INTELLECTUALS AND EXPERTS: “VIOLENTOLOGISTS” AND ECONOMISTS IN THE PRODUCTION OF SOCIAL AND ECONOMIC POLICIES IN COLOMBIA

Abstract

In this article, we propose to develop a historical and contextual approach to the hypothesis that intellectuals in Colombia started being recognized as new political actors and producers of social and economic policies, around the late 80s and early 90s. From this perspective, we will take as starting point the consolidation of the so-called ‘violentology’ conceived as a field of knowledge, and the articulation of a group of experts/intellectuals producing social policies particularly focused on the topic of violence. Later, we will consider the process of the intellectual elite producing economic policies in the context of the emergence of neoliberalism. Taking into account the specificity of each development, we assume that both dynamics are circumscribed within a more general process characterized by its tendency towards technical and/or expert specialization of social and economic knowledge.