Da Ditadura à Democracia

Abstract

In December 1961, Venezuela signed a technical cooperation agreement with the State of Israel in the context of its agrarian reform. As a result, a group of Israeli experts provided assistance for several years in a series of regional projects and in building local expertise in rural development. Their involvement helped Venezuela’s agrarian reform quickly gain momentum; however, it would be a mistake to believe that this achievement was solely due to the Israeli contribution. By highlighting the differences and continuities in some official policies concerning rural development in Venezuela before and after the passing of the Agrarian Reform Law of 1960, this paper will demonstrate that while Venezuelan democracy wanted to make a clean break from the past and promoted important structural changes that provided a greater degree of spatial and social justice in the countryside, there were also many continuity elements involving previous rural development policies. The technical expertise that made the agrarian reform possible, as well as the set of ideas and ideals that propelled its implementation, were built in part on a succession of previous experiences that paved the way for what was to come.