Veto players and failed neopoulism in Colombia

Why are Colombia’s political institutions more resistant against a neopopulist strategy to enact market reform than those of other countries in Latin America? What kind of institutional constraints have been imposed on the executive’s economic agenda? What is the effect of the separation of powers on the economic reform process in Colombia? In this thesis, I will answer these questions by analyzing what kind of political and institutional conflicts were behind the second stage of economic liberalization during the administration of Alvaro Uribe. I will show that institutional conflicts and political competition between the executive and the legislative branches of government (and their constituencies and supporters) have conditioned the sequence, timing and results of the economic reform process in Colombia.