#  Venezuela at a Crossroads: Between Democratization and Full Autocracy 

 



    ![Tuesday Seminar Image of Freddy Guevara](/sites/g/files/omnuum12451/files/styles/hwp_5_4__480x385/public/2025-02/Tuesday%20Seminar%20Series%202024%20Venezuela%20Elections%20What%20happened%20%2812%29.png?itok=TBv74MD3) 

 



 

####  calendar\_today Date and Time 

 **February 25, 2025** 

 12:00PM - 01:20PM EST 

####  pin\_drop Location 

 **CGIS South, Room S216**  

No registration required to attend in-person.

 

 

 [ Register to Attend Virtually arrow\_circle\_right ](https://harvard.zoom.us/webinar/register/WN_GmBvI8mZQJm6r9IYuRw2cw#/registration) 

 



 

Since Hugo Chávez came to power, Venezuela has been one of the most prominent examples of a hybrid regime. However, after the opposition’s victory in the July 28, 2024, presidential elections and the Maduro regime’s refusal to recognize the results, the country faces a decisive moment: Will it move toward democratization, or will it become a fully consolidated autocracy where elections become a relic of the past?

Speaker:

**Freddy Guevara Cortez**, Venezuelan opposition leader, Vice President of the National Assembly (2017), former political prisoner, current Democracy Fellow at the Ash Center, Harvard University

Moderated by **Steven Levitsky**, Professor of Government, Harvard University; Director of the David Rockefeller Center for Latin American Studies.

**About the Speaker**

**Freddy Guevara** is a freedom fighter, advocate, strategist, and researcher focused on democracy, civil resistance, and platform building. He served as Vice President of the Venezuelan Parliament in 2017, becoming a key leader in the nonviolent struggle against Nicolás Maduro’s dictatorship. His activism led to political persecution, imprisonment, and eventual exile in 2021.

Since then, Freddy has continued his fight for democracy through academia and international advocacy. He was awarded the Ford Foundation Mason Fellowship to pursue a master’s in public administration at Harvard Kennedy School and is currently a Democracy Fellow at the Ash Center and a researcher at Harvard’s Nonviolent Action Lab. He is also an active member of the World Liberty Congress, working to support pro-democracy movements worldwide.

Freddy's research focuses on developing new strategies and frameworks to confront authoritarianism and strengthen democratic movements. Balancing his academic and advocacy work, he provides strategic support, training, and cross-sector collaboration for democratic transitions in Venezuela and other movements resisting authoritarian regimes globally.

**About the Moderator**

**Steven Levitsky** is David Rockefeller Professor of Latin American Studies and Professor of Government, Director of the David Rockefeller Center for Latin American Studies at Harvard. He is also a Senior Democracy Fellow at the Council on Foreign Relations and a Senior Fellow at the Kettering Foundation. His research focuses on democracy and authoritarianism, political parties, weak and informal institutions, and most recently, the crisis of democracy in the United States. He and Daniel Ziblatt are authors of How Democracies Die, which was a New York Times best-seller and was published in 30 languages, and Tyranny of the Minority: Why American Democracy Reached the Breaking Point. Levitsky has written or edited 11 other books, including Transforming Labor-Based Parties in Latin America: Argentine Peronism in Comparative Perspective (Cambridge University Press 2003), Competitive Authoritarianism: Hybrid Regimes after the Cold War (with Lucan Way) (Cambridge University Press, 2010), and Revolution and Dictatorship: The Violent Origins of Durable Authoritarianism (with Lucan Way) (Princeton University Press, 2022). He and Lucan Way are currently writing a book on the sources of global democratic resilience in the 21st Century.

This event is presented in collaboration with the [Weatherhead Center for International Affairs](https://wcfia.harvard.edu/).



 

 



 

 

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