HOW MAY AN ANTHROPOLOGICAL UNDERSTANDING OF THE

VENEZUELAN POLITY AND ITS CULTURE-HISTORY HELP TO EXPLAIN

THE COUNTRY'S PRESENT-DAY URBAN REALITIES?

George Azariah-Moreno
BA Anthropology & Linguistics (dissertation)
University College London, June 2002

ABSTRACT:
This paper seeks to explore ways in which elements in Venezuela's culture-history,
specifically the cultural and historical construction of the Venezuelan polity and the
particular forms of political power and organisation that have come to characterize it,
may help explain the observable disparities and the nature of Venezuela's present-day
realities, with special reference to the urban context. The aim is to examine the evolution
of political power in Venezuela from the Pre-Columbine period to the present, free of the
‘year zero’ commonly entailed by the European conquest for the beginning of
Venezuela’s political life. I explore the extent to which extant forms of political
organisation have maintained some degree of continuity in the nature of the Venezuelan
polity over time, and how far this affects present-day Venezuela. There is also an
evaluation of Venezuela's historical position and how this may have been conducive to
native elements maintaining some degree of continuity up until the present context. This
continuity is analysed in terms of the survival of elements of Caciquismo: a form of
political organisation rooted in Amerindian society, where the central political figure
exercises only a form of 'titular leadership' lacking coercive compulsion, in contrast with
Feudalism in Europe and its implications for the formation of the European state. It is
argued that this explains why Venezuela cannot be seen to fit the classical 'nation-state'
model. The ‘fluidity’ of its territoriality is seen to illustrate this, as well as the state's
inability to effectively exert its modernising visions on society, particularly in the urban
context. Finally, some implications for development are explored, in the form of the
dangers of negative and oppositional conceptualisations, which fail to take into account
cultural specificity and define underdevelopment merely as an absence of development
along Western lines.

1
CONTENTS:

INTRODUCTION:

1. Background and Interest

2. Methods
3. Venezuela's position historically

CACIQUISMO: AN INDIGENOUS FORM OF POLITICAL

ORGANISATION ROOTED IN
PRE-COLUMBIAN AMERINDIAN SOCIETY

1. Overview: what is Caciquismo?

2. Caciquismo vs. Feudalism
3. The imprint of Caciquismo from past to present in Venezuela

VENEZUELA: A MODERN NATION STATE? THE CONTINUOUS

RELEVANCE OF CACIQUISMO IN PRESENT-DAY VENEZUELA AND
EVIDENCE OF ITS SURVIVAL IN THE URBAN CONTEXT.

1. A ‘fluid’ territoriality
2. How Caciquismo affects the urban context.

CONCLUSIONS AND IMPLICATIONS

2
INTRODUCTION

1. Background and Interest:

In the 1970s, Venezuela was Latin America's wealthiest nation in per capita
terms, attracting a large volume of immigration to a ‘promised land’. Yet, it has
seen its economic position decline steadily up until the present time. For a
country having initially attained such a high level of income, it is indeed surprising
to observe that it has been progressively overtaken by almost every Latin
American country in economic terms; even those from which immigration to
Venezuela once originated (which would have seemed unimaginable once).
At the same time, it has one of Latin America’s most unequal and polarised
societies, with a wide gap between rich and poor, but also in its broadest sense.
From a Western perspective, 'deep economic and structural problems' are to
blame. But on closer inspection, this analysis reveals itself to be simplistic, as it
does not consider historical and cultural specificity. To such economic accounts,
culture remains a ‘symptom’, rather than a defining element.
More interestingly, the State seems unable to exert the same degree of control
over its urban spaces that would normally arise in a modern nation-state, as
classically defined. The result appears to be a largely amorphous urban context,
where the state consistently fails to establish its total vision, or only has a limited
degree of agency in ordering it. This paper seeks to explore ways in which
elements in Venezuela's culture-history and particular forms of political
organisation pertaining to the Venezuelan polity, in effect the nature of political
power in Venezuela, may explain these disparities and the character of
Venezuela's present-day seemingly amorphous and fragmented urban reality.
The aim is to examine, from an anthropological perspective, the extent to which
certain indigenous forms of political organisation have maintained some degree
of continuity in the nature of the Venezuelan polity, explore the question of how
far this affects present-day Venezuela, especially in the urban context, and
provide evidence for these possible influences.

3
2. Methods:
The research was primarily library-based. Having established a growing
personal interest in the topic, given my childhood in the provincial Venezuelan
Llanos (in frequent contrast to the capital Caracas and its disparities), I chose the
most relevant titles produced by keyword searches on 'Caciquismo' and
'Venezuela'. In addition, bibliographical references were chosen in some cases.
Initial interest came from John Gledhill's work Power and its Disguises. In
particular, its exploration of ‘titular chieftainship’ in the Americas before European
conquest and its mention of this as a counter-example to the classical definition
of power as coercive (Gledhill, 2000: p. 11).
However, there is a strong component of personal experience, having revisited
Venezuela on several occasions. Where no references are cited, this personal
knowledge is being put forward. With an ethnographic lens, this experience takes
both the form of personal impressions, as well as stemming from conversations
with Venezuelans from different backgrounds; especially from a two-moth period
spent there in summer 2001.

3. Venezuela's position historically:

Venezuela was seen to be on the 'periphery' of the Spanish empire. This is
despite it being the first place in the South American continent upon which
Columbus set foot. As the Spanish empire developed, its centres of influence
grew in neighbouring New Granada (present-day Colombia) and centred around
Bogotá; as well as Peru and Mexico. This geographical distribution of Spanish
imperial power reflects the crown's mining interests in the New World. Its primary
concern was to extract valuable metals and develop an adequate infrastructure
and administrative apparatus in and around the main centres of mining, in order
for this trade to function and in a way that allowed shipment to Spain to be
carried out efficiently.
But, in this light, Venezuela was not given importance. Its perceived lack of
precious metals did not place it high on the crown's agenda •. At the same time,
Venezuela did not have in place a society with the same degree of material

4
sophistication as the Incas or the Aztecs, nor were its tribes hierarchically
structured or united under one central figure or aristocracy as in those two cases.
This had made conquest and the extraction of wealth a relatively straightforward
affair in those instances, given that wealth in the form of precious metals was
visibly present and an infrastructure for its extraction in large amounts was
already there. There was also the advantage of being able to establish
centralised political control simply by replacing the top of an already present
hierarchical system. These elements facilitating conquest and wealth extraction
were not to be seen in Venezuela, nor did wealth manifest itself in a way that
would single it out for an imperative total conquest.
This was a favourable environment for indigenous forms of political organisation
to survive and find a degree of continuity, as the administrative mechanisms of
the Spanish empire, based along European lines, were not as strong. There was
significant room for local interpretation in the running of day to day affairs.
Indeed, the 'captaincy general' of Venezuela, as it was officially known seemed
so marginal and insignificant to the Spanish crown, that it was the only portion of
its empire to be given as security for repayment of its debts, and temporarily left
under the control of German bankers, the Weslers, albeit for a brief period
between 1528 and 1556. The Germans, during this time, ran Venezuela as
'overseers', without seriously undermining the political institutions of the local
Indian population • and tried to avoid active intervention. One of the conditions
set by Spain was that Germans would not spread the Lutheran faith, so there
was less emphasis on the conversion of Amerindian communities than would
have occurred under a fully-fledged Spanish administration and its active support
of the Catholic missions. Perhaps given this lack of freedom to leave a
meaningful cultural imprint, Germans did not promote and attempt to introduce
settlers or to colonise the province. Rather, they concentrated on the dream of
trying to find the legendary El Dorado. Their failure in this respect sent further
signals to Spain that the region possessed no valuable resources and thus
preserved its low priority status.

5
What is important for our purposes is that this period of German rule appears to
have actually provided a reprieve and spared Venezuela from some of the more
brutal elements of the initial Spanish conquest; forces that had been so
destructive and catastrophic to the Amerindian population and their institutions in
other parts of the continent, as they were reduced to slavery. Indeed, this
scenario of whole scale enslavement of the Amerindian population was already
being developed before the Germans took control, and it is acknowledged that
their arrival saw an interruption to this approach, as Spanish slavers were
'dislodged' by the German administration •.
Indeed, had the Germans not undertaken the search for El Dorado, and the task
of finding the mythical 'city of gold' had fallen on the Spaniards, a far greater
degree of interest from the Spanish crown may have resulted in the territory's
large gold reserve actually being discovered and tapped. The ensuing gold rush
could have certainly put an end to the region's marginality, and the combined
impact of a strengthening of imperial administrative structures with the whole
scale enslavement of the indigenous population would not have allowed a great
deal of room for 'local interpretation'. Continuity in indigenous political
organisation may have been severely compromised.
Clearly then, the German presence was significant. As well as further
emphasizing and strengthening Venezuela's perceived peripheral position vis-à-
vis the Spanish empire, and further isolating it from Spanish administrative
structures, I believe the period of German rule, albeit relatively brief, actually
allowed local Amerindian institutions and forms of political organisation to
consolidate and incorporate themselves into the day-to-day running of affairs
under European dominance –at least to a greater extent than other places.
The subsequent return to Spanish rule certainly reversed some of this, but many
of the more brutal elements of Spanish colonisation had been avoided, and
endogenous forms of political organisation in the local government of the empire
were now firmer, more ‘mainstreamed’. The Spanish would have to take them
into account and the presence of this legitimised structure constrained their
previous ability to pursue a potential whole scale reshaping of society. But even

6
subsequently, Venezuela remained of low priority and was seen as a marginal
province in comparison to the adjacent 'centres' of Spanish rule that were
Bogotá, Lima and Mexico City, meaning that whatever form local government in
Venezuela took, this was not seen to have great importance.
This tendency of the Spanish empire to concentrate its mechanisms of power in
and around its mining interests mostly centred on a few urban points of influence,
without enforcing itself strongly in the provinces and more remote regions,
allowed local indigenous forms to persist and find legitimacy in a new creolized
context.
Even in Mexico, which as a vice-royalty was one of the centres of Spanish
imperial rule, it is commonly acknowledged that the provinces not under the
direct control of the Empire's larger urban centres of influence and seen as 'on
the periphery' by the empire's administration were a favourable setting to
movements by farmers to organise around ‘caciques’ (Falcon, R, 1985) and pose
a counter-tendency to the Empire's administrative structure, in a way that was
crucial to Mexico's revolutionary movement. So the importance of these areas
'left to be', in terms of their potential for political change and upheaval should not
be underestimated.
If this was a possibility in Mexico itself, with its central position vis-à-vis the
Spanish empire, the potential for such bottom-up indigenous local forms of
political organisation was clearly greater in Venezuela, since it was perceived as
much more peripheral. Especially telling is the case of Simon Bolivar, who hailed
from Venezuela and played a crucial role in the independence from Spain of
several Latin American countries. It could be argued that it is precisely this
context of marginality which led these forces to form and challenge Imperial
order.
Yet, while Bolivar's ideal had been to form a single unified 'Gran Colombia' from
the countries he liberated, inspired by Enlightenment ideals, along the lines of the
USA, this never became a reality. His dreams may have themselves been
frustrated by the factional political set-up which had given rise to him, endowing
him with prominence and sustained dictatorial powers all through the wars of

7
independence. Once independence was achieved, however, these factional
elements had no appetite for a new centralised state with increased powers that
would harm the existing factional system, and so Bolivar was reduced to the role
of a symbolic figure; in effect a 'titular leader'.
Venezuela remained largely withdrawn from such centralising and consolidative
tendencies of modern state power, and the former centres of Spanish rule
maintained their prominence and position over such places as Venezuela, which
were largely seen as agrarian 'outbacks' •; so that even after independence in
1811, Venezuela maintained distance from tendencies of change and retained a
peripheral position, as it was not seen to play a significant geo-political role in
Latin America. This marginal position seems to have remained into the twentieth
century, with modernising tendencies only filtering through very slowly, thus
allowing the continued survival of autochthonous forms of organisation, where
political structures and day-to-day affairs remained subject to local interpretation.

Only after the 60's oil boom did this 'peripheral' position suddenly appear to be
strongly and permanently reversed, with the country's wealth soaring very
quickly, motorways being built and skyscrapers making their appearance.

However, the very rapid nature of this change may itself have allowed the extant
political forms to remain strong in the fabric of Venezuelan society; in terms of
how political processes were understood, etc. There was a lack of a slow and
gradual transition towards modernity and this has given rise to an intriguing state
of affairs were modernity and wealth is tempered by traditional understandings of
political processes and a continuity in the state's institutional weakness vis-à-vis
wider society, which is very real in the present Venezuelan setting.
While the oil boom is credited with having brought about the collapse of
Venezuelan agrarian society, fuelling a massive exodus to the cities, the rapid
nature of change ensured that there was insufficient time for peoples'
subjectivities to change and for them to fully embrace a new identity of 'modern
living' along with its all-new, imported political culture.

8
This can be seen to apply especially to people's understandings of political
organisations and groups, and could be accounted for as a case of 'habitus', in
Bourdieu’s sense (i.e. maintaining socially habitual ways of engaging with the
political sphere). Since the change to an urban society happened with such
amazing speed, in barely the space of a generation, peoples' subjective sense of
political practice and their expectations of obligations to political authority were
nevertheless able to survive a radically different material and spatial context. This
extant political reality and its dynamics were in effect 'transferred' to the new,
'modern' urban setting:
“Donde sea, la cosa está igual” is commonly heard (“it’s all the same
everywhere”), referring to the realm of government.

Crucially then, it seems that Venezuelan modernity has not been accompanied
by what is traditionally understood as the development of a modern nation-state.
This is illustrated by the apparent lack of a ‘neutral’ political ground. Supposedly
neutral government functions and offices change hands when do governments,
and according to party lines. It is the party in power that seems to influence who
takes key civil service posts. And this widespread clientelism has reflected more
a consensual pact of rotation between previously competing factions (originating
in the post-dictatorship ‘Pacto de Punto Fijo’ of 1958), rather than a fully
functional modern nation-state.
The Pacto de Punto Fijo itself, far from being a wholehearted embrace of
democracy as it was portrayed, was much more a ‘mutual adjustment’ between
the old military regime and the new. In its very conception, the objective at heart
was to provide continuity to existing political structures, under a veneer of
democratic credibility: through the creation of a generic two-party system, which
excluded critical elements, but encompassed the interests of those traditionally in
power. In such conditions, a truly representative and legitimate regime, able to
engage with, and act on behalf of the population as a whole, giving real
expression to national reforming policies, seemed far-fetched –although the idea
of Venezuela as a ‘consensual society’ was strongly promoted, as well as

9
Venezuelan identity as ‘café con leche’ (in reference to its multi-ethnic heritage,
but actually obscuring racial contradictions).
Further evidence for this institutional weakness of the state can be seen in
Venezuela's sketchy control over its borders, which will be discussed in more
detail below.
Only recently, in response to particular conditions and with the emergence of
new actors, do Venezuelan political structures seem to be critically coming to
terms with the country’s rapid urbanisation and ‘modernisation’, and all that
implies for the country’s overall development. For instance, there have been
attempts for the first time to bring about far-reaching land reform.
It could be argued that this was central to the rise of Modernity in Europe, and
with it the establishment of an effective state, perceived as a ‘neutral’ institution,
able to implement its policies and vision with some success.
Following the failure of economic Structural Adjustment policies and their
extreme effects on the population, culminating in the ‘Caracazo’ (violent riots in
Caracas) of 1989, resent continued to brew against the political system, and the
now largely impoverished public sought refuge in the figure of Hugo Chavez, who
was elected with a popular mandate in 1998. He sought to put an end to the ‘old
order’, and attempted to mark a conscious shift away from the widely perceived
failure of Venezuelan democratic tradition, with its inescapable factional
character as enshrined in the Pacto de Punto Fijo of ‘58.
On the agenda were a number of socialist-inspired redistributive reforms,
including the issue of land -which by now was largely in the hands of the factional
elites, following the ‘emptying’ of the Venezuelan countryside and the exodus to
the cities (yet left mostly unproductive given the centrality of oil export in the
economy, as well as an absence of labour in the countryside).

But, not surprisingly, this reformist ambition to expand the state’s sphere of
action and its capacity to give critical expression to a national policy, has been
met with strong and vehement resistance from the extant political forces, as
recent events have shown. Chavez' ousting and quick replacement only seem to

10
symptom the state's inability to make any real headway, as well as simply being
subject to factional forces playing themselves out. As such, the head of state
seems largely helpless and unable to bring about change, without the consent or
backing of the dominant faction, regardless of actual numerical democracy. This
further illustrates how the president in the Venezuelan context can be compared
to a ‘cacique’, having to be accountable to factional forces and not being directly
in control, but rather exercising a form of ‘titular leadership’.
Many Venezuelans echo this, in what they see as a 'deep-rooted problem', at
the heart of Venezuelan political structures: a chronic problem. Simplistically, it is
seen as 'corruption'. But this stand alone term does nothing to reveal the actual
workings of the political structure, its internal logic and its specificities. Rather, it
is simply an acknowledgement that these are not the workings of a 'modern
nation state' as commonly understood. "Everyone is in it for themselves, for their
own gain". This is at times followed by "It is deep within us, our 'viveza', our
cunning, or “malice"; some even hint that this 'viveza' and 'malicia' are an
inheritance of the 'Indio', of our Indian heritage -something they seem to utter
with a degree of ambivalence: there is dismay, accompanied by a warm glow of
pride. Foreigners are often perceived as vulnerable 'flojos' (gullible, too trusting,
naïve, etc), specifically because they are seen to lack this 'malicia' and 'viveza'.
This leaves the question: if Venezuela was indeed on the periphery of the
empire and Western modernising tendencies until relatively recently, allowing
local, indigenous forms of political organisation a certain degree of continuity
historically, what exactly were these local forms of political organisation that
appear to have had such a deep impact on the present-day Venezuelan polity
and can help to explain the state's apparent weaknesses and inability to establish
its gesamtkunstwerk of Modernity (or ‘total modernising vision’), as seems
especially evident in the context of its urban realities?

11
CACIQUISMO: AN INDIGENOUS FORM OF POLITICAL ORGANISATION
ROOTED IN PRE-COLUMBIAN AMERINDIAN SOCIETY

1. Overview: what is Caciquismo?

The form these indigenous forms of political organisation have taken in these
regions, peripheral to imperial influence, has often been characterised as
Caciquismo. Caciquismo has repeatedly been put forward as a form of political
organisation and power particular to Amerindian society. Traditionally, the
'cacique' was the chief of a small Amerindian community. It is the nature of his
chieftainship and the limits to his power which seem to define Caciquismo. In
Power and its Disguises, Gledhill offers Caciquismo as a counter-example to
coercive power as defined by Foucault and as espoused by Radcliffe-Brown. The
fact that in Caciquismo there seems to be no compulsion to directly obey the
cacique certainly seems to throw into doubt the assumption that power is
universally coercive (Gledhill, 2000: p. 11). The cacique's power is more a form
of 'titular chieftainship'. His subjects choose whether or not to obey, according to
their own imperatives. Certainly, the cacique "possessed no ability to issue
commands which would automatically be obeyed" (ibid. p. 28). In many ways,
therefore, the central political figure of the cacique was merely an accessory to
and secondary to the play of factional elements within the tribe.
In times of war, Gledhill argues, caciques were able to command far greater
support. But this could be precisely because the war effort was primarily a
function of pressure and support from a certain faction within the tribe. In times of
peace, the cacique's temporary power enjoyed in war time simply "evaporated"
(ibid. p. 28).
Among the Yanomami indians of Venezuela, Clastres describes the case of the
cacique Fousiwe attempting to "extend hostilities beyond the point which the
community regarded as legitimate", but finding himself unable to muster support
(Clastres, 1977: pp. 178-179).

12
Clearly then, the power of the leader was primarily subject to the opinion of
those surrounding him and thus the cacique's power had to adopt a consensual,
inclusive, non-coercive character.
In the case of the Pemon Indians, a Carib population that presently enjoys a
reasonable degree of prosperity and recognition, and has been credited with
having the most 'advanced' material culture in Venezuela, Caciquismo is
certainly present. According to Thomas (Thomas, 1982: p. 1), their political
system can be described as a situation of "order without government". It is
evident that the Pemon chief's power is very much subject to the very constraints
that occur in Caciquismo, as seen above: "A leader in Pemon society can be a
person who achieves prominence in any number of areas, but a leader is not a
person who gives orders." (ibid. p. 3). Thomas continues:
"Even in a conflict situation or a situation in which he or she is trying to move
people toward a certain course of action, the function of a leader is to exhort,
remind, and persuade (and sometimes to threaten)".
Caciquismo, in this understanding is therefore a counter-example to the
classical definition of power as coercive. Another aspect of the chief's primarily
symbolic role is his inability to amass wealth. Gledhill notes: "in some South
American groups, finding the chief is a matter of searching for the poorest and
shabbiest-looking member of the community" (Gledhill, 2000: p. 29). This is
because chieftainship has a primarily moral character, where the cacique is
obliged to redistribute the wealth he acquires among his tribe, in what Clastres
suggests amounts to a "denial of reciprocity".
Clastres finds in Caciquismo evidence for the stage of 'stateless' egalitarian
society that 'precedes' the state. He sees the transition to the state as a 'rupture'
in human history.
But this analysis is subject to criticism, in that Clastres is offering a picture that is
in danger of romanticising so-called 'stateless' societies, in a way that
approximates notions of the 'noble savage'.
While the chief's role maybe described as titular, factional elements in the tribe
and how they determine policy clearly amount to the basic workings of a state.

13
These workings determine the course of action for the whole community and,
once decided upon, there does not appear to be room for disagreement or
defection, as the case of warfare illustrates.
Clastre's analysis of the transition to the modern state as a historical 'rupture'
also assumes a fixed model of statehood, and risks overlooking cultural
specificity. Crucially, his analysis of historical rupture leaves no room for the
structure of Caciquismo to find a significant degree of continuity and
accommodation within the state, which seems to be widely reported in many
contemporary Latin American societies (Brisk, 1973: p. 158).

2. Caciquismo vs. Feudalism: a point of contrast

On the other hand, Feudalism was a rather different system and can be seen to
have played a crucial role in the development of the European model of the
nation-state. A tight hierarchical system, each link in the chain was able to
demand total obedience of his or her subjects, in a way that clearly delimited
their obligations and responsibilities vis-à-vis seigniorial power. The subject could
expect protection to his/her person in exchange. Unlike Caciquismo, there was
no room for consensual politics between the leader and his subjects, in what
amounted to a contractual agreement. In this light, the feudal setting established
an ethic of delimited responsibilities vis-à-vis the state, with the real threat of
coercive power, in absence of their fulfilment. This, I believe, formed the
foundations for the emergence of the modern, panoptic nation-state in Europe.
Equally, this system achieved much greater 'markedness' in the territory as the
contractual obligations between individuals often tied them to their land, making
their movement impossible or highly undesirable, as a new setting would likely
entail a reduction in entitlements. In a sense, this could be seen as a form of
territorial 'entrapment', allowing the state to achieve far wider control over its
territory and regulating its boundaries, as well as controlling its subjects. The
state's power and its ability to impose its vision of how society needed to be
structured were largely unproblematic. In the feudal setting, the state possessed

14
the power to execute at will, accompanied by a constant threat of coercive power
on its subjects.
I believe it is a combination of these elements which allowed a transition to the
modern nation-state in the European setting. In contrast, there is a clear sense in
which the case of Caciquismo departs considerably from this.

3. The imprint of Caciquismo from past to present in Venezuela

As seen above, Venezuela's perceived peripheral position both during the time
of Spanish colonisation, and up until the second half of the twentieth century,
was a favourable environment for indigenous forms of organisation to persist and
to influence how administrative guidelines from the empire were interpreted and
carried out locally, without significantly affecting local power relations and political
organisation. As such, this view suggests that a certain degree of continuity was
sustained from the time of the Pre-Columbian cacique to the present day.
This idea that the cacique has somehow 'survived' to the present day and
strongly influences the current, modern Venezuelan scene at first appears
unrealistic and may be susceptible to the criticism of romanticising a continuity in
indigenous social 'forms'.
However, what is being suggested is by no means that the cacique has
somehow survived intact.
With the growing influence of European ideas of nationhood, and in particular
the context that gave rise to national movements of independence, regional and
local chieftains or caciques espoused these nationalist dreams and became
caciques on a national scene. These 'national' caciques came to be known as
Caudillos.
Before that stage, the caciques and their form of political organisation had
already been well incorporated into the creole mestizo society and was in a
sense part of the imperial administrative structure, in that the centres of Imperial
Spanish administration did not challenge or contest the authority of these local
chiefs in what were seen as peripheral areas, but rather accepted and tolerated
them as its agents (Kern, 1973: p. 152).

15
Caciquismo, had thus already undergone a significant transformation from its
original form within small Amerindian communities, while in parallel acquiring the
status of a regional phenomenon, with the acquiescence of Spanish rule.
Indeed, imperial Spanish administration often preferred to turn its back on such
areas, as these were feared as dangerous and lawless.
In this sense, the ‘ultimate periphery’ of the Llanos (vast grasslands of the
interior) provided a fertile ground for Caciquismo’s continuity in a mestizo
context, as a seemingly limitless ‘hinterland’ to which slaves and renegade
Europeans fled to, meeting with Amerindians who already inhabited the area,
along with their pre-existing social organisation, creating a veritable melting pot
that was further conducive to caciquil power structures in a new mestizo context.
This is exemplified in the figure of Paez, a ‘Llanero’ of mixed origins, who proved
crucial in Bolivar’s strategy. It was Paez and the support he was able to
command from his fellow ‘Llaneros’ as their chief who actually made up Bolivar’s
expedition over the Andes to liberate Colombia from Spanish rule.
Paez then, a ‘cacique’ of the Llanos, had transcended the obscurity of the
hinterland to achieve salience in the national political context, in a way that was
vital for the course of the Independence movement and thereby clearly helped
define the future of the Venezuelan polity.

Clearly then, the caudillo era brought about another shift in the evolution of
caciquil structure, by raising the cacique to a national level, in a way that had
previously not been seen. It established a form of 'meta Caciquismo' that was
crucial in the Independence movements of Latin America. Thus Caciquismo can
be seen to have gone a long way from its beginnings in Amerindian society to a
much larger force, capable of digesting and adapting to nationalist aspirations
along European lines, but where the factional and consensus-based character of
caciquil structure was no less present.
Further evidence for this presence of Caciquismo in the caudillo era is presented
by Bunge (1965: p. 122). Referring to personal feuds between caciques in this
period, he notes that "The people (...) will leave them to fight it out, unperturbed,

16
as simple spectators who do not commit themselves in advance to the triumph of
one or the other."
This clearly would have been unthinkable in a feudal context, where such
confrontations would very often see the leader expecting to command his or her
subjects' full support.

It is precisely this ability of Caciquismo to adapt to changing conditions, while

maintaining its dynamics, which has ensured its continuity and that make it a
relevant and important element when studying contemporary Latin American
society.
In the Venezuelan case, this is particularly important since, from it's
independence in 1811 up until the 1950s, Venezuela was ruled by a succession
of caudillos.
Brisk points out that this was among the most successful cases of Caciquismo
being promoted to national prominence in the form of the caudillos (Brisk, 1973,
p. 152), and this could be precisely because it remained a peripheral geo-political
entity. In Brisk's view, the peace that resulted under caudillo rule was "achieved
through tacitly accepted disunity", clearly indicating continuity in the consensual
factional politics of Caciquismo, as well as the fragility of the central power of the
caudillo himself.
However, what is of crucial importance is the way that this prolonged period of
caudillo rule can be seen to have left a deep imprint on present day Venezuelan
politics, as these are fairly recent events in Venezuela's trajectory.
Although often hailed as a democratic model, Venezuela has been under
caudillo rule for longer than it has been a democracy, and the change is barely a
generation away.
Indeed, this peace through “tacitly accepted disunity” is very much present in the
transfer of power from the military regime to a form of democracy that satisfied all
parties concerned in the Pacto de Punto Fijo of 1958.

17
The following section examines how exactly the peculiarities of Caciquismo as a
system of national political power has come to influence present-day Venezuela,
combined with an 'absence of Feudalism’ and its contractual, coercive, biding
inheritance in the emergence of the European nation-state.

VENEZUELA: A MODERN NATION STATE? THE CONTINUOUS

RELEVANCE OF CACIQUISMO IN PRESENT-DAY VENEZUELA AND
EVIDENCE OF ITS SURVIVAL IN THE URBAN CONTEXT

1. A ‘fluid’ territoriality
A clear way in which this 'absence of Feudalism' reveals how Venezuela does
not fit the traditional pattern of a nation-state is evident in the nature of its
'territoriality'.
Unlike some of its neighbours, Venezuela does not appear to have the same
degree of effective control over its borders as would normally arise in a modern
nation state. Indeed, it is the only country in the region to have progressively
ceded territory to all its neighbouring countries, without gaining any land. This
has resulted in Venezuela today having only around half the total area it had at
independence.
Colombia acquired a significant portion of the savannah plains and the
strategically-important Guajira peninsula, which is South America's northernmost
tip. This is despite the plains being central to Venezuela's agrarian economy in
the pre-oil era, which should have ensured they were well protected, were
Venezuela a classical case of the 'nation state'. Brazil was able to acquire the
vast area that is the Rio Negro region to the south of Venezuela, and the British
saw no obstacle in trebling the size of Guyana, at the expense of Venezuela. It
has shed significant tracts of territory on all sides.
What is interesting here is that this shedding of territory has never been
accompanied by any form of military confrontation, which would be expected in a

18
typical nation state scenario. Instead, Venezuela only seems able to respond
with vocal disagreement, at most.
On discussing this matter with some ordinary Venezuelans, I encountered a
certain sense of revulsion and there was a feeling in which national pride had
been affected. But this proved to be quite mild and usually amounted to no more
than a passing mistrust of Colombia. There certainly was no compulsion to follow
things through, nor even a real desire that these lands should be restored to
Venezuela at some point in the future. There was clearly a sense of inevitability
and this was accompanied by a dissociative attitude. Very often these
conversations would simply end in: "que se puede hacer? Son los gobiernos..."
(What can be done? It is the governments that have brought this about..). This
detachment from the actions of the state and the fact that all successive
governments are seen to hold the blame, irrespective of leadership or political
affiliation, is not dissimilar from the way in which there is a certain detachment
and dissociative attitude vis-à-vis the cacique from members of his tribe. The
state can thus be seen to occupy this place of mere titular leadership and there is
a close resemblance to caciquil structure, in terms of the relationship between
the cacique and those around him.
But crucially, this relatively unproblematic shedding of territory has been
occurring both before the oil boom and after, indicating that it is not a case of
Venezuela lacking the resources to challenge its neighbours. Again, despite oil
being central to Venezuela's economy and interests, it has allowed Colombian
encroachment of some of its oil fields. Indeed, much of the Guajira peninsula
which has large coal reserves (something that had been known to Venezuela)
was acquired by Colombia at a time when Venezuela was at its most prosperous
and superior to Colombia in terms of material resources. Occasionally, this
encroachment and the magnitude of Colombia's billion-dollar extraction of
previously Venezuelan coal are reported in the news. But seldom is any course
of action discussed, apart from a few diplomatic appearances. Thereafter, the
issue appears to be lost in oblivion.

19
Venezuela still claims more than half of former British Guyana. Yet relations
between the two countries are friendly and there has been no active attempt to
regain the territory. Indeed, the state simply seems content with being able to
draw the disputed territory on the Venezuelan map. Occasionally, discontent is
still voiced, but this is not pursued further.
Even more significant and illustrative of the limited relevance of the classical
nation state model to the Venezuelan case, is the way in which its borders
appear to be permeable to external political forces. Colombian guerrillas have a
sophisticated network in Venezuelan territory and at times seem to be more
successful in imposing their will than the Venezuelan state. They often demand
that large landowners in the plains pay them a 'vacuna'; a form of tax, in the
absence of which the landlord's family members are liable to be kidnapped or
killed. Clearly, coercive power is startlingly at work here, in a way that seems to
overrule the influence of the Venezuelan state's political instruments. In fact,
guerrillas often use western Venezuela as a form of safe haven from which they
are able to carry out operations in Colombia. Venezuela's state mechanisms
remain in place in the face of this. Normal communications are present and the
guerrilla presence is 'invisible' to the external observer. Yet the Venezuelan state
seems unable to police the guerrillas' operations and prevent what can in many
ways be seen as an encroachment of a competing form of state mechanism on
Venezuelan soil.
Here, a contrast with Venezuela's neighbour, Colombia is useful. As a centre of
Spanish imperial power, Colombia was far more subject to European models of
political organisation, both at the local and central level. Local chiefs were able
to exercise much deeper social control and were able to enforce their power
through coercive means, in closer keeping with the feudal scenario. The caudillo
era here was different, in that each faction sought to achieve statehood, and this
is very much present to the present day. In many ways, Colombia today can be
seen as several potential 'states', in competition for statehood along lines more
consistent with the nation state model, where power is enforceable on subjects
through coercive means. The result has been a very violent reality, where these

20
potential 'states' are not territorially bounded and move through regions with
disastrous consequences for the local population caught up in the confrontations.
They can be subject to the coercive enforcement of power by different elements
over time, as these 'states' each seek to form a 'power base' using the local
population. But also, the way these potential 'states' seem able to successfully
infiltrate Venezuelan territory, in the case of the guerrillas, and enforce their
influence there by effectively collecting taxes, demonstrates their relative strength
and adherence to a 'nation-state' model, as well as conversely illustrating the
comparative weakness of the Venezuelan state's political power and its limited
control over not only its borders, but also its territory.
An explanation for this fluidity of Venezuela's 'territoriality', for which the state's
inability to enforce its borders is symptomatic, can be seen in the caciquil
structure of the Venezuelan polity, in that competing factions that determine state
policy do not explicitly favour nor encourage an extension to state power in a way
that would allow it to enforce itself fully and become a force in its own right,
surpassing the interests of these different factions. This is what Brisk terms the
'new Caciquismo' and seems consistent with his analysis of peace under caudillo
rule as a case of "tacitly accepted disunity" (Brisk, 1973: p. 152).

2. How Caciquismo affects the urban context.

Indeed, the speed with which urbanisation took place and the agricultural
infrastructure largely disappeared, illustrates the fragility and fluidity of
Venezuela's territoriality. The historical absence of a feudal structure meant that
people were not 'socially-entrapped' in the same way as in Europe, nor was there
a structural or coercive force that encouraged a relatively permanent sedentism
in the same way as in the European feudal context. Conversely, the territory
moved into was not already 'taken' or appropriated in a way that impeded
resettlement. In the feudal European context, moving into territory entailed being
subject to new social relations of power and an existing social order or use of the

21
land. In the Venezuelan context, this degree of social entrapment discouraging
displacement was simply not present. Indeed, it was possible to migrate to the
city and maintain existing social networks, as whole communities emigrated
together and transplanted themselves to the periphery of cities.
Although territory may be officially 'owned' by big landowners or the State, these
owners were not tied with the land in the same way as in the feudal context, or in
a way that discouraged intrusive settlement. There is a sense in which it is simply
a case of filling a vacuum, where territory offered no 'social resistance' or
obstacles to movement. There were simply no mechanisms to enforce 'social
embeddedness' and markedness within the territory in a permanent way, as seen
in the feudal context.
This applies very directly to Venezuela's urban realities. At the outset, there was
an absence of feudalism's instruments of 'social entrapment', which discouraged
both movement out from the relative safety of the habitual provincial setting
(positive entrapment), as well as movement into an already occupied territory
(negative entrapment) with its established social context, and the burdening new
power relations this would entail.
Albeit exploitative, Feudalism guaranteed subsistence in a rural setting, as well
as protection in the contractual relationship between lord and serfs, in exchange
for part of their labour. Given the prevailing uncertainty of Medieval times, risking
this ‘stability’ (positive entrapment) and abandoning it if favour of a new setting
would have been unthinkable, except in extreme circumstances.
Venezuela, in contrast (the Andes are perhaps the exception), did not have an
established pre-Columbine agrarian society, as seen in other parts of Latin
America. The prevailing Amerindian groups, the Caribs and Arawaks were mostly
hunter-gatherers.
When an agrarian society did emerge, centred around plantations, it did not take
the form of subsistence agriculture. Instead, it was geared towards producing
export crops in the form of cocoa, coffee, sugar cane, etc. This meant that the
possibility of direct subsistence from the land was limited, leaving the rural
individual in a position of greater vulnerability. There wasn’t the symbiotic

22
contractual relationship of protection in exchange for labour as seen in
Feudalism. At the same time, there was no real impediment to migrating to the
city, in that these had large uninhabited, unproductive spaces all around them.
In the absence of this ‘social entrapment’ of Feudalism (both negative and
positive), which I believe played a crucial role in the spatial distribution of cities in
Europe, movement and resettlement for many poor agrarian Venezuelans was
not an overly problematic notion.
Hence the very rapid decline of the agrarian society that existed, with the advent
of perceived opportunities in the cities. There seemed to be no incentive or
coercive mechanism to ensure its permanence, nor even the permanence of land
use as a productive medium. The state’s inability to control this fluid nature of
territoriality is particularly salient.
To a large extent, the territory these re-settlers occupy are state lands in and
around large cities. At the outset, they commonly take the form of sprawling
shanty towns, and again the state seems unable to control their spread, plan, or
even contain the growth of these areas. Furthermore, the fact that a territory has
been occupied does not seem to entail burdening power structures, as seen in
the feudal case, as it does not appear to provide a disincentive to continued in-
migration into these areas. Instead, there is an astonishing proliferation of new
settlements, causing very high population concentrations. Very little space
separates each shack and wherever space is available, more dwellings are
improvised. The potential of these areas to accommodate newcomers seems
almost limitless, as whole mountains are covered: at night, the whole of a
mountain's silhouette can be recognised from the apparently infinite dots of light.
What this illustrates is that, unlike in a feudal setting, the occupation of territory
and the resulting social setting do not seem to present an obstacle to in-
migration, so that the 'social entrapment' scenario does not apply. This, in my
opinion is to do with the lack of the same coercive/incentive environment as in
feudalism and the State's inability to 'enforce' its territoriality.
And this further demonstrates the continued relevance of Caciquismo in present-
day Venezuela.

23
The way this pattern of improvised settlement occurs in larger cities nation-wide
under very similar circumstances, and following very similar form, I believe
illustrates the state's limited control over its territory and illustrates the limited
ability of the Venezuelan state to enforce its vision and urban policy. This is
because its power to assert itself fully is constrained by the factional elements
pertaining to caciquil influence on the state's workings.
It is in fact a way in which even the poorest sections of society are able to exert
their limiting agency on the state in a very visible way. These barrios as 'external'
entities from the state spring up unceremoniously, given the fluidity of the state's
territoriality and an absence of feudal history. Territory is fluid and available.
In my view, this inability stems precisely from the nature of the Venezuelan polity
and its 'institutionalised Caciquismo'. The state is primarily dependent on interest
groups for its continued legitimacy -what Brisk terms 'the new Caciquismo'. This
is not conducive to the state increasing its power in a way that would enable it to
fully create a 'modern nation-state' (Brisk, 1973: p. 157). He contends that "The
obviously increasing power enjoyed by Latin American states is more than
matched by the power of well-organized private groups. This is true because
consensus over extending the state's power is as unobtainable today as it was
under the caciques".
In the urban context, this weakness manifests itself more than just in terms of
the 'fluidity of territoriality'. The fact that the State is unable to establish its
modernising vision and unable to enforce a policy of urban planning is a further
symptom of this 'institutionalised Caciquismo'. It is illustrative of the titular
chieftainship of Caciquismo, based on consensual leadership accommodating
factional elements. In Brisk's words: "This carving up of the state's ability to make
policy is Caciquismo in modern dress.”
But this also operates at a grassroots level as citizens, not faced to the same
extent with the threat of historically constructed incentive/coercive measures that
are normally seen at work in a nation-state, see the state's vision as merely an
optional 'guideline' -rather than a binding, authoritative directive. The state is
unable to actively enforce its vision. Instead, the factional elements behind the

24
state express their interests directly in space, or see the state as a medium for
the expression of their own particular urban identity –one that has increasingly
looked ‘North’, especially following the oil boom, in an attempt to emulate
American urban form.
This is very clear in the way the state has endeavoured to organise urban space
around large modern public projects of urban regeneration, but failing. Vast
proportions of the country's oil revenue have been assigned to large urban
projects and considerable efforts to landscape urban space along modern
American lines. However, the state seems unable to substantiate these efforts
with the corresponding social change it seeks, as these efforts represent only a
subset of the urban population in the form of the dominant factional elements
-essentially turning their backs on the ranchos, as separate from ‘their city’.
What’s more, far from what was originally envisaged, these spaces are often
appropriated by informal sectors of society and turned into improvised markets,
where illegal black market traders or ‘buhoneros’ operate. This is often seen in
the very heart of the capital, alongside government buildings and ministries. The
best example is the Simon Bolivar centre in the heart of Caracas. When it was
built, these were the highest towers in South America; built to withstand
earthquakes and symbolising the modern course that the state had set out for
Venezuela to embark upon. While this presently houses several key government
offices, street level is an altogether different reality, with stalls upon stalls of
contraband goods being offered and seemingly immune to the state's
bureaucratic apparatus.
This not only seems to illustrate the state's inability to police and control its
citizens as in the classical nation-state scenario, but may indeed demonstrate a
deeper reticence imbedded in the state's workings to alienate its citizens in any
overt way. In fact, it may deeply illustrate the consensual relationship between
the Venezuelan state and its citizens, where the central power cannot be seen to
directly constraint its citizens, nor issue orders, as with the Cacique.
Another clear and startling example of the state's inability to impose and 'imprint'
itself meaningfully on the urban context is the fact that addresses are always a

25
relative notion. There may well be numbers to streets, but these are never used,
despite the state efforts to impose western models of organisation. Instead on an
address card what is often found in lieu of a definite address, is an indication that
the place lies between one corner and the other. Corners are given names,
which often illustrate a city's popular history. There is a corner called 'El Muerto'
(the dead man), for instance, where a soldier got up again after being taken for
dead during an independence coup. Needless to say, getting around Caracas is
not a simple affair for a newcomer, with addresses lacking numbers and instead
featuring rather bizarre indicators of place in the form of 'corner names', always
open to some amount of personal interpretation.
The same applies to postcodes. Although they exist, nobody seems to have any
knowledge of them, nor are they ever used. Indeed, the postal system exists in
theory, but very minimally in practice.
Yet another illustration of this is the strong presence of neighbourhood
movements. As Rivero Santos argues, these neighbourhood associations have
"demonstrated an increasing effectiveness as political power bases" (Rivero
Santos, 1999: x). Of significance is the way that generals who recently sought an
end to Chavez' rule, set about appealing precisely to such neighbourhood
associations, which have come to present a further pressure group in the caciquil
structure, influencing state policy (Brisk, 1973: 160).
These cases illustrate the mark of Caciquismo and the state's inability to impose
itself in the Venezuelan urban context, as a unifying source of coherence and
integrative identity in the urban consciousness, and there is a clear sense in
which the state can be equated to caciquil authority here.

Furthermore, the state is seen as a provider, as with the Cacique. Its purpose
and raison d’être are to redistribute wealth. This clientelist system of patronage
was an effective redistributor of oil wealth during the surge of oil prices in the
70s, with all sectors of society getting a ‘piece of the pie’, and fuelling social
mobility.

26
In this light, it may seem contradictory that Venezuelan society is now so deeply
polarised along wealth lines. Partly, this is because of the declining oil prices, the
unsustainability of the wealth production system, culminating in a profound debt
crisis, and the enforcement of Structural Adjustment policies. The state’s inability
to stop a very clearly unsustainable system of patronage that had gone into
overdrive, and act appropriately in a national strategic interest is also indicative of
its caciquil nature: it sought instead to indebt itself to artificially maintain the
clientelist dynamics at its heart.
But one reason reform has been particularly hard is that, given a reduction of the
‘pie’, the wealthier and traditionally dominant factions and pressure groups have
achieved even greater prominence in influencing state policy, in an effort to keep
their slice of the pie the same size as before. After a period where flying to Miami
on shopping sprees every weekend became emblematic of Venezuelan elites, it
was certainly not an option to be suddenly subject to greater state control and
redistributive pressure for the national interest and benefit of wider society;
especially as the elites provided for their own services privately, such as
education, health, security (in gated communities), etc, in the absence of a state
that could transcend factional interests to provide quality services for all. A
vicious circle indeed, given that the state’s tax revenue derives almost
exclusively from taxes on oil exports. The vast majority of the population pays no
tax, which further underlines the mark of Caciquismo on the state, with its
perceived primary function as a distributor to its clients, alongside the “denial of
reciprocity” described by Clastres.
In the face of this, Chavez' inability to bring about reform stems precisely from a
weak state structure, traditionally subject to factional forces and their influence. It
is not simply a case of the caciquil state losing control through the unsustainable
redistribution of wealth here, but rather the state being subject to influences and
demands from particular sections of society. It is primarily these groups and
sections of society which appear to exercise agency over state policy and act
together to constraint the state's power in keeping with their interests.

27
This is something ever present in the strong use made by traditional elites and
factional elements of the national private media, which is largely in their hands,
as well as internationally to derail Chavez’ reformist pretensions and the
extension of state agency beyond factional manipulation.
The push and pull of these different sections of society can be seen in the recent
ousting and re-instatement of Chavez: effectively a coup d’état where the
factional elites, making strong use of the media as a key instrument succeeded,
albeit briefly, to reaffirm their power.
This clearly contradicts the simplistic outside perception of Chavez as a firm
leader with strong military support and threatening tendencies, and reveals that
his position is less solid than it appears, in the context of a caciquil state prone to
strong factional forces.

The growing social polarisation resulting from a persistence of Caciquismo in

Venezuelan institutions and political culture, against a backdrop of adverse
economic conditions, has served to further accentuate urban contrasts and
processes of fragmentation in the city as seen previously. These were already
apparent in the ‘good times’ of the 70s, where the factional character of the state
was unable to express and promote an overall vision of the city and apply
appropriate urban policies that transcended the factional straightjacket.

Whether the Chavez regime will indeed succeed in its bold and ambitious task to
consolidate the Venezuelan polity, in a way that transcends factional interests,
or whether this drive will itself fall prey to factional dynamics and the limitations of
caciquil political power, making him yet another ‘cacique’, will be an interesting
space to watch. Either way, there will be important implications for the future of
the Venezuelan city.

28
CONCLUSIONS AND IMPLICATIONS:

Clearly then, an understanding of Caciquismo is very relevant when trying to

understand Venezuela's present day urban context. The state's inability to
marshal its vision of modernity and apply it to its urban fabric is certainly a
symptom of this characteristic aspect of the Venezuelan polity. In many ways,
state power can still be equated to the 'titular chieftainship' of the Cacique.
Executive political power is limited and constrained by factional elements, and it
is primarily the competing interests of these elements that determine policy, their
policy, often behind a facade of a Western republican model of statehood.

There are important implications for development approaches. These processes

are often seen simply as a 'lack of development' from a Western perspective,
which ignores the culturally-specific causes of observable disparities in the urban
sphere, as well as the apparent absence of adequate urban governance to
promote continuity and coherence in the city.
While it is true that this is habitually analysed as 'deep structural problems', this
assumes that, given the right economic parameters, 'development' would result.
A certain circularity is evident here. This 'lack of development' is very often
reduced to figures and economic parameters, and development is measured in
terms of how far these macro-economic figures converge with Western levels of
‘development’. It is assumed that the present absence of ‘development’ can be
equated to the absence of institutions based on western models, which would
naturally arise given the right economic environment.
These oppositional conceptualisations often lead to crucially important cultural
processes in understanding a society being dismissed as mere 'corruption', for
example. This rationale is oppositional, as it defines the observed functioning of
the political and public spheres in opposition to a Western notion of institutional
organisation based on contractual agreement, which emerged in its own
historical context, rather than attempting a qualitative understanding of the
complexity actually at work. The result is often a process of ‘othering’ and the

29
creation of homogeneous categorisations to describe difference, along with
attempts to apply ‘successful’ Western models.
One question that immedetiately arises is, given its factional character, how is it
possible to promote good ‘urban governance’, favour a coherent identity of the
city and a functioning sense of contractual obligation in the context of
Caciquismo, as well as reversing the “denial of reciprocity” towards the state, and
its implications for policy-making?
The dangers of the 'Western gaze' are very much present in the field of
development. An exploration of the continued relevance of Caciquismo in
understanding the contemporary Venezuelan context, and its urban realities in
particular, reveals the weaknesses of negative and oppositional categorisations
implicit in development approaches.
Crucially, this case highlights the importance of positive characterisations that
take into account the cultural processes at work in shaping urban space; where
these cultural processes are the basic starting point and not simply a ‘sympton’.
This could be seen as Anthropology's principal contribution to development
policy.

Notes:
• Venezuela Country Brief, World Bank website:
http://lnweb18.worldbank.org/External/lac/lac.nsf/Countries/Venezuela/5E35E
D58EF8E69238525696700736330?OpenDocument

• Almanaque Mundial, Editorial Andina 1986

30
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System of Caciquismo in the Luso-Hispanic World, Kern, R. ed. University of
New Mexico Press, 1973

2. Bunge, C. O. Caciquismo in our America in Dictatorship in Spanish America,

Hugh M. Hammill, Jr. ed. (New York, 1965)

3. Clastres, Society against the State, Mole Editions, 1977

4. Cornelius, W. A. Jr. Contemporary Mexico: A Structural Analysis of Urban

Caciquismo in The Caciques: Oligarchal Politics and the System of Caciquismo
in the Luso-Hispanic World, Kern, R. Ed.

5. Falcón, R. Revolución y Caciquismo en San Luís Potosí 1910-1938,

El Colegio de México, 1984

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Economy, Gower 1985

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Pluto Press 2000 Clastres, Society against the State, Mole Editions, 1977

8. Hillman, Democracy for the Privileged: Crisis and Transition in Venezuela,

Lynne Rienner Publishers, 1994

9. Kern, R. The Caciques: Oligarchal Politics and the System of Caciquismo in

the Luso-Hispanic World, University of New Mexico Press, 1973

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10. Lieuwen, E Venezuela London, 1961

11. Rivero Santos, A. A. Grassroots and the State: Perspectives from the
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12. Special Country Report on Venezuela, Forbes Global Magazine, April 2002
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of Venezuela University of Illinois, 1982

14. Venezuela Country Brief, World Bank website:

http://lnweb18.worldbank.org/External/lac/lac.nsf/Countries/Venezuela/5E35ED5
8EF8E69238525696700736330?OpenDocument

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32