Who Rules in Colombia? Elites, Power and Nation (Mediapluma, Bogotá, 2026) offers a detailed and empirically grounded analysis of the formation and changing dynamics of what the authors call Colombia’s “elite constellations”, drawing on the concept developed by Savage and Nichols (2018). The book asks why Colombia has combined some of the world’s highest levels of inequality and violence with regular elections and a long record of macroeconomic stability. The co-authors, Professor Jenny Pearce (LSE International Inequalities Institute) and Juan David Velasco Montoya (AFSEE Senior Fellow), describe this distinctive configuration as “Colombia’s singularity” and examine how the study of elites can help us understand how it has been produced and sustained over time.
The event uses the Colombian experience as a starting point for a wider conversation about power at a time when the global political and economic order is in flux. “Elites” is widely used in academic and public debate, but often loosely defined. What does it mean to study elites empirically? Who belongs to them? How do different elite constellations cooperate and compete? And how do they exercise domination over the rest of society?
The co-authors will present their analysis and explore the taxonomy of the elite constellations that have shaped and governed contemporary Colombia, exercising power over the lives of more than 50 million people. Since its publication in April 2026, the book has become a bestseller in Colombia, bringing its analysis of elites into a wider public debate about inequality, wealth concentration, privilege and class.
Professor Mike Savage and Dr Carolina Alves will join the authors as discussants, followed by a Q&A. The event will be chaired by AFSEE Executive Director Professor Armine Ishkanian and is co-hosted by the Atlantic Fellows for Social and Economic Equity and the LSE Department of Sociology.
Speaker
Dr Carolina Alves
Dr Carolina Alves is Associate Professor in Economics at UCL’s Institute for Innovation and Public Purpose. An economist by training, her influences are rooted in intellectual traditions such as Classical Political Economy, Latin American Structuralism and Dependency Theory, Marxian and Kaleckian macroeconomics, and the new Cambridge Tradition, particularly the contributions of Joan Robinson and Tony Lawson. Before joining IIPP at UCL, Carolina was awarded a prestigious and highly competitive five-year Research Fellowship at Girton College (pos-doc), University of Cambridge, UK, where she held the title of Joan Robinson Research Fellow in Heterodox Economics. She is the co-founder of the Diversifying and Decolonising Economics initiative, the UCL Centre for Capitalism Studies, and UCL Strategic Economic Alliance. Additionally, she serves as co-editor of The Developing Economics blog.
Speaker
Professor Jenny Pearce
Jenny Pearce is Visiting Professor at the International Institute of Inequalities, LSE. She is a Political Scientist who uses anthropological and participatory research methods and considers herself an anthropologist of Peace. She was Professor of Latin American Politics in the Department of Peace Studies, University of Bradford 1992-2016; Research Professor in the Latin American and Caribbean Centre at the LSE 2016-2023, and she has been Visiting Professor at the University of Monterrey, Mexico and the Bolivariana University, Medellin, Colombia.
Speaker
Professor Mike Savage
Mike Savage is a sociologist and Professorial Research Fellow at LSE’s International Inequalities Institute. Mike played a formative role in the creation of the III, as founding co-Director with the late Prof John Hills. Between 2015 and 2020, he was Director of LSE’s International Inequalities Institute. He played a key role in securing the Atlantic Fellows programme to be a flagship of the III. This is the largest global programme in the world devoted to challenging inequalities, and he was its founding Director in 2016-17. Since 2019, he has convened the III’s Wealth, Elites and Tax Justice research theme, which has enjoyed major policy and academic impact.
Speaker
Juan David Velasco Montoya
Juan David Velasco Montoya is an Atlantic Fellow for Social and Economic Equity, political scientist, and an advisor to the Chief Prosecutor of the Special Jurisdiction for Peace. Over the past decade, he has worked closely with judges and prosecutors, analysing the contextual elements of international crimes committed in Colombia. His work has focused on understanding the conditions that enabled large-scale violence, while contributing to reflections on how societies can address and repair the harm inflicted on millions of victims of the civil war.
Chair
Professor Armine Ishkanian
Armine Ishkanian is the Executive Director of the Atlantic Fellows for Social and Economic Equity programme and Professor in the Department of Social Policy at the London School of Economics and Political Science. Her research examines the relationship between civil society, democracy, development, and social transformation.