Steve Ellner states that the main objective of Organized Labor in Venezuela, 1958-1991 is to “present a balanced account of organized labor in order to fill various lacunae in the field” (p. xi), and without doubt he has accomplished his goal. Throughout this work, Ellner centers his chapters on the argument of “Venezuelan exceptionalism,” basically that Venezuela has been an exception to the traditional Latin American democratic development pattern of political upheavals, social conflicts, and military interventions.
Ellner’s examination comprises three major parts: the history of the Venezuelan labor movement, the role of labor leaders in political and economic affairs, and the political parties’ role in the labor movement. Ellner presents his information from the vantage point of the labor leaders, which he acquired through roughly one hundred interviews. He ends his excellent work with the 1991 Labor Law, which altered relationships both between labor leaders and workers and between the labor movement and the Venezuelan government.
If Ellner’s work is important both to the history of labor and to oral history in Venezuela, Joseph Tulchin’s compilation of essays is equally important to an understanding of the country’s current political and economic situation. In an effort to discuss “the ambitious path of economic restructuring on which Venezuela had embarked, together with the reform of the state that was being proposed” (p. vii), the Woodrow Wilson International Center hosted the conference “Venezuela Democracy and Political and Economic Change” in June 1990. Venezuela in the Wake of Radical Reform comprises the presentations and subsequent commentaries from that meeting. Although they provide background information, the presentations emphasize Venezuela’s political and economic concerns at the end of the first year (1989) of President Carlos Andrés Pérez’ second administration.
Designed more for the Venezuelan specialist than for a generalist, the presentations by Germán Carrera Damas, Moisés Naím, Carlos Blanco, Beatrice Rangel, Andrés Stambouli, and Gustavo Tarre Briceño are excellent. They are complemented with commentaries by the noted Venezuelanists David Meyers, John Martz, and Diego Abente (as well as other Latin American specialists), which provide critical interpretations of the events in Venezuela by persons not directly affected by the reform measures. Because 1992 political events in Venezuela drastically altered the political and economic reforms discussed at this conference, Moisés Naím contributes an epilogue in which he discusses the effects and consequences of the unsuccessful February revolt against Pérez.
These two recent works provide an excellent account of selected aspects of Venezuela’s political and economic concerns, from the successful golpe de estado of January 1958 to the unsuccessful one of February 1992. They are both welcome additions to the growing scholarship on Venezuela.
