Two of the most important phenomena of contemporary Latin American society have been the migration to the cities and the resulting urban squatter settlements. An understanding of Peruvian barriadas, Chilean callampas, Brazilian favelas, and their counterparts elsewhere is crucial to the study of political and social life. Talton Ray’s study of the Venezuelan barrios offers many insights, both for students of the general subject and for specialists on Venezuelan politics. It is also a significant companion-piece to Lisa Peattie’s personalized account of a single community, The View from the Barrio.
Ray was a staff member of the Ford Foundation and previously spent over two years in Venezuela with the community development organization ACCION. Thus he derives his analysis from personal experience with some 130 barrios in sixteen cities. In straightforward language and unassuming tone he traces the formation and growth of the barrios, studies their societal and political behavior, and places their influence in the context of Venezuelan party polities. In the process he underlines the apparent uniqueness of the barrios while calling into question several widely accepted truisms in the existing literature.
Among his earliest points is the contention that Venezuelan barrio residents do not maintain strong ties with the countryside. He observes that Venezuelan migrants from a given rural area generally do not settle in the same cities or barrios, but explains that this practice represents the exception rather than the rule. Thus there is a social detachment among Venezuelans contrasting with the cohesiveness which characterizes slum neighborhoods elsewhere in Latin America. The author also presents evidence to contradict the familiar thesis that such slum residents provide fertile soil for revolutionary agitation. While pointing up special conditions in Venezuela which mitigate against the growth of a revolutionary spirit, he differs from such writers as Frantz Fanon and the Venezuelan Domingo Alberto Rangel, who hold that the “floating masses” of the barrios possess great revolutionary potential. Ray also gives convincing support to those who have criticized the tactical and strategic miscalculations of the extreme left in Venezuela.
A theme which appropriately pervades the book is the author’s concern with the political role of those in the barrios. While discussing the quasi-egalitarian spirit of these Venezuelans, he describes in detail the activities of the major political parties, especially the ruling group from 1958-1968, Acción Democrática (AD). He observes the efforts of the AD to maximize its popular support during the 1958-1963 period and comments on its failure, as reflected by the elections of 1963. Insights into the so-called “Caracas Phenomenon,” which has seen successive victories by nonparty or independent candidates in the last three elections, rest in large part on an analysis of the barrios. Ray provides the student of Venezuelan polities with many insights, a more systematic exploration of which must await the findings of several ongoing electoral studies, including that of the present reviewer. As a final remark, political scientists should note Ray’s application of Charles Anderson’s formulations regarding “power contenders” and “power capabilities.”