The Baroque Lens: Testing a New Latin American Theoretical Approach to the Policy Process Through the “Jóvenes en Paz” Program in Colombia

ABSTRACT

Latin America's historical and sociocultural context implies that the study of public policy processes in this region should be based on perspectives different from those generally employed by the dominant field of public policy process analysis. An innovative experimental approach is presented that postulates that the modernization process introduced through the baroque culture from the late sixteenth to the eighteenth century by the Spanish monarchy and the Catholic Church (Counter‐Reformation) has left a lasting imprint until today. Thus, at the theoretical level, the proposed approach is based on three perspectives—Baroque ethos, resonance theory, and habitus theory—articulated at the macro, meso, and micro levels. A synthesis of the approach and a partial application of it at meso level is presented, showing the presence of a baroque ethos in the normativity that guides the public policy known as “Youth in Peace” developed by the Government of Colombia, led by Gustavo Petro in 2023.