This thesis offers an interpretative analysis of democracy in Colombia. I attempt to move beyond minimalist definitions of electoral democracy, and to acknowledge the influence of material, structural, and ideological variables in the process of democratic consolidation in a democracy. I focus on the political context in which the state, the regime, and civil society are trying to endure and improve the quality of democracy. Without sacrificing the deep understanding, the specificity, and the complexity of causal explanations, I place special attention on ideology and the political attitudes of society in order to ascertain the level of democratic consolidation in Colombia. To understand the essential role that ideology plays, it is important to address first the structural and material macro variables, and to describe their interactions in the context of democratic development. I argue that even though the most powerful causal explanation for the lack of democratic consolidation at the state and regime levels in Colombia is the interaction between the material and structural dimensions, the main obstacle to moving forward is ideological.
