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Georgetown Americas Institute

June 23, 2026

The State of Democracy in Colombia

Event Series: Challenges to Democracy: The Latin American Landscape

RSVP Required
Person carrying Colombian flag

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 Lorenzo Córdova Vianello, a GAI resident fellow. 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 third event in this series will offer an overview of the current state of democracy in Colombia led by Catalina Botero, director of the UNESCO Chair on Freedom of Expression at the Universidad de los Andes.

This session will be held in Spanish with English interpretation.

Featuring

Catalina Botero is a lawyer, director of the UNESCO Chair on Freedom of Expression at the Universidad de los Andes, co-chair of the Oversight Board of Facebook and Instagram, member of the external transparency panel of the Inter-American Development Bank, commissioner of the International Commission of Jurists, and member of the Advisory Board of the International Bar Association’s Human Rights Institute. She is an adjunct professor at American University’s Human Rights Academy and an expert member of Columbia University’s Columbia Global Freedom of Expression. She was special rapporteur for freedom of expression of the Inter-American Commission on Human Rights of the OAS, dean of the Faculty of Law of the Universidad de Los Andes, and an associate judge of the Constitutional Court and of the Council of State in Colombia.

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.