Contributor(s): Alan Cowell, Professor Richard Evans, Bianca Jagger, Andres Velasco | Authoritarian leaders are taking control in more and more countries. What can we learn from the Venezuelan experience? After a long career as a foreign correspondent for The New York Times based in Africa, the Middle East and Europe, Alan Cowell (@cowellcnd) became a freelance contributor in 2015, based in London. Richard Evans is Provost of Gresham College in the City of London and Visiting Professor of History at Birkbeck, University of London. He is the author of The Coming of the Third Reich, The Third Reich in Power, The Third Reich at War, The Third Reich in History and Memory, and, most recently, The Pursuit of Power: Europe 1815-1914. He is currently completing a biography of the historian Eric Hobsbawm, to be published next year. Bianca Jagger has dedicated her life to campaigning for human rights, civil liberties, peace, social justice and environmental protection throughout the world. She was born in Managua, Nicaragua. She left her native country to study political science in Paris with a scholarship from the French Government. In 2005 she founded the Bianca Jagger Human Rights Foundation (BJHRF). She is Council of Europe Goodwill Ambassador, a member of the Executive Director’s Leadership Council for Amnesty International USA and IUCN Bonn Challenge Ambassador. Bianca Jagger is the recipient of numerous prestigious awards. Andrés Velasco (@AndresVelasco) is the inaugural Dean of the new School of Public Policy at LSE. He was the Minister of Finance in Chile between 2006 and 2010 and held professorial roles at the Harvard Kennedy School and Columbia University´s School of International and Public Affairs. Erik Berglof (@ErikBerglof) is the Director of the Institute of Global Affairs (IGA). He joined the School as a Professor in Practice in the Department of Economics. This event is one of a series of public events linked to the Hard Truths exhibition which will be on display at LSE from 1-26 October. The Institute of Global Affairs (@LSEIGA) aims to maximise the impact of LSE's leading expertise across the social sciences by shaping inclusive and locally-rooted responses to the most important and pressing global challenges. Twitter Hashtag for this event: #LSENYT and #TimesEvents