- Rachel Kleinfeld's "Five Strategies to Support U.S. Democracy" -- US democracy is failing. Each moment deepens the polarization that makes its problems harder to fix. As Americans, we must start now, at scale, strategically, with a broad, cross-party coalition to save our democracy. -- Mar 20
- Colleague and Context Posts for the Week of March 19 -- Reader-suggested links, colleague activities to strengthen democracy, and outside the field articles on democracy, polarization, and related issues. -- Mar 19
- Planning a Constructive Confrontation Strategy: Understanding the Relationship between Negotiation and Power -- Healthy conflict resolution systems rely primary on interest-based negotiations, using rights and power contests much less frequently. US democracy currently does the opposite. -- Mar 16
- Kevin Clements' "Authoritarian Populism and Atavistic Nationalism: 21st Century Challenges to Peacebuilding and Development" -- Are liberal, democratic capitalist states operating under the rule of law capable of meeting the economic, welfare, and identity needs of citizens in the 21st century? If not, what can? -- Mar 13
- Colleague and Context Posts for the Week of March 12 -- Amid all the bad news, a lot of positive things are happening to strengthen democracy. Take a look at some of them, and the storm clouds still growing. -- Mar 12
- Sharp vs. Fuzzy Feedback — The Distinction That Explains Why Society Can Be Both Astonishingly Smart and Incredibly Stupid -- We are good at understanding and responding to sharp feedback, but not nearly as good seeing and responding to fuzzy feedback, which is the source of many serious mistakes. -- Mar 07
- Colleague and Context Posts for the Week of March 5, 2023 -- Ideas from five of our colleagues, as well as observations from people in allied fields about stresses to our democracy, and how to address them effectively. -- Mar 05
- Urban Rural Action Frameworks -- ABCs of dialogue, problem trees and problem tree mapping are very simple, yet very useful tools for helping disputants better understand their conflict and decide how to approach it constructively. -- Mar 02
- Focus on Contribution, Not Blame -- Focusing on blame doesn't solve problems, it just makes them more intractable. Focusing on contribution instead encourages collaborative problem solving that stands a much better chance of success. -- Feb 28
- Colleague and Context Posts for the Week of February 26 -- More links to news articles and organizations that are, in various ways, working to help us understand and more constructively handle intractable conflict. -- Feb 26
- Julia Roig Talks about Weaving a Healthy Democracy in the United States -- Julia Roig talks about her efforts to build a social movement to support democracy in the U.S. Such a movement needs to both block and build: block bad actors, and build a new pluralistic society that works. -- Feb 22
- Massively Circular Hyper-Polarization -- All complex systems are made up of multiple interlocking negative and positive feedback loops that can lead to good or bad stability or good or bad change. Understanding these loops is essential for good outcomes. -- Feb 21
- Colleague and Context Posts for the Week of February 19 -- Links to articles suggested by participants in BI's hyper-polarization discussion by plus more links to thought-provoking articles and things that our colleagues are doing. -- Feb 18
- Peace is My Day Job -- Working for peace can be a primary job. Figure out your passions, your talents, talk with people, and together develop a path to pursue your dreams and make the world a better place at the same time! -- Feb 15
- Conflict Core and Overlaying Issues -- Intractable conflicts are never simple us-versus-them. By sorting out the core and overlaying factors, disputants can come to a much clearer understanding of what needs to be done to transform their conflicts. -- Feb 14
- Colleague and Context Posts for the Week of February 12 -- In addition to more links to interesting projects that our democracy, conflict, and peace colleagues are doing, recommended articles on social change, political change, future challenges, and objectivity (or not) of the media. -- Feb 11
- The Trust Network: An Example of Massively Parallel Peacebuilding in Action -- The Trust Network is an "if it exists, it must be possible" example of massively parallel peacebuilding. We are writing about it. They are doing it! -- Feb 09
- Carol Pauli's "The 'End' of Neutrality: Tumultuous Times Require a Deeper Value" -- Pauli asserts that neutrality is an "unsatisfying value" for both journalists and mediators in our current conflicted times, and might be better replaced with a fundamental reliance on human dignity of every person. -- Feb 07
- Colleague and Context Posts for the Week of February 5 -- In addition to more links to interesting projects that our democracy, conflict, and peace colleagues are doing, recommended articles on tech, education, and changing demographics. -- Feb 05
- Constructive Confrontation: Applying Conflict Insights from a 1st Party (Not 3rd Party) Perspective -- Constructive confrontation applies conflict resolution theory and practice to advocacy efforts in an effort to limit pushback and maximize attainment of ones interests and needs. -- Feb 02
- Colleague and Context Posts for the Week of January 29 -- In addition to more links to interesting projects that our democracy, conflict, and peace colleagues are doing, recommended articles on political moderates, the lifetime insights of prominent social activists, ways of limiting done violence, and other topics. -- Jan 29
- Could MPP Make Hyper-Polarization Worse? -- Bad-faith actors can and do use a massively parallel strategy to drive us apart. But that doesn't mean that the strategy is bad -- it means that it is effective. Good-faith actors need to learn how to use these techniques to bring us together. -- Jan 28
- Revisiting the Gun Violence Issue and America's Declining Trust and Increasing Sense of Threat -- A look at what we know about reducing the mutual hostility (associated with escalation and hyper-polarization dynamics) that contributes so much to mass shootings, gun deaths, and interpersonal and political violence. -- Jan 26
- Guy Burgess and Heidi Burgess: Massively Parallel Peacebuilding vs. Massively Parallel Partisanship -- Advocacy plays a key role in Massively Parallel Peacebuilding. But, this role can either be supportive and helpful, or destructive, depending on how it is done. -- Jan 24
- Julia Roig: Where Does Civil Resistance and Social Justice Fit in MPP? -- How do we distinguish when taking a stand is what’s absolutely called for – because we’ve reached the tipping point of uncivil politics/undemocratic behaviors? But perhaps we need to find a better way of doing it. -- Jan 24
The Hyper-Polarization Challenge to the Conflict Resolution Field: A Joint BI/CRQ Discussion
BI and the Conflict Resolution Quarterly invite you to participate in an online exploration of what those with conflict and peacebuilding expertise can do to help defend liberal democracies and encourage them live up to their ideals.
Follow BI and the Hyper-Polarization Discussion on BI's New Substack Newsletter.
