The political history of independent Venezuela was for a long time characterised by a series of different dictatorships where the armed forces became increasingly influential. During the governments of Juan Vincente Gómez (1908-35) and Marcos Pérez Jiménez (1948-58) in particular, the military almost had the status of the presidents' private army. Following criticism from large landowners and the economic elite as well as mass demonstrations, a bloodless military coup ousted Jiménez in 1958 and oversaw a transition to democracy.
Following a split within the ruling Democratic Party in 1960, a left-wing breakaway faction eventually merged with a communist opposition movement. These groups inspired a faction of the navy to attempt a failed coup against the government in July 1962.
Because of its large oil resources and stable democratic rule, Venezuela experienced high economic growth during the global energy crisis in the 1970s as government income soared. The 1980s decline in oil prices and problems with corruption, however, plunged the country into a deep recession that led to strong opposition to the government. Following almost daily, often violent, street protests against successive governments in 1989-92 a group of young officers tried to seize power in a military coup in February 1992. After a few hours of fighting, the coup leader Hugo Chávez announced surrender "for now" and he and other officers were imprisoned. Another attack by the same military faction was launched in November the same year but this was defeated by the government as well. Chávez was pardoned in 1996 and eventually became elected president of Venezuela in 1998.
Public protests in Venezuela have at times become violent, and there have been claims of government forces targeting civilians on numerous occasions. Even though the circumstances for many events during demonstrations have been unclear (and thus not included in the UCDP datasets), there has been some clear incidents of one-sided violence by the government forces.
Since 1946 Venezuela has experienced the intrastate and one-sided categories of UCDP organised violence.