

PETROLEUM POLICY AND THE POLITICAL PROCESS Franklin Tugwell Government Objectives The Government and the The Conduct of Policy: The Conduct of Policy: The Conduct of Policy: The Conduct of Policy: Outcomes Politics and Oil Prospects Notes

13

14

Companies Phase I Phase II Phase III Phase IV

237

238 239 240 242 245 247 247 251 252 254

EDUCATION POLICY IN VENEZUELA Gordon C. Ruscoe

255

Curricular and Administrative Practices The Expansion of Schooling Expansion Distribution The Quality of Schooling The Quality of Secondary Academic Schooling Summation and Speculation Notes

256 259 260 262 270 274 279 281

POLICY MAKING AND CAPITAL CITY RESOURCE ALLOCATION: THE CASE OF CARACAS David J. Myers Objectives and Structures Need Intensification and Preliminary Option Formulation The President as Chief Executive and Party Leader Local Government in Caracas XI

283

286 287 289 290

Page

Chapter The Ministry of Public Works The Simon Bolivar Center Private Interests Minor Participants Choice-Oriented Maneuvering Electricity The Subway Analysis Implementation and Feedback Conclusions Notes

15

16

THE PERFORMANCE OF LOCAL GOVERNMENT IN DEMOCRATIC VENEZUELA Ildemaro Jesus Martinez

309

Venezuelan Local Government History The 1961 Constitution The Press and Magnitude of Local Problems Urban Growth Party Politics and Municipal Government Administrative Problems Local Autonomy Efforts to Improve Local Government and Their Impact on District Council Performance Conclusions Notes

309 309 310 312 312 314 314 317

INDIAN POLICY Nelly Arvelo de Jimenez, Walter Coppens, Roberto Lizarralde, and H. Dieter Heinen

323

Legal Instruments Implementation Conclusions Notes

17

291 292 293 293 294 295 297 300 305 306 308

318 320 321

324 328 331 334

THE FOREIGN POLICY OF VENEZUELAN DEMOCRACY Charles D. Ameringer

335

A New Style

335

Betancourt: The Quest for Democratic Security Leoni: The Diplomacy of Transition Caldera: New Initiatives

336 343 348

xii

Chapter

Page Diplomacy and Democracy Notes

18

354 356

VENEZUELAN DEMOCRACY AND THE FUTURE John D. Martz and David J. Myers The Persistence of Constitutional Democracy The Dictatorial Regime and Its Demise The Democratic Regime Alternative Models for Venezuela’s Future Democratic Reformism Military Reformism Developmental Socialism Venezuelan Democracy and Latin American Political Development Policy and Resource Allocation Politics and Leadership External Relationships Conclusions Notes

359

361 361 364 375 375 379 382 383 384 386 387 389 390

SELECTED BIBLIOGRAPHY

392

INDEX

400

ABOUT THE EDITORS AND CONTRIBUTORS

403

xiii

LIST OF TABLES AND FIGURES Table

Page

2.1

Power Index for Venezuelan Ministries

30

2.2

Patronage Index for Venezuelan Ministries

31

2.3

Control of Venezuelan Executive Ministries by Political Label of Ministries, 1959-69

32

Dominant Venezuelan Congressional Behavior Patterns, 1959-76

41

4.1

“Old” GDP

65

4.2

“New” GDP or UN GDP

67

4.3

Economically Active Labor Force

68

4.4

Petroleum

70

4.5

Distribution of Venezuelan Government Spending Between Current and Capital Accounts

72

4.6

Federal Expenditure by Function

75

4.7

Selected Capital Expenditures by Region

80

8.1

Number of Dioceses Created

160

8.2

Priests and Parishes

161

8.3

Principal Activities of Religious Congregations

162

8.4

Major National Problems and Roles for the Church

164

8.5

Attitude Toward Marxists and Roles for the Church

165

8.6

Key Organizations and Major Areas of Lay Activity

167

9.1

Incidence of Labor Conflicts

185

12.1

Production, Payments by Companies to the Government, and Profits Split

243

12.2

Retained Value from Venezuelan Petroleum Industry

249

13.1

Growth in Enrollments

261

13.2

Enrollments

262

13.3

Average Annual Enrollment Increase

262

13.4

Growth of the Education Budget

263

2.4

XIV

Table

Page

13.5

Enrollments by Sex, 1969/70

266

13.6

Improvement in Measures of Quality, Primary Education

271

13.7

General Examination Pass Rates, 1969/70

273

13.8

Sixth-Year Examination Pass Rates, 1969/70

273

13.9

Improvement in Measures of Quality, Secondary Academic Education

275

13.10 Examination Pass Rates by Type of School, Secondary Academic Education, 1970

277

14.1

The Increasing Demographic Primacy of Caracas

284

14.2

Crises Used or Threatened in Attempts to Activate the Preliminary Allocation Network

304

15.1

Population Residing in Communities Above 1,000 Population

313

15.2

Sources of District Council Income

316

15.3

District Council Income

319

15.4

District Council Expenditures

320

18.1

Political Development Problem Areas and Democratic Venezuela

374

Figure

Page

1

Venezuela

7

2

Resource Allocation Policy Making

288

3

Preliminary Allocation Network for Primate City Resource Allocation at Maximum Inclusion

302

XV

GLOSSARY AD

Accion Democratica.

Adecos

Popular designation for members of the Accion Demo¬ cratica party.

Andean Pact

Subregional economic grouping including Bolivia, Chile, Colombia, Ecuador, Peru, and Venezuela.

Anil

Indigo.

Bolivar

The monetary unit of Venezuela. Rate of exchange (March 1975) 1 U.S. dollar = 4.43 bolivares. For addi¬ tional information on exchange rates, see Editors’ Note.

Cacique

Local military or political leader who rules in an arbi¬ trary manner, more or less independently of the national government.

Campesino

Peasant.

Caraqueno

An inhabitant of Caracas.

Casa Amarilla

The foreign ministry of Venezuela (Yellow House).

Caudillo

Regional leader who aspires to national power relying on his personal or charismatic qualities.

CCN

National Civic Crusade

CENDES

Centro de Estudios del Desarrollo, the Social Science Research Institute of Venezuela’s Central University.

Centro Gumilla

The Jesuit research center in Caracas.

Comision Indigenista

The official organization responsible for Indian affairs in Venezuela. Established May 7, 1947.

Conjuez

An alternate member of one of the panels of the Venezu¬ elan Supreme Court of Justice. Each regular justice is elected with an alternate who sits on cases that the regu¬ lar judge finds to be a possible conflict of interest for him.

Consejo Municipal

The basic unit of local government. With two exceptions these councils comprise seven popularly elected councilmen.

COPEI

Comite de Organizacion Politica Electoral Independente, the Social Christian Party.

Copeyano

A member of the Social Christian Party (COPEI).

CORDIPLAN

Oficina Central de Coordination y Planificacion de la Presidencia, which is responsible for overall national economic and social planning, and for providing fouryear plans.

XVI

Corte en pleno

Literally, “the court in full.” This term refers to the seating of the whole Supreme Court of Justice (all three of the panels together). This occurs only when the Court decides on the constitutionality of issues.

Criollo

In colonial times, a person of purely Spanish descent, born in America. After independence, the basic stock of the Venezuelan elite.

CTV

Confederation de Trabajadores de Venezuela, national confederation of unions. Membership includes the great majority of union labor.

Cupo

The number of available openings in a university’s in¬ coming class; any quota.

Cursillos de Cristiandad

“Little Courses in Christianity,” intended to rejuvenate religious faith through intensive work with small groups.

CVP

Corporation Venezolano de Petroleo, the national state corporation for exploiting and processing petroleum.

Desarrollistas

Politically oriented group of entrepreneurs intent on shifting the locus of Venezuelan politics to the right. In 1973, their presidential candidate, Pedro Tinoco, re¬ ceived less than 2 percent of the total vote.

ELECAR

Caracas Electricity Company, Venezuela’s largest na¬ tionally controlled private corporation.

Entreguismo

Literally, “selling out.” Radical leftists charged Presi¬ dent Betancourt with entreguismo when he rejected the Castroite model for Venezuela in 1960.

Estado docente

State monopoly over education.

Faja Bituminosa

The Orinoco tar belt, estimated to contain 700 million to 1 billion barrels of petroleum.

FALN

Fuerzas Armadas para Liberation Nacional, the armed forces of Venezuela’s radical left.

FDP

Popular Democratic Force (FDP), a leftist party founded in 1962 by Jorge Dager and Admiral Wolfgang Larrazabal.

FEDECAMARAS

Federacion de Camaras de Comercio e Industria, the National Chamber of Commerce; corresponds roughly to the U.S. Chamber of Commerce.

FEDEPETROL

Federacion de Trabajadores Petroleros, Venezuela’s richest and most important union.

xvii

Federation Campesina de Venezuela

The national union of peasants, by far the country’s largest, claiming over 1 million members.

Federation Estudiantil de Venezuela

The national union of students.

FND

National Democratic Front, a right-of-center party founded by Arturo Uslar Pietri.

Fraction del partido

The delegation, or caucus, of an individual party group represented in the Congress. It is composed of all mem¬ bers of the party in both chambers of Congress. Indepen¬ dents affiliated with the party are also invited to attend its meetings. Generally, the caucus meets one or more times weekly for the duration of a congressional session. In these meetings the party members and independents affiliated with the party are informed of the party line on issues before the Congress.

FUNDACOMUN

Popular Democratic Force, a leftist party established in 1962 by President Romulo Betancourt for the purpose of strengthening local government.

Golpe de estado

Coup d’etat.

Golpista

An individual plotting the forcible overthrow of the gov¬ ernment.

Hacendado

Owner of a large ranch or plantation, the rural upper class.

INCE

Instituto Nacional de Cooperation Educativa, autono¬ mous educational unit within the Ministry of Education offering technical training for unskilled labor.

Jefe de la fraction

The congressional party caucus chairman. Each party caucus in Congress has a chairman who functions as a contact man and negotiator with other congressional caucus chairmen. He is also a member of the party’s highest policy-making organs.

JRC

Juventud Revolucionaria Copeyana, the youth move¬ ment of the Social Christian Party.

LAFTA

Latin American Free Trade Association, originally seen as the first step in establishing a Latin American com¬ mon market, now largely a paper organization. Venezu¬ ela joined in 1966.

xviii

Libertad de ensenanza

The doctrine of educational freedom that facilitates op¬ eration of a Roman Catholic educational system.

Llanos

Plains or grasslands.

MAS

Movement Toward Socialism, a radical leftist party that coalesced following the Soviet Union’s invasion of Czechoslovakia in 1968. MAS is directed by former members of the Venezuelan Communist Party (PCV).

Masista

A militant in the Movement Toward Socialism (MAS).

MEP

People’s Electoral Movement, a left-wing offshoot of Ac¬ tion Democratica.

Mepista

A militant in the People’s Electoral Movement (MEP).

MIR

Movement of the Revolutionary Left, a group of leftist youth who in 1961 accused President Betancourt of “selling out” to U.S. imperialism.

Mirista

A militant in the Movement of the Revolutionary Left (MIR).

OAS

The Organization of American States.

Patron

Literally, patron. As used it implies a definite masterservant relationship more closely involved in the social structure than the English word conveys. Patrones may be landlords, employers, political bosses, and so on.

Perez Jimenista

Any supporter of General Marcos Perez Jimenez.

Plan de Emergencia

Massive public works program initiated by the provi¬ sional government of Admiral Larrazabal in 1959. Its purpose was to provide short-term political stability dur¬ ing which it would be possible to hold free elections and set Venezuela on a democratic course.

Plan de la Nacion

Comprehensive five-year national plans. The Perez gov¬ ernment prepared the Fifth Plan de la Nacion during 1975.

Plancha

An electoral slate used to determine the party composi¬ tion of Congress, state legislatures, and district munici¬ pal councils. Planchas are also used to elect governing bodies in labor unions, peasant federations, and profes¬ sional associations.

XIX

Policlasista

Literally, multiclass. Most Venezuelan political parties claim to be policlasista.

PRIN

A merger of Action Democratica Oposicion and a fac¬ tion of the Movement of the Revolutionary Left (MIR). After the 1968 election the party became known as the National Revolutionary Party (PRN).

Principal

The regular member of a legislative body in Venezuela. Under Venezuela’s proportional representation system, a regular member will sit unless he absents himself from the legislative body to assume other duties. Once he leaves, his place is taken by his alternate, or suplente.

Rancho

In rural areas, the typical peasant house, made of locally available timber, adobe, thatch, and other materials. In the city slums, makeshift shacks built of discarded lum¬ ber, cartons, flattened tin cans, and so on. As plural (ranchos), used for the slum areas.

Rosea

A network of friends or families that support each other in business, politics, or some other endeavor.

Sala

Juridically, one of the three subject-matter panels of the Supreme Court of Justice. Each panel is composed of at least five members. The panels rule on specific subjectmatter areas of code law.

Simpatizante

A “sympathizer,” literally. These are persons who are not officially members of the political party on whose lists they were elected to Congress, or with whom they are otherwise associated (for example, as a minister of state). Their independence from the party may be merely formal, or it may represent true autonomy, as in the case of military and financial representatives who sit in the Council of Ministers.

Situado constitucional

Constitutionally mandated grants from the national bud¬ get to the states. The situado can never be less than 15 percent of the total budget.

Suplente

An alternate member of a legislative body. These are generally not well-known personalities. They are not generally powerful on the national scene, either. Their legislative service is limited to those times when the regu¬ lar member with whom they were elected is absent with leave from his duties.

xx

Trienio

The revolutionary period, October 1945-January 1948, during which AD and the military ruled jointly.

Universidad Central de Venezuela

Largest and most prestigious university, located in Cara¬ cas.

URD

Democratic Republican Union, a personalist leftist group.

Urredista

A member of the Democratic Republican Union (URD).

Voto salvado

Juridically, this term refers to a written minority opinion of a justice, or several justices, in a court case before the Venezuelan Supreme Court of Justice.

XXI

EDITORS’ NOTE

Monetary values in this book are generally reported in bolivares, the Venezuelan national currency. Exceptions to this rule occur when dollar fig¬ ures are needed for international comparisons or balance-of-payments statis¬ tics. We feel that national currency values provide the best indicators of intertemporal changes in an economy. This is especially true when exchange rate changes and multiple exchange rates have been used as policy instruments, as was the case in Venezuela in the period under consideration. For readers interested in the exchange rate, the import rate was Bs 3.33 per dollar until 1961. The average import rate was then permitted to rise gradually, using a system of multiple rates and capital controls, until 1964. In 1964, import rates were unified at Bs 4.48 per dollar. In 1971, the import rate was appreciated to Bs 4.38 per dollar, as Venezuelan exchange reserves began to rise. Petroleum and iron-mining companies received Bs .085-. 1 less per dollar sold than the import rate. The main exception to this rule was the 1961-64 period, when they received Bs 1.1 less. Other sellers of dollars receive approxi¬ mately the import rate, except coffee and cacao exporters, who receive an additional subsidy in bolivares. For exact dates on exchange rate changes see the International Monetary Fund’s International Financial Statistics and the Banco Central de Venezuela’s La Economia venezolana de los ultimos vienticinco anos.

XXII

PART

I

THE ENVIRONMENTS

OF AN EMERGENT SYSTEM

'

CHAPTER

1

THE PATTERNS OF

VENEZUELA’S PAST John V. Lombardi

Located along the northernmost coast of the South American continent, Venezuela, a region shaped roughly like an inverted equilateral triangle, played a minor but nonetheless significant role in the grand drama of the conquest and settlement of America. For generations afterward, Venezuela searched for the riches that could be translated into power, influence, and recognition within the Spanish imperial system. Only in the second half of the eighteenth century did this area become an object of close Iberian scrutiny, in the eco¬ nomic experiment carried out by the Basque-managed Caracas Company. The innovative enthusiasm of Spain’s Bourbon monarchs, and especially their ministers, continued to disturb the isolated tranquility of Venezuela with dramatic reorganizations of government institutions and economic administra¬ tion. Accompanying this remarkable ferment came prosperity for some, a disrupted social status system for others, and a sense of change—a relaxation of the traditions of authority, privilege, and repression—for all. Following closely on the imperial reordering, Venezuela found itself thrown into the midst of a long, expensive, and disruptive civil war known as the Independence Movement. From a position of relative marginality within a declining Spanish Em¬ pire, the two or three generations following the establishment of the Caracas Company found themselves at the center of a continental civil war and became the agents for the dissolution of much of the western world’s greatest imperial venture. Venezuela provided a disproportionate number of soldiers and leaders for this effort, and paid an enormous price. Throughout the subsequent tur¬ moil, Venezuela experienced only a brief moment of peace and tranquility, in the 1830s and 1840s, as the world markets for its crops provided enough revenue to satisfy competing factions and buy time for the country. By the middle of the nineteenth century, however, Venezuela had returned to its 3

4

VENEZUELA: THE DEMOCRATIC EXPERIENCE

traditional position at the fringes of Latin America’s primary centers. While not quite marginal by comparison with some Central American countries, Venezuela’s development in the postindependence era could never hope to keep pace with the dynamic growth and extraordinary resources of a Mexico or a fractionated but nonetheless powerful Argentina. Pulled apart by the seemingly irreconcilable demands of local elites and North Atlantic commerical houses, Venezuela took most of the rest of the century to work out a system that would give foreign investors and merchants adequate guarantees and the security that would induce them to generate sufficient prosperity to maintain the local elites. By the early twentieth century, Venezuela had accomplished this feat, but at a considerable cost to its internal development. Still, order had been established and maintained through the use of techniques perfected over at least a generation. Venezuela had learned how to pay its debts, how to keep the products demanded by the North Atlantic community flowing to the docks, and how to maintain the steady stream of imports required by the local elite. Venezuela, however, had little time to take much satisfaction in this smoothly functioning system. A petroleum boom soon swept the country, twisting and distorting an institutional structure designed to contain far less powerful forces. In one short generation the terms of political, social, and economic exchange had suffered revision, and the consequences of the revised patterns were a modified landscape and outlook. Once again, some 150 years later, Columbus’s Tierra de Gracia found itself at the center of hemispheric and worldwide exchange. This time, Venezuela appeared better prepared than ever before with all the human talent and many of the material resources required to compete in a worldwide arena. If the opportunities for interna¬ tional preeminence and domestic felicity seemed abundant, the penalties for error or miscalculation had also increased exponentially. In the technologi¬ cally sophisticated world of the 1960s and 1970s, with the media probing everywhere and with the might of industrialized superpowers and financial conglomerates broadly applied, Venezuela’s fragile industrial, political, social, and economic props often presented a poor backdrop for the roles being played. The following essay provides a counterpoint to this book’s predominantly social science themes. It locates Venezuelan democracy in space and time. It traces the major patterns of Venezuela’s history and outlines its principal structures. The combination of these elements will help place the analyses and projections of subsequent chapters in their proper relationship to the whole of Venezuela’s historical process. Within the sweep of Venezuelan history, three major patterns stand out, each with its own internal logic, its distinctive dynamic interrelationships, and its characteristic forms of interaction with the outside world. But if these patterns emerge easily from the kaleidoscopic background of Venezuela’s

THE PATTERNS OF VENEZUELA’S PAST

5

shifting, multifaceted history, they prove more difficult to describe and analyze with precision. Part of this difficulty can be traced to the rudimentary state of the historiography on a wide range of important topics. In spite of the efforts of Venezuelan and foreign scholars, much of Venezuela’s past remains rela¬ tively opaque to our historical view. Although we may know with reasonable certainty something about the bare bones of the process, the names and public accomplishments of principal social actors, the formal organization of institu¬ tions, and the theoretical structure of economies, all but a few isolated parts of this process resist close inspection. I do not mean to imply that Venezuela’s historiographical landscape is a wasteland. On the contrary, Venezuelans and a few foreigners have made some admirable advances in the analysis of the historical process. But because the task is so large and the resources committed to it so small, it is no wonder that much remains to be done. Given these limitations, the analytical structure presented here can only be taken as a preliminary hypothesis and will surely require adjustment and revision as our historiographical sophistication increases.1

THE MAIN HISTORICAL PATTERNS From the discovery of America throughout the Spanish colonial period, Venezuela grew slowly until, with a final burst of energy and enthusiasm, it became a mature colonial society in the last quarter of the eighteenth century. This first pattern of Venezuela can be detected, with the advantage of historical hindsight, early in the seventeenth century. It can be followed well into the second half of the nineteenth century, although it grew increasingly faint beneath the growing predominance of the second pattern, characterized by the creation of a local elite to serve a world market. This reorientation of Venezu¬ ela toward the demands of North Atlantic commerce had its origins in the dying decades of the Spanish empire in Venezuela and gained form and sub¬ stance throughout the years of the first republican governments. But it took the organizational genius and political subtlety of Antonio Guzman Blanco to display the pattern in its definitive form. Once tuned to the North Atlantic market, Venezuela’s internal rhythms became irrevocably tied to the develop¬ ment patterns of that rapidly industrializing area; and with the discovery of commercially marketable petroleum in the 1920s, Venezuela’s dominant pat¬ tern began again to change. While it is clear that the petroleum boom shifted Venezuela into an arrangement characterized principally by a variety of indus¬ trial or technological colonization, an internalization of the North Atlantic communities’ controlling mechanisms within the country, this third historical pattern has as yet failed to consolidate. This is true in part because the time span involved has been rather short on a historical scale, and in part because the new pattern, bringing the technological control of the North Atlantic

6

VENEZUELA: THE DEMOCRATIC EXPERIENCE

community inside Venezuela, has become subject not only to the dynamics of Venezuela’s own situation but also to the pressures and demands of radically different and frequently incompatible North Atlantic societies.2 In the patterning and repatterning of Venezuela’s history, no pattern is ever completely obliterated by a subsequent arrangement. For example, motifs, styles, and individual elements of the mature colonial society can be seen in today’s technologically colonized Venezuela. Because these elements of the old design blend so well into modern patterns, social analysts must take care to identify these holdovers, for if such survivals have managed to keep a place in Venezuela’s operating design throughout successive patternings, they must respond to a set of basic social requirements. Although the identification and analysis of these constants in Venezuela’s ever-changing past may well be the most important task for historians, this essay can only hope to mention a few, for not only does space preclude thorough examination of this problem, but the art is probably not yet far enough advanced to permit a close approximation. Nevertheless, one stylistic feature dominates every one of Venezuela’s major patterns. From the middle of the seventeenth century to the present, the primary focus of Venezuela’s structures and functions never shifts from the central city of Caracas. What¬ ever the process, activity, or design of consequence, it required Caraquefio validation before it could become more than a proposal, a dream, or an imaginary grand design. Revolts, revolutions, economic miracles, all could take place elsewhere; but before any of them could become part of the national destiny, they had to come under the influence and control of Caracas. Simi¬ larly, when Venezuela became integrated into the North Atlantic technological empire, or when earlier its elite reorganized itself to serve that community’s needs for coffee and other materials, these patterns received their form—and the country received the patterns from Caracas. For this reason no analytical framework can afford to ignore the primacy of Caracas in the process that created the Venezuela analyzed in detail by the contributors to this volume.3

THE MATURE COLONIAL SOCIETY: 1560-1830 If events in the sixteenth, seventeenth, and eighteenth centuries seem remote and unrelated to the controversies of today and the planning for tomorrow, a quick survey of the formation of Venezuela’s urban landscape in the colonial period reveals a network of hamlets, villages, towns, and cities almost identical in form with the one displayed on Venezuela’s modern road maps. To be sure, there are a few more places on the modern map, many more people live within the boundaries of the network, and petroleum exploitation has created a couple of urban conglomerates in unlikely places. But when seen in a national perspective and analyzed in terms of lines of communication,

7

SEGOVIA HIGHLANDS

8

VENEZUELA: THE DEMOCRATIC EXPERIENCE

power, and wealth, today’s network begins to look more and more like the network completed in Venezuela by the end of the eighteenth century. The two anchor points for the urban net during the first years of its formation in the sixteenth century, Cumana-Margarita-Cubagua in the east and Coro in the west (see Figure 1), served as the outposts for the generation of explorers and adventurers who spun out their years in the exhausting search for El Dorado. In the Cumana region, the lure of fortune and the impulse for settlement came from the rich but limited pearl fisheries beneath the waters of Margarita and Cubagua islands. Exploitative and extractive, the pearl¬ fishing industry nevertheless gave some Spaniards reason enough to establish more or less permanent settlements along the mainland coast, places used to recruit pearl divers and to begin the introduction of cattle into the Venezuelan llanos through Barcelona and the Unare depression. With the early decline of the pearl boom before the middle of the seventeenth century, those Spaniards who stayed in the region turned inland and began a process of slow expansion and settlement which, with the addition of missionary towns built during the early eighteenth century, would complete the European conquest of eastern Venezuela above the Orinoco. In the west, Coro, an early colonial capital, soon transferred to inland centers such as El Tocuyo the role of generator of settlement. The first genera¬ tion of explorers, beginning under the control of the Welser commercial enter¬ prise in Venezuela and then in Spanish-led expeditions, pushed into the Venezuelan Andes, crossed the trackless llanos to the Apure and beyond, and in general covered practically all of Venezuela west of the Unare and north of the Apure in search of gold or of sizable Indian settlements. But by the beginning of the seventeenth century the descendants of those frenetic search¬ ers for El Dorado had come to terms with an environment poor in precious minerals, devoid of large concentrations of tractable Indians, and rich in spectacular scenery well removed from the ports of call along the coast. Proceeding in the typical Spanish manner, the European conquerors of Vene¬ zuela began to take control of the territory by creating towns linked together in the fledgling urban network we see filled out today. Because of its relative inaccessibility in the central mountains and the resistance of its determined native inhabitants, the rich and healthful valley of Caracas was settled near the end of the first expansion, in the second half of the sixteenth century. In the years following the foundation of Caracas, the urban network expanded slowly until the early eighteenth century, when the missionary en¬ thusiasm of Jesuits, Franciscans, Augustinians, and others spread villages throughout the plains and along the Orinoco and Apure river systems.4 Throughout this colonial period, Venezuela was organizationally frag¬ mented. The principal part of the country focused on Caracas, an area outlined by the Unare and Apure rivers, the Segovia Highlands of Barquisimeto and El Tocuyo, and the Tocuyo River. Most of the Andes (Trujillo and Merida) and the Coro-Maracaibo region, however, tended to look to Bogota for direc-

THE PATTERNS OF VENEZUELA’S PAST

9

tion and guidance. On the other side, to the east, Cumana and Barcelona found their lines of communication drawn to the Caribbean centers of Puerto Rico and Santo Domingo. But as the Caracas valleys and nearby regions prospered on a trade based on cacao, anil, and the cattle raised in the plains south of the mountains, their influence and trade with the peripheral parts of Venezuela grew stronger and stronger—so much so that when the Bourbon monarchs chose to update their imperial organization, they consolidated the area of present-day Venezuela into a single jurisdiction headed by an administration located in Caracas.5 In the last half of the eighteenth century, the Venezuelan colonial outpost finally came of age, and the pattern consolidated during that time has had a strong influence on Venezuelan history. The mature colonial society of lateeighteenth-century Venezuela coalesced around the region’s primate city^In an institutional sense, the most important symbol of this coming of age was the creation of the Captaincy-General of Venezuela, a bureaucratic and mili¬ tary construct that brought together into unified administrative control the semi-independent provinces of the region. The Captaincy-General tied the peripheries of Cumana, of Maracaibo, and of San Cristobal-Merida-Trujillo into the control mechanisms located in Caracas. But the consolidation of Venezuela involved more than defense and administration. It also included fiscal and financial matters through the creation of an intendancy and ecclesi¬ astical administration in which Caracas was elevated to an archepiscopal see with jurisdiction over the bishoprics of Merida de Maracaibo and Guayana. This reordering of Venezuela’s institutional structure provides us with a conve¬ nient series of symbols testifying to the high degree of complexity reached by the region, its integrated trade network, and its northward, Caribbean export orientation. The net result of the administrative and economic reforms of this period was to reinforce the centralizing tendency of Caracas. To be sure, not all regional identity disappeared, nor did the domination of Caracas sit well with the rich and powerful in other cities; but whatever their resentments and whatever their dreams of autonomy, no region of Venezuela could determine its own destiny independently of the central, primate city, nor could any regional coalition dominate the country except from within the primate city.6 If the mature colonial society can be defined in one dimension by reference to an institutional structure dominated by a primate city, it can also be mea¬ sured by its social and demographic structure. Thanks to a perennial shortage of labor and the resulting influx of African slaves, the population of the mature colonial society was almost 60 percent black. The white group provided most of the elite and filled the majority of influential posts in the administrative bureaucracy. But although the 25 percent of the population labeled white may have controlled an overwhelming proportion of the region’s property, power, and privilege, they nonetheless saw their social position attacked from above and undermined from below. The blacks, slave and free, appeared to be losing their traditional respect for the elite: some successful mulattoes even bought

10

VENEZUELA: THE DEMOCRATIC EXPERIENCE

into the privileges and position formerly reserved only for whites. Equally disturbing, the Spanish metropolitan authorities gave little encouragement to the whites in their exclusivist pretensions and in some instances even supported the blacks’ bid for social improvement. Although the discussions of this social tension characteristic of the ma¬ ture colonial society were couched in racial terms, the real argument, as is usually the case, had to do with control of and access to material resources. In earlier times, before the prosperity and growing complexity of Venezuela’s agricultural and cattle-raising enterprises demanded more elaborate modes of organization, social control and social structure were more easily managed. But the expanded economy of the late eighteenth and early nineteenth centu¬ ries, and the growing administrative bureaucracy in Caracas, made the mainte¬ nance of old norms increasingly difficult. Some of the less privileged but prosperous individuals of darker color found possibilities for display and ad¬ vantage in newly established militia companies. Others; whose skin color and wealth permitted, passed into the white category through the purchase of a royal patent certifying their newfound whiteness. Thus, one of the characteris¬ tics of the mature colonial society was its social tension between white and black, a tension expressed in racial terms that reflected the majority’s desire to participate in the minority’s control of land, money, and other resources.7 Because Venezuela matured as a colonial society so late in the historical process, the Independence Movement provided an important force in its trans¬ formation in the middle and late nineteenth century. In the epic struggle that liberated South America from Spanish control, Venezuela and Venezuelans contributed enormous stores of resources and sacrificed thousands of men. In Simon Bolivar’s crusade to create a new American empire, Venezuela provided much of the treasure required and many of the soldiers and officers as well. Moreover, Venezuela itself refused to unite to follow the Caracas elite into independence. The blacks, free and slave alike, showed little interest in war and less in liberating the white elite from Spanish rule. To most blacks, the im¬ provements in their condition that had occurred during the generation prior to independence had come principally from Spain and Spanish officials, not from the creole landlords who so jealously defended their exclusive controls. As a result, the creole white elite found it necessary to reconquer much of its own territory before the grand American design could be attempted else¬ where.® Even though the analysis of the course and consequences of Venezuelan independence is beyond the scope of this essay, this greatest of all Venezuelan civil wars altered the Venezuelan pattern profoundly. In the mature colonial society before the war, conflicts of interest at all levels were resolved through an elaborate, formal, and bureaucratized system. Disputes over land or author¬ ity, over precedence and honor, over concessions or profits—whatever the problem, a formal procedure existed to resolve it. With remarkably few excep-

THE PATTERNS OF VENEZUELA’S PAST

11

tions, individuals in this society accepted the constraints of the system and employed their energy to maximize their advantages within the rules. The existence of such a system does not, of course, imply that it treated people fairly, that it remained incorruptible, or that it protected the helpless. Most often it did none of these. But for all its failings and injustices, it did manage a complex society. With the wars of independence, this system disappeared during the clash of bandit armies and the confiscation and reallocation of property. After 10 to 15 years of instability and destruction, old methods of determining legitimacy and right had been replaced by a new system based almost entirely on force and on the favor of those who controlled force. Such a modification of the colonial pattern should come as no great surprise, since it was a logical extension of the militarization of political authority, the other major contribution of independence to the Venezuelan pattern. Under colonial rule, power and authority came from an essentially civilian context, the symbol of Spanish authority being the notary and the lawyer, not the admiral or general. Colonial officials came and went, their abuses might be punished and their successes rewarded, but whatever the situation, it took a lawyer or a notary or perhaps even a cleric to resolve it. Military officers rarely ruled by virtue of their military experience alone, and then usually in defense of a frontier or a coastline. Spanish colonials planned on appealing the injustices of a bad magistrate, not to the nearest general or admiral, but to the royal courts, to the king’s ministers. They tried to take their neighbors’ property, not with armed troops, but with legal writs. They might buy judges and officials, but they did not usually remove or replace them by force.9 By 1830, then, the mature colonial society remained in many ways much as it had been in 1810, but the organizing themes provided by the Spanish imperial mission no longer dominated. While relationships of power and pres¬ tige had changed some—mostly in terms of lower-level whites taking positions previously occupied by higher-level whites—the basic pattern of resource allo¬ cation and control remained. The elite managed to prevent the Independence Movement from becoming a social war, although only by a small margin. The years of turmoil also reinforced the central role of Caracas, proving over and over that control of Venezuela meant control of Caracas. Yet if the substruc¬ ture of this new republic remained in the pattern generated by the mature colonial society, new forces appeared to be directing that society to different ends through different means.

THE COMMERCIAL-BUREAUCRATIC OUTPOST: 1830-1920 To the casual observer, Venezuela’s first century of independence often appears as a chaotic, senseless struggle of picturesque nomad warriors, a

12

VENEZUELA: THE DEMOCRATIC EXPERIENCE

shifting mosaic of petty conflicts and personal rivalries. Beneath the confusion of changing presidents, constitutional revisions, and erudite propaganda cam¬ paigns, however, Venezuela worked toward the reformation of its. mature colonial society to cope with the new demands placed on the old organization by the gradual integration of Venezuela into the North Atlantic commercial system. Because Venezuela’s role in this system was to provide certain agricul¬ tural commodities to the rapidly industrializing nations in exchange for a mixed package of finished goods produced abroad, and because the control and direction of that trade lay in the hands of entrepreneurs, financiers, and compa¬ nies in the North Atlantic community, it became Venezuela’s responsibility to make whatever adjustments the new relationships required. Since the adjust¬ ments in the pattern of a mature colonial society could only benefit some at the expense of others, much of the civil strife characteristic of this century can be traced to a contest over the allocation of burdens and benefits. In assessing the importance of the new pattern worked out during these years, it is essential to emphasize that the impulse, the generating force, for the new arrangement never came from within Venezuela. The pattern-devel¬ oped in response to external conditions imposed by Northern Europeans. Of course, the mature colonial society was also an externally imposed pattern, pressed on Venezuela and the rest of Spanish America by the conditions created in Spain’s brief but spectacular moment of domination in the Western world. The centuries of gradual adjustment in which Spanish conquerors became Venezuelan creole elites tended to obscure the external source of Venezuela’s dominant colonial pattern. But the success of the Independence Movement opened the mature colonial society to the demands of a North Atlantic commercial elite with precious little time for careful preparation. In local terms, the reorientation required two or three stages to reach its logical conclusion at the beginning of the twentieth century. The characteristic type of the first postindependence generation was the charismatic military chieftain, usually made in the heroic confrontations of the wars for indepen¬ dence and always capable of rallying sizable groups of people to his standard in times of domestic turmoil. For Venezuela, the hero from this mold took the shape of General Jose Antonio Paez. From apparently obscure beginnings in the llanos, Paez rose during independence to become the Venezuelan chieftain par excellence, confidant of Bolivar, master of the Venezuelan plainsmen, arbiter of disputes between lesser chiefs, and guarantor of Venezuela’s territo¬ rial integrity. Until the 1850s this man symbolized the Venezuelan struggle to create and stabilize the new pattern required by events. Although this essay makes no attempt to cover in chronological detail the ebb and flow of domestic politics, several local controversies help to highlight the kind of process taking place in Venezuela, and we may suppose elsewhere in Latin America, throughout the nineteenth century.10 During the first phase

THE PATTERNS OF VENEZUELA’S PAST

13

of the repatterning of Venezuela’s society, most of the conflict concerned the exploitation of whatever advantages could be derived from the new relation¬ ship with the North Atlantic community. Between 1830 and at least 1850 this relationship involved one major crop—coffee. The external demand for coffee had raised its price to a favorable level for Venezuelan producers, but before profits could be reaped, certain conditions had to be met. First, peace and internal order had to be maintained if workers were to plant trees and harvest coffee. Second, credit had to be arranged, for few Venezuelans had the money to pay workers or finance coffee production. General Paez, clearly under¬ standing the essentials of these requirements (if not the entire dynamic equa¬ tion), took on the responsibility for maintaining peace and tranquility. He wisely delegated the arrangement of credit to the Caracas elite. In the euphoric prosperity of the postwar years, Venezuela’s landowners rushed to mortgage their properties to foreign commercial houses in search of the credit required to produce the coffee that would make them rich. Once the cycle of credit-financed export crop production began, a series of built-in consequences operated throughout Venezuelan society. Those supplying credit had little interest in Venezuela except for the area’s ability to pay its debts and provide sufficient quantities of coffee and other commodities at favorable prices. In the early years, say between 1830 and 1840, everyone benefited from the new arrangement. Paez proved capable of maintaining the peace. The Caracas elite quickly diversified to form an active and qualified commercial bureaucracy to serve as intermediaries between the sources of finance and commodity speculation and the producers of coffee, cacao, or hides. The planters spent borrowed fortunes rebuilding plantations and harvesting coffee. The Venezuelan elite quickly revised the institutional structure inherited from the mature colonial society to conform to the requirements of North Atlantic commerce. Taxes, tariffs, and debt laws all took the form most likely to benefit the foreign interests fueling the postwar prosperity.11 Venezuela, it should never be forgotten, only reacted to opportunities presented from abroad. Venezuelans controlled neither the terms of the offers nor the conditions of their own participation. So when some shift in the world commodity market brought the price of coffee down, Venezuelan landlords found themselves unable to pay off their debts or escape from the consequences of their overextension. Their government, structured to maintain order and guarantee the requirements of North Atlantic commerce, offered no support, and the segment of the local elite serving as intermediaries for foreign com¬ merce found itself split off from the landowning elite, enforcing foreclosures and debt procedures. As foreign investors lost interest in Venezuela because of low returns on coffee and uncertain debt payments, the local elite fell to fighting among themselves over the best remedies for their situation. In Vene¬ zuela, the years 1850-70 represent a period of massive readjustment in the

14

VENEZUELA: THE DEMOCRATIC EXPERIENCE

organization of the local elites. During the 20 years of intermittent civil war and internal disorder, the commercial-bureaucratic pattern sketched in during Paez’s ascendancy passed through several variations until another strongman stabilized it for several decades after 1865.12 General-President Antonio Guzman Blanco possessed ideal credentials. A member of the Caracas elite, he grew to adulthood in the midst of the intense conflicts in the 1830s and 1840s over the best way to deliver Venezuela’s resources to the North Atlantic community. His father, Antonio Leocadio Guzman, spoke eloquently, if not always consistently, in favor of landowners and coffee growers and even championed an abortive social revolution in the 1840s. But Antonio Guzman Blanco, through extensive foreign travel and residence in Europe, especially France, improved his perspective on world affairs and educated himself in the intricacies of international commerce and finance. His own fortune, built in the service of his country, reflected a pro¬ found grasp of the details of international business. And his participation in Venezuela’s long civil unrest, known as the Federal Wars (1858-63), gave him the skills to deal with local reality. From every perspective, Antonio Guzman Blanco represented the ideal intermediary between the North Atlantic com¬ mercial centers and peripheral Venezuela. To be sure, Guzman Blanco’s task became easier as the Federal Wars exhausted and impoverished the contending factions. With the military control of Venezuela firmly in his hands after 1863, the “Civilizing Autocrat” set about reshaping Venezuela. The conditions influencing Guzman Blanco’s Venezuela differed very little from those facing General Paez’s a generation earlier. But Guzman Blanco’s experiences better equipped him to play the role of Venezue¬ lan intermediary, and he knew exactly how to create optimal conditions for such a role. Through a series of compromises and arrangements, he restored internal tranquility. Fully aware that North Atlantic commerce eared not one whit about the political balance within peripheral states, Guzman permitted his regional satraps a free hand as long as they delivered security of property and civil order. Guzman guaranteed them their share of the lucrative spoils of commerce and trade, mostly in the form of graft and public works patron¬ age, and they supported his regime. With civil order secured, it became possi¬ ble to organize Venezuela to deliver its crops to the world market under conditions that would permit the country’s landowning and bureaucratic elites to prosper. Through judicious manipulation in North Atlantic money markets, the “Illustrious American” gained the resources to finance Venezuelan recov¬ ery. Under this remarkable leader, landowners, merchants, intermediaries, and perhaps even a few peasants found peace and prosperity, while foreign commerce found security for investments, reasonable prices for commodities, and attractive profits for manufactured goods. In line with this perspective, Antonio Guzman Blanco also initiated a wide-ranging program of public works and beautification projects, every one of which promised the center of

THE PATTERNS OF VENEZUELA’S PAST

15

the North Atlantic world a more efficient Venezuela, providing useful crops and a sophisticated market for manufactured goods.13 Given Venezuela’s fragile political and institutional structures and the relative newness of the bureaucratic-commercial pattern—especially its depen¬ dence on the skills of a single strongman—it is no wonder that Guzman Blanco’s departure should have caused serious internal dislocations. In some ways, his self-imposed exile in Europe was the ultimate irony. Starting out as a provincial caudillo dedicated to the conversion of his country to the efficient service of the North Atlantic community, Guzman Blanco became so much a member of that community that he could no longer bear the thought of finishing his career and life among the imitation luxuries and reflected splendor of his native land. But if Antonio Guzman Blanco superseded his intermediary role, many of his countrymen had lesser dreams, and after a series of unedify¬ ing squabbles over the management of Venezuela, a new national symbol emerged at the turn of the century in the person of Juan Vicente Gomez, a shrewd and canny operator unimpressed with the sophisticated pleasures of such commercial centers as Paris, London, or New York and dedicated to the prosperity of Venezuela as reflected in his welfare and that of his friends.14 Juan Vicente Gomez took the essential relationships inherent in Antonio Guzman Blanco’s regime and, by applying a rigorous and ruthless logic, aided by a monopoly on communications and military technology, developed them to their conclusion. While much has been written about Gomecista brutality and vicious repression, there has been a tendency to forget that this man’s success was essentially that of fixing the commercial-bureaucratic pattern in its final form before Venezuela succumbed to the overwhelming pressure of the petroleum-based technological imperium. At the center of the commercial-bureaucratic pattern, either in the Anto¬ nio Guzman Blanco or the Juan Vicente Gomez version, Caracas maintained and increased its primate functions. Measured by any variable or mix of variables—population, revenues, functions, power, elites, or culture—Caracas gained disproportionately throughout the century after independence. If the civil disorders of the nineteenth century proved nothing else, they demon¬ strated time and time again the centrality of Caracas to Venezuela. Why this should have been so is relatively easy to understand in terms of our conceptual frame of reference. Venezuela’s destiny in the nineteenth century as a part of the North Atlantic community’s peripheral resource base was to generate certain commodities under specified conditions, purchase a limited package of manufactured goods, and in general serve the commercial needs of the indus¬ trializing and industrialized nations. No member of the Atlantic community had much interest in the direct supervision or manipulation of Venezuela’s social system, largely because the cost would have greatly exceeded the return, and partly because such complex control mechanisms were unnecessary any-

16

VENEZUELA: THE DEMOCRATIC EXPERIENCE

way. After the disintegration of the mature colonial society, Venezuela, or at least the local elites, desperately wanted to become a part of the North Atlantic community. For the nineteenth-century Venezuelan man of property, ability, or ambition, the only alternative to peripheral participation was unacceptable: virtual isolation. Through a long and very painful process, one profligately wasteful of lives and resources, Venezuela’s controlling class settled their internal conflicts and fixed on a pattern of organization centered on a bureau¬ cratic establishment in Caracas. The urban nexus provided successive local conquerors with the administrative and financial apparatus needed to maintain the peripheral but vital connection to the center. The North Atlantic center, in turn, had no interest in discriminating between rival urban bureaucracies and probably judged correctly that Venezuela could barely support one fullservice capital city, certainly not two. To Caracas came foreign merchants and investors, to arrange with their local agents for the transaction of business. Regional caudillos captured the city from time to time, exacting tribute but never seriously dismantling the administrative machinery. In times of widespread civil disorder, the center might withdraw for a time until Venezuelans reestablished order, recognized outstanding debts, and promised a return to the approved pattern. Venezue¬ lans in search of advancement, preference, prosperity, or advantage came to the city. Many stayed, of course, but others returned to their provincial en¬ claves with whatever resolution Caracas had provided for their problems. The increasing stability of the commercial-bureaucratic pattern centered on Cara¬ cas during the course of the nineteenth century carried a variety of subsidiary developments. Those who came to Caracas did so because they wanted to participate in the benefits accompanying close ties to the North Atlantic center. They brought to their submetropolitan capital as many of the amenities as they could afford. And because Venezuela could afford very few, Caracas rarely had advantages to share with the rest of the country. University educa¬ tion, art, culture, social services, architectural and urbanistic grandeur—what¬ ever the North Atlantic imitation, Caracas monopolized it to an ever-growing degree. As Caracas acquired the trappings of modernity while the rest of the country stayed much the same, the distance separating metropolis from prov¬ ince grew greater, until no other place could compare with the capital. And this development could only please the North Atlantic community, since, duplicated throughout Latin America, it guaranteed the smallest number of peripheral centers possible, greatly facilitating management of the peripheral resource base.15 Venezuela’s commercial-bureaucratic pattern, for all its utility and ratio¬ nality, could not maintain its integrity in the face of the changes brought to the country by the petroleum boom, especially coupled with the post-World War II technological revolution. After Juan Vicente Gomez, a new pattern had to emerge.

THE PATTERNS OF VENEZUELA’S PAST

17

THE TECHNOLOGICAL EMPIRE: 1920 TO THE PRESENT For most, contemporary Venezuela exists for oil and is defined by it. But few pause to reflect on the newness of the petroleum boom, scarcely two generations old. Already, however, Venezuela has readjusted its commercialbureaucratic structures to conform to new demands placed on it by the core areas of the North Atlantic community. In the early years of the oil boom, General Juan Vicente Gomez cushioned the impact of massive foreign inter¬ vention in Venezuelan affairs by manipulating the commerical-bureaucratic pattern. Nevertheless, this arrangement of forces built up between 1830 and 1920 could barely cope with the complexities and imperatives of the early stages of a technological empire forced on Venezuela by her natural resources. As a result, there began another shifting, a redesign promising a new, more complex, more modern, and more up-to-date Venezuela. From one perspective, Gomez and his political successors were called on to bring Venezuela rapidly into a closer relationship with the imperial core. In less frenetic times VenezuelaTcould have been permitted to produce its commodities in whatever old-fashioned and inefficient way the dependent elite chose. After all, the cost of inefficiency was paid by Venezuelans. But petroleum exploitation is highly sophisticated and incompatible with the low-level technology employed throughout most of the country. So the core consumers of energy sent their technological experts to establish enclaves at the necessary places to produce oil in sufficient quantities and with adequate efficiency. If the operation were to succeed, Venezuela—or at least certain parts of her bureaucratic and mate¬ rial subcultures—had to be brought into the technological imperium. Further¬ more, the oil bonanza created such incredible wealth and opportunity for the members of Venezuela’s elite favorably situated in the national capital that these newly rich came to demand a higher level of comfort and modernity in their city. This elite could well afford to import all the external and some of the structural features of imperial life.16 As every student of post-Gomez Venezuela has noticed, one of the strik¬ ing consequences of the petroleum boom has been a dramatic expansion of Caracas. The city had prospered and grown as the administrator of a commer¬ cial bureaucracy required throughout the nineteenth century. After 1925 it blossomed into an imperial subcapital complete with industry, social services, transportation and communications, and a middle class grown increasingly sophisticated. As Caracas acquired the myriad advantages of being the admin¬ istrative center of a technologically complex society, the poor, the rich, and the ambitious flocked to town in search of opportunities unavailable elsewhere in the republic.17 If Caracas quickly took on the attributes of modern imperial capitals such as Los Angeles or Dallas, its structures for conflict resolution and administra¬ tion yielded to the modern style more slowly. General Gomez had built well

18

VENEZUELA: THE DEMOCRATIC EXPERIENCE

when he consolidated the nineteenth-century pattern. After his death in 1935 his successors continued his system for almost a decade. In part, their success in delaying changes in the governing structure can be traced to their ability to satisfy the needs of the North Atlantic technocrats who managed the empire’s oil resources. Concessions, public tranquility, and low taxes permitted the oil consortiums to extract the resources and profits required by their core administrations. But, ironically, it proved impossible to modernize Venezuela in the petroleum enclaves without also permitting local entrepreneurs to profit from the growth of the technological society. And as Venezuela acquired the wealth to purchase more and more of the North Atlantic community’s goods and services, a whole host of imitation industries emerged within Venezuela, controlled from the core, but managed more and more by members of the expanding local elites, sometimes referred to as an emerging middle class. The dizzying pace of change concomitant with the elaborate communica¬ tions technology available in the mid-twentieth century, made the old-style governments increasingly untenable. Not only was the traditional military coalition unable to respond rapidly enough to change, but modern communi¬ cations techniques provided opposition groups with a range of new alterna¬ tives. The growing concentration of people in cities and industrial centers made syndicalist movements possible, and sophisticated propaganda permitted opposition movements relatively free and rapid access to the countryside. Moreover, Venezuela’s closer integration into the North Atlantic core implied increased intervention by core society interest groups in Venezuela’s internal affairs. Some of these interventions were directed at the improvement of Vene¬ zuela as a market for manufactures and as a locus for capital investment. Others attempted to use Venezuela’s internal politics as a weapon in intracore politics. Whatever the cause, Venezuela’s internal activities began to become close models of core society politics, while still maintaining many features of the traditional patterns.18 Perhaps the best example of this situation occurred with the regime of General Marcos Perez Jimenez. Brought into national preeminence through his participation in a coup that suppressed one of the early attempts to estab¬ lish a core-style democratic government in Venezuela, Perez Jimenez in¬ stituted a regime in 1952 patterned partly on Juan Vicente Gomez’s authoritarianism and partly on Antonio Guzman Blanco’s developmentalism. He employed all the technological resources of his environment to suppress and control Venezuela, he promised as much as possible to the North Atlantic interests, but he operated his government in an anachronistic nineteenthcentury pattern. He spent a fortune in petroleum revenue on modernizing Caracas, he encouraged massive foreign immigration to create his new Venezu¬ ela, and he exalted the military establishment in an attempt to keep the peace. All of the characteristics of his regime are hauntingly familiar to any student of Antonio Guzman Blanco’s grand design. The only difference lay in the fact

THE PATTERNS OF VENEZUELA’S PAST

19

that Perez Jimenez, thanks to oil, had the resources to put most of the design into practice. Of course, the effort could not last. In less complex times, perhaps; but the newly created Venezuelan technological elite, the petroleum enclave society, and the Caracas masses put up with the economic and political stagnation represented by Perez Jimenez for less than six years, when, in 1958, a coalition of military officers and concerned civilians joined to terminate the nostalgic interlude. Since the fall of General Marcos Perez Jimenez, Venezuela has been restructuring its characteristic pattern. Two major variants of the technologi¬ cal society seem to be competing for dominance. One is based on a form of democratic conflict resolution and resource allocation. The principal element within this pattern is the technologically capable new Caracas elite dedicated to bringing Venezuela fully into the North Atlantic core as an equal partner. A major design in this pattern involves the transfer of the control of natural resource exploitation to the local elite and the use of those resources to pur¬ chase a place in the core. It is, of course, painfully obvious that this pattern can only succeed if petroleum revenues continue to be sufficient to pay the cost of constructing the new pattern. Venezuela’s progress has indeed been spec¬ tacular, but it has also saddled the country with an exaggerated continuing cost that must be borne at least until Venezuela fixes its place in the core and perhaps even beyond that. The details of this patterning process are discussed exhaustively in the subsequent essays in this volume, but the second, compet¬ ing variant of the pattern deserves some comment.19 If the democratic conflict-resolution pattern dissolves, Venezuela could well fix on an authoritarian, militarily administered conflict-resolution system. Here, too, the purpose of the pattern is to bring Venezuela into the core, but without any pretension to equal status. Simply put, this pattern would be characterized by very high standards of living for the elites, the maintenance of serious technological imbalances in Venezuela’s various regions, and the employment of petroleum revenues to maintain public order and subsidize the elite life-style. In some ways this second variant would appear easier to main¬ tain and cheaper to finance. But since the technological elite in Venezuela has successfully supported the first, democratic variant in the face of a host of serious challenges, we may never see the authoritarian version.20 The present Venezuelan pattern is by no means clear enough to permit firm pronounce¬ ments about developments to come. Much of what happens depends on rear¬ rangements now taking place in the core area’s North Atlantic pattern. Should this dominant world pattern, which has determined Venezuelan affairs for a century and a half, dissolve into some other arrangement, the effects on Vene¬ zuela would be very difficult to predict. Nevertheless, the overview of Venezue¬ la’s historical patterning presented here, in conjunction with the social science analyses that follow, should permit the careful reader to speculate about the future with the best chance of success possible in our uncertain world.

VENEZUELA: THE DEMOCRATIC EXPERIENCE

20

NOTES 1. Students interested in an introduction to Venezuelan historiography should begin with John V. Lombardi et al., Venezuelan History: A Comprehensive Working Bibliography (New York: G. K. Hall, 1976). General histories of Venezuela abound, although none is wholly satisfactory. The two classics are Jose Gil Fortoul, Historia constitucional de Venezuela, 5th ed., 3 vols. (Caracas: Liberia Pinango, 1967), and Francisco Gonzalez Guinan, Historia contemporanea de Venezuela, 15 vols. (Caracas: Presidencia de la Republica, 1954). Perhaps the most useful onevolume survey of Venezuela’s past is J. L. Salcedo Bastardo, Historia fundamental de Venezuela, 4th ed. (Caracas: Universidad Central de Venezuela [UCV], 1972). For a review of Venezuelan historiography, see German Carrera Damas, Historia de la historiografta venezolana (textos para su estudio) (Caracas: UCV, 1961). General bibliographical guides to Venezuelan history are almost nonexistent, but the work of Manuel Segundo Sanchez, Obras, 2 vols. (Caracas: Banco Central de Venezuela, 1964) is the classic. For specialized bibliographical guides, see Pedro Grases, Investigaciones bibliograficas, 2 vols. (Caracas: Ministerio de Education, 1968). For students of the modern era, David E. Blank’s Politics in Venezuela (Boston: Little, Brown, 1973) is the best introduction. 2. In the identification of the three main patterns here, I have been greatly aided by the work of the research group headed by German Carrera Damas of the Centro de Estudios del Desarrollo (CENDES) of the UCV. Their system of hypotheses, “Proceso sociohistorico de America latina,” published in various mimeo editions, is surely the most sophisticated effort so far to analyze Venezuela’s historical process. Also helpful in placing the Venezuelan experience in its world perspective is Immanuel Wallerstein, “The Rise and Future Demise of the World Capitalist System: Concepts for Comparative Analysis,” Comparative Studies in Society and History 16, no. 4 (1974): 387-415. I have been particularly helped by the discussion of the relationships between “core” and “periphery” in that article. Also very useful on dependent relationships is Stanley J. Stein and Barbara H. Stein, The Colonial Heritage of Latin America (New York: Oxford Univer¬ sity Press, 1970). Especially important for the analysis of the commercial-bureaucratic city is James R. Scobie’s From Plaza to Suburb (New York: Oxford University Press, 1975). 3. Caracas has long fascinated scholars, but we are still waiting for a comprehensive and thorough history of it. A number of scholars have made important contributions. Perhaps the most ambitious effort is the multivolume Estudio de Caracas, 15 vols. (Caracas: UCV, 1967-73), a project still underway. Most of these volumes deal with aspects of the modern city, but volume 1 (bound in two), entitled Historia, technologia, economia y trabajo has some valuable material. See “Principales momentos del desarrollo historico de Caracas,” directed by Carrera Damas, pp. 23-102. Other perspectives on the city can be seen in Antonio Arellano Moreno, Caracas: su evolucion y su regimen legal (Caracas: Cuatricentenario de Caracas, 1967) and Jose Antonio de Armas Chitty, Caracas: origen y trayectoria de una ciudad, 2 vols. (Caracas: Fundacion Creole, 1967). The literature on various aspects of the history of Caracas is extensive, but data-based analytical studies are rare. Some of the more important and representative items will be cited in later notes. 4. Venezuelan historians have been much taken with their colonial past, especially the period of conquest and settlement and the missionary labors of the religious orders. Thanks to the Academia Nacional de la Historia’s ambitious publications program, a series of valuable works on this period exists, including Pedro de Aguado, Recopilacion historial de Venezuela, 2 vols. (Caracas: Academia Nacional de la Historia [ANH], 1963); Antonio Arellano Moreno, ed., Relaciones geograficas de Venezuela (Caracas: AHN, 1964); Buenaventura Carrocera, Mision de los capuchinos en Cumana, 3 vols. (Caracas: ANH, 1968); Joseph Cassani, Historia de la provincia de la Compahia de Jesus del Nuevo Reino de Granada en la America (Caracas: ANH, 1967);

THE PATTERNS OF VENEZUELA’S PAST

21

Antonio Caulin, Historia de la Nueva Andalucia, 2 vols. (Caracas: ANH, 1966); Lino Gornez Canedo, ed., Las misiones de Piritu: documentos para su historia, 2 vols. (Caracas: ANH, 1967); Jose Oviedo y Banos, Historia de la conquista y poblacion de la provincia de Venezuela (Caracas: Ediciones Ariel, 1967). For an excellent panoramic survey of Venezuela’s formation with emphasis on human geography see Pablo Vila et al., et al., Geografia de Venezuela, 2 vols. (Caracas: Ministerio de Educacion, 1960, 1965). Also very helpful for the colonial period is Pablo Vila’s Visiones geohistoricas de Venezuela (Caracas: Ministerio de Educacion, 1969). On the Welser episode, see Juan Friede, Los Welser en la conquista de Venezuela (Caracas: Ediciones Edime, 1961). The conquest and colonization of the Caracas valleys has stimulated a remarkable litera¬ ture. Much of it focuses on disputes over the dates and personalities involved in the initial founding of the city. For some representative examples, see Manuel Pinto C., ed., Losprimeros vecinos de Caracas: recopilacion documental (Caracas: Cuatricentenario de Caracas, 1966); Demetrio Ramos Perez, La fundacion de Caracas y el desarrollo de una fecunda polemica (Caracas: Italgrafica, 1967); Pedro Manuel Arcaya U., El cabildo de Caracas: periodo de la colonia, 2d ed. (Caracas: Liberia Historia, 1968); and Maria Teresa Bermejo de Capdevial, “Un problema resuelto: nuevas dudas sobre la fecha de la fundacion de Caracas,” Boletin Historico 17 (1968): 149-66. On the El Dorado myth as an ingredient in the conquest mentality, see Demetrio Ramos Perez, El mito del dorado: su genesis y proceso con el Discovery de Walter Raleigh y otros papeles doradistas (Caracas: ANH, 1973). The classic account of Indian resources and their exploitation is still Eduardo Arcila Farias, El regimen de la encomienda en Venezuela, 2d ed. (Caracas: UCV, 1966). 5. Some general studies of Venezuela’s colonial period may provide supplementary informa¬ tion of value. See, for example, Federico Brito Figueroa, Historia economica y social de Venezuela: una estructura para su estudio, 2 vols. (Caracas: UCV, 1966), and Jeronimo Martinez Mendoza, Venezuela colonial: investigacionesy noticiaspara el conocimento de su historia (Caracas: Editorial Arte, 1965). Also interesting is Guillermo Moron, Historia de Venezuela, 5 vols. (Caracas: Italgrafica, 1971), and the elaborate critique in Angelina Lemmo, De como se desmorona la historia (Caracas: UCV, 1973). 6. On the administrative reorganization of the late eighteenth century, see Caracciolo Parra Perez, El regimen espahol en Venezuela: estudio historico, 2d ed. (Madrid: Cultura Hispanica, 1964); Jose L. Sucre Reyes, La capitania general de Venezuela (Barcelona: Editorial R.M., 1969); Manuel Nunes Dias, El Real Consulado de Caracas (1793-1810) (Caracas: ANH, 1971); Docu¬ mentos para la historia de la iglesia colonial en Venezuela, 2 vols. (Caracas: ANH, 1965); and Nicolas Eugenio Navarro, Anales eclesiasticos venezolanos, 2d ed. (Caracas: Tipografia Americana, 1951). The first Bishopric of Venezuela was founded in 1531 in Coro. In 1636 Caracas officially became the see. Margarita and Cumana became part of the Bishopric of Puerto Rico in 1588, Guayana joined in 1624-25. The Bishopric of Merida de Maracaibo dates from 1777 and that of Guayana from 1790. In 1804 Caracas became the seat of the archbishopric. The CaptaincyGeneral came into being by virtue of a royal order issued in 1777 that included most all of present-day Venezuela. The Intendency dates from 1776. Caracas received a Royal Court or Audiencia in 1786 and a Consulado a year earlier. Also helpful is Guillermo Boaz, Estructura y cambio en Venezuela colonial (Caracas: Fondo Editorial Comun, 1973). On the role of the Caracas Company, see Roland D. Hussey, La Compahia de Caracas (1728-1784) (Caracas: Banco Central de Venezuela, 1962). 7. Venezuela’s social history has received considerable attention from scholars. On the history of Venezuela’s slave system in the colonial period, see Miguel Acosta Saignes, Vida de los esclavos negros en Venezuela (Caracas: Ediciones Hesperides, 1967). Also valuable is Carlos Siso, La formacion del pueblo venezolano (estudios sociologicos), 2 vols. (Madrid: Garcia Enciso, 1953). Although much of our information on the racial tensions contained by colonial social structure comes from discussions during the independence period, James F. King’s pioneer work provides a glimpse into the colonial mind (“A Royalist View of the Colonial Castes in the Venezuelan War of Independence,” Hispanic American Historical Review 33 [1953]: 526—37). See also Pedro M.

22

VENEZUELA: THE DEMOCRATIC EXPERIENCE

Arcaya, Insurrection de los negros de la serranla de Coro (Caracas: Instituto Panamericano de Geografia e Historia, 1949), and Federico Brito Figueroa, Las insurrecciones de los esclavos negros en la sociedad colonial venezolana (Caracas: Editorial Cantaclaro, 1961). The demographic infor¬ mation on the colonial period has been incomplete at best. There are two major sources for generalizations about Venezuela’s colonial population. The most frequently cited are the figures olfered by Alexander von Humboldt, Viaje a las regiones equinocciales del nuevo continent, 5 vols. (Caracas: Ministerio de Educacion, 1956). But more detailed estimates can be derived from the records of Bishop Mariano Marti’s visit to the parishes of his diocese in the last quarter of the eighteenth century, Documentos relativos a su visita pastoral de la diocesis de Caracas (1771-1784) 7 vols. (Caracas: ANH, 1969). Some more detailed estimates are available in John V. Lombardi, People and Places in Colonial Venezuela (Bloomington: Indiana University Press, 1976). 8. Next to the colonial discovery and settlement, few topics claim such overwhelming histori¬ ographical interest for Venezuelans as the independence movement. One of the key figures has been Bolivar. For an illuminating study of the Bolivarian myth and its influence on Venezuelan historiography, see German Carrera Damas, El culto a Bolivar: esboro para un estudio de la historia de las ideas en Venezuela, 2d ed. (Caracas: UCV, 1973). Thanks to the Academia Nacional de la Historia, scholars have over 50 volumes of texts and analyses available on the independence period. Especially valuable in that collection is Caracciolo Parra Perez, Historia de la Primera Republica de Venezuela, 2 vols. (Caracas: ANH, 1959). An excellent guide to independence historiography is in Pedro Grases and Manuel Perez Vila, “Gran Colombia: referencias relativas a la bibliografia sobre el periodo emancipador en los paises grancolombianos (desde 1949),” Anuario de Estudios Americanos 21 (1964): 151-95. An excellent review of the social aspects of independence is in Charles C. Griffin, Los temas sociales y economicos en la epoca de la independencia (Caracas: Fundacion John Boulton and Fundacion Eugenio Mendoza, 1962). For a discus¬ sion of the role of slaves and blacks in the independence movement, see John V. Lombardi, “Los esclavos negros en las guerras venezolanas de la independencia,” Cultura Universitaria 93 (Cara¬ cas, 1966): 153-68. No survey of Venezuelan independence would be complete without mention of the work of Venezuela’s foremost Bolivarianist, Vincente Lecuna. See especially his Cronica razonada de las guerras de Bolivar, 2d ed., 3 vols. (New York: Fundacion Vicente Lecuna, 1960). For the definitive edition of Bolivar’s writings, see the Sociedad Bolivariana’s ongoing series, now in its tenth volume, Escritos del Libertador, 10 vols. (Caracas: Sociedad Bolivariana de Venezuela, 1964—). Also helpful is Augusto Mijares, El Libertador, 5th ed. (Caracas: Ministerio de Obras Publicas, 1969). 9. There is a variety of ways of approaching the changing modes of conflict resolution. For a fascinating glimpse of the Spanish colonial military establishment in Venezuela, see Santiago Gerardo Suarez, Las instituciones militares venezolanas del periodo hispanico en los archivos (Caracas: ANH, 1969). For the dissolution of traditional norms, see the documents in Materiales para el estudio de la cuestion agraria en Venezuela (1800-1830), vol 1 (Caracas: UCV, 1964), and the royalist vision in Anuario del Instituto de Antropologla e Historia, UCV, 1967-69, 2 vols. (Caracas, 1971). Both volumes carry important introductory studies by German Carrera Damas. In Materiales, the essay appears in a separate publication, Sobre el significado socio-economico de la action historica deBoves (Caracas: UCV, 1964), and in the Anuario, see “La crisis de la sociedad colonial,” pp. xv-lxxxix. Also useful for the royalist view is Steven K. Stoan, Pablo Morillo and Venezuela, 1815-1820 (Columbus: Ohio State University, 1974). 10. For students of nineteenth-century Venezuelan history, there are several document col¬ lections of crucial significance for the analysis of the commercial-bureaucratic outpost. First is the fine collection prepared by Pedro Grases and Manuel Perez Vila, Pensamiento politico venezolano del siglo xix: textos para su estudio, 15 vols. (Caracas: Presidencia de la Republica, 1960-1962). Also important for this period is Las fuerzas armadas de Venezuela en el siglo xix, 12 vols. (Caracas: Presidencia de la Republica, 1963-), and the useful Historia de las finanzas publicas en Venezuela (1830-1857), supervised by Tomas Enrique Carrillo Batalla, 10 vols. (Caracas: Cua-

THE PATTERNS OF VENEZUELA’S PAST

23

tricentenario de Caracas, 1969—). See, too, the collection published by the ANH under the series title of Fuentes para la historia republicana de Venezuela. This began in 1969 and to date has covered the Paez period into the Federal Wars in 15 volumes. On Paez, see Jose Antonio Paez, Autobiografia del general..., 2 vols. (Caracas: ANH, 1973), and Archivo del general Jose Antonio Paez (1818-1823), 2 vols. (Caracas: ANH, 1973). 11. There is considerable literature on various aspects of this period of Venezuela’s history. Especially helpful in understanding the dynamics of the Paez era is Ramon Diaz Sanchez, Guzman: elipse de una ambicion del poder, 5th ed., 2 vols. (Caracas: Editorial Mediterraneo, 1968); Robert Ker Porter, Sir Robert Ker Porter's Caracas Diary, 1825-1842: A British Diplomat in a Newborn Nation (Caracas: Instituto Otto and Magdalena Blohm, 1966); and Caracciolo Parra Perez, Marino y las guerras civiles, 3 vols. (Madrid: 1958-60). Some of the best discussion of the issues of this period are in the contemporary polemics collected in the appropriate volumes of Pensamiento politico. Two indispensable works on the conditions of Venezuelan agriculture and population are Giovanni Battista Agostino Codazzi, Obras escoquidas, 2 vols. (Caracas: Ministerio de Educacion, 1960), especially his geography of Venezuela in 1838; and Antonio Arellano Moreno, comp., Las estadisticas de lasprovincias en la epoca de Paez (Caracas: NAH, 1973). For a general survey of the slavery question, see Lombardi, The Decline and Abolition of Negro Slavery in Venezuela, 1820-1854 (Westport, Conn.: Greenwood Press, 1971). On the coffee industry in Venezuela, see Miguel Izard, “El Cafe en la economia venezolana del xix: estado de la cuestion,” Estudis 1 (Valencia, Spain, 1973): 205-73; and Izard, “La agricultura venezolana en una epoca de transicion: 1777-1830,” Boletin Historico 28 (1972): 81-145. 12. The Federal Wars, in part because of their complexity, have yet to receive adequate historiographical attention. Nevertheless, some help comes from Lisandro Alvarado, Historia de la Revolucion Federal en Venezuela (Caracas: Ministerio de Educacion, 1956) and Diaz Sanchez, Guzman. See, too, Jacinto R. Pachano, Biografia del mariscal Juan C. Falcon, 2d ed. (Caracas: Imprenta Nacional, 1960). An excellent discussion of Venezuelan government and philosophy is in Laureano Vallenilla Lanz, Cesarismo democratico: estudios sobre las bases socioldgicas de le constitucion efectiva de Venezuela, 4th ed. (Caracas: Tipografia Garrdio, 1961). Other helpful items on this period are Federico Brito Figueroa, Ezequiel Zamora: un capitulo de la historia nacional (Caracas: Avila Grafica, 1951); Luis Level de Goda, Historia contemporanea de Venezu¬ ela, politico y militar (1858-1886) (Caracas: Imprenta Nacional, 1952); Jose Santiago Rodriquez, Contribucion al estudio de la Guerra Federal en Venezuela, 2 vols. (Caracas: Imprenta Nacional, 1960): Jose Maria de Rojas, Bosquejo historico de Venezuela: primera parte, 1830-1863 (Paris, 1888); Dolores Bonet de Sotillo, Critica a la Federacion, campahas deprensa (1863-1870), 4 vols. (Caracas: Imprenta Nacional, 58—64); and Laureano Villanueva, Vida del valiente ciudadano general Ezequiel Zamora (Caracas: Imprenta Federacion, 1898). An interesting view of land policy can be seen in Materiales para el estudio de la cuestion aqraria en Venezuela (1829-1890), enajenacion y arrendamiento de tierras baldias, vol. 1 (Caracas: UCV, 1971), especially the study by Carmen Gomez R., “Politica de enajenacion y arrendamiento de tierras baldias (1830-1858),” pp. vii-lxxii. See also Archivo del mariscal Juan Crisostomo Falcon, 5 vols. (Caracas: ANH, 1957-60). 13. Antonio Guzman Blanco served as vice-president in 1863-68 and as president in 1870— 77, 1879-84, and 1886-88. His regime has attracted considerable historiographical attention. See especially Diaz Sanchez, Guzman; Rafael Angel Rondon Marquez, Guzman Blanco, el Autocrata Civilizador. (Parabola de los partidos politicos tradicionales en la historia de Venezuela) (Caracas: IDFI, 1954); and George S. Wise, Caudillo: A Portrait of Antonio Guzman Blanco (New York: Columbia University, 1951). See also, Manuel Modesto Gallegos, Anales contemporaneos: memorias del general ... 1925 (Caracas: Imprenta Nacional, 1925) which covers in fragmentary fashion the years 1877-98. James Mudie Spence, La tierra de Bolivar, o paz y aventura en la Republica de Venezuela, 2 vols. (Caracas: Banco Central de Venezuela, 1966) is an excellent travel account of Guzman Blanco’s Venezuela. Julian Nava’s “The Illustrious American: The Develop-

24

VENEZUELA: THE DEMOCRATIC EXPERIENCE

ment of Nationalism in Venezuela under Antonio Guzman Blanco,’ Hispanic American Historical Review 45, no. 4 (1965): 527-43, is a good survey of the period, rich in bibliographical detail. See also Ramon J. Velazquez, La caida del liberalismo amarillo: tiempo y drama de Antonio Paredes, 2d ed. (Caracas: Cromotip, 1973). Two useful guides to this and subsequent periods are Francisco J. Parra’s Doctrinas de la cancillena, 5 vols. (New York: Garrido, 1952-64), which catalogues the foreign policy positions of the Venezuelan government from 1830 to 1939; and Ulises Picon Rivas, Indice constitucional de Venezuela (Caracas, 1944) which covers Venezuela’s constitutions from 1811 to 1936. On Guzman Blanco see, too, Manuel Briceno, Los “Lustres" o la estafa de los Guzmanes (Curazao, 1883). One of the important consequences of Guzman’s modernizing impulse was a renewed interest in statistics. See especially Manuel Landaeta Rosales, Gran recopilacion geografica, estadlstica e historica de Venezuela, 2 vols. (Caracas: Imprenta Bolivar, 1889) and 2 vols. (Caracas: Banco Central de Venezuela, 1963). For church-state relations, see Mary Watters, A History of the Church in Venezuela, 1810-1930 (Chapel Hill: University of North Carolina Press, 1933). 14. The characteristic figure of this interlude was General Cipriano Castro, who served as president in 1899-1908. His failure to obey the rules of core-periphery interaction led to the blockade of Venezuela’s coast in 1902 by British, German, and ultimately Italian warships to enforce payment of debts. The best work on the entire period 1830-1910 is Robert L. Gilmore’s stimulating Caudillism and Militarism in Venezuela 1810-1910 (Athens: Ohio University Press, 1964) which also has an excellent bibliography. On Castro, see Carlos Brandt, Bajo la tirania de Cipriano Castro (Caracas: Tipografia Vargas); Cipriano Castro, Documentos del general..., 6 vols. (Caracas: J. M. Herrera Irigoyen, 1903-08); Enrique Bernardo Nunez, El hombre de la levita gris (los ahos de la restauracion liberal) (Caracas: EDIME, 1953); Antonio Paredes, Como llego Cipriano Castro alpoder, 2d ed. (Caracas: Doneme, 1954), especially the introduction by Ramon J. Velazquez; and a good overall account in Mariano Picon Salas, Los dlas de Cipriano Castro (historia venezolana del 1900) (Caracas: Primer Festival del Libro Popular Venezolano, 1958). 15. The literature on Juan Vicente Gomez (president, 1908-10, 1910-14, 1915-22, 1922-29, 1931-35) is extensive. One of the best ways to view the Gomecista system at work is through Mario Briceno Iragorry’s historical novel Los Riberas (Caracas: Ediciones Independencia, 1957), and the essay on the novel by German Carrera Damas, “Proceso de la formation de la burgesia venezolana,” in his Tres temas de historia: ensayos historicos, 2d ed. (Caracas: UCV, 1974). On the state of agriculture and landholding patterns, see Miguel Acosta Saignes’ polemical but solid Latifundio (Mexico: W. Morrow, 1938). Other detractors of the Gomez regime are Daniel J. Clinton, Gomez, Tyrant of the Andes (New York: Morrow, 1941), and Domingo Alberto Rangel’s study of the Tachira dynasty in Venezuelan politics, Los andinos en el poder: balance de una hegemonia, 1899-1945 (Caracas, 1964). Gomez had his adulators and defenders as well. See Pedro M. Arcaya, The Gomez Regime in Venezuela and its Background (Baltimore: Sun Printing Co., 1936); Pablo Emilio Fernandez, Gomez el rehabilitador (Caracas: J. Villegas, 1956); John Lavin, A Halo for Gomez (New York, 1954); and Juan Vicente Gomez, El general... .• documentos para la historia de su gobierno (Caracas: Presidencia de la Republica, 1925). A quick source for information and statistics on a variety of economic and social indicators is Miguel Izard’s valuable compilation, Series estadlsticas para la historia de Venezuela (Merida: Universidad de los Andes, 1970). 16. As we approach modem times, the literature on Venezuelan topics increases tremen¬ dously. In these notes, I can only indicate some of the important and representative items from the range of possibilities. Two guides for the period are Victor M. Badillo and Celestino Bonfanti’s Indice bibliografico agricola de Venezuela (Caracas: Fundacion Eugenio Mendoza, 1957) and the first supplement, 1955-60 (Maracaibo: Luz, 1962); and Helen L. Clagett, A Guide to the Law and Legal Literature of Venezuela (Washington: Library of Congress, 1947). On oil, the standard history is Edwin Lieu wen, Petroleum in Venezuela: a History (Berkeley: University of California, 1954). A more recent, comprehensive treatment destined to become the standard reference is

THE PATTERNS OF VENEZUELA’S PAST

25

Franklin Tugwell, The Politics of Oil in Venezuela (Palo Alto: Standford University Press, 1975). See also Hector Malave Mata, Petroleo y desarrollo economico de Venezuela (Havana: Publicaciones Economicas, 1964). 17. See the volumes of the Estudio de Caracas for reflections on the oil boom’s impact on the city. Also useful is Chi-Yi Chen, Los pobladores de Caracas y su procedencia: resultados de una encuesta (Caracas: Universidad Catolica Andres Bello [UCAB], 1970), and his Movimientos migratorids en Venezuela (Caracas: UCAB, 1968). Carlos Acedo Mendoza has two books of interest here. Venezuela: ruta y destino, 2d ed. (Caracas: Fondo Editorial Comun, 1971), and Reforma urbana (Caracas: Fondo Editorial Comun, 1974) offer an analysis of Venezuela and a plan for urban reform. Rafael Caldera Rodriguez’s Idea de una sociologia venezolana (Caracas: El Cojo, 1953) has an extraordinary complement of notes. For a review of Marxist historiography and an excellent guide to contemporary Venezuelan historians, see German Carrera Damas, Historiografia marxista venezolana y otros temas (Caracas: UCV, 1967). An excellent survey of the sweep of Venezuelan history from a traditional perspective is in Mariano Picon Salas et al., Venezuela independiente (Caracas, 1962). 18. Some useful insights into the turbulent period of 1930 to the present can be gained through the following items. Michael Bamberger, “A Problem of Political Integration in. Latin America: The Barrios of Venezuela,” International Affairs 44, no. 4(1968): 709-19; Banco Central de Venezuela, La economia venezolana en los ultimos treinta anos (Caracas: Banco Central de Venezuela, 1971); Frank Bonilla and Jose Antonio Silva Michelena, eds., A Strategy for Research on Social Policy (Cambridge: MIT Press, 1967); Frank Bonilla, Causas y efectos del exodo rural en Venezuela (Washington: Pan American Union, 1955); Castro-Communist Insurgency in Vene¬ zuela: A Study of Insurgency and Counterinsurgency Operations and Techniques in Venezuela, 1960-1964 (Alexandria, Va.: Atlantic Research Corp., 1964); John Friedmann, Regional Develop¬ ment Policy: A Case Study of Venezuela (Cambridge: MIT Press, 1966); Henry Gomez, La industrial del mineral de hierro en Venezuela: experiencia y perspectivas (Caracas: UCAB, 1970); Louis E. Heaton, The Agricultural Development of Venezuela (New York: Praeger, 1969); Manuel Vicente Magallanes, Partidospoliticos venezolanos (Caracas: Tipografia Varges, 1959); Venezuela, Oficina Ministerial de Transporte, Estudios y proyeccion de la poblacion del area metropolitana de Caracasy de Venezuela, 1966-1990 (Caracas, 1967); Marco Aurelio Vila and Juan J. Pericchi L., Zonificacion que-economica de Venezuela, 4 vols. (Caracas: Corporacion Venezolana del Fomento, 1968); John Duncan Powell, The Political Mobilization of the Venezuelan Peasant (Cambridge: Harvard University Press, 1971); Domingo Alberto Rangel, La industrializacion en Venezuela (Caracas: UCV, 1958); Talton F. Ray, The Politics of the Barrios of Venezuela (Ber¬ keley: University of California Press, 1969); and Silva Michelena, The Illusion of Democracy in Dependent Nations: Politics of Change in Venezuela (Cambridge: MIT Press, 1971). Other material on these themes can be found in the notes accompanying the rest of the articles in this volume. 19. On Venezuelan politics and society in recent times, see the following for a start on the literature. Robert J. Alexander, The Venezuelan Democratic Revolution: A Profile of the Regime of Romulo Betancourt (New Brunswick: Rutgers University Press, 1964); Robert F. Amove, Student Alienation: A Venezuelan Study (New York: Praeger, 1972); Enrique Baloyra, “Oil Policies and Budgets in Venezuela, 1938-1968,” Latin American Research Review 9, no. 2(1974): 27-72; Romulo Betancourt, Politico y petroleo (Mexico, 1956; 2d ed., rev., Caracas: Fondo de Cultura, 1967); Winfield J. Burggraff, The Venezuelan Armed Forces in Politics, 1935-1959 (Columbia: University of Missouri Press, 1972); Tomas Enrique Carrillo Batalla, Crisis y adminis¬ tration fiscal (Caracas: UCV, 1964); Ramon Fernandez y Fernandez, Reforma agraria en Vene¬ zuela (Caracas: Las Novedades, 1948); R. Gonzalez Baquero, Analisis del proceso historico de la educacion urbana (1870-1932) y de la educacion rural (1932-1957) en Venezuela (Caracas: Edito¬ rial Senderos, 1962); George W. Hill et al., La vida rural en Venezuela (Caracas, 1960); Fred D. Levy, Jr., Economic Planning in Venezuela (New York: Praeger, 1968); Eleazar Lopez Contreras, Gobierno y administracion (1936-1941) (Caracas: Editorial Arte, 1966); John D. Martz, Accion

26

VENEZUELA: THE DEMOCRATIC EXPERIENCE

Democratica: Evolution of a Modern Political Party in Venezuela (Princeton: Princeton University Press, 1966); Domingo F. Maza Zavala, Venezuela: Una economia dependiente (Caracas: UCV, 1964); David J. Myers, Democratic Campaigning in Venezuela: Caldera's Victory (Caracas: Fundacion La Salle, 1973); Luis Beltran Prieto Figueroa, De una educacion de castas a una educacion de masas (Havana, 1951); Domingo Alberto Rangel, La revolucidn de las fantasias (Caracas: Ediciones Ofidi, 1966); Philip B. Taylor, The Venezuelan Golpe de Estado of 1958: The Fall of Marcos Perez Jimenez (Washington: Institute for the Comparative Study of Political Systems, 1968); and Franklin Tugwell, “The Christian Democrats of Venezuela,” Journal of Interamerican Studies 7, no. 2(1965): 245-67. 20. The principal actors in the Venezuelan presidency since Gomez have been: Eleazar Lopez Contreras (1936-41), Isaias Median Angarita (1941-45), Romulo Gallegos (1948), Marcos Perez Jimenez (1952-58), Romulo Betancourt (1959-64), Raul Leoni (1964-69), Rafael Caldera (1969— 74), and Carlos Andres Perez (1974-). For brief surveys of the presidents and a general view of Venezuelan history, petroleum policy, steel industry, political parties, and other facets of Venezue¬ lan affairs see the appropriate articles in Helen Delpar, ed., Encyclopedia of Latin America (New York: McGraw-Hill, 1974).

CHAPTER

2

VENEZUELAN

CONSTITUTIONAL FORMS AND REALITIES R. Lynn Kelley

The overthrow of the Perez Jimenez regime in January 1958 brought a return of democratic experimentation which had flowered imperfectly during the trienio (1945-48). Elections were held in December 1958, but it was three years to the day after the ouster of the dictator when a new constitution was formally adopted. The Constitution of 1961 is, with the exception of the ill-fated 1947 document, the first to provide a framework for the regularized transfer of governmental powers by means of universal adult suffrage.1 This constitutes a departure from tradition, for earlier documents had contained provisions to prevent popular suffrage from influencing the transfer process. The contemporary emergence of universal suffrage and of a government pledged to respect the integrity of periodic tests of its right to hold power was therefore a novelty in Venezuelan political history. At this writing, however, it has survived four national elections and two defeats of government forces by the opposition. One of the decisive acts was the 1958 Pact of Punto Fijo, committing the party signatories (AD, COPEI, and URD) to a common mini¬ mum program, while obliging the first postdictatorial president to include minority parties in his government. This provided not only for the holding of democratic elections and formation of the first governmental coalitions, but also for the political cooperation which led to the 1961 Constitution. Another result was the visceral and sustained commitment to the prevailing rules of the game by dominant party elites. Thus, examination of constitutionally specified governmental structures, and of the normative relationships stipulated for them aids in an understanding of Venezuelan political behavior since 1959. Our task here is to demonstrate how the three branches of national government have interpreted their roles in the constitutionalist phase of political development. After blending analysis of empirical data with interpretation of constitutional norms, I will offer observa27

28

VENEZUELA: THE DEMOCRATIC EXPERIENCE

tions on the meaning of post-1959 constitutional evolution for the continuation of democratic processes in Venezuela.

THE EXECUTIVE Students of twentieth-century Latin American politics have been unable to escape the standard observation that governments have been dominated by strong executives. Even the events which transformed Venezuela from a harsh dictatorship to a democratic laboratory did little to alter the notion that the executive should possess extensive powers. Thus, the 1961 Constitution gives the “Executive Power” the right to declare a state of emergency and to declare the restriction or suspension of guarantees. It also grants to the executive the right to devise all regulations necessary for carrying out the laws.2 These are subject to referral neither to the Congress, nor to the courts in the first instance. The president is to be elected by secret ballot every five years, and no incumbent is eligible for reelection during the ten years following completion of his term. He is assisted by a Council of Ministers who serve at his pleasure unless ousted by a vote of censure by a majority in the Chamber of Deputies. In addition to some 13 to 15 ministers (increased in 1976 by President Carlos Andres Perez), the president is aided by the procurador general (a kind of constitutionally mandated attorney general) and his national planning office, CORDIPLAN (see Chapter 11). The boards of autonomous institutes and of such state corporations as the Centro Simon Bolivar are also named by the president. In practice, the four postdictatorial presidents have reflected a movement away from democratic-caesarist patterns of behavior. The relative lack of effective constitutional limitations on presidential hegemony has been substan¬ tially alleviated by the political costs incurred by the indiscriminate use of presidential powers. Even the Communists had been consulted prior to the signing of the Pact of Punto Fijo, a measure of the mutual determination to avoid an antidemocratic coup. The wisdom of interparty coalition politics was perceived by all the parties, and this did not change with the inauguration of Romulo Betancourt, following the AD victory with 49.45 percent of the presidential vote.

Under Accion Democratica From the outset, Betancourt sought to build and maintain a broad-based party coalition as a source of basic support for his continuation in office. This coalitional feature became a hallmark of the AD administrations of both Betan¬ court and Raul Leoni. Coalition maintenance proved a difficult task. Under

VENEZUELAN CONSTITUTIONAL FORMS AND REALITIES

29

both Betancourt and Leoni, parties serving as junior members of the executive coalition differed greatly in outlook. The URD under Betancourt was rendered incapable of serving as a trustworthy partner, owing to an internal party struggle over foreign and domestic policy priorities. Such tensions were re¬ lieved in November 1960, when the URD left the coalition following the refusal of the foreign minister (a URD member) to support the government in its opposition to Cuba at the San Jose conference of foreign ministers. COPEI remained in the coalition with AD, but later presented its own candi¬ dates and policies to the voters for the December 1963 elections. The AD plurality for Raul Leoni dwindled to 33 percent. With COPEI unwilling to join the new government, Leoni was forced to look to the emaci¬ ated URD and the new right-wing Frente Nacional Democratica (FND) to build a coalition. Although initially disparaged by Betancourt as too weak, this amplia base (broad-based) government survived for over a year. The FND, orginally an “antiparty movement” whose supporters were among the AD’s most vocal critics, proved an embarrassment to its leader, Arturo Uslar Pietri, as he attempted to forge a party out of the new congressional delegation. By April 1966 the FND had largely dissolved as a meaningful political force, and it left the Leoni government without much notice of its passing. The URD, in contrast, remained in alliance until May 1968, when its leader withdrew the party to campaign for the December elections. COPEI had remained in opposition throughout the Leoni years, a felici¬ tous event for both itself and AD. The latter thus enjoyed a freer hand in policy making, while the former was able to develop its position and role as leader of the loyal opposition. The presence of an organized, articulate opposition capable of taking power itself, but content to play by established rules until elections were held, constituted a novelty in the political experience of Venezu¬ ela. Undoubtedly, this both aided the transition from one party elite to another which occurred in 1969, and also demonstrated for the masses how parties could compete while remaining peaceable. Regardless of the parties involved in the AD governments of Betancourt and Leoni, the basic strategy for devising and maintaining these coalitions was relatively simple. That is, those ministries AD considered crucial to the preser¬ vation of the regime were reserved to it. For their part, the junior coalition partners vied for ministries which would provide them with a lever for affect¬ ing policy in areas of national importance, allow them to maintain or increase their party membership and the organizational loyalty to the party by provid¬ ing their loyalists with patronage positions. An examination of the data dealing with individual ministries provides some supportive evidence for this position (see Tables 2.1 and 2.2). If we examine three variables—the percentage of the national budget received by each ministry, that of public employees attached to each ministry, and the value of these employees’ salaries as a percentage of their respective

VENEZUELA: THE DEMOCRATIC EXPERIENCE

30

TABLE 2.1 Power Index for Venezuelan Ministries

Ministry Public Works Interior Education Defense Finance Health and Social Services Agriculture Communications Justice Development Mines and Hydrocarbons Labor Foreign Affairs (Adjustments)

Percentage of 1966 Budget Received

Power Rank

20.7 20.3 11.6 9.9 9.4 8.7 6.7 3.6 2.7 2.3 1.9 .8 .7 .7

1 2 3 4 5 6 7 8 9 10 11 12 13 —

Source: Venezuela Up-to-Date 12, no. 2 (Winter 1965-66): 6.

ministry’s budget—we can offer a partial test of the two preceding hypotheses. The percentage of the national budget that a ministry receives is one indicator of its power in national affairs. Thus, we might expect to find more of the ministries with relatively high power rankings (that is, large budgets) attached to the party of the president. The value of salaries in relationship to a ministry’s total budget, and the number of public servants employed by a given ministry, can be used to construct an “index of patronage potential.” Ministries may be conveniently divided into high, medium, and low categories of patronage potential by using this index. It is of interest that the allocation of ministries to junior coalition partners under both Betancourt and Leoni corresponds closely to the patronage index. The less disciplined a coalition partner, the more likely it was to receive those ministries which provided patronage posts only for the party faithful; converse¬ ly, the less likely such a party was to receive any post which allowed it to exercise significant influence on national policy issues. During the Betancourt period, the URD was clearly the coalition party that fit this type. The only policy¬ making ministry assigned to the URD was Foreign Affairs, which eventually cost the party its continued participation in the government. Under Leoni, both the FND and URD were relatively weak, undisciplined parties, although the former was obviously more so than the latter. The weakness of these two parties allowed the AD to absorb for itself the ministries of Education and

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Ian industrial expansion has been along its primary lines of comparative advan¬ tage—capital-intensive manufactures—or nontraded items such as beer, cement, and construction.4 Except for construction, this capital-intensive growth did not provide many jobs per percentage point of growth. Nonetheless, the Venezuelan per¬ formance in this respect was actually somewhat better than that of the rest of Latin America in the 1950-68 period,5 despite “structuralist” criticisms of the capital intensity of the process.6 In 1961, services, commerce, and agriculture continued to employ about 75 percent of the labor force, although services represented 38 percent of the employed as opposed to 31 percent in 1950. Agricultural employment rose slightly and fell as a percentage of the em¬ ployed, partially as a result of the traditional pull of the cities and partially as the result of lagging agricultural output, which still reached the relatively high rate of 6.5 percent per year (4.5 percent, 1951-57). The overall shift in labor force composition was sufficient roughly to equate the growth rates of output per man in agriculture and the rest of the economy excluding pe¬ troleum, but it left untouched the sixfold difference in average labor productiv¬ ity.7 The lag in agricultural growth reflected the international decline in coffee and cacao prices and the competition of agricultural imports, effectively paid for by revenues from petroleum exports, which otherwise would simply have increased private and public holdings of foreign assets. While government policy toward agricultural imports did vacillate through the 1950-57 period, there was probably a smaller push toward agricultural import substitution in Venezuela than in any other Latin American economy. During the poor harvests of 1950-51, large amounts of food were imported for consumption, dampening any possibility that food prices in the cities would respond to rising domestic production costs. Agricultural imports fell in 1952 but then were permitted to rise steadily, so that their value was roughly 20 percent larger by 1957, and their proportion of real national consumption had fallen only 3 percentage points, to 22 percent.8 Government neglect of agriculture also manifested itself in low levels of spending on agricultural-rural development during the 1950-57 period. (See Tables 4.5 and 4.6 for figures on government spending.) For example, the Agricultural and Livestock Bank, a major source of agricultural credit, was given no funds after the 1953/54 fiscal year and received only one quarter of its 1949/50 appropriation over the whole 1950/51-1956/57 period. The spend¬ ing that did occur was concentrated in large-scale, capital-intensive projects such as the sugar centrals. It is difficult to criticize Venezuela for initiating a few capital-intensive industrial projects along lines of obvious comparative advantage, such as steel and petrochemicals. However, the neglect of agriculture, which was probably next in the line of comparative advantage and which employed nearly half the

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