The Political Economy of Trade Protection in Colombia

This article sheds new light on the interaction between trade policy formation, politics, and the economy in Colombia in the 20th century. The author combines original ex post interview data on the apertura process that took off in the 1990s with a meta-analysis of earlier studies on the political and economic history of Colombia. The analysis allows for a better understanding of the applicability of standard political-economy models to explain empirically the levels of protection of the manufacturing industry. More specifically, the article sheds new light on the determination of tariff levels, the interaction of conflicting interest groups, the degree of autonomy of the government and the bureaucrats, and the relationship between the ideological profiles of governments and the orientation of their trade policies. It is argued that the Colombian case has wider relevance for understanding the formation of trade policies in other countries in Latin America, especially in contexts with diversified economic structures and shifting government coalitions.