Introduction: new perspectives and the Chavez phenomenon / Steve Ellner and Miguel Tinker Salas -- The Venezuelan exceptionalism thesis: separating myth from reality / Steve Ellner and Miguel Tinker Salas -- Venezuelan social conflict in a global context / Edgardo Lander -- U.S. oil companies in Venezuela: the forging of an enduring alliance / Miguel Tinker Salas -- Chávez and the search for an alternative to neoliberalism / Dick Parker -- Trade union autonomy and the emergence of a new labor movement in Venezuela / Steve Ellner -- Ethnicity and revolution: the political economy of racism in Venezuela / Jesús María Herrera Salas -- Venezuela's Bolivarian revolution: who are the Chavistas? / Cristóbal Valencia Ramírez -- Social movements in a polarized setting: myths of Venezuelan civil society / María Pilar García-Guadilla -- When "no" means "yes to revolution": electoral politics in Bolivarian Venezuela / Daniel Hellinger -- Confronting Hugo Chavez: U.S. "democracy promotion" in Latin America / Christopher I. Clement.