Security, Democracy, and Development: Contrasting Policies and Outcomes in Colombia And Venezuela, 1998-201

Between 1998 and 2016, Colombia and Venezuela took divergent paths to reform security, democratic governance, and economic policy, and they achieved vastly dissimilar results. Colombia progressed from the brink of state failure to become The Economist's "Country of the Year" in 2016. Meanwhile, neighboring Venezuela started with the largest economic windfall in Latin America and ended with the rank of "World's Most Miserable Country" by the Cato Institute in 2016.;This thesis compares and contrasts policy decisions made by the governments of these two countries that led them to opposite developmental outcomes. The Colombian government invited dialogue, cooperation, and support from foreign governments and global institutions to overcome a violent guerrilla insurgency, while the Venezuelan government turned inward, rejecting and undermining Western governments and global organizations while creating a culture of political polarity and violence. In addition, legislation in Colombia continually passed through a plurality of strong democratic institutions, whereas in Venezuela, institutional checks and balances yielded to a populist president as power was overwhelmingly concentrated in the executive branch. Finally, Colombia instituted orthodox economic policies with the support of global institutions that ultimately stabilized the economy and steadily reduced poverty without accumulating large amounts of debt, whereas Venezuela took on heavy debt despite historically high oil revenues, and implemented statist, neo-socialist economic policies that ultimately proved unsustainable.;Despite starting out with similar objectives that included the reduction of inflation, poverty, corruption, violence, and drug trafficking, contrasting policies had nevertheless pointed Colombia in the direction of peace and prosperity and Venezuela toward crisis and collapse by 2016. The futures of these two countries now depend on the lessons that they have learned over the past 18 years.