Does democratization process lead to positive environmental public policies in the Colombian case? By focusing on variations in authoritarianism and democratic rule during the 1990s, this paper tests the hypothesis that an increase in democratic rule produces changes to environmental protection along two levels, legal framework and institutional accountability. The dependent variables are democratization and authoritarianism. The independent variable is the level of environmental protection in the public policy outcome. The qualitative analysis is focused on the factors and causal mechanism that allows to evaluate the hypothesis. The findings are that the periods of authoritarian rule and democratic rule are highly influenced by two factors. The first is domestic (postcolonial institutions, regime’s organizational strength, elites’ cleavages, revolutionary and counterrevolutionary movements, and the strength of environmental movement) and second international (western linkage and international organizations’ influence). The Colombian case in the 1990s allows for an identification of these different characteristics of authoritarian and democratic regimes and the causal mechanisms that promote or avoid environmental protection.