Characterization of regulation as a technique of state administrative action in the colombian case: analysis and evaluation within the framework of the regulatory improvement policy

In recent decades, the role of the State has been transformed, from being the provider of goods and services to satisfy the basic needs of the population to becoming the guarantor of their supply by individuals, reserving the role as arbiter of the relationship generated between the market and civil society, replacing the Keynesian vision of state protagonism with the direct action of market actors as providers of public services.

This change in role has implied that the main expression of public administrative action is no longer the provision of public services but rather regulation, understood as the continuous supervision of a certain activity, ordering and channeling it both through decisions of normative value and other executive nature that refer to the verification or control of compliance with the requirements previously established in the standards.

For this new form of administrative intervention to achieve its purpose, it requires an institutional design that is functional, made up of public institutions in charge of regulating and supervising, with political independence and patrimonial and technical autonomy, the functioning and operation of sectors or activities that They offer basic services to citizens, in order to guarantee their access to them and protect them from the abuses of the providing companies, promote free competition and prevent monopolies, and protect investments from the opportunistic actions of governments.

Thus, the authorities in charge of regulation must assume the fulfillment of four main functions:

• Define the technical, legal and financial requirements for enabling and maintaining its operation by market actors.
• Authorize individuals – eventually public as in Colombia – to enter the market as providers of goods and services.
• Inspect and monitor that the service is verified in accordance with the regulations, especially in defense of free competition and consumer rights.
• Sanction providers for violations of regulations.

In the Colombian case, this transition towards a regulatory State was formalized as part of the objectives of the Public Administration Renewal Program (2002), which raised the need to have an appropriate institutional design for this purpose, based on the lines definitions established by the DNP in the Conceptual Framework to reform and consolidate the institutional scheme for the regulation and control of business activity and in the document Vision Colombia Second Centenary.

After twenty years of having taken the political decision to follow the path of construction of a regulatory State, it is pertinent to ask about its effective degree of implementation, for which this research project aims to characterize the progress that the implementation of the regulation has had as an expression of the administrative intervention of the State in Colombia.

In particular, given the development that Colombia has had in the face of the implementation of the Regulatory Improvement Policy (RIP), based on the recommendations of the Organization for Economic Cooperation and Development (OECD, 2012), the proposed characterization is a contribution to the literature in Latin America, since up to now the academy has not carried out specific studies on RIP.In particular, it is of interest to investigate the potential of the eventual inclusion within the RIP of the anticipatory regulation approach, which identifies that regulation can be a barrier or trigger for taking advantage of the opportunities of the fourth industrial revolution.

For this purpose, the results of previous research carried out and two master's theses developed within the agenda of the line of trends and perspectives of administrative law will be used as inputs, and on this occasion the National Planning Department will be counted as a strategic ally, as the authority in charge of drawing up guidelines and evaluating and monitoring transversal public policies that guide the implementation of the regulatory function.

Regulatory state, regulatory authority, regulation, regulatory improvement

3 articles for publication in indexed journals classified in Scopus
1 book resulting from the memories of the event to disseminate the results of the investigation
1 face-to-face event and by remote access to disseminate the research results
1 paper in doctoral colloquium