Published online by Cambridge University Press: 02 January 2018
Venezuela's contemporary politics poses a problematic different from those predominating in the literature on democratization. Scholarly research in the last decade focused first on the crisis of authoritarian rule and the ensuing transition to civilian governments, with the reestablishment of electoral procedures, and, more recently, on the problems of the consolidation of a democratic regime, including alternation in power, universal acceptance of the rules of the game, and generation of a democratic political culture.
The challenges confronting Venezuela are not those of transition or consolidation but, rather, the decomposition — or deconsolidation — of an established democratic regime. In other Latin American countries in recent decades, longstanding models of statist development developed crises that led, in turn, to complex transformations in the economy and in society. One consequence of these changes was that authoritarian regimes began a transition to more democratic forms of governance.
An earlier version of this article appears in VENEZUELAN DEMOCRACY UNDER PRESSURE by Jennifer L. McCoy, William C. Smith, Andrés Serbin, and Andrés Stambouli (eds.) [North-South Center, 19951. We gratefully acknowledge the comments of Diego Arria, Rafael de la Cruz, Francine Jácome, Daniel Levine, María Eugenia Mujica, David Myers, Carlos Romero, Aldo Vacs and four anonymous reviewers on earlier drafts of this article.