New Books Network Kristin Ciupa, "The Political Economy of Oil in Venezuela: Class Conflict, the State, and the World Market" (Brill, 2026)
Mar 29, 2026
Kristin Ciupa, Associate Professor of Sociology and author of a new book on Venezuela’s oil political economy. She traces Venezuela’s shift from agrarian exportism to oil dependence. She examines state–oil capital rent relations, nationalization and PDVSA, the Chávez era’s rent distribution, and recent decline, sanctions, and shifting prospects for privatization and foreign investment.
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Coffee Economy Preceded Oil Centralization
- Before oil, Venezuela's economy relied on export agriculture, mainly coffee, with regional landlord elites and limited centralized state power.
- The decline of coffee and subsequent military centralization in the early 1900s launched Venezuela's modern capitalist development trajectory.
Gómez Invited Shell And Sparked The First Oil Boom
- Under dictator Juan Vicente Gómez, Venezuela courted foreign oil companies with favorable contracts, and Shell discovered major reserves in Zulia in 1914.
- Shell helped develop exports by 1918, aided by rising global oil demand and cheap Venezuelan production costs.
Enclave Oil Drove Urbanization But Not Industrialization
- Early oil became an enclave industry dominated by foreign capital and expatriate skilled workers, generating state rents but few industrial linkages.
- Urbanization and growth of a bureaucratic and commercial middle class occurred while industry and broader domestic production remained underdeveloped.
