Thanks to oil, Venezuela since 1958 seems one of the developing world’s success stories. From oil prosperity, under moderate programmatic elites divided among two major parties, with a materialistic and success-minded people, the country has moved toward constitutional popular government. In the first full-dress text treatment in a decade, this book explores these phenomena—in a mixed and very uneven way.
David Eugene Blank is technically at home with private sector-oriented data. While he is using the guides of existing conceptual material concerning political behavior, he is on sound ground, and the work shows it. When he relies on his own judgments or sensings of others’ analyses, he tends to get into difficulty. But when he refies on Little, Brown & Co.’s editorial staff to correct his style, notes, or use of Spanish, he is in real trouble.
The book’s strength is in its latter half, concerned with political socialization, the analysis of major interest groups, and the governmental decision process. His concluding chapter, on the future of the system, is sound, with insights for events since the (undated) bulk of the manuscript was finished. Possibly his soundest judgment was to give modest credence to the ideologically self-limited volumes by Frank Bonilla and José Silva Michelena analyzing the MIT/CENDES study of 1963. He uses the data; although he makes no great issue of it, he offers mildly contrary interpretations.
The book is not a government-and-politics piece. Two chapters on parties are concerned almost exclusively with leadership and events, and little with internal structure. The governmental process chapter is so bereft of detail on governmental structure that observations on the executive branch are not intelligible. Although there are some demographic-voting pattern correlating tables, they do not link usefully to the body of the book.
Blank has many eclectic and unarticulated attitudes that color descriptions and conclusions. He has rather antagonistic feelings about Acción Democrática; although never stated explicitly, they recur in regard to programs. Further, there are substantial errors concerning AD’s early record. He is rather indifferent to COPEL He demurs from conventional wisdom about figures such as Jóvito Villalba and Miguel Ángel Capriles, whom most American writers view as scoundrels. These early points led the reviewer finally to look for hidden inferences; the slight paranoia this induces is obviously undesirable.
Finally, there are many inconsistent ends lying about. Blank remarks (p. 153) that “. . . parties have not acted as sources of innovating ideas or policies,” although the book is full of contrary proof. His treatment of the agrarian program is nearly pejorative; granted a later essentially conservative stance, implications of leftist criteria seem to turn into mere cavilling. Violence of 1958-1964 is termed “representational,” and thus parallel to more legitimate forms of policy guidance; but this term is used almost interchangeably with “revolutionary violence.” Blank cannot have it both ways.
The book demonstrates many areas of competence, to be sure. The specialist will find it conceptually useful, and students will have a base for class work. It can be hoped its second edition will meet some of the more demanding tests of academic craftsmanship.
