Hostname: page-component-cd9895bd7-dzt6s Total loading time: 0 Render date: 2024-12-25T01:15:57.215Z Has data issue: false hasContentIssue false
  • English
  • Français

Venezuelan Democracy and the Coup Attempt of February 1992

Published online by Cambridge University Press:  28 March 2014

George Philip
Get access Rights & Permissions [Opens in a new window]

Extract

THE ABORTIVE COUP IN VENEZUELA, ON 4 FEBRUARY 1992, came at first sight in a very surprising place and at a very surprising time. Venezuela has enjoyed uninterrupted democratic rule since 1958; the last serious attempted coup was as long ago as 1962. Moreover, many Latin American countries whose experience of military rule was much more recent, have moved in the direction of democracy during the last few years. Textbooks which discussed and sought to explain Latin America's recent move toward democracy have only recently been published. Do Latin Americanists now need to start rehearsing their after-the-fact explanations for a new series of democratic breakdowns? The decision by President Fujimori in Peru to close his national Congress in April 1992 might suggest that the Venezuelan case is by no means isolated.

Type
Articles
Information
Government and Opposition , Volume 27 , Issue 4 , 01 October 1992 , pp. 455 - 469
Copyright
Copyright © Government and Opposition Ltd 1992

Access options

Get access to the full version of this content by using one of the access options below. (Log in options will check for institutional or personal access. Content may require purchase if you do not have access.)

References

1 Sic, February 1992, p.53.

2 Huntingdon, S. P., Political Order in Changing Societies, New Haven, Yale University Press, 1968 Google Scholar.

3 Lipset, S. M., Political Man, Heinemann, 1960, p. 86 Google Scholar.

4 Beetham, David, The Legitimation of Power, London, Macmillan, 1991, p. 11 CrossRefGoogle Scholar.

5 Arroyo, E., ‘Elections and Negotiation: Democracy in Venetuala’, PhD thesis, London School of Economics, 1983 Google Scholar.

6 Schmitter, P., O’Donnell, G. and Whitehead, L. A. (eds), Tramition from Authoritarian Rule, Baltimore, Maryland, Johns Hopkins University Press, 1986 Google Scholar

7 A. Rankin, ‘Democracy in Uruguay’, PhD thesis, London School of Economics, forthcoming.

8 David Bertham, op. cit., pp. 136–7.

9 See Crystal, J., Oil and Politics in the Gulf: Rulers and Merchants in Kuwait and Qatar, Cambridge University Press, 1990 CrossRefGoogle Scholar; Luciani, G., ‘The Rentier State’, in Beblawi, H. and Luciani, G., The Renlier State, Croom Helm, 1987 Google Scholar.

10 Clapham, C., Third World Politics; An Introduction, Croom Helm, 1985. CrossRefGoogle Scholar