Flooding the Zone: the "Bukele Model,” Security and Democracy in El Salvador
Release Date: 03/08/2024
Piercing the Propaganda Bubble in El Salvador
Latin America Today
WOLA presents a new episode about El Salvador, coinciding with our awarding of our 2025 Human Rights Award to MOVIR, El Salvador’s Movement of Victims of the Regime, which supports victims and families of arbitrary detentions carried out by President Nayib Bukele’s government. In this conversation, , assistant professor of public relations in the Department of Communications at California State University, Fullerton, explains why the current popularity of El Salvador’s authoritarian president rests on a surprisingly fragile foundation. Dr. Valencia, a former journalist in El...
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The Grim Side of El Salvador’s “Security Model”
Latin America Today
A special episode as part of WOLA’s 2025 Human Rights Awards Month President Nayib Bukele’s government has jailed nearly 2 percent of El Salvador’s entire population—the highest incarceration rate in the world. Still, because violence has dropped sharply, political figures across Latin America speak about emulating Bukele’s “security model.” But behind the videos of mega-prisons and tweets about plunging homicide rates lies a darker, less sustainable reality. In this WOLA Podcast episode, Adam Isacson speaks with Beatriz Magaloni ( / ), a political scientist at Stanford...
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U.S. drug policy takes a “radical” and “chilling” turn. Is Venezuela in the crosshairs?
Latin America Today
Since late August, the Trump administration has sent a flotilla of U.S. warships to the southern Caribbean, in the largest naval display in the region in decades. On September 2, a U.S. drone strike sank a small boat near the Venezuelan coast, killing as many as eleven civilians. Administration officials allege the vessel carried cocaine, but have presented no evidence. In this WOLA Podcast episode, Adam Isacson speaks with , Director for Venezuela, and , Director for Drug Policy and the Andes, about the shockwaves from this escalation, both region-wide and especially in Venezuela. An Extreme...
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“We Are in the Middle of a New Family Separation Crisis”
Latin America Today
Since January, the United States’ migrant detention and deportation system, which was already troubled, has become increasingly opaque. Access to Immigration and Customs Enforcement (ICE) facilities is restricted, internal oversight agencies have been hollowed out, and credible information about conditions inside is scarce. Yet reports that have emerged, some from those who have recently been deported, tell a troubling story echoing the darkest moments of recent U.S. immigration history. In late July and early August, researchers from WOLA and the Women’s Refugee Commission (WRC) set out...
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“Simultaneously juggling nine processes at once”: Colombia’s “Total Peace” plan and mounting security challenges
Latin America Today
Nearly three years into President Gustavo Petro’s term, his flagship “Total Peace” initiative is faltering. On this episode of the WOLA Podcast, , WOLA’s Director for the Andes, provides a sweeping overview of Colombia’s peace and security reality.
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Derechos y resistencia LGBTIQ+ en Latinoamérica: seis voces de la región
Latin America Today
A Special Pride Month Episode This special Pride Month episode brings together the voices of six LGBTIQ+ activists from across Latin America—Mexico, Honduras, Colombia, Venezuela, and El Salvador—who share their experiences as leaders in the fight for equality and justice. Through their stories, we explore what Pride means in contexts of resistance, the state of LGBTIQ+ rights across the region, and the ongoing work to build more inclusive societies.
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LGBTIQ+ Rights and Resistance in Latin America: Six Voices from the Region
Latin America Today
This special Pride Month episode brings together the voices of six LGBTIQ+ activists from across Latin America—Mexico, Honduras, Colombia, Venezuela, and El Salvador—who share their experiences as leaders in the fight for equality and justice. Through their stories, we explore what Pride means in contexts of resistance, the state of LGBTIQ+ rights across the region, and the ongoing work to build more inclusive societies.
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LGBTQ+ Migrants in the Crosshairs: A Critical Conversation with Brigitte Baltazar Lujano
Latin America Today
In the wake of escalating immigration enforcement targeting vulnerable migrant communities, this Pride Month episode brings essential perspective from the frontlines. We sit down with Brigitte Baltazar Lujano, a trans woman who herself experienced deportation and now leads critical advocacy and service work for LGBTQ+ migrants at the U.S.-Mexico border with the Tijuana and San Diego-based organization Al Otro Lado.
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Global Drug Policy: “Countries are being freed up to actually speak their minds”
Latin America Today
For the second year in a row, what had been an uneventful, consensus-driven United Nations meeting on drug policy saw unexpected drama and signs of real change. At the 68th session of the UN Commission on Narcotic Drugs (CND) in Vienna in March 2025, governments approved the formation of an independent expert commission to recommend changes to the architecture of global drug policy, which has changed little since the early 1960s. Colombia again played a catalytic role, as it did in 2024. But this time, the United States—under the new Trump administration—tried to block nearly everything,...
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Mujeres contra la corrupción y el autoritarismo: aprendiendo de El Salvador
Latin America Today
**This podcast is in Spanish. Stay tuned for an English summary! Este Mes de la Mujer, en WOLA lanzamos una serie especial de nuestro podcast para amplificar voces feministas que luchan por los derechos humanos en América Latina. En nuestro último episodio, conversamos con Ruth López, directora del programa de anticorrupción en Cristosal, sobre su trabajo en la lucha contra la corrupción y el autoritarismo en El Salvador. Nuestra invitada Ruth López es abogada, defensora de los derechos humanos y directora del programa de anticorrupción de , una organización que trabaja en la...
info_outlineEl Salvadoran President Nayib Bukele just won re-election by a broad margin as a massive security crackdown has reduced gangs’ role in everyday life. But the increasingly authoritarian “Bukele model” has a big long-term downside, Douglas Farah explains.
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It has been almost a month since Nayib Bukele was reelected as President of El Salvador by a very wide margin, despite a constitutional prohibition on re-election. While security gains and a constant communications blitz have made Bukele popular, our guest, Douglas Farah of IBI Consultants, highlights some grave concerns about the “Bukele Model” and where it is headed.
Among these: pursuit of an “authoritarian playbook” common to many 21st-century political movements, with eroding checks and balances; vastly weakened transparency over government activities; a complicated relationship with gangs and their integration into the political structure; an unsustainable reliance on mass incarceration; and erosion of the independence and professionalism of the police, military, and judiciary.
In this episode, Farah argues:
- The success of Bukele’s security model may not be as pronounced as is publicly accepted.
- The human rights cost is very high, with about 75,000 people arrested, far more than earlier estimates of gang membership.
- Bukele’s model uses elements from the “authoritarian playbook,” including undoing public access laws, eliminating accountability for government spending, consolidating media control, threatening independent media, and relying on armies of social media accounts and traditional media outlets to dominate the political conversation.
- Toleration of human rights abuse and corruption has undone a police reform that was a key element of the country’s 1992 peace accords.
- MS-13 is not defeated: its leaders avoid extradition while maintaining close relationships with authorities, while some of its affiliates serve as legislative “alternates.”
- The influence of China is real but probably overstated, as the country offers few resources and little overall strategic value.
- While it does not make strategic sense to criticize the popular president frontally, the Biden administration needs to be more consistent and less timid in its critique of specific policies and anti-democratic trends.
Douglas Farah is President of IBI Consultants, a research consultancy that offers many of its products online. He was formerly bureau chief of United Press International in El Salvador, a staff correspondent for The Washington Post, and a senior visiting fellow at the National Defense University's Center for Strategic Research. He is a 1995 recipient of the Columbia Journalism School’s Maria Moors Cabot Prize for outstanding coverage of Latin America.