La democracia en tres tiempos: representación, participación y protesta social en Colombia

This article aims to discover the meaning of democracy in Colombia in three periods: the first, representative (1810-1991); the second, participatory (1991-2022); and the third, social protest (2016-2023). In this order, it analyzes the historical experience of democracy in Colombia and questions the timeless, ahistorical, formal, idealistic, one-dimensional and peaceful conception. The results of the research show that democracy is a historical, social, political and legal fact in constant construction, the product of a power struggle in which each time imposes a material meaning in counterbalance to other formal meanings. The inquiry applies a critical socio-legal methodology, whose approach allows concluding that democracy in Colombia involves a structural experience of violence, exclusion and social protest.