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Georgetown Americas Institute

July 21, 2026

The State of Democracy in Bolivia

Event Series: Challenges to Democracy: The Latin American Landscape

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Democracy in Latin America, as in the rest of the world, is facing major challenges in political governance, electoral integrity, institutional strength, economic growth, and social cohesion. While it is true that these challenges—which pose threats to democracy worldwide—manifest with varying intensity and emphasis in each country of the region, there are also common elements and similarities that highlight the importance of addressing specific cases from a global, comparative perspective. In this regard, over the course of 25 years, we have moved from a celebration of democracy at the beginning of the twenty-first century—a time when all Latin American countries were living within a framework of constitutional democracy—to a situation of concern regarding the circumstances facing practically every country in the region.

In this context and as a lead up to the third annual conference on the state of democracy in the Americas, jointly organized by the Georgetown Americas Institute and FORMA, a virtual series of discussions titled Democracy in Latin America will be held from May to September, 2026, coordinated by GAI Resident Fellow Lorenzo Córdova Vianello. In each of the biweekly sessions, Córdova will speak with experts from a dozen Latin American countries to analyze the state of democracy and the specific challenges each faces.

The fifth event in this series will offer an overview of the current state of democracy in Bolivia by Salvador Romero, former program member of Bolivia’s Supreme Electoral Tribunal and former vice president of the Departmental Electoral Court of La Paz.

This session will be held in Spanish with English interpretation.

Featuring

Salvador Romero Ballivián was the program director of International IDEA in Paraguay. Romero Ballivián, a Bolivian national, is a researcher, author, and teacher with a Ph.D. in political sociology from the Paris Institute of Political Studies (Sciences Po). He has twice served as president and member of Bolivia’s Supreme Electoral Tribunal (2004-2008; 2019-2021), as well as vice president of the Departmental Electoral Court of La Paz. His broad experience includes serving as the first director of the National Democratic Institute in Honduras, director of the Electoral Advisory and Promotion Centre of the Inter-American Institute of Human Rights (CAPEL/IIDH), member of the Special Electoral Mission under the Peace Accords in Colombia, responsible for the electoral division of the Mission to Support the Fight against Corruption and Impunity in Honduras (MACCIH, by its acronym in Spanish), and, on two occasions, executive secretary of the technical team in support of the Mexican electoral processes, organized by the Center for Electoral Promotion and Advice of the Inter-American Institute of Human Rights and the Electoral Management Bodies (2018, 2021).

Lorenzo Córdova is a Mexican constitutional scholar and public intellectual specializing in electoral law, constitutional theory, and democratic governance. He earned his law degree from the National Autonomous University of Mexico (UNAM) and holds a Ph.D. in political theory from the University of Turin, Italy. He is a full-time Researcher “B” at UNAM’s Legal Research Institute and is recognized by Mexico’s National System of Researchers (SNI) as a Level III National Researcher, the highest distinction awarded by the program. Córdova is also a professor of constitutional theory and constitutional law at the UNAM Law School. His public service career includes serving as electoral councilor of the Federal Electoral Institute (IFE) from December 2011 to April 2014, followed by his tenure as councilor president of the National Electoral Institute (INE) from April 2014 to April 2023. A prolific author, Córdova has written, co-written, or coordinated more than a dozen books on constitutionalism, democracy, and political theory. His most recent work is La democracia constitucional en riesgo. Los autoritarios no descansan (2024). He is currently a weekly video columnist for Latinus, a columnist for El Universal, and a frequent contributor to specialized journals and broadcast media.