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Abstract
In 1991 a new national constitution was drafted in Colombia by a specially-elected National Constituent Assembly with the express purpose of democratizing the country's restricted political regime. The 1991 Constitution contains notable democratic reforms in the electoral, institutional, participatory, and social and economic realms. The dissertation explains why this democratic reform was successful after years of failed efforts to deepen democracy. It integrates two general approaches to democratization--a structuralist approach and an actor-centered approach. The 1991 Constitution was most directly the result of choices and actions by key political actors (a subject best explained by an actor-centered approach); however, the success of those actions and the very opportunity to make certain choices was dependent upon the emergence of a critical juncture (a circumstance best explained by a structuralist approach). More specifically, the dissertation considers five structuralist models that examine the political impact of the level of socioeconomic development, the level of economic crisis, the relative power of subordinate classes, the development of the political party system, and the relative power of civil society. Of these conditions, the first three were largely irrelevant to the Colombian case. However, the transformation of the political party system (which caused a profound crisis of political legitimacy) and the growing strength of non-civil society actors, particularly the drug cartels (which allowed for the onset of a vicious period of state-cartel violence in 1989), produced a critical juncture that constituted a favorable context for political actors to pursue democratic reform. During the critical juncture, a student movement garnered public support and the backing of President Barco, several presidential candidates, and the Supreme Court for its proposal to convene a National Constituent Assembly to draft a new Constitution. The 1991 Constitution was most directly the product of negotiation among the elected delegates to the Assembly. The predominance of political "outsiders" in the Assembly favored the enactment of significant democratic reform. However, this reform was also facilitated by surmountable ideological differences, the fragmentation of parties and movements in the Assembly, and a growing esprit de corps among the delegates.
