Institutions and Citizens in Colombia: The Changing Nature of a Difficult Relationship

From a critical perspective, this essay examines the root socioeconomic and political impact of the constitutional change that occurred in Columbia during the decade of the 90s, and the resultant model consecrated in the Political Constitution of 1991. Taking that process as a starting point, the analysis reviews the principal characteristics of the introduction and subsequent coexistence of two antagonistic models of state: The Social State of Right and the Neoliberal State convergent in the articulation of the Constitution of 1991. Also, the article studies the institutional innovations that both models introduce to the Columbian political regime, especially in regards to the justice administration, the structure of public power and the articulation of participation as the axis of democracy.

At the same time, the article reviews the elements that exemplify the coexistence of these two models, by means of analytical pursuit of the behavior of the individual and collective actors and of the concrete political facts that have formed said relation throughout the last decade of the 20th century, as well as its impact on the instability of the Columbian political regime. Finally, the essay considers the deficiencies in the political culture and the constant interference of the traditional sectors and of the armed actors as a characteristically structural obstacle to the achievement of the aspirations of the great project of democratic reform and progress contemplated in the Constitution of 1991