Introduction

Venezuela has had a long history being at the forefront of revolutionary politics, and as the soil from which both Simon Bolivar and the guiding force for the formation of the Organization of Petroleum Exporting Countries (OPEC) sprang. Statements to upset the Washington Consensus[1] are not unique to Venezuela's president, Hugo Chavez. They have been heard before, as epitomized by former Venezuelan President Carlos Andres Perez, who stated at the 1976 UN General Assembly that, "[A] new economic order is essential for world peace."[2] Indeed, for former President Perez (nicknamed ...