Chapter 8: Venezuela
A brief and readable introduction to Venezuela is Hollis Micheal, Tarver Denova, and Julia C. Frederick, The History of Venezuela (Westport, Conn.: Greenwood Press, 2005). Two solid accounts are Daniel H. Levine, Conflict and Political Change in Venezuela (Princeton, N.J.: Princeton University Press, 1973) and John V. Lombardi, Venezuela: The Search for Order, the Dream of Progress (New York: Oxford University Press, 1982). In Female Citizens, Patriarchs, and the Law in Venezuela, 1786–1904 (Lincoln: University of Nebraska Press, 2004), Arlene J. Diaz offers an important study of the roles of women and the lower classes in Venezuela’s historical transformation.
Oil has dominated Venezuela in the twentieth century. A classic study is Franklin Tugwell, The Politics of Oil in Venezuela (Stanford, Calif.: Stanford University Press, 1975). Two works analyzing the links among oil production, democracy, and economic development are Terry Lynn Karl, The Paradox of Plenty: Oil and Democracy in Venezuela (Berkeley: University of California Press, 1997) and Jorge Salazar-Carrillo and Bernadette West, Oil and Development in Venezuela during the 20th Century (Westport, Conn.: Praeger, 2004). For a fascinating exploration of twentieth-century politics, see Harold A. Trinkunas, Crafting Civilian Control of the Military in Venezuela: A Comparative Perspective (Chapel Hill: University of North Carolina Press, 2005).
In Missionary Capitalist: Nelson Rockefeller in Venezuela (Chapel Hill: University of North Carolina Press, 2002), Darlene Rivas offers a rather sympathetic portrayal of Rockefeller’s efforts to promote an entrepreneurial, developmentalist, and pro-American ethos in the southern Caribbean. Bilateral tensions are considered in Janet Kelly and Carlos A. Romero, The United States and Venezuela: Rethinking a Relationship (New York: Routledge, 2001).
Hugo Chávez has emerged as one of Latin America’s most controversial leaders, and his rule has generated a plethora of studies on contemporary Venezuela. An excellent starting point is Steve Ellner, Rethinking Venezuelan Politics: Class, Conflict, and the Chávez Phenomenon (Boulder, Colo.: Lynne Rienner, 2008), which offers an insightful overview of the factors that led to Chávez’s multiple electoral victories and his ongoing popularity in the country. In The Unraveling of Representative Democracy in Venezuela (Baltimore, Md.: Johns Hopkins University Press, 2004), editors Jennifer L. McCoy and David J. Myers proffer multiple views on the collapse of traditional democracy and the rise of a new regime under Chávez. Veteran Venezuelan journalists Cristina Marcano and Alberto Barrera Tyszka present a balanced biography in Hugo Chávez (New York: Random House, 2007), while Brian A. Nelson offers a somewhat biased, pro-military account in The Silence and the Scorpion: The Coup against Chávez and the Making of Modern Venezuela (New York: Nation Books, 2009). Other insightful accounts include Michael McCaughan, The Battle of Venezuela (New York: Seven Stories Press, 2005); Nikolas Kozloff, Hugo Chávez: Oil, Politics, and the Challenge to the U.S. (New York: Palgrave Macmillan, 2006); Gregory Wilpert, Changing Venezuela by Taking Power: The History and Policies of the Chávez Government (London, New York: Verso, 2007); Leslie C. Gates, Electing Chávez: The Business of Anti-Neoliberal Politics in Venezuela (Pittsburgh: University of Pittsburgh Press, 2010; Sujatha Fernandes, Who Can Stop the Drums? Urban Social Movements in Chávez’s Venezuela (Durham: Duke University Press, 2010), and Thomas Ponniah and Jonathan Eastwood, eds., The Revolution in Venezuela: Social and Political Change under Chávez (Cambridge: Harvard University David Rockefeller Center for Latin American Studies, 2011).