ABSTRACT
In a sense, Venezuela makes the argument for the importance of political parties in the structuring of democratic stability in Latin America. Venezuela, a country which had one of the worst political histories in Latin America from independence to the 1950s, suddenly emerged as one of the more stable democracies in the region toward the end of that decade. Venezuela in the nineteenth century knew nothing but dictatorships. The llaneros represented by Jose Antonia Paez, and later the Andinos represented by Cipriano Castro, ruled the nation with an iron hand. For a number of reasons, more has been written on the life and political thought of Romulo Betancourt than almost any other Latin American political leader. He became, in the early 1960s, the symbol of President John F. Kennedy's Alliance for Progress, and its announced goal of restoring democratic government in Latin America.
