![\"\"](\"https:\/\/latinoamerica21.com\/wp-content\/uploads\/2025\/09\/L21-Banner-INGLES-1024x190.png\")
<\/figure>\n\n\n\nThe events of 2024 confirmed that this tension extends well beyond Colombia. Across Latin America, Europe and other regions, electoral campaigns revealed a profound transformation in political discourse. Democratic competition has shifted from rivalry between legitimate opponents to confrontation between enemies. Once politics adopts this logic, the objective is no longer to persuade\u2014it is to exclude.<\/p>\n\n\n\n
This shift is occurring on both sides of the Atlantic. In Latin America, leaders from across the ideological spectrum increasingly rely on narratives that pit a threatened “us” against elites, migrants or foreign actors. Europe is experiencing a similar phenomenon, with populist and nationalist forces moving from the political margins to the mainstream. The polarization recently witnessed in countries such as Argentina, Brazil, Chile and Colombia reflects this broader trend.<\/p>\n\n\n\n
Over the past decade, trust in institutions and satisfaction with democracy have steadily declined throughout Latin America, while The Economist<\/em> Democracy Index has documented a continuous deterioration across the region. Interpersonal trust also remains extremely low: in Colombia, only 4% of people say they trust others. Europe continues to record higher levels of trust\u2014particularly in the Nordic countries\u2014but is likewise experiencing institutional erosion. Without trust among citizens, it becomes increasingly difficult to sustain legitimate institutions and stable democratic systems.<\/p>\n\n\n\n The WVS distinguishes between abstract support for democracy and satisfaction with its actual performance. That gap creates fertile ground for leaders who promise quick solutions through the concentration of power. When institutions appear incapable of responding effectively, citizens become more willing to accept authoritarian shortcuts to address insecurity, corruption or economic decline.<\/p>\n\n\n\n One of the survey’s most significant findings is the generational divide. In Colombia’s capital, fewer than half of young people consider living in a democracy to be a priority, compared with 71% of those aged 56 and older. This gap suggests that younger generations do not always experience democracy as a system capable of delivering meaningful opportunities. The debt owed to young people is not merely economic\u2014it is also institutional and political.<\/p>\n\n\n\n There is also a territorial dimension that often remains absent from major international agreements. Values do not evolve uniformly. Large cities connected to the global economy tend to experience faster cultural change and exhibit greater openness, but they also display growing institutional skepticism. By contrast, many rural and peripheral areas maintain different value systems and often feel excluded from the benefits of globalization. Bogot\u00e1 offers a telling example: opposition to having homosexual neighbors has fallen from 31% to 13% within a generation, although in some peripheral districts, three out of ten people still hold that view.<\/p>\n\n\n\n Faced with this landscape, the usual response has been to seek strong leaders capable of quickly overcoming the system’s shortcomings. Yet evidence suggests that the model of the heroic leader often reinforces the concentration of power while weakening democratic deliberation.<\/p>\n\n\n\n Research conducted by experts from the School of Government at Universidad de los Andes in Colombia proposes a different approach, understanding leadership as a collective and relational process rather than the product of exceptional individuals. Leadership emerges through interaction among individuals, organizations and communities working together to create public value. The key question is no longer who should lead, but what conditions enable society to build leadership collectively.<\/p>\n\n\n\n This perspective is particularly relevant in times of polarization. Where the rhetoric of enemies divides society, collective leadership requires cooperation, recognition of diversity and the rebuilding of trust. It does not seek to eliminate differences, but to transform them into resources for developing shared solutions.<\/p>\n\n\n\n The latest WVS results also offer an encouraging sign. Although trust in political parties and parliaments continues to decline, trust in families, neighbors and community organizations remains relatively stable. Democratic renewal is unlikely to come solely from national institutions; it must also emerge from local communities and territories where cooperative relationships continue to exist.<\/p>\n\n\n\n Three priorities follow from this diagnosis.<\/p>\n\n\n\n First, leaders must be trained to interpret shifts in citizens’ values as strategic information for designing better public policies and rebuilding institutional trust.<\/p>\n\n\n\n Second, universities, think tanks, public administrations and civil society organizations should incorporate a territorial perspective into their training programs. The challenges posed by polarization and distrust cannot be understood solely from capital cities; they require listening to those who have spent years strengthening social cohesion in local communities.<\/p>\n\n\n\n Third, the paradigm of heroic leadership should be abandoned as the dominant model. The persistent belief that leadership depends primarily on exceptional individuals overlooks what democracies truly need: stronger collective capacities, shared responsibility and institutions capable of sustaining long-term processes beyond any single leader.<\/p>\n\n\n\n The shared values between Latin America and Europe cannot be taken for granted. They represent an aspiration that must be continually renewed. Democracy remains widely valued as an ideal, but its legitimacy will endure only if institutions can translate their promises into everyday experiences of trust, inclusion and participation.<\/p>\n\n\n\n In meeting that challenge, collective leadership and the reconstruction of the social fabric are essential if the shared values linking Latin America and Europe are to become more than diplomatic rhetoric and instead evolve into a genuine democratic reality.<\/p>\n\n\n\n