National Integration and Insurgency in Venezuela: an Exercise in Causation

Abstract

IN THE less developed nations guerrilla insurgency is an ubiquitous indicator of the lack of political stability. Several theories have been proposed to explain high incidence of insurgency within the Third World. A common theory which links insurgency with economic underdevelopment and traditional social structure coupled with a conspiratorial trigger fails to explain those nations experiencing insurgency which are relatively more developed than their insurgencyfree neighbors. Lucian Pye has suggested an alternative theory: insurgency as a consequence of the lack of national integration. We have tried to test this theory in a case study of one nation, Venezuela, which has experienced considerable guerrilla activity in the 1960's. Venezuela seems well-suited for such an investigation because it ranks higher on most indicators of socioeconomic development than other nations within the Third World and has been experiencing one of the highest rates of urbanization, considered by some to be the most significant measure of national integration. Socioeconomic integration in Venezuela is a recent phenomenon and largely due to the discovery, exploration, and expanded production of oil. Following the discovery of oil during the 1920's and 1930's, large population migrations began to result in the emergence of a maldistribution in literacy, income, and urbanization characteristics. However, as the oil industry has matured, economic growth has spread to other sectors of the economy with a resulting decrease in inequality in terms of urbanization and literacy on a state-by-state basis. The picture with regard to political integration is not nearly so optimistic. Kalman Silvert places Venezuela in the next to last group on his four-part scale of integration along with Bolivia, Colombia, Panama, and Peru. This group is characterized by super-ordinate groups split by value disagreement concerning the desirability of national values and integration, again in coexistence with large groups alienated for class and ethnic reasons.' Guerrilla activity has occurred in six states of Venezuela, mostly in the extreme mountainous areas: Anzoategui, Falcon, Lara, Portuguesa, Tachira, and Trujillo. Except for Tachira, these states are on the perimeter of the core area which, by and large, includes the most significant urban areas and economic productivity in Venezuela. Our method ranked each state in terms of various indicators of national integration (literacy, urbanization, internal migration, and voting) on a ten-part scale. The rankings were then compared with the states that have had serious guerrilla activity. Literacy has increased dramatically in Venezuela as a natural result of urbanization and deliberate government effort to eradicate illiteracy. In 1961, literacy of