ABSTRACT
This chapter explores how scholars have studied Venezuela’s foreign policy. In the 1960s, Venezuela became a sort of island in a small archipelago of democracies surrounded by a sea of authoritarianism. From 1967 to 1977, Venezuelan foreign policy focused on the economic issues of integration: participating in the Latin American Free Trade Associationand in the Junta de Cartagena starting in 1973. Hugo Chavez Frias, winner of the presidential election of December 1998, came to power using rhetoric that was more anti-partisan than anti-American. In Latin America and the Caribbean, most governments, including some Bolivarian allies, have acted in a pragmatic manner, both regarding diplomacy and foreign business relations. China became a key piece in Venezuela’s commercial and economic diversification projects and in reducing its dependency on American oil import markets. Iranian-Venezuelan relations began during the second term of Mohamed Jatami, and they grew deeper starting in 2005, when Mahmoud Ahmadinejad was elected president.
