ABSTRACT
Venezuela entered the twentieth century as an unremarkable, economically backward young nation with an agricultural based economy. The ambitious project floundered and in 1830, Venezuela became an independent nation state. The absence of class and social cleavages distances Venezuela from the traditional schema employed to explain the evolution of party systems. The evolution of political parties in Venezuela was related to an accelerated process of economic change and the limitations imposed on democratisation. A gradual process of socio-political evolution was telescoped by party competition for control of the state, oil rents and emerging social organisations. The organisational structures of bothAccion Democratica (AD) and Comite de Organizacion Politica Electoral Independiente (COPEI) were forged by the operating realities of the period. The pragmatic convergence between AD and COPEI continued during the first COPEI government elected in 1968. AD and COPEI emerged in a period of rapid social modernisation, drawing support from newly mobilised social sectors.
