The Unraveling of Representative Democracy in Venezuela

Extract

The Unraveling of Representative Democracy in Venezuela. Edited by Jennifer L. McCoy and David J. Myers. Baltimore: Johns Hopkins University Press, 2004. 368p. $49.95.

The replacement of a “stable” democracy with an elected self-proclaimed “revolutionary” government—especially in a major petroleum-exporting country—demands the attention of comparative politics. Thus, this volume is a welcome addition to the rather thin body of scholarship on Venezuela. Comprised of essays by several leading students of Venezuelan politics, it locates the preconditions for Hugo Chavez's rise in the vulnerabilities of the previous regime. Some chapters, including the conclusion, also attempt to explain the nature of the new government under Chavez. However, given the origins of the book in conference papers from 2000, the latter task is quite underdeveloped. A fuller analysis of the nature and structure of the Chavez government, now into the final year of its first full constitutional term, would have made the book all the more valuable. Nonetheless, its question about democracy's “unraveling” is of great importance.