‘Primavera Democrática’: A Conversation with President-Elect Bernardo Arévalo of Guatemala

Tuesday, Oct. 3 // 4:30–5:30 pm (ET)

In a surprising landslide victory in August, Bernardo Arévalo, an anti-corruption campaigner who had polled in single digits before the election, won Guatemala’s second-round presidential contest with 58% of the vote.

The election was not expected to produce major changes in Guatemala. After all, the authorities had disqualified three leading candidates seen as challengers to the status quo. Even now, elite opposition is threatening to impede the presidential transition. The attorney general–who has been sanctioned by the United States for alleged corruption–is attempting to suspend Arévalo’s Semilla Party. That is part of a pattern of legal harassment of anti-corruption champions that has chased into exile independent judges and prosecutors.

Join the Wilson Center’s Latin America Program for a conversation with President-Elect Arévalo on how he is navigating the presidential transition, the challenges of corruption and organized crime in Guatemala, his proposals to fight poverty and improve governance, and his strategy for overcoming obstacles to his agenda, including a divided Congress and resistance from powerful economic interests.

Still To Come This Week

Economists in the Cold War: How a Handful of Economists Fought the Battle of Ideas

Monday, Oct. 2 // 4–5:30 pm (ET)

The Cold War was a harsh time for economics with its ideologues, its hard-liners and its spies. Economists were pushed between two camps with opposing views, caught up in a battle of economic ideas. There were fundamental questions like: can a planned economy ever be efficient, is investment driven by profits or wages, could a social market economy offer a middle way, all seen through the eyes of seven diverse economists: an American, a Pole, a Hungarian, a German, a British, a Japanese and an Argentinian. There was argument and dissent, but it could be dangerous.

The Fate of Russia's First Federalization

Tuesday, Oct. 3 // 2–3:00 pm (ET)

The months between the February and October revolutions of 1917 witnessed an emergence of federalist thought, intellectual innovation, and internationalist coalition-building across imperial Russia. The onset of Russia's civil wars forced these projects for post-imperial order into exile, yet they found a surprising range of afterlives with other national governments and international organizations. Focusing on the little-known 1917 "Congress of the Enslaved Nations of Russia" in Kyiv, Title VIII Research Scholar Marcel Garboś will trace the origins of the post-Tsarist, pre-Soviet efforts to federalize the former Russian Empire.

Holding Russia Accountable: Progress in Investigating and Prosecuting War Crimes in Ukraine

Wednesday, Oct. 4 // 11–11:30 am (ET)

Ambassador Clint Williamson is Lead Coordinator of the Atrocity Crimes Advisory (ACA) Group, a joint initiative of the United States, European Union, and United Kingdom to address atrocity crimes in Ukraine. He returns to the Wilson Center to discuss his ongoing work with the ACA, how international law is changing as a result of the Russia-Ukraine war, and what we can expect to see in the future.