ABSTRACT
This is a book about relations between the united states and Venezuela in our times. If instead it were a history of those same relations before the twentieth century, it would certainly include many references to the other great powers of the era, England, Spain, and Germany, as well as the other emerging Latin American countries. There would be mentions of alliances among the great nations formed to achieve military or even economic goals, but there would be no place for international institutions, because these are mostly the invention of the twentieth century, particularly of the last fifty years. More and more, countries' bilateral relations tend to get mixed up with international rules and the institutions that draw them up and enforce them, especially contributing to the economic shifts analyzed in Chapter Two. Indeed, international organizations have come to play such an important part in mediating—and moderating—the relations between countries that it is well worthwhile to consider their effect as a way to understand better how two countries like Venezuela and the United States manage their relationship in the context of a world of supranational institutions.
