The Unraveling of Representative Democracy in Venezuela

Dados Bibliográficos

ID6323698
AutoresMatthew Soberg Shugart (0000-0002-6144-8613, University of California San Diego, autor correspondente)
Ano2005
Volume3
Fascículo4
Páginas925-926
Data de publicação2005-12-01
Peer ReviewedSim
Open AccessSim
TipoARTICLE
PeriódicoPerspectives on Politics (JOURNAL)
Identificadores do periódicoISSN: 1537-5927 • E-ISSN: 1541-0986
EditoraCambridge University Press (CUP) (PUBLISHER)
DOI10.1017/s1537592705690494
OpenAlexW2137651319
IdiomaEN
Citações recebidas15

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

Democracy · Government (linguistics · Political economy · Political science · Politics · Scholarship · Sociology · Cultural and political discourse analysis · Law · Philosophy · Political Theory and Democracy · Politics and Society in Latin America · Public Administration