In Venezuela the post 1958 period has been characterized by the existence of strong modernizing pressures emanating from the state. These pressures reached even the most isolated rural areas of the Andean region through a development policy centered upon state intervention in the commercializalion of coffee. After 1974 this policy helped create a bureaucratic monopolistic institution, the National Coffee Board (Fondo Nacional del Cafe or FONCAFE), and a network of producers’ associations (PACCAS and CRAM) sponsored by the state and the two main political parties, Democratic Action (Accion Demoeratica, AD) and the Christian Democratic Party, COPEI. This paper analyzes this development policy, and its socio-economic and political effects in the Andean region, to show how its main objectives were not achieved because of the combination of two factors: first, the persistence of traditional patterns of behavior and relationships, and, second, the emergence of new socio-economic groups deriving power from their position in the bureaucratic structure related to the commercialization of coffee.
