A review of Strong Parties and Lame Ducks: Presidential Partyarchy and Factionalism in Venezuela, by Michael Coppedge and Democracy for the Privileged: Crisis and Transition in Venezuela, by Richard S. Hillman.
About the Author
Anibal Romero is a research affiliate at the John M. Olin Institute for Strategic Studies at Harvard University, where he was a visiting scholar at the Center for Latin American Studies in 1995. He is on temporary leave from Simón Bolivar University in Caracas, Venezuela, where he is a full professor of political science. His many books include The Decline and Prospects of Venezuelan Democracy (in Spanish, 1994).
When the “third wave” reached Latin America in the 1970s and 1980s, it brought major advances for democracy. By the first decade of the current century, however, advances had given…
Latin American social policy has at times worked backwards, widening rather than narrowing economic and social inequalities. But new conditional cash-transfer programs seem to be producing positive outcomes.
