1 Polyarchy: Participation and Opposition (New Haven and London: Yale University Press, 1972), 106.

2 Jeffrey Obler and Jurg Steiner, “The ‘Burden’ of Consociationalism: A Review Essay of Austria, Belgium, The Netherlands, and Switzerland,” 1. (Mimeographed.)

3 Ibid., 106 n.

4 See McRae, Kenneth R. (ed.), Consociational Democracy: Political Accommodation in Segmented Societies (Toronto: McClelland and Stewart, 1974), 2–27.Google Scholar

5 “Segmented Pluralism: Ideological Cleavages and Political Cohesion in the Smaller European Democracies.” Comparative Politics 3 (1971), 141.

6 The concept of cross-cutting cleavages, which are said to lead to a low polarization, has been utilized very frequently to describe the North American case. See Dahl, Robert A., Democracy in the United States: Promise and Performance (2nd ed.; Chicago: Rand McNally, 1972)Google Scholar, chap. 22.

7 Attempts have been made to measure the extent of segmentation of some of the societies which are more affected by it. See Lorwin. “Segmented Pluralism.” 148–59. Rae, Douglas and Taylor, Michael offer an operational measure of fragmentation in The Analysis of Political Cleavages (New Haven and London: Yale University Press, 1970), 23–29.Google Scholar

8 The idea of zuilen has had long standing in Dutch political thinking. However, in recent times, it was originally emphasized by Kruijt, J. P. in Verzuiling (Zaandijk: Heijnis, 1959)Google Scholar, an argument later amplified and popularized by Lijphart, Arendt in The Politics of Accommodation: Pluralism and Democracy in the Netherlands (Berkeley and Los Angeles: University of California Press, 1968).Google Scholar

9 Dahrendorf, Ralf, Class and Class Conflict in Industrial Societies (Stanford: Stanford University Press, 1972Google Scholar; first published, 1959). chaps. 5 and 6.

10 Obler and Steiner, “The ‘Burden’ of Consociationalism,” 32–36. See also Lorwin, Val, “Linguistic Pluralism and National Tension in Modern Belgium,” Canadian Journal of History 1 (1970), 1–23CrossRefGoogle Scholar, and Dunn, James A. Jr., “‘Consociational Democracy’ and Language Conflict: A Comparison of the Belgian and Swiss Experiences,” Comparative Political Studies 5 (1972), 3–40.CrossRefGoogle Scholar

11 See Steiner, Jurg, Amicable Agreement Versus Majority Rule: Conflict Resolution in Switzerland (Chapel Hill: University of North Carolina Press, 1972).Google Scholar

12 Steifbold, Rodney P., “Political Change in a Stalemated Society: Segmented Pluralism and Consociational Democracy in Austria,” in Vig, Norman J. and Steifbold, Rodney P. (eds.), Politics in Advanced Nations: Modernization, Development, and Contemporary Change (Englewood Cliffs: Prentice-Hall, 1974), 425–77Google Scholar; Bluhm, William T., Building an Austrian Nation: The Political Integration of a Western State (New Haven and London: Yale University Press, 1973)Google Scholar, and Powell, G. Bingham Jr., Social Fragmentation and Political Hostility: An Austrian Case Study (Stanford: Stanford University Press, 1970).Google Scholar

13 See Kruijt, J. P., “The Influence of Denominationalism on Social Life and Organizational Patterns,” Archives de Sociologie des Religions 4 (1959), 105–11CrossRefGoogle Scholar, reprinted in McRac, Consociational Democracy, 128–36. See also Lijphart, , The Politics of Accommodation; and two articles in vol. 7 (1971)Google Scholar of Sociologia Neerlandica: J. M. G. Thurlings, “The Case of Dutch Catholicism: A Contribution to Pluralist Society,” 118–36, and J. A. van Kemanade, “Roman Catholics and their Schools,” 15–27.

14 For an example concerning the Austrian case see Diamant, Alfred, Austrian Catholics and the First Republic: Democracy, Capitalism, and the Social Order, 1918–1934 (Princeton: Princeton University Press, 1960).Google Scholar

15 Lipset, Seymour Martin and Rokkan, Stein, “Cleavage Structures, Party Systems and Voter Alignments: An Introduction,” in Lipset, and Rokkan, (eds.), Party Systems and Voter Alignments: Cross National Perspectives (New York: Free Press, 1967), 6Google Scholar, 13, italics in original.

16 Ibid., 3.

17 See “The Theory of Sectoral Clashes,” Latin American Research Review 4(1969), 9–46.

18 See Newton, Ronald C., “On ‘Functional Groups.’ ‘Fragmentation,’ and ‘Pluralism’ in Spanish American Political Society,” Hispanic American Historical Review 50 (1970), 1–29.CrossRefGoogle Scholar

19 For a representative overview of some of the arguments and leading assumptions of this group of theorists see Wiarda, Howard J. (ed.), Politics and Social Change in Latin America: The Distinct Tradition (Amherst: University of Massachusetts Press, 1974)Google Scholar, and also Pike, Frederick B. and Stritch, Thomas (eds.), The New Corporatism, Social-Political Structures in the Iberian World (Notre Dame: University of Notre Dame Press, 1974).Google Scholar Merle Kling and Richard Morse provided some of the initial impetus for this interpretation. See Kling's, “Toward a Theory of Power and Political Instability in Latin America,” Western Political Quarterly 9 (1956), 21–53CrossRefGoogle Scholar, and Morse's, “Toward a Theory of Spanish American Government,” Journal of the History of Ideas 15 (1954), 71–83.CrossRefGoogle Scholar More than a decade passed before a revision and expansion of their arguments was taken up. Dealy, Glenn C. provided for this with “Prolegomena on the Spanish American Political Tradition,” Hispanic American Historical Review 48 (1968), 37–58.CrossRefGoogle Scholar

20 The literature on caudillism is overwhelming. For two classic treatments of the question see Chapman, Charles E., “The Age of Caudillos: A Chapter in Hispanic American History,” Hispanic American Historical Review 12 (1932), 281–300CrossRefGoogle Scholar; and Lambert, Jacques, Latin America: Social Structure and Political Institutions, trans, by Katel, Helen (Berkeley and Los Angeles: University of California Press, 1969)Google Scholar, chap. 8. For a different perspective see Wolf, Erik R. and Hansen, Edward C., “Caudillo Politics: A Structural Analysis,” Comparative Studies in Society and History 9 (1967), 168–79.CrossRefGoogle Scholar For a discussion of caudillism in Venezuela see Sánchez, Ramón Díaz, Guzmán: Elipse de una ambición de poder (Caracas: Ediciones Hortus, 1953)Google Scholar; Gilmore, Robert L., Caudillism and Militarism in Venezuela: 1830–1910 (Athens: Ohio University Press, 1964)Google Scholar; Tosta, Virgilio (ed.), El caudillismo segùn once autores venezolanos: Contribución al estudio del pensamiento sociológico national (Caracas: Tipografia Garrido, 1954)Google Scholar; Wise, George S., Caudillo: A Portrait of Antonio Guzmán Blanco (New York: Columbia University Press, 1951)Google Scholar; and probably the most famous essay on the topic, Lanz, Laureano Vallenilla, Cesarismo democrático: Estudio sobre las bases sociológicas de la constitutión efectiva de Venezuela (Caracas: El Cojo, 1919).Google Scholar

21 “Bases of Political Alignment in Early Republican Spanish America,” in Graham, Richard and Smith, Peter H. (eds.), New Approaches to Latin American History (Austin and London: University of Texas Press, 1974), 82.Google Scholar

22 The national period corresponds to the years between 1830 and 1880–90, although the close of the period varies with the country. See Griffin, Charles C., The National Period in the History of the New World: An Outline and Commentary, Comisión de Historia, Publicasión 103 (México: Instituto Panamericano de Geografia e Historia, 1961).Google Scholar An alternative or “new” type of periodization refers to the period between 1760 and 1850–60 as the “neocolonial” period. The main assumption behind this is that Independence did not bring about major socioeconomic changes and, therefore, one should not consider Independence a major historical watershed in Latin America. From the standpoint of dependencia theory, the period beginning in the 1850's should mark the onset of neocolonialism, with British imperialism coming to fill the vacuum left by Spain, leading the Latin American economies by the nose into a market orientation dictated by the commercial interests of England and other centre countries. We believe that the beginnings of dependent capitalism are important but should not overshadow the major event of Independence.

23 Regarding patronato and the general question of church and state in Venezuela, the following is an accurate summary of nineteenth-century conditions: “[T]he constituent congress, by resolution, on October 14, 1830, declared that the right of patronage belonged to the nation and incorporated the Ley de Patronato of 1824…. In the course of its national history Venezuela has enacted twenty-six constitutions but it has never… altered the essential features of the Law…. Restrictions on Church influence began earlier and were carried further in Venezuela than elsewhere in Latin America. Anti-clericalism, based in liberal philosophy and political design rather than Church's behavior in the war of emancipation (which left much to be desired), was strong in the small minority which exercised leadership. Unchecked anti-clericalism resulted in legislation that restricted the Church more than in any other country of the continent.” See Meecham, J. Lloyd, Church and State in Latin America: A History of Politico-Ecclesiastical Relations (rev. ed.; Chapel Hill: University of North Carolina Press, 1966; first published, 1934), 99.Google Scholar

24 For the antecedents of the agrarian question and its impact on the War to Death, see Damas, Germán Carrera, “Estudio Preliminar,” in his compilation Materiales para el estudio de la cuestión agraria en Venezuela: (1800–1830), vol. 1 (Caracas: Imprenta Universitaria, 1964)Google Scholar, vii-clxiv. For a discussion of the agrarian question on the politics of the national period see Guerrero, Luis Troconis, La cuestión agraria en la historia national, Biblioteca de Autores y Temas Tachirenses, vol. 29 (Caracas: n.p., 1962).Google Scholar

25 Rodríguez, José Santiago, Contribución al estudio de la Guerra Federal en Venezuela (2 vols.; Caracas: Ediciones Conmemorativas del Primer Centenario de la Revolución Federal, 1960).Google Scholar Several different authors have argued that the social question was also a factor in the war and that this was, to a certain extent, a war of the poor against the rich. See Picón, Mariano, “La aventura venezolana,” in Presidencia de la Repùblica, 150 años de vida republicana, 1811–1961 (Caracas: Ediciones de la Presidencia de la Repùblica, 1963), 40–42.Google Scholar

26 See Lombardi, John, The Decline and Abolition of Negro Slavery in Venezuela: 1820–1854 (Westport, Conn.: Greenwood Publishing, 1971).Google Scholar See also Saignes’, Miguel Acosta classic Vida de los esclavos negros en Venezuela (Caracas: Librería Politécnica, 1967).Google Scholar 27 See Lombardi's discussion of the “model agricultural export economy of Venezuela,” its credit and capital formation mechanisms, the development of the crisis of coffee, and the interest conflict between planters and moneylenders (Decline and Abolition, chap. 5). Challenging some standard notions of class conflict and class formation in nineteenth-century Hispanic America, Safford underlines the irony that this conflict polarized conservative moneylenders, who were the capitalist “vanguard” of the time, and liberal but paternalistic planters who joined with artisans to support the Liberal party, although this alliance was not long-lasting (“Bases of Political Alignment,” 76, 82–88, 92–94).

28 Analysis of Political Cleavages, I, where they define cleavages as “the criteria that divide the members of the society into groups” and where they allude to ascriptive or “trait” cleavages, attitudinal or opinion cleavages, and behavioural or “act” cleavages.

29 There are also some historical reasons which deal with the inherent institutional weakness of the Venezuelan church until recently. According to Meecham, in 1873 Antonio Guzmán Blanco “inaugurated one of the most complete and devastating attacks ever directed against the Catholic Church in Latin America. The initial act deprived the clergy of control over the civil registry…. It was hoped that this would diminish clerical influence over domestic relations…. At the same time the civil rite of marriage was declared to be the only legal form…. Monastic and church property was confiscated for the benefit of the government. The customary ecclesiastical revenues were abolished and appropriations for the Church were suspended. Public education was declared to be lay, gratuitous, and obligatory…. The dictator had been successful in destroying what influence the Church had managed to retain. The clergy became servile to a government that treated them with indignity. The Church was never able to recover its lost prestige” (Church and Slate, 107–08). Meecham also detailed how Guzmán tried to attract Protestant sects to fill this vacuum but was unsuccessful. These are some of the reasons pointing to the historical institutional weakness of the Church in Venezuela. The Church was weak and dependent, both economically and politically.

30 See Daniel H. Levine's description and analysis of the educational crises of 1946–48 and 1966–67. Although Levine was aware of the literature of segmented pluralism, and he made some comparisons between Venezuela and the consociational countries, he did not go into a full-fledged attempt to treat the conflict as a result of pillarization. However, he acknowledged that one major difference between the two crises was the fact that Catholic organizations had been created during the fifties, to represent the interests of Catholics who were sending their children to private schools. The ability of these leaders, and the leaders of the major national political parties to isolate their membership from the negotiations and confrontations proved to be decisive for the resolution of the conflict. See Conflict and Political Change in Venezuela (Princeton: Princeton University Press, 1973). It is also instructive that although the Church hierarchy and the lay leaders of AVEC and FAPREC utilized the argument that they represented majority opinion, they acted very much like a minority throughout the two crises, and the intensity of their protest, and the strategies which they utilized are relatively similar to those utilized by Catholic Mexicans in their confrontation with the PRI government over the same issue. See Monson, Robert A., “Political Stability in Mexico: The Changing Role of Traditional Rightists,” Journal of Politics 35 (1973), 594–614.CrossRefGoogle Scholar

31 José A. Silva Michelena argues that regionalism actually helped the formation of the Venezuelan state because it not only led to the secession from the Gran Colombia federation, but also because Venezuelans were extremely disoriented about their national loyalties, having gone in thirty years from colony of Spain, to a province of Gran Colombia, and finally to an independent republic. Silva contends that, perhaps, “the most natural reaction in this situation was to strengthen local loyalties as the only road to salvation before a sense of national identity could be obtained….” See The Politics of Change in Venezuela, vol. 3, The Illusion of Democracy in Dependent Nations (Cambridge. Mass., and London: M.I.T. Press, 1971). 46. In this sense, regionalism helped to integrate the country from below, in the manner suggested by Daalder and Lijphart.

32 Ahumada, Jorge. “Hypotheses for Diagnosing Social Change: The Venezuelan Case.” in Bonilla, Frank and Michelena, José A. Silva (eds.). The Politics of Change in Venezuela, vol. 1. A Strategy for Research in Social Policy (Cambridge. Mass. and London: M.I.T. Press. 1967). 5–6.Google Scholar

33 It should be pointed out that the late Ahumada wrote this piece before the “dual society” hypothesis was challenged by Rodolfo Stavenhagen and others. Silva's substitution of cultural heterogeneity for Ahumada's cultural dualism responds to the criticism of the dual society thesis, a criticism that Ahumada would have incorporated.

34 Lipset and Rokkan, Party Systems. 14.

35 Ibid.. 10.

36 For a discussion of the impact of regionalism in Venezuelan politics conceived in the traditional sense see Griffin, Charles C., “Regionalism's Role in Venezuelan Politics,” Inter-American Quarterly 3 (1941), 21–35.Google Scholar It should be mentioned that Griffin utilized ethnic, economic and sociocultural criteria to differentiate the regions.

37 We ran four separate analyses based on data from the censuses of 1941, 1950, 1961, and 1971; the latter has not been fully reported and as a result of this we could not utilize the same variables in the four different replications. In all instances we found that the most parsimonious explanation that we could derive from our factor-analytic solutions were typologies based on three factors: the urban-rural, a factor based on migration which we called “drift,” and a third, having to do with cultural heterogeneity.

38 See Simeon, Richard and Elkins, David J., “Regional Political Cultures in Canada,” this Journal 7 (1974). 397–437.Google Scholar

39 Ibid., 397–99.

40 See Myers’, David treatment of these centre-periphery relations in “Urban Voting, Structural Cleavages and Party System Evolution. The Case of Venezuela,” Comparative Politics 8 (1975). 119–51.CrossRefGoogle Scholar Incidentally. Myers’ typology of the Venezuelan regions is very similar to ours (ibid., 126).

41 Oficina Central de Coordinación y Planificación, Documentos de la regionalización del desarrollo (Caracas: lmprenta Nacional, 1969), 9–10.Google Scholar

42 C.A., Datos., Indice económico 1973 (Caracas: n.p.. 1973).Google Scholar

43 Acción Democrática: Evolution of a Modern Political Party in Venezuela (Princeton: Princeton University Press, 1966). Appendix B, 403–12.

44 See Martz, Actión Democrática; also Cárdenas, Rodolfo José, El combate politico, Sólo para lideres nuevos (2nd ed.; Caracas: Editorial Doña Barbara, 1968)Google Scholar; Magallanes, Manuel Vicente, Cuatro partidos nacionales (Caracas: Editorial Diana, 1963).Google Scholar

45 Simeon and Elkins utilized this approach in their analysis of Canadian regionalism. Their sample was sufficiently large to allow them to treat the Canadian provinces separately. In our case not only was the sample smaller but the number of states twice as large. From a methodological standpoint, a good way to verify the results of our analysis would be to draw a much larger sample and to see if, in terms of differences and similarities between the states, the type of configuration that emerges resembles our typology of the regions.

46 See Myers. “Urban Voting,” 124–27 for a brief discussion of the role of centre-periphery distinctions in the formation and development of partisan loyalties.

47 See Linz, Juan and Miguel, Armando De, “Within-Nation Differences and Comparisons: The Eight Spains.” in Merritt, Richard L. and Rokkan, Stein (eds.). Comparing Nations (New Haven and London: Yale University Press, 1966). 267–319.Google Scholar

48 Ibid., 275–76.

49 After a series of attempts, this effort produced the following classification: (1) metropolitan centre, (2) other metropolitan, (3) all urban areas, (4) rural areas of the Centre and West, (5) rural areas of Zulia and the East. (6) Andes, and (7) Plains. The intermediate and rural areas were combined. The major assumption behind this effort was that if urbanization is the element most responsible for reducing regional differences, the metropolitan and urban areas would be less subject to the influence of regional factors. We settled on the aforementioned classification on the grounds that it yielded “optimal” results by comparison with the alternatives; by optimal we mean that it produced the highest number of significant correlation coefficients and the stronger values for them. The position of the Andes and the Plains were the most difficult to determine, given the high levels of participation and partisanship of these two areas.

50 Notably Wilson, John, “Canadian Political Cultures: Towards a Redefinition of the Nature of the Canadian Political System,” this Journal 7 (1974). 438–83.Google Scholar

51 For two classic formulalions see Lerner, Daniel, The Passing of Traditional Society: Modernizing the Middle East (New York: Free Press. 1958).Google Scholar and Deutsch, Karl W.. “Social Mobilization and Political Development.” American Political Science Review 55 (1961). 493–514.Google Scholar One of the more successful attempts to soften the more problematic assumptions of the Lerner-Deutsch paradigm is Nie, Norman H., Powell, G. Bingham Jr.. and Prewitt, Kenneth. “Social Structure and Political Participation: Developmental Relations. Part 1.” American Political Science Review 63 (1969), 361–78CrossRefGoogle Scholar and “Part II,” American Political Science Review 63 (1969), 808–32.

52 Blank, David Eugene. Politics in Venezuela (Boston: Little, Brown, 1973). 140–42.Google Scholar

53 Martz, John D. and Harkins, Peter B., “Urban Electoral Behavior in Latin America, The Case of Metropolitan Caracas, 1958–1968,” Comparative Politics 5 (1973), 523–50.CrossRefGoogle Scholar

54 Bonomo, Santiago Alejandro, Sociologia electoral en Venezuela, Un estudio sobre Caracas, Biblioteca de Psicologia Social y Sociología, vol. 61 (Buenos Aires: Paidos, 1973).Google Scholar

55 Myers, “Urban Voting.” 145–46.

56 Ibid., 142.

57 Our terminology of civic and parochial is borrowed from Almond, Gabriel A. and Verba's, SidneyThe Civic Culture, Political Attitudes and Democracy in Five Nations (Boston: Little, Brown, 1965).Google Scholar This usage is intended to dramatize the contrast between the conclusions of that study and our own findings.