Public Policy and inclusive institutions in Colombia
American teachers Acemoglu and Robinson analyze in their book the different aspects that really make some countries of the globe. All this supported by different historical events, which show in a simple way why, apparently similar places, develop very different economies, how much weight has its climate, culture, diversity or geography and why it is institutions that produce developed economies or byThe opposite, they are dedicated to catapulting their unfortunate reality. It should be noted that this opinion article pleases the way in which this pair of economics easily argue why the position that each nation occupies in the international system, and what this text is proposed is to expose the relationship of thepublic policies with the prosperity or failure of countries, specifically placing us in the Colombian case.
In the first place there will be a definition of what a public policy is and what the institutions are respectively, according to what this text intends to argue. So for the first, two definitions will be exposed that serve as the basis for this text, so public policy will be understood as Meny and Thoening define it: “The action of public authorities within society” and/or as itVargas Vásquez does: “The set of successive initiatives, decisions and actions of the political regime against socially problematic actions and that seek the resolution of the same.”In the same way we will understand what institutions are according to what Douglas North in his speech entitled Institutions: institutions are restrictions that arise from human inventiveness to limit political, economic and social interactions. They include informal restrictions, such as sanctions, taboos, customs, traditions, and "behavior codes", as well as formal rules (constitutions, laws, property rights).
Second, it is necessary to explain that the authors of the book propose, thanks to a historical investigation carried out, that the pattern that is repeated between the developed economy countries and with a high rate of quality of life is that they have inclusive economic institutions, which not onlyThey encourage creative destruction but also favor power relations that make any democracy competitive. An example of this, exposed by the authors is the case of the Korean Peninsula, two nations that share not only the same geographical position, culture, race … etc. But also the same story, however in the mid -twentieth century, the product of a war caused by different ideological approaches, Korea is divided into two, one to the north aligned with socialist ideas and another to the south aligned with much more capitalist ideas. This case is conducive to demonstrating in a simple way, because the rules and procedures that each country adopted were decisive for the development that each Korea has today. The north ensured of a totally centralized power – which, although it favors in part the economy of any country as the authors say, never contributed with inclusive institutions that promote progress. On the other hand, the economy of South Korea, which has been called in the literature as the miracle of the twentieth century, not only because it has been one of the few countries in the history of humanity that managed to leave the periphery to locateIn the semiperiferia, in terms of the world-system theory, but also because I adopt inclusive institutions that encouraged progress, as explained by Acemoglu and Robinson what conditions an institution must meet to be inclusive:
To be inclusive, economic institutions must offer private property security, an impartial legal system and public services that provide equal conditions in which people can make exchanges and sign contracts;In addition to allowing new companies and letting each person choose the profession to which you want to dedicate.
At this point, it is essentialand complex social problems. For this, the chapter that the Massachusetts Institute of Technology, Acemoglu and Harvad University professor, Robinson, dedicate them to Colombian democracy, will be used.
Although it is something frustrating that the chapter is titled why countries fail today once you read it, you know how right the arguments are exposed in the fragment of the text in which the authors wonder about who is the state? Because the Colombian case and its democratization process is marked by multiple nuances that have even caused some authors to call it as a failed state, while others, such as Gutiérrez Sanín;A Colombian scholar who has dedicated himself to investigating Colombian democracy, discovers that Colombia is not a failed state, it is only a state that has a particular exceptionality, a double dimension in its democratization: violence and order. So: although Colombia has a long history of democratic elections, it has no inclusive institutions. Its history has been marked by violations of civil liberties, extrajudicial executions, violence against civilians and civil war … Not all armed groups in Colombia are communists.
As evidenced by the previous appointment, Colombia comes to represent, again, a double exceptionality, because armed groups are not only communists- from whom it would be assumed to legitimize exclusive institutions- but are also paramilitary groups that emerged from sectors with ideologiesLiberal and right. So the book from its first chapters teaches us that Latin America has extractive institutions because it was the Iberian colonizers, who conquered and implemented them and erroneously, after the emancipation process, our independence heroes and the elites to which they belonged did not transform these institutions, but they strengthened them. There was a serious problem of change, perhaps that is why this process is not called in much of literature as a revolution, since these are carried out from the bottom up, in terms of social classes, not from top to bottom asIt happened in the case of the country.
So the Nation, following the continuity patterns of exclusive institutions and worse, by promoting new institutions with this characteristic, it has been condemned, since although it has had a centralized government, it has not achieved that the State does presenceThroughout its territory, which further problematizes the national situation and is forced to implement more public policies, such as families in action, street habitability phenomenon and even land restitution. This last product of the little capacity that its institutions have left to the State to guarantee the right to private property.
In conclusion, Colombia would not need so much public policy if it had more inclusive institutions than exclusive, the latter to clarify that the country through its history has also been implementing inclusive institutions, in part thanks to the effectiveness of its public policies. In other words, public policies are the result of the needs and problems that the exclusive institutions in each country are leaving and somehow this state response, in the Colombian case- a state under construction- make these institutionsgradually adopt inclusive characteristics, which position the country in the development category.
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