RECENT VENEZUELAN POLITICAL STUDIES: A Return to Third World Realities* Steve Ellner Universidad de Oriente, Venezuela STRONG PARTIES AND LAME DUCKS: PRESIDENTIAL PARTYARCHY AND FACTIONALISM IN VENEZUELA. By Michael Coppedge. (Stanford, Calif.: Stanford University Press, 1994. Pp. 241. $45.00 cloth.) LESSONS OF THE VENEZUELAN EXPERIENCE. Edited by Louis W. Good- man, Johanna Mendelson Forman, Moises Nairn et al. (Washington, D.C., and Baltimore, Md.: Woodrow Wilson Center Press and Johns Hopkins University Press, 1995. Pp. 420. $70.00 cloth, $24.95 paper.) DEMOCRACY FOR THE PRIVILEGED: CRISIS AND TRANSITION IN VENE- ZUELA. By Richard S. Hillman. (Boulder, Colo.: Lynne Rienner, 1994. Pp. 198. $36.50 cloth.) VENEZUELAN DEMOCRACY UNDER STRESS. Edited by Jennifer McCoy, Andres Serbin, William C. Smith, and Andres Stambouli. (New Bruns- wick, N.J.: Transaction, 1994. Pp. 288. $21.95 paper.) PAPER TIGERS AND MINOTAURS: THE POLITICS OF VENEZUELA'S ECO- NOMIC REFORMS. By Moises Nairn. (Washington, D.C.: Carnegie En- dowment, 1993. Pp. 180. $24.95 cloth, $10.95 paper.) VENEZUELA IN THE WAKE OF RADICAL REFORM. Edited by Joseph S. Tulchin, with Gary Bland. (Boulder, Colo.: Lynne Rienner, 1993. Pp. 183. $9.95 paper.) DECADENCIA Y CRISIS DE LA DEMOCRACIA. By Anfbal Romero. (Caracas: Panap~1994. P~ 13~) The mass rioting that shook Venezuela during the week of 27 February 1989 is now viewed as a watershed that shattered myths regard- ing the nation's supposedly unique social, economic, and political stabil- ity. This event changed the way Venezuelans perceived themselves and their government. The national image prevailing until then, as well as some of the generally accepted distortions, had influenced scholars writ- *The author is grateful for critical comn1ents frOlTI Susan Berglund, Dick Parker, and Ralph Van Roy. Latin Amcrican Rc~carch Rcuicw volulne 12, nU111ber 2 ~ 1997 201 https://doi.org/10.1017/S0023879100037924 Published online by Cambridge University Press