| The problem that led us to this research was to study the impact of neo-liberal public policies on the bureaucratic and marketing processes in the field of home public services in Colombia as in the majority of Latin American countries. In Colombia's case, this policy has had two components: First, a deregulation in provision and managing of the public services contemplated in the Constitution of 1991, due to the fact that several articles on public and social services, and even on health and education services, included there, paved the way for their deregulation and marketing. In this particular case my interest was to show the effects of these policies, fifteen years later, on a selected group of large state companies of the sector during this time.;Actually, what happened in Colombia since the Nineties was a fundamental change of the public sector policies---long ago established and enforced---which were replaced by others that belong to global mega tendencies and that are placed under a line of merchant anchorage. This supposes the public services as a great business field, with capital accumulation and reproduction, under the rules of open markets and the scope of worldwide financial processes, management and building policies.;Today, almost twelve years after the approval of this framework that specify the model of Public Utilities Services PUS's policies in the Colombian Constiration of 1991, it seems relevant to question such model of public services supply and also to question the role of the State as entrepreneur and regulator. We have particularly analyzed the development of the public entrepreneurial bureaucracies facing the market's opening and liberalization frame. In order to do this we have studied three cases: EPM at Medellin, EMCALI at Cali, and the privatization process of two ancient public enterprises from the Caribbean territory, TRIPLE A and ACUACAR, at Barranquilla and Cartagena. The text, starting from the general analytic framework and from the case studies and their contextual referents, explains the social logics that have produced these transformations in the public policies' field and its impact in public entrepreneurial organizations and in its corresponding bureaucratic Ethos.;Finally, it is possible to specify the kinds of answer, adaptation, innovation and endurance coming from such bureaucracies in order to face the dramatic change of the rules of concurrence in a market system (concerning capitals, work, goods and services, technologies) more and more in process of globalization everyday.;Secondly, a set of structural changes took place in the rules of the game that the suppliers of public services and the suppliers of social policies in Colombia had (promotion of a new regulatory framework). Such regulations were oriented to the economic autarky of the state companies, and were directly related to the New Public Management's dominant speech that talks about the organizational effectiveness and efficiency, measured by the rules of quality, coverage, opportunity and a fair price for the public services.;Key words: public bureaucracy, State, mercantile process, Colombia, public services, neo-managerial, neo-liberalism, public policies. |
