What intrigued you about academia? 

Conventional conversations on current events were never really satisfying to me — you could always come up with another reason or another argument for why things were or what the solutions should be, and people have their own opinions, biases, and beliefs. But throughout college, I realized there are frameworks for these ways of thinking about the world more structurally that can help us make sense of what's happening. This hooked me in, and I couldn't unsee how useful those tools were — not just to help us understand the world, but to help us get a handle on how humans govern ourselves. I also love students. I love teaching. It's just so gratifying. So, those things together brought me to academia. 

What stands out to you about the space of CDDRL? 

CDDRL is a really special place. I think the downside of academia can be that there are pressures to publish, which, of course, you still have at CDDRL, but sometimes there are pressures or incentives that push people away from wanting to engage with what's happening in the world. And CDDRL is not that at all. It's also not the opposite: just a constant discussion of current events, without any good analytical tools. CDDRL is the perfect blend of making sense of the world and offering effective solutions, while remaining committed to producing cutting-edge research.

What is the most exciting or impactful finding from your research, and why do you think it matters for democracy or development? 

An important line of research in my work has been working with ex-combatants in Colombia, which led to one of the first major findings in my research.  The research was with former combatants — people who, for different reasons, become experts in the use of violence to pursue their political beliefs. Typically, we can think of them as radical ideologically. Upon conducting these interviews with intervention, we found that ex-combatants who received an intervention to help them better understand civics and political structures showed a moderation in their preferences towards less radical political participation. What that says to me is that even though some actors have invested in radical and antidemocratic means of participating in or influencing politics, these same actors can be incorporated into politics in a way that's not violent yet is democratic. I think that's an optimistic story.
 

When recruiting participants for that study and engaging them, how did you get ex-combatants to participate in a study on political science? How did these conversations go, and how did you incentivize them to participate? 

As you may imagine, these are populations of people that are difficult to access and that are very untrustworthy. There is some danger, whether from them or from groups targeting former combatants. When conducting these interviews, several constraints arose. Part of the lesson was that the approach had to go through as many gatekeepers to these populations as possible, such as trusted local leadership and community members. There was a process of gaining trust; this wasn't like knocking on a door and asking, “Would you like to participate in research?” With these kinds of populations, earning trust and being transparent is important — sharing who you are, why you're there, what you're going to do with that information, why it's important for them to participate, and how the participation can be useful to them. 

How do you see your research influencing policy and contributing to real-world change?

This is important to me, as I see my research being helpful to different kinds of policymakers in different ways. The first is the evidence on specific interventions that I've evaluated with some coauthors. These include interventions like this civic inclusion, the interventions we evaluated with ex-combatants, and another project I'm working on — a political efficacy intervention with women in rural communities. Specifically, from these kinds of interventions, there are clear lessons for organizations that are working to scale these kinds of efforts, like the UN's peacekeeping operations and agencies that develop reintegration programming. I have some evidence from my research that I think could be helpful for negotiation processes, related to the role of guarantees of power in negotiations and how that might affect long-term political considerations that can shape the prospects for peace. I also work with the Democracy Action Lab, a new venture here at CDDRL, whose mission is to produce research useful to democracy practitioners as they develop their strategies and to other organizations that support them. 

You were discussing how the world you grew up in very much shaped the direction you went into. With the motion of current events over the past few decades, has your research focus shifted any more? How do you see your work changing in the global era we're in right now? 

I started by telling you how my life in Venezuela shaped my desire to understand politics and governance. But I didn't actually spend the first part of my academic career studying Venezuela. I turned my attention to a process of negotiation and transition from a seemingly intractable conflict in Colombia, and the tensions and dilemmas inherent to these paths out of conflict. This knowledge, I believe, is informative of paths out of civil war, but also out of circumstances like the ones Venezuela faces today. Fast forward to today, amid the broader decline of democracy and the disappearance of the process of democratization, I'm coming back to these problems of responding to emboldened authoritarians, and how that intersects with the problems of violence and the actors who use it. It's becoming increasingly difficult to be a social scientist and not try to respond to the problems of the moment. People have different opinions about what the role of academics and the social sciences should be, but I'm of the opinion that part of our job is to help explain and understand the world we're in now. It's what the moment requires of us.
 

What’s one focus you have in your career at this moment?

Part of what I'm grappling with is making sure the questions I ask in my research are relevant to this moment and also to future moments. What are broader processes, general dilemmas, or general problems, for either policymakers or for the general dynamics that the citizenry faces? Additionally, how do we make sure these topics are in conversation with the broader public? Right now, the value of higher education and academia is being questioned by people in power, and there are significant pressures on academia. I think it's important to elevate our insights, their relevance, and make them legible and accessible to people more generally.

What book do you recommend for students interested in a research career in your field?

It depends on where your interests lie, but here are three:
 

• For those interested in civil conflict and the dynamics of civil war, I recommend Rebelocracy: Social Order in the Colombian Civil War by Ana Arjona for understanding why rebel organizations engage in the strategies they do and how communities respond. 

• For those interested in authoritarian strategies and elections, I would recommend Voting for Autocracy by CDDRL’s own Beatriz Magaloni.

• And for those interested in understanding the general strategies of leaders, The Dictator's Handbook by Alastair Smith and Bruce Bueno de Mesquita is a wonderful and connected overview of autocracy and the incentives of leaders.

Santos, who received the Nobel Peace Prize in 2016 for his efforts to end a five-decades-long civil war with a guerrilla group that killed more than 200,000 people in the South American country, served as president of Colombia from 2010 to 2018.

Known as a tenacious negotiator, Santos said, “The big challenge in the 140 conflicts currently in the world is that leaders need to sit down and talk in very constructive ways.”

Titled “The Power of Long-View Leadership,” the event included opening remarks from Alberto Díaz-Cayeros, senior fellow at the Freeman Spogli Institute for International Studies (FSI), as well as a brief response followed by an audience Q&A moderated by Héctor Hoyos, director of the Center for Latin American Studies.

Díaz-Cayeros said, “This discussion is especially timely and vital today as we confront global challenges – not only here in the United States but throughout the hemisphere and around the world – that demand both moral courage and a strategic vision.”

Listening, talking

In November 2024, Santos was appointed Chair of The Elders, the organization founded by Nelson Mandela to advocate for peace, justice, human rights, and a sustainable planet.

In his address, Santos explained the process of bringing the guerrilla group – the Revolutionary Armed Forces of Colombia, or “FARC” — to the peace negotiating table. A meeting in the late 1990s with Mandela, the South African anti-apartheid activist, was particularly inspirational.

“He taught me why that program (in South Africa) to bring victims and perpetrators together to reconcile for the future was so important,” said Santos, who described it as the most interesting conversation he’s ever had about peacemaking.

So, he started studying peace processes all around the world — the ones that were successful, the ones that failed, and the ones that still held out hope. Gradually, he identified the conditions that were necessary to begin an authentic peace process with the FARC.

“What had my predecessors done wrong? What could I bring from other examples around the world?” He came to understand that three key conditions existed in the Colombian dynamic.

“As long as the guerrillas think that they will win through violence,” Santos said, “they will never sit down in good faith. They have to be convinced that they will never achieve power through violence. Second, the leaders of the guerrillas themselves personally have to be involved in the negotiations.”

Finally, he said, Colombia’s neighbors needed to support the peace process, or the guerrillas would always use those neighbors as safeguards and not commit to the peace process.

Santos brought on advisors who had successfully negotiated peace deals in other global hotspots. Some of the advice was especially sage.

“I was told to treat the FARC not as our enemies but as our adversaries. Enemies you eliminate. Adversaries you beat.” So, he instructed his military to make policy changes and to be conscious of all their actions, which they would live with forever.

“Treat them (FARC members) as human beings,” Santos said. “They have mothers, they have fathers, so while you fight with them, understand that they're human beings. So, I changed the whole military doctrine.”

A 2016 national referendum in Colombia rejected the peace deal by a narrow margin. Since then, the government and FARC have largely upheld the ceasefire and called for a broader national dialogue to continue the peace process.

Today, Santos is concerned that the gains from Colombia’s peace agreement with the FARC are unraveling. “The difficult path in every peace process is how to reconcile in order to have peace in the long run.”
 

Humanity’s clock ticks

In January, Santos was invited to deliver an address at the annual unveiling of the Doomsday Clock’s time, which is set by the Bulletin of the Atomic Scientists. He noted that the only criteria that existed through the 1990s was the possibility of nuclear war. Now, existential threats to humanity’s fate have rapidly expanded, including climate change, AI, pandemics, and biological threats.

At 89 seconds to midnight, the Doomsday Clock stands closer to catastrophe than at any moment in its 77-year history, Santos said. The clock speaks to the threats that confound and confront us — and the need for cooperation, unity, and bold leadership to turn back its hands.

Unfortunately, what is happening around the world reflects the contrary, Santos said. The multilateral system, the respect for the rule of law, and the respect for protocols are all under attack.

Long-term leadership that makes decisions — not according to the next election, but according to the well-being of future generations — is what the world truly needs, Santos noted.

“How can we do what we did in Colombia on the world stage? That is the great challenge, and that’s when dialogue is imperative,” he said.
 

Instead of competing amongst each other to see who wins this or who wins that, Santos urged that “world leaders need to sit down and talk about how to work together to avoid nuclear war, control climate change, regulate AI, and more.”

“Every second counts,” he concluded.

Student and community engagement

Following the lecture, Professor Héctor Hoyos praised Santos for his unwavering commitment to education, both as President and throughout his career. Reflecting on a personal experience, Hoyos shared a formative moment from his own childhood, when he received a letter from then-Secretary of Education Santos, recognizing him as one of Colombia's most promising young students. "I want to thank you publicly for that gesture, which went a long way," Hoyos said of the experience that inspired him to pursue the scholarly path he follows today.

The lecture also sparked lively engagement among students, many of whom lined up to ask thoughtful questions about applying Santos’ insights to current global challenges. Their inquiries reflected a desire to connect lessons from Colombia’s peace process to diverse contexts around the world. Santos, practicing the very principles of dialogue he had emphasized, listened attentively, responded thoughtfully, and demonstrated a genuine willingness to engage in a constructive exchange of ideas.

After the event, Santos joined more than twenty students from the Graduate School of Business and other programs for a lunch, where discussions continued on leadership, peacebuilding, and the importance of dialogue in addressing contemporary issues.