Self-rule vs. Shared Rule: The Design and Evolution of Federal Institutions in Colombia
2020
In 1991, Colombia shifted from a territorial regime that combined shared rule with
limited self-rule to the opposite configuration: extensive self-rule without shared rule. The
radical shift between these two hybrid configurations generates two distinct but related
theoretical puzzles. First, why did the 1991 constitution simultaneously empower
Colombia’s constituent units with self-rule only to disempower them by eliminating their
representation in the Senate? I argue that the same democratizing forces that sought to
strengthen territorial units via self-rule also had the effect of undermining shared rule by
transforming the Senate into a body that would be elected in a single nationwide district.
Second, what explains the instability of self-rule without shared rule in the years after 1991
when the opposite configuration had achieved such stability in the century before 1991?
This paper shows how, once they lost their representation in the Senate, regional actors
had few institutional levers at the national level they could use to veto recentralization and
defend their newfound self-rule.
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