Paper short abstract:

Legitimized by the developmental compromise of the new regime, the social policies of the Fourth Republic (1958-1999) put a distributive system in place managed by party networks. Local implementations of the welfare state in Caracas’ barrios are hereby analyzed before de debt crisis (1982).

Paper long abstract:

The Venezuelan « magical state » (Coronil, 1997) took a social turn with the advent of the Fourth Republic in 1958: the elite of the new democratic regime legitimated its takeover by distributive social policies toward new urban poor (Gonzalez, Lacruz 2008).

"Populist", the organization of social plans was linked to charismatic national leaders starting with Wolfang Larrazabal and his Plan de emergencia para los barrios in 1958; "clientelistic", the distribution of public materials was managed by militants of Punto Fijistas leading parties (AD and COPEI).

This paper aims to question, on the base of first hand sources, complementarities and blurred boundaries between state populism and local clientelism during the first two decades of the Venezuelan Fourth Republic. Electoral races then appeared preceded, and dominated, by clientelistic competition between the two ruling parties.

The understanding of populism as a constant and quite managed state of societal and political emergency (Hermet, 2001) helps here to analyze the central part of partisan networks in the management of social public policies. AD and COPEI were, therefore, the real "institutions" of social and developmental policies in the Caribbean petro-state.

This paper will be based on the analysis of fieldwork data collected in Caracas' slums (the barrios) and in ministerial archives. Thus, social policies of the Punto Fijo's regime are studied comparing governmental discourse and national legal framework with local practices in help-seeking urban communities of Caracas.