Resumen

LOPEZ MAYA, Margarita  y  LANDER, Luis E. Novelties and Continuities in Popular Protest in Venezuela. Revista Venezolana de Economía y Ciencias Sociales [online]. 2006, vol.12, n.1, pp.11-30. ISSN 20030507.

Since the last two decades of the twentieth century, Venezuela has been perceived as a society characterized by a permanent process of mobilization. After the Caracazo in 1989, countless protests have been registered and street mobilization has continued up to the present. By way of contrast, in the early eighties it was assumed that in the Latin American context, Venezuela was one of the countries with the lowest levels of mobilization. On the basis of a review of the empirical evidence, the authors demonstrate that, despite some changes, the protests of the seventies and early eighties were not very different from those of today. It is argued that the peace, harmony and social unity of the seventies was largely an illusion and that, then as now, there were periods marked by acute conflictivity and mobilizations. The main difference is that the protests of that epoch did not seriously affect the legitimacy of the political system, nor of its principal actors. They did not lead to a questioning of the basic political pacts introduced after 1958, as did the protests and popular mobilizations after the Caracazo.

Palabras clave : Popular Protest; Street Mobilizations; Caracazo; Venezuela.