Authoritarian rebalance 

Maduro served as president of Venezuela for more than 10 years before he was ousted Jan. 3 in a U.S. military operation that brought him to America to face narco-terrorism charges.

Trinkunas, a senior research scholar at FSI’s Center for International Security and Cooperation (CISAC), discussed the possibility of Venezuela transitioning to democracy, especially given the opposition's overwhelming victory in the 2024 presidential elections. But an authoritarian rebalancing looms large, he noted.

“We have to remember that all the institutions of power and all the electoral offices in Venezuela below the president are held by supporters of the regime,” he said.

Trinkunas recalled political scientist Alexander B. Downs’ book, “Catastrophic Success,” which examined the negative consequences of foreign-imposed regime changes and highlighted that such interventions often lead to civil war and violent removals of leaders.

“About one-third to 40% of all regimes installed by a foreign intervention end up in civil conflict within 10 years,” Trinkunas said. And, almost half of leaders installed by foreign powers withdraw from or are pushed from office before their terms are up.

He foresees a divergence between the interests of the intervening power, the U.S., and Venezuela’s power elites and population under the proposed arrangement. “The people with the guns stay employed.” And they may not be eager to cooperate if it involves sharing Venezuela’s mineral wealth with the United States government.

Díaz-Cayeros said, “Nothing has changed in the basic underlying economic conditions of Venezuela that has forced an exodus of 8 million people.” Days after the arrest of Maduro, the government in office is still the same government that came into office through an electoral fraud, he added.

Status quo interests

Curiel, a research scholar at CDDRL, research manager for the Democracy Action Lab, and a native of Venezuela, described the ecosystem of armed actors in Venezuela and outlined how both state and non-state security forces have the incentives and capabilities to preserve the status quo. 

“They’ve had arrangements that have been important for their survival, up until now. And so, there’s a question that these groups face with the loss of Maduro and [his wife Cilia] Flores,” she said.

To the extent they perceive their arrangements are under threat, they might respond with violence or engage in chaos, Curiel added. This is further complicated by the fact that different armed groups are loyal to different members of the governing coalition, creating competing power centers.

Fuentes, a CDDRL visiting scholar and Venezuelan native, noted that the situation in Venezuela remains extremely fluid and that it is still too early to determine whether Maduro’s removal will lead to authoritarian rebalancing or a genuine democratic transition. He argued that policymakers face a real tension between two objectives: stabilizing the country while accounting for the complexity and fragility of the Venezuelan state, and recognizing that stabilization without a clear commitment to democratic transition as the ultimate goal is not sustainable.

“The stability is not going to happen unless you promise and commit to the final goal of a democratic transition,” said Fuentes, a lawyer and policy expert from Venezuela.

He explained that the regime’s basic instinct is to resist and survive any U.S. involvement in the way its key ally, Cuba, has done through the decades.

Zambrano, a Stanford law professor and CDDRL affiliated faculty member who grew up in Venezuela, said he was guardedly optimistic about a democratic transition and supported the military operation that removed Maduro. As for the legal implications of the capture of Maduro, he cited prior examples of the U.S. taking military action in Kosovo, Libya, and Panama, among others, without Congressional approval and in apparent violation of international law.

The international law prohibition on the use of force “has been violated [maybe] 40 times” in the last few decades, he said. “This is one more violation. Is that good? No, that’s not good, but it’s not a drastic change the way the Russian invasion of Ukraine was,” because the latter implicated the international prohibition on the annexation of territory. Moreover, in Venezuela’s case, the Venezuelan people welcomed the U.S. intervention.

Kronick, an associate professor of public policy at UC Berkeley and Stanford alum, observed that U.S. officials at a January 3 press conference didn’t mention democracy and totally dismissed María Corina Machado, whom she described as “Venezuela's most popular politician and the driving force behind the opposition candidate in last year's presidential election.”

The 2024 Venezuelan presidential election was highly controversial, given that both the opposition showed incontrovertible evidence, widely verified by the international community, that the election was stolen by Maduro and that the opposition actually won by a landslide.

Kronick said the acting president of Venezuela, Delcy Rodríguez, is clearly not a democratic activist and has been a key member of the regime for years. “It’s a little bit hard to be optimistic about the prospects for democratization,” given her current role.

On the other hand, Venezuela has very capable election-vote-counting technology and decades of high-turnout elections, all of which could potentially facilitate re-democratization. 

‘Gangster diplomacy’

In the question-and-answer session, Michael McFaul, former FSI director, described the Trump Administration’s current attempt to take more than $2 billion in oil from Venezuela as “gangster diplomacy” and a “travesty.” 

Díaz-Cayeros said, “This kind of U.S. unilateral action strikes a very deep chord in the Latin American psyche. And it doesn’t really matter if someone is on the left or on the right” in Latin and South America.”

Kathryn Stoner, Mosbacher Director of CDDRL, noted that the U.S. arrest of Maduro raises troubling questions about whether Russia would attempt a similar action against Ukraine’s leaders in the future. “What then stops Putin, other than the incompetence of the Russian armed forces, from going in and trying to get (President Volodymyr) Zelensky or any other high leader in Ukraine?”

Kronick suggested audience members read a recent Foreign Affairs essay, “A Grand Bargain With Venezuela,” in which the author argues for a “pacted transition,” a negotiated, power-sharing arrangement, as the most viable path for Venezuela. This would involve an agreement between the current regime and opposition to coexist and gradually democratize, rather than one side seeking total victory.

“Whether you read this and think this is pie in the sky and this is never going to happen, or you think this is what we need to really push for, I think it’s really worth engaging with, so I’ll end with that recommendation,” she said.
 

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.

Strategies for Release

Lilian Tintori, an internationally recognized human rights advocate and the wife of former political prisoner Leopoldo López (the 2022 Robert G. Wesson Lecturer in International Relations Theory and Practice at the Freeman Spogli Institute for International Studies), spoke candidly about her seven-year struggle to secure her husband’s release. “It is not easy,” she stated, “You become the voice of the political prisoner. You can’t talk, you have to scream in every crevice, every place, every moment you get.” 

Tintori argues that the most important aspect for release is a community of resilience, which is to provide mental health and emotional support to political prisoners’ families, as they cannot act as the voice if they feel broken themselves. At the heart of this strength, she argued, is love. In her efforts, she now distributes the Pathway to Freedom handbook, produced through her organization, the World Liberty Congress, to help families navigate the grueling road to release.

“Torture only occurs because the Maduro regime knows we are the majority,” Tintori clarified. Since the beginning of 2025, five political prisoners in Venezuela have died in custody. Tintori emphasized the importance of protecting the life of the person being detained — the human being behind the titles of activist, mayor, or opposition leader, beyond a simple number. To raise awareness about political prisoners alike, Tintori often employs the strategy of always mentioning “other political prisoners” after their loved ones’ names. This keeps the broader community of victims in public consciousness.

With international and local channels to plead for help closing, such as the EU or historically, the U.S., all three panelists stressed that silence is not an option for all communities — including academic spheres — and the broader public. Tintori testified that after public pressure, the regimes do pay attention and often send proof of life to suppress further outrage, hence helping to protect prisoners until their release.

Ways to Support A Political Prisoner 

Having been a political prisoner himself after co-founding the April 6th Youth Movement in Egypt, Waleed Shawky recounted what he believed carried him through his time behind bars — the cause he fought for. Upholding the values and vision that led to their arrest, he argued, can provide hope and dignity in the most inhumane conditions. “Being a victim is a choice as a prisoner, because you can choose to be a survivor,” Shawky asserted, “It is important to remind them of the bigger picture.” 

Echoing Tintori’s previous statements, Shawky praised the courage of the families, particularly women, who visit and support prisoners, often at great personal risk. He also warned against idolizing or victimizing political prisoners. “They’re human,” he emphasized. “Don’t cry in front of them. Be strong; they need your strength.”

Authoritarian Crackdowns and Resistance

Gulika Reddy highlighted the challenges advocates operating in authoritarian contexts face and how they navigate these challenges. She broke it down into three different categories: movements, organizations, and individuals.

• Movements are often delegitimized and co-opted. Reddy stressed the importance of engaging in grounded movement building, offering counter-narratives to sustain public trust, and fostering solidarity and collective action.

• At the organizational level, regimes may block formal registration, restrict funding, and launch physical or digital attacks — including office raids and data seizures. To survive these assaults, organizations can diversify financial models, invest in digital security, and cultivate collective care to mitigate burnout and trauma. Additionally, there is a need to adopt diverse theories of change in contexts where traditional human rights tactics prove ineffective.

• For individuals, threats include intimidation and retaliation, which can also extend to their loved ones. Reddy recommended conducting risk assessments and creating mitigation and response plans, including access to free legal aid and safe housing.

What we learned from our speakers is clear: authoritarianism thrives on silence, but freedom depends on our voices. For political prisoners around the world, solidarity, resilience, and an unwavering defense of human dignity are not just ideals; they are lifelines that can bring them home.