DEMOCRATIZATION IN COLOMBIA?

AFTER THE CONSTITUTION OF 1991

Carmen Ana Casseres Henry Student of Political Science and International Relations Universidad Tecnolgica de Bolvar MLK Scholar

In recent decades, the academic debate in Latin America in what regards the State as a container full of society has shown the reasons to apply changes and revisions in the public sector, it is true that throughout the region, perhaps in some countries harder than others. All this talk based on the State incriminating trends thoroughly examine the histories and trajectories of the states in the local, national, regional and international levels; precisely on the ceiling of that speech, now companies are talking about democratic transitions, index of democracy, democratic governance, among many others who have emerged just this scenario.

Similarly, the current readings around the state called crisis are also supported in this emerging discursive logic. However, the crisis of state and political system have been repeatedly referred to and their names are displayed with different intensity reform plans of state and public institutions in some Latin American countries, where Colombia is no exception.

In this work we try to illustrate the characteristic that makes the 1991 constitutional reform within the Latin American trend of reforms in order to read state democratization and democratic transitions during the decade of 1990. Beforehand, we argue that the Colombian case hypothetically the constitutional

reform of 1991 led to the weakness of the assumptions on which rested exclusionary political regime, a society that had changed and that change should be reflected in the charter, among other assumptions. On the one hand, in general, tended to isolate the public sector of society and not to consider the "evils" that take place within the state a relationship with institutionalized patterns in the same society, beyond the state apparatus as so. On the other hand, ignored the central issue of the differential nature of the public sector. To a large extent, the constitutional reform of 1991 was met with the limits involving the contradictions and conflicts of a deeply unequal society and the fragility of the assumption that dwarf the State and coding technocratic politics favored the development and entry into the international political system.

The complex situation facing Colombia's democracy after the 1991 constitution, creates doubt about whether he thought this amendment to the State in relation to democracy, or in relation to a democracy of citizens. This omission is not surprising, reflects a concept based on two cuts or caricatures of citizenship. The first is the sequential reduction of democracy to the regime and the citizen voter, in which the state tends to be marginalized to the issue of democracy. The other Reductionism is the policy of technocracy, a technical knowledge defined by economic criteria, whose main category is the consumer. As argued throughout this essay, citizenship is filed and the maimed state of their relationship and responsibility with it.

In the absence of reflection on the relationship between the state and democracy, he says, yet another absence, no less striking: the lack of thinking and policy on inequality lacerated lacerates and then to Colombian society. Inequality in Colombia is a historical feature and persistent. Unequal distribution of wealth and income, educational gaps, health and wages, weak safety nets and social protection, poverty itself, ethnic differences, ethnic, racial, social and gender are

only some of the faces possible that inequality is presented in Colombia (Pecaut, 1987). Facing up to inequality requires putting in the center of political action and, ultimately, inequality has not been on the agenda of the country in recent decades. And that ultimately is a problem for democracy, the economy and citizenship. This absence in the political agenda is largely a natural consequence of the absence before. That is, visible and tackle inequality requires a policy to develop and offer alternatives and a state committed to building democracy and development. Neither one nor the other was present at the logic underlying the constitutional action of 1991, political action options and weak in the state away from his responsibility for social integration.

Under these conditions, the sign of democratic political action and the state, even with elections, was questioned. Only the state can mediate the relationship between economy and democracy and provide these mediations of a sense of inclusive development. These scenarios support the characterization of the state and try to make political action after the Colombian constitution of 1991. We aim to reflect the period from 1990 until today in the social, economic and political without distorting the internal armed conflict also exists in the Colombian scenario. All with the goal of reflection on the process of democratization in Colombia.

The current challenges to democracy in Colombia are perhaps the most decisive of those faced in recent history. The mass of the ideals of "democratic security" during the two periods of the government of President Alvaro Uribe as a direct result of frustrated dialogue process to resolve the armed conflict with the guerrillas and their subsequent breakups, the precariousness of the public, the crisis of politics and parties directly through the emergence of paramilitary activity, the fragile democratic institutions and state representative, the product that comes off long ago and is now aggravated by the lack of dynamism in the resource sector and natural, along with this, blocking communication between the government and

the communities that seem exogenous to the model of economic and social development that is implemented, the worsening of social exclusion with high levels of unemployment and extreme poverty, represent some of the serious problems that require enormous efforts and integrated actions on the part of citizens, government and international community support. What challenges this panorama offers to establish a modern and inclusive democracy in the context of a social state of law?

The Colombian State's constitutional proclamation as a social state of law and economic, political, social and cultural supports the Colombian daily substantially far from the objective conditions required for the constitution of the social state of law, such complexity allows us to assume that in Colombia has not even spent a genuine rule of law, no absolute guarantee of the most fundamental right for all that is the right to life.

The fact that the Constitution of 1991 is installed the Colombian state as a social state of law is in itself, for many political analysts to interpret and support a democratic transition. However, this idea forget that over recent Colombian political history, violence has accompanied democracy, but seriously hindered the democratization process, ie it is likely that the 'social democratic transition has state of law is incomplete and even inconsistent with the Colombian daily ".

The construction of a social state of law must start a cry beyond the corporate charter, part of the assessment and social commitment to unconditional compliance with fundamental rights. The search for a social state of law as a collective utopia, imposes the social creation of a transitional programmatic agenda which lays collective goals, commitments, duties and rights of citizens, social groups, representative bodies and the State (Garay, 1999). In this order, would

agree to talk about the transition to democratic social state of law that attempt to Colombian society through the constitutional process in 1991, however complex reality which said the new constitution was greatly exacerbated by changes that is fixed - for example, changing a multiparty political bipartisanship largely made possible the emergence of illegal armed groups in the political-institutional through elections and voting, but also the confirmation of the multiculturalism of the Colombian society in some way to spray and even collective action has no real direct incorporation and public agendas.

Colombian State before and after the 1991 Constitution has been weak and institutional action is addressed and credited to a fragmented civil society, a phenomenon which has worsened under the political and economic restructuring that the country has experienced between 1990 and today. First, the political system underwent a process of constitutional reform to strengthen the state and increase its legitimacy, and thus overcome the exclusionary nature of the political regime, but this reform did not match the politico-institutional, social and everyday cultural, obviously the concessions that the people had built for political action and public thanks to the previous political history. Second, the national economy was the passage of an economic model that emphasized the development of the domestic market, import substitution industrialization, a model of openness and internationalization of the economy, not necessarily a model that harmonizes with population characteristics of Colombia.

This dual state restructuring has had a contradictory relationship: while, in a sense the "political opening", generated by the 1991 Constitution, has produced more or less favorable conditions for a process of democratization and integration in society, however this democratization is tied to the logic of cutting an internal conflict and counter insurgency largely unsupported politically, since the negotiations and policy decisions often forget that the Colombian state and society

are involved in a violent conflict. On the other hand, "economic liberalization", generated by the new model has offset or reduced the possibility of democratization, since she has been involved exclusionary social processes due to, among other things, privatization of state enterprises, reduced spending public social - cutting health programs, social housing, education, among others, increased government spending for war purposes institutionalized the political project of Plan Colombia during the administration of former President Andres Pastrana in the period from 1998 to 2002. Now, how can we read the democratization process through the Colombian state since the 1991 constitution? To what extent the Colombian political and social reality connotes a process of democratization?

Previously, the hypothesis expressed as violence along the Colombia's recent political history attached to democracy, but democracy has hampered effective. To justify the view that supports the above is necessary to understand the relationship between political action, the conflict situation and the general use of violence, since society is not just a network of cooperation, as assumed in Axelrod (1986), but also a network of social tensions and conflicts that need to be mediated by a relatively autonomous power to ensure the persistence and reproduction of society itself. From this perspective the role of state is essential to maintain the balance between cooperation and conflict, so that the company achieves the minimum cohesion necessary for continuity (Orjuela, 2000).

According to the statement by Norbert Lechner (1986:30), the policy is a specific conflict, and the state is a form of generality. We cannot think of politics without reference to a form that summarizes the company, nor can we think of the state without referring to a divided society. If the State does not have the autonomy to establish itself as a generic form of society, in order to provide a minimum of cohesion and mediate their conflicts, could speak of a crisis of political integration,

whose expressions are violence and anomie. In turn, following Max Weber (1968), we can define the state as the institution that, through the monopoly of the legitimate use of force and the production of regulations, a member of the society and the country, half social conflicts and ensures the coordination system of the society.

In this conceptual order is valid to say that the current situation of Colombian democracy and with it the democratization process has become more complex to stimulate supposed due to the weakness of the state, which historically has been unable to integrate the country and establish a legitimate monopoly of force. Therefore, the Colombian government does not articulate or unity or the country's population, thus reducing their ability to mediate and channel conflicts and social tensions. These are resolved outside of public institutions, which are the cause of the emergence of various expressions of "parainstitucionalidad" private groups such as justice and defense, drug gangs and guerrilla movements (Orjuela, 2000). However, all modern democratic state operates a variety of policy domains and interacts with the public through a wide variety of agencies and institutions. In conclusion, the "social asymmetry" Colombia can be deduced that while there have been attempts at democratization and largely have been noted, they have not had a real and direct impact on Colombian society can be progressively addressing inclusion and development, provided that fundamentally alter the asymmetry of the specialization of political and economic power in favor of equity, solidarity and efficiency in a regime of political and economic stability. Only with a true social transformation is commendable to think about building a political democracy, economic and social, in the strict sense of the term. Social dilemmas mentioned must be within the arena of political action, of the public, not solely from a few intellectuals, technicians or specialists chosen, not elected by popular decision through voting. It is up to everyone from the very field of citizen action, start building visions, design alternatives, and creating open

spaces commitments to advance the purpose of building a true democracy in the country, which in our situation would be the closest historical the desired peace.

REFERENCES Garay, Luis Jorge (1999). Construccin de una nueva sociedad, Cambio y Tercer Mundo Editores, Bogot Lechner, Norbert. La conductiva y nunca acabada construccin del orden deseado. Madrid: Centro de Investigaciones Sociolgicas, Siglo XXI Editores, 1986. Pcaut, Daniel (1987). Orden y violencia: Colombia, 1930-1953. Bogot: Siglo XXI. Poulantzas, Nicos (1969). Poder poltico y clases sociales en el Estado capitalista. Mxico: Siglo XXI,. Orjuela, (2000). La debilidad del Estado Colombiano en tiempos de neoliberalismo y conflicto armado. Bogot: Revista de Ciencias Sociales de la Facultad de Ciencias Sociales de la Universidad de los Andes. Weber, Max. Economy and Society. Nueva York: Bedminster Press, 1968.