Colleague Activity Topics | Beyond Intractability

This page provides a comprehensive archive of all BI Colleague Activity Links organized by the general topic areas used in the "tagline" accompanying each link (and sorted from most recent to least recent). Because this list is somewhat cumbersome to create, we initially plan to generate it only about once a month. For more recent links see the latest links newsletters posted on Substack, Bi's Newsletter page, or the main Links "landing page."

We are still in the process of adding search capabilities to the new BI site. At the moment, the best way to search our collection of New and Opinion Links is simply by using this very long page and your browser's find function (generally Control-F or Command-F). The same thing can be done on our News and Opinion Topics Links page. Or, if you would like to search the two lists together you can use our All Links page.

This listing was created on September 8, 2025. For the most recent links, see the list of the most recent Links newsletters.

The Hyper-Polarization Threat

Polarisation: The ‘Hyper-Problem’ Transitional Justice Can No Longer Ignore — As a ‘hyper-problem’ that makes political and social challenges harder to resolve, polarisation is both a barrier to addressing a violent past and a leading indicator of future risks of conflict and violence.
Polarisation: The ‘Hyper-Problem’ Transitional Justice Can No Longer Ignore — As a ‘hyper-problem’ that makes political and social challenges harder to resolve, polarisation is both a barrier to addressing a violative past and a leading indicator of future risks of conflict and violence.
Threat Minimizes Compassion — Exploring the limited public response to the pain of government workers … and drug users.
Has "Polarization" Become Polarized? — The word "polarization" is apparently a bad word that has been flagged for removal by the Trump administration. We need new ways to think and talk about what divides us.
"Overthreat" and "Undertrust" Should Replace the Term Polarization — Overthreat refers to an outsized perception of threat posed by people of another political party, and undertrust refers to a lack of trust of people of different political parties due to an underestimation of factors that support trust.
Polarization was the word of the year. It's highly problematic and we can do better. — Polarization has too many different definitions to be meaningful without highly specific modifiers. Additionally, its most obvious interpretation of ideological differences among the general public is less pervasive than typically believed.
South Korean democracy is grappling with political polarisation — Political polarisation is gripping South Korean democracy and slowly making it dysfunctional, with increasingly less leeway to address the needs of its citizens.
The Brain on Authoritarianism — Better understanding the brain's response to fear, toxic othering, and threats to social identity will help pro-democracy organizers to confront the authoritarian playbook.
4 Myths About America's Toxic Polarization Problem — You can think, "My political opponents are worse," and still help depolarization. Learn how to respond when someone objects to reducing political toxicity. Read this piece and share it when you see the opportunity
The problem with blind allegiance to a party. — Sharon McMahon, Movement Partner and "America's Government Teacher," appeared on the podcast Armchair Expert.
Researchers to quantify political polarization — An announcement of Dartmouth University's new Polarization Research Lab -- an effort to move beyond anecdotal evidence and quantify the nature and magnitude of the hyper-polarization problem.
Warlike "one side will win" framings of our divides — An exploration of what follows from the assumption that today's big political conflict will ultimately be resolved with a decisive victory for one side and corresponding defeat for the other.
Polarization and Political Violence: Rachel Kleinfeld — Rachel Kleinfeld says people talking across differences isn't enough to end polarization-- there needs to be institutional change and politicians who come together to defend democratic norms.
Toxic polarization fractures our relationships --- even with our political peers — The contempt arising from toxic polarization makes us less able to do the basic work of politics. There is an urgent need to see value in engaging in civil, respectful ways, even with people we see as wrong.
Through a distorted lens: How perceptions of the "other side" drive toxic division — Toxic polarization is a large, complex problem with many factors. But one thing we can all do to reduce it is examine our role in the equation. Making our culture less toxic starts with us.
8 Signs of Polarization in Your Context — From Essential Partners, an article explaining how polarization jumps from politics to all realms of our lives: homes, workplaces, faith communities, and schools. And what to do about it.
Polarization and political violence: Rachel Kleinfeld. — Ppeople talking across differences isn't enough to end polarization, even if it can create goodwill.:Tthere needs to be institutional change and politicians who come together to defend democratic norms.
Why those concerned about worst-case Trump scenarios should see depolarization as important — Helping Americans get along better doesn't mean us all liking each other. It means us disagreeing better; disagreeing in healthier, less toxic, less hateful ways so we can all move forward to what we want.
First Principles: The Need for Greater Consensus on the Fundamentals of Polarisation — A discussion of the definition of polarization, why it is so important, and how it might be addressed, including, perhaps by creating an academic "field" of polarization.
Polarization Past and Present: What's Changed? What's Possible? — Join the Network for Responsible Public Policy on Thurs Aug 25 at 7:30 pm EDT for a discussion of what can be done to bridge todays gaping divides.
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Runaway Escalation

What if American polarization gets a lot worse? — What if our enemies are doing horrible, unforgivable things? What then?
Live with Outrage Overload - What does "Rock Bottom" Look Like? — Overcoming toxic polarization through crisis, collective pain, and 3.5% of committed citizens igniting national transformation.
What We Get Wrong About Each Other: Collateral Contempt — Collateral Contempt occurs when traditionally non-partisan communities and institutions are caught in the crossfire of partisan animosity. Who is affected by this phenomenon, and what should we do about it?
When toxic polarization becomes a civil war -- and what we can do about it — International peacebuilder, mediator and scholar John Paul Lederach offers practical wisdom for resisting cycles of division and violence before it's too late.
How does our anger at "them" create the things we're angry about? — An insightful essay on positive feedback systems (in which "positive" does not mean good, but rather ever-escalating) and what we call "the backlash effect" which creates a self-fulfilling destructive prophecy.
What Lies Beneath: Understanding the Roots of Division — An essay that outlines the "four truths of conflict" and then applies those truths to the contemporary political moment.
When We Think The Other Side is Bad, We Act Badly — When we overestimate the opposition's inclination to play foul, we risk delivering a self-fulfilling prophecy.
Making mistakes about our opponents' hostile intent — Zach Elwood reflects on a book on the causes of war, and wonders how many of those mistakes apply to the U.S. hyper-polarized society as well.
Outrage Overload: A Fresh Perspective — A conservative take on outrage and polarization with Michel Anderson
How polarization will destroy itself — Political polarization and extremism are much more fragile than we realize, as long as we maintain freedom of speech, rule of law, market competition, and free and fair elections.
How Divided Are We? — This article confirms some of the findings that Americans are less divided than we think, but on some issues, such as the Second Amendment, divisions are still stark.
The Most Engaged Are The Most Partisan. Now What? — The most educated, most engaged citizens are the most partisan. Today's biggest threat to democracy is a poisonous cocktail of othering, aversion and moralization.
Bridging Divides Initiative Report: Election 2020 Political Violence Data and Trends — A report on the events leading up to and following Jan. 6 show that patterns of behavior exhibited that day were established long before that date.
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Political Dysfunction

Congress is polarized. Fear of being 'primaried' is one reason. — Unite America's Richard Barton writes about his research on incumbents, primary challengers, and how congressional gridlock is often the outcome.
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Domination and Oppression

The Resurgence of the 'Oldest Hatred': The Effort to Combat Antisemitism — A panel discussion held at the Aspen, Institute with Katie Couric, Second Gentleman Doug Emhoff, Eric Ward and Elizabeth Sherwood-Randall talking about how to combat rising anti-semitism.
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Authoritarianism

Understanding Authoritarianism: Resources to Defend Democracy — This resource library is a curated collection of articles, essays, tools, and analyses designed to help you understand the roots, tactics, and impacts of authoritarian movements, and ways to challenge them.
The Anti-Autocracy Handbook — From The Commons: Social Change Library a Scholars' Guide to Navigating Democratic Backsliding. It is a call to action, resilience, and collective defense of democracy, truth, and academic freedom in the face of mounting authoritarianism.
Authoritarianism Resource Library — This resource library is a curated collection of articles, essays, tools, and analyses designed to help readers understand the roots, tactics, and impacts of authoritarian movements.
Don’t Fight Authoritarianism. “Drain” It. — Start by correcting the faulty, overblown threats people perceive from others across politics. If the threat perceptions can be reduced and right-sized, the activation of authoritarianism and censorship should also decline.
The Faithful Fight Toolkit: When authoritarians take power, faithful leaders fight back — Throughout history religious leaders and communities have played a crucial role in protecting people and pushing back against authoritarian systems. This toolkit series shows how to do that.
The Faithful Fight: Toolkits for countering authoritarianism — American values and institutions are under threat. Religious communities can play a pivotal role in protecting our neighbors and building a stronger democracy. The Faithful Fight toolkits offer strategies to bring us together, and help us act.
When Authoritarianism Creeps In: Lessons from History, Warnings for Today — What do we do when democratic norms begin to erode---not through a single coup or law, but by a thousand smaller cuts? David Beckemeyer talks with Bruce Neuburger about his grandfather's fight against Hitler, and how it applies today.
Fighting Authoritarianism Beyond Left vs. Right — Scot Nakagawa, co-doucer of the 22nd Century Initiative argues that we need a non-partisan, people-powered resistance working together to build the future we want, not just fight against the present we fear.
So You're Worried About Autocracy — Eve Sneider and Jonathan Stray reflect on what we should do now if we are worried about autocracy. You can fight a politician but not your fellow citizens, they say.
Fear, Grievance, and the Other — How Authoritarian Populist Politics Thrive in Contemporary Democracies --- Key concepts to understand politics beyond the left-right paradigm.
Authoritarianism, explained — Drawing from experts on authoritarianism and case studies of democratic backsliding around the world, The Authoritarian Playbook defines seven tactics that tend to differentiate would-be authoritarian leaders from the regular jockeying of democratic politics.
Combatting Authoritarianism: The Skills and Infrastructure Needed to Organize Across Difference — This 2022 article, by Maria Stephan and Julia Roig, is part of a series from leading experts with practical solutions to democratic backsliding, polarization, and political violence.
How To Spot Authoritarianism --- and Choose Democracy | Ian Bassin | TED — Detailing the seven steps of the authoritarian playbook, Bassin invites us all to put aside our differences and rethink our role in the fight for freedom, revealing the hope and power behind every choice we make.
Is Political Forgiveness an Antidote to Authoritarianism? — Authoritarian movements take hold because of the choices we make. While we can also make choices that that will reverse these trends, we have to recognize what is happening first.
Understanding Youth Perceptions Towards Authoritarianism — Are young people part of the democratic problem or part of a potential solution? This report from SNF Agora Institute at Johns Hopkins and International Republican Institute examines that question.
The coming attacks on nonprofits — Rachel Kleinfeld argues that the far right and far left want to eliminate organizations that challenge them.
The Rise of Digital Authoritarianism — From Freedom House, a report on the intersection between old-fashioned authoritarianism and the new, 21st-century digital information systems.
American Autocracy Threat Tracker — A Comprehensive Catalog Based on Donald Trump and His Associates' Plans, Promises, and Propositions
American Autocracy Threat Tracker — A comprehensive catalog based on Donald Trump and his associates' plans, Promises, and propositions based on Heritage Foundation's 2025 Presidential Transition Project (Project 2025) and Trump's own words.
Military coups in Africa: A disturbing trend — Future hopes lie in civilian governments effectively governing upon return to power and the rise of promising civil movements in Africa. The West can still play a role, but needs to respect Africa's self-determination.
The Antidote to Authoritarianism — Ordinary people, organized effectively, have the power to drive social change upwards to create the conditions for justice, equity, and freedom. 27 leaders reflect on how to do this now.
America needs a cross-national approach to counter authoritarianism — An article describing how the authoritarianism can be countered by promoting free, fair and trusted elections, combating mis- and dis-information, and cultivating informed and engaged voters.
Toward a People-Powered Democracy — Organizers of the 22nd Century Conference: Forging a People-Powered Democracy reflect on ways to repel the authoritarian tide and create a resilient, inclusive multiracial, feminist, and pluralistic democracy.
Fighting back against authoritarianism — Bridging organizations that bring together people with conflicting opinions should also partner with civic organizations in their area to forge stronger relationships between groups.
Kristina Becvar's Bridge Alliance Weekly Update from July 17 — Kristina's reflection on the relationship between calls for "civility" and standing up against authoritarianism. How do these two mesh?
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Violence

Are There More Nazis Than Before? — Sofia Scarlat and Jonathan Stray of Better Conflict Bulletin says "no," but it is easy to see why people think there are more. "Most people are persuadable, not irredeemable," the say. So most political problems require communication, not denunciation.
The Stakes: How Political Rhetoric Breeds Violence — From the Kettering Foundation, a video with Minnesota State Senator Zaynab Mohamed and UMass professor Alexander Theodoridis about the accelerating trend of politically motivated violence in America and its threat to US democracy.
Mitigating Threats Against School Board Officials: Mixed Methods Research to Understand and Respond to Rising Hostility — This report from the Bridging Divides Initiative reveals that school board officials across the country are facing high levels of hostility, undermining their ability to serve their communities effectively and safely
Local Officials Seek Increased Safety Support Amid Heightened Threat Environment, Survey Results Show — A new BDI-CivicPulse survey indicate that local elected officials are looking for additional resources to mitigate the risk of threats and harassment, including enhanced privacy protections, personal security, and tools to manage conflict during public meetings.
How to Prevent Political Violence — An Amanda Ripley article on violence targeting political officials and how to stop it.
Explainer: How Did the Trump Administration’s First 100 Days Impact Political Violence Risk? — This explainer from the Bridging Divides Initiative answers frequently asked questions about the trajectory of current political violence trends and highlights positive steps local leaders are taking to keep their communities safe.
Survey on Threats and Harassment: Fourth Quarter 2024 — Threats and harassment continue to have a chilling effect on the functions of local government, with officials less willing to work on controversial topics or post on social media.
Spread the word: Americans do not want political violence — An article by James Coan of More Like US, arguing that Americans dramatically overestimate the share of people in the other political party who support politically motivated violence.
Violence Prevention: Understanding the Quiet but Critical Role of 'Civic Diplomats' — This short guidance note highlights the importance of secret and confidential actions and initiatives in preventing political violence and overcoming situations of conflict and crisis.
Toolkit for Repsonding to Violent Conflicts — From the Canadian Friends Service Committee, a toolkit of responses to small scale and large scale violence.
Many are overstating Americans' support for political violence --- and it's frustrating — Are we overstating the problem of political violence in the United States? And, could this become a self-fulfilling prophecy?
Stemming the Tide of Political Violence — For anyone who's feeling discouraged or dealing with difficult times, the answer isn't to become despondent, but to recognize that we're all Americans, and to incorporate a kinder, gentler mindset toward one another.
"We should not allow violence to be our answer" — More in Common surveyed Americans after Trump was shot. They found Americans were concerned about future violence, yet fears may be based on skewed perceptions of their fellow Americans' support for political violence.
To understand unreasonable reactions to Trump's shooting, imagine Biden being shot — A "turnabout test" can help us see emotional biases in our thinking -- our colleague Zach Ellwood got this op-ed in Newsweek.
Violent campus protests are not about freedom — An opinion piece in the Fulcrum asking where the adults are on college campuses pointing out the errors in student protester's beliefs and behavior. "Clearly," they say, "the kids are not alright. But neither are the adults."
"Civil War" Movie Reactions: "Can That Really Happen in America?" — The movie Civil War depicts a civil war in America taking place in the not-so-distant future. The movie has people talking about how likely such a terrifying scenario actually is.
Joint Campus-Law Enforcement Preparation for Campus Demonstrations and Hate Incidents amid Violence in the Middle East — An extensively annotated checklist based on input from current and former campus security. city police chiefs and mediators who have worked large-scale crowd events and hate incidents.
Political Violence & US Democracy — The Violence and Democracy Impact Tracker (VDIT) --- a resource from Protect Democracy and the SNF Agora Institute --- calculates the impact of political violence on eight distinct pillars of democracy in the United States.
Society for the Study of Peace, Conflict and Violence: Peace Psychology Division of the American Psychological Association — This division encourages psychological and multidisciplinary research, education and training on peace, nonviolent conflict resolution, reconciliation, and the causes, consequences and prevention of violence and destructive conflict.
The Day After Violence, The World Needs You. — Shamil Idriss is visiting Israel and reporting on the work that Search for Common Ground teams are doing in the West Bank and Gaza.
Ten Take-Aways on Russia's War and Five Ideas for the Future of Ukraine and Beyond — To end suffering and destruction, it is necessary to think about pathways to peace. Here are the ten key results of the war and five ideas for a possible way out.
Nagorno-Karabakh at a Crossroad — This issue of the Uppsala University Newsletter focuses on the crisis in Nagorno-Karabakh, as well as reviewing trends in organized violence in September 2023.
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Interstate War

A New Normal in India-Pakistan Relations: in the Age of Cross-border Terrorism — A summary of the terror events of April 2025 in Kashmir, the Indian response and recommendations for both India and Pakistan to work towards normalising bilateral relationships with help from international actors.
How to Agree an Armistice in Ukraine: Lessons from Korea — The armistice agreement that ended the Korean War in 1953 has been mentioned as a possible model for how to end the fighting in Ukraine. This makes sense, but it doesn't seem to be Trump's plan.
Why War? A Reflection on Richard Overy's Insights — A book review from CoPeSe (Conflict-Peace-Security) on British historian Richard Overy's thought-provoking analysis of why we can't seem to avoid war.
War and peace, and the political (dis-)order — A podcast on political strategy through the ages from Clausewitz to Fukuyama from Conflict Transformation, Peacebuilding and Security.
Nuclear War Impacts on Distant, Non-Combatant Countries — An investigation on the multiple impacts New Zealand might face if nuclear weapons are used elsewhere. Though the risks are substantial, New Zealand and other noncombatants can make changes now to become less vulnerable.
Search for Common Ground & United Nations Announce an Innovative Partnership for Humanitarian Diplomacy — This partnership will enable the UN and Search to save lives and address the conflict drivers that create crises in the first place. The hope is this partnership will serve as a model for other such efforts.
Hybrid Warfare: Fighting Back with Whole-of-Society tactics — This webinar reflected on the implications of this new type of warfare for liberal democracies. It highlights the need to build resilience and to increase collaboration between the public and private sectors.
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The Scale and Complexity Problem

Adapt: Hope in the Face of the Polycrisis — The second of four articles on "the polycrisis" This one looks at characteristics critical to adaptability: trust, civic capacity, accountable leadership, reliable information, functional infrastructure, and education, among others.
Evolving Strategy In Complexity — For organizations which are overwhelmed, over-processing, and still need a plan to win, 11 ideas of how to develop an approach that makes sense.
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The Nature of Complexity

Cohesion as Murmuration — Another way of looking at systems and the complexity of social movements.
Co-Intelligence Institute Writing and Blog — Focusing on Intelligence, wholeness, systems, complexity, process and participation. Lots of stuff here!
Solutions Journalism Network February 1 Newsletter on Complexity — Complexity is actually a key to unlocking freedom --- and here are three examples of how and why that is true.
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Psychological Complexity

Can the People Themselves Still Amend the Constitution? — The American Promise coalition is determined to find out and, in the process, rein in the big money playing havoc with our politics.
Minds and Movements: A Brain Science Guide to Social Messaging — A report from Beyond Conflict and Humanity United merges neuroscience, social psychology and movement strategy to help change makers craft more effective, human-centered, and context-driven responses.
Why is Nobody Talking About This? — Bias does not just affect how something is covered, it determines what is and what is not covered.
Fast Frames – Mindsets and Movements: Introduction — This video walks through four important features of cultural mindsets showing that the choices we make in how we say what we have to say shapes how we make sense of the world.
The Vibes to Conflict Pipeline — Perceptions can foment conflict, even when they’re not grounded in the underlying reality.
Why Good Conflict Management Is Essential for Psychosocial Safety — While organisations rush to implement wellness programs, leadership coaching, or team-building days, many overlook the engine room of psychosocial safety: how you manage conflict.
The Dark Side of Empathy — Valuable insights into the two principal meanings of the word "empathy" and an explanation of why one kind of empathy is likely to make things worse rather than better.
Outrage 63 – How Perceptions of Harm Drive Moral Outrage and Political Conflict – Sam Pratt — This episode of Outrage Overload explore the psychology underpinning morality and the stark divisions of political polarization,.
Don't Let Anyone Tell You Who To Hate — Shocking data showing that many Americans now see Canada and the EU as an enemy leads Jonathan Stray and Eve Sneider to write about how we can conduct our own "meta-misperception intervention."
The Human Need for Tangibility in a Polarized World — Tangible experiences -- listening to a vinyl record, or reading a physical book, -- demand patience and presence. They create space for reflection in a way that digital platforms, designed for engagement and outrage, do not.
What is the intention in your steps? — A reflection from colleague Anne Leslie on choosing joy over cynicism, despair, outrage, sadness and anger. A beautiful essay on how--and why--we should all choose joy.
Your Brain on Deliberation — A description of the National Civic League's "It's Your America" workshop designed to introduce communities to deliberation, while strengthening civic skills, fostering community, and having fun.
Healing Systems — How recognizing trauma in ourselves, other people, and the systems around us can open up new pathways to solving social problems.
How Shame Contributed To The Rise Of The Right — Arlie Rothschild investigated reasons voters chose Trump in a poor Kentucky county. it's not just about the economy, trans rights, or climate change, but about loss, shame, and ultimately pride.
Stop and think: An undervalued approach in a world that short-circuits thoughtful political judgment — Thought and reflection take time. Our current modes of politics allow for neither. And we are worse off because of that.
From Contempt to Connection: How Curiosity Transforms Us — In the latest episode of "Debate Without Hate: Elections 2024," Scott Shigeoka, author of "Seek: How Curiosity Can Transform Your Life and Change the World," talks about the power of genuine curiosity.
Going All The Way: The loneliness of the long-distance thinker — Ashok Panikkar reflects on the "cognitive state" of the US citizenry, observing that it is "abysmal. " It "wouldn't be out of place in feudal and despotic societies where we would be proud serfs and well-behaved subjects."
What Do We Mean by "Extremists" and "Moderates"? — Those terms relate more to conflict strategies than they do to conflict interests and positions.
The Brain on Authoritarianism — Better understanding the brain's response to fear, toxic othering, and threats to social identity will help pro-democracy organizers to confront the authoritarian playbook.
Overcoming Ideological Inferences: Breaking Free from Snap Judgments — A conversation with Carson Sander on how we make snap judgments about people and how to avoid doing that to break down the prevailing political polarization.
A new kind of political compass: The BridgeUSA Temperament Scale — This scale is a measurement of how willing someone across the political spectrum is to engage with those who believe differently.
How Contempt Destroys Democracy — A new book by Zachary Elwood argues that democracy falls apart when people grow to hate and fear the "other side" so much that beating them takes precedence over everything else--just what we are doing now.
Changing Mindsets — From Lamar Roth and Tom Klaus, an essay on how one changes what they call "mindsets," and what we'd call "frames" --beliefs that filter how we make sense of the world and ourselves.
Beliefs and Mindsets — Beliefs are called mindsets when they filter how we make sense of the world and ourselves. Mindsets act on our choice of goals and goal-pursuit behaviors, which significantly affect our lives.
Certainty Is a Psychological Trap and It's Time to Escape — The willingness to actually listen to others and to display your ignorance is a bold move that now has a name -- intellectual humility. It's not only a developable skill, but it could just end the culture wars.
Exploring the Collaboration Cycle — Community change is not linear, but more of a cyclical process. This mirrors phases of development found in ecology.
Conflict Analysis: A Tutorial — An excellent primer on how to do a comprehensive conflict analysis for people working in complex conflict situation, journalists reporting on complex conflicts, or anyone wanting to understand a conflict better.
The Science of What Makes People Care — Five principles based in social science that will help organizations connect their work to what people care most about.
Trauma Healing — A short description of the costs of trauma, and approaches to trauma healing, together with annotated links to ten documents with more indepth information.
Defusing American Anger — A new, free online book by Zachary Elwood that shows how to better understand our fellow citizens and reduce our us-vs-them divides.
The Paradox of Transformation: Acceptance as a Precondition to Change — An insightful article from NetworkWeaver about Carl Rogers' paradox: The curious paradox is that when I accept myself, just as I am, then I can change.
"Entangled" Social Change: From Inter-action to "Intra-action" — An insightful look at how we are all part of the conflict system, and how simply observing it is also an intervention. So HOW we observe and interpret is key.
America's Divided Mind — New insights from Beyond Conflict about how polarization is fueled by Americans' misperceptions about each other, and how we can start to reverse it.
What is the Backfire Effect? — From Omni-Win, an exploration of the "backfire effect," a cognitive bias that leads us to misinterpret information that challenges our beliefs as, instead, reinforcing those beliefs.
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Social / Economic Complexity

The Big Picture — To block authoritarian consolidation and build a robust democracy, we need to understand why we are where we are politically -- and that is a systems failure moment, disguised as a political crisis.
Why movements need to learn to fly like bees and thread like spiders — John Paul Lederach suggests that we take inspiration from nature for insights into how to build a broad-based pro-democracy movement.
Tracking the Policy Landscape for the Charitable Sector — Independent Sector and its partners provide three trackers to monitor Trump policy actions that could impact the charitable sector, including a tax and federal legislation tracker, a litigation tracker, and an executive action tracker.
Grappling With Systems Collapse: How Social Sector Leaders Can Respond — The social sector needs new models for understanding what it might be able to do when the systems that we all rely upon to fall apart.
We Live in Times of Multiple Entwined Crises -- But Our Policy Responses Aren't Keeping Up — Existing policies to tackle environmental challenges fail to take into account that biodiversity loss, climate change and pollution are intertwined crises and produce compounding and intensifying impacts.
Our World in Data — Our World in Data's mission is to publish the "research and data to make progress against the world's largest problems."
Evolution Meets Foreign Policy — Chip Hauss reports on a workshop examining how evolutionary theory can help American foreign policy makers deal with seemingly intractable problems, such as climate change, mass migration, economic inequality, and more.
Reality bytes: Kids confuse the real world with the screen world — If we want to reduce screens' negative impact on our children's mental health, we need is a "hard reset" of their relationships with their "devices" to make sure that they are deeply aware of the difference between the real world and the screen world.
The Wisdom of Cicadas — Those of us paying attention to various social movements for love, dignity, and justice should recognize the natural wisdom of a periodic convergence of broods.
Future Trends - 6 August 2024 — From the Alliance for Peacebuilding & Institute of Economics and Peace, a summary of the week's major developments in global news, and where IEP and AfP think these developments are going.
The complexity of American polarization — This excerpt from Zachary Elwood's book Defusing American Anger, explores the complexity of our polarized society and why that complexity should make us question our certitude about the nature of our divides and our "enemies"
From Waves to Ecosystems: The Next Stage of Democratic Innovation — This white paper reviews the limitations of elections, the different waves of democratic innovation and efforts to connect them, and key challenges and strategies for building healthy ecosystems of democracy.
On Relational Infrastructure — Relational infrastructure refers to the social connections, interactions, and collective intelligence that underpin a community, enabling them to work together effectively, pool their resources, and amplify their impact.
Pluralism, Plurality, and the Generation of Collective Wisdom — Ideas about how the generation of collective wisdom can enhance the work of the New Pluralists and others interested in escaping the destructive hyper-polarization and stagnation.
Learnings and Insights from Stepping Into Systems — Introduction to a film series which invites viewers to get started on their systems-learning journey, covering fundamental systems change topics amd (re)awakeing a felt sense of knowing the world as systemic.
How political contempt helps blow up deals and amplifies gridlock — If we think our "enemies" like something, we'll be predisposed to not like it. And we disincentivize red/blue collaboration because we don't want to "help" our enemies. So we get gridlock.
Constellation Model of Governance — A complexity-inspired framework designed to 'hold' collaborations within dynamic systems by balancing chaos and order, energy and structure.
Watch accomplished experts offer hope on the path to reconciliation — These speakers address what reconciliation means to them. By considering their perspectives, we can begin to understand the complexity of reconciliation. These videos are an excellent reminder to resist easy answers.
How Behavior Spreads: The Science of Complex Contagions — Damon Centola presents over a decade of original research examining how changes in societal behavior --- in voting, health, technology, and finance---occur and the ways social networks can be used to influence how they propagate.
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Communication Complexity

Silence Isn’t Neutral — It Shapes Our Politics — The American founders believed that an educated and engaged public was essential for democracy's survival. Widespread avoidance of political issues would open the door to manipulation, extremism, and authoritarianism.
Was It Something I Said? — As those on the left grapple with the intensity of public opposition to so many of their policies, an essay exploring the role played by the often alienating language used to articulate progressive policies.
The new dark age of censorship — An expose of how bad censorship has gotten in the U.S., but also how we can fight back.
Deep Dive with Brad Porteus on Hard Conversations — Kelly Corrigan explores a radical new way to rate politicians with Brad Porteus, the Executive Director of Bridge Grades, who reveals that the most collaborative members of Congress are complete unknowns, while the divisive firebrands are celebrities.
Journalism at a Crossroads: Complicating the Narrative, Regenerating Democracy — Duncan Autry writes about how to create a civic media ecosystem that listens, belongs, and builds.
When Words Start Wars: Why Even “Everyone is Welcome” Sparks Controversy — Our polarization means we’ll often be filtering for offense. We’ll interpret our opponents’ slogans in pessimistic ways. And we’ll also be pessimistic in how we view their objections to our words.
Journalism in Jeopardy: From Corporate Consolidation to Coordinated Attacks — David Beckemeyer writes in Outrage Overload, about the ways media mergers and political attack are leading to the slow dismantling of the free press that we used to cherish.
Many Americans Don't Trust Legacy Media — An episond of Starts With Us's "Debate without Hate: Elections 2024" in which Tara McGowan, a media entrepreneur talks about American's high level of distrust with traditional news media.
Do Americans Prefer a World Without TikTok? — A new report exploring Americans' attitudes and beliefs around the benefits of social media and support for various government regulations as well as how they compare to views in the UK, France, and Germany.
For Campus Protests (and Other Polarizing Issues), Do We Often See What We Expect To Find? — It is important to recognize the ease with which we can disagree, as well as to engage with others with empathy and compassion, even though such a request is often difficult when it comes to contentious and emotional topics.
Where the public stands on social media and smartphones in the United States and Europe (May 2024) — A More in Common survey on the impact of smartphones and social media on the lives of people in the United States, the United Kingdom, France and Germany showed both pluses and minuses.
If Journalists Don't Believe in Objectivity, What Do They Believe in? -- BCB #96 — Jonathan Stray observes that "Audiences are still into it, but three years of data shows that journalists mostly aren't."
Surprising New Findings on Civic Language Ft. Amy McIsaac — Amy McIsaac talks about new findings from PACE's long-term study surveying Americans on their perceptions of civic terms. Some terms, she says, are helping bring Americans together and spur them to action.
Is a US news 'nexit' underway, and how can we stop it? — Benjamin Klutsey, director of the Program on Pluralism and Civil Exchange at George Mason University' writes in the Hill about how to be a more thoughtful consumer of the news.
Overcoming digital threats to democracy — A report outlining the ways in which the tools of deliberative democracy could be used to better govern information technologies and help protect the larger society.
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Communication Obstacles

Can ChatGPT Boost Your Civic Engagement? — Here's a cautionary story about ChatGPT--it gets some things right, but surprisingly, seems to make other things up! (No surprise, actually, there are plenty of fake facts on the web for it to choose from.)
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Theories of Change

Why Systems Change Stories Are Hard to Tell and What We Can Do About It — One of the paradoxes of systems change is that the deeper the impact, the harder it is to tell a clear and compelling story about it. Unlike traditional projects, systemic change doesn’t fit neatly into metrics or dashboards.
Why America Isn't Ready for a General Strike — There is a lot romanticized talk in liberal circles about the idea of nationwide general strikes in the U.S. in response to perceived grievances. David Beckemeyer doesn't think it can work in the U.S. as it has in other countries.
Winning Coalitions Have the Right Kinds of Differences — More insight into the one of the biggest areas in which collaboration and consensus building skills are widely applied -- coalition building.
Repolarize to Depolarize — What if progress in US politics won’t come from reducing polarization, but from polarizing differently? Jonathan Stray talks with Jennifer McCoy about the dynamics of toxic polarization and ways forward.
The Idea Fairies: When Help Hurts and Allyship Misses the Mark — Idea Fairies are often well-meaning. But they rarely come with the context, humility, or deep understanding required to engage in authentic collaboration.
The Value Proposition of Incubators and Accelerators: Fueling Impactful Innovation — Incubators and accelerators provide more than just funding; they offer mentorship, networking opportunities, and strategic resources that significantly enhance a startup’s chances of success.
Democracy Notes & Philanthropy for Active Civic Engagement: Planting Seeds for Tomorrow’s Democracy — Across the nation, democracy advocates have long focused on urgent challenges, but there’s a growing recognition that protecting democracy also requires imagination and long-term vision.
Guiding Narrative Change: Considerations for the Philanthropic Field — From Frameworks, a helpful resource to understand narrative programming.
We Need a Much Bigger Tent — On coalitions, discomfort, and the defense of democracy by L.A. Kauffman. In this he explains how everyday people can take effective action to promote freedom, dignity, and democracy amid rising authoritarianism.
The Beautiful Movement @ The Horizons Project — A new substack from our colleagues at the Horizons Project telling stories of ordinary people standing up to authoritarianism around the world. Together, we are more powerful than we know!
Unpacking David Brooks 4/17 NYT Opinion Piece as it relates to a Thriving Together US Civic Uprising (or Not). What is the Optimal Generative Response to the Breaking? — "It’s time for a comprehensive national civic uprising. ...Trump is about power. The only way he’s going to be stopped is if he’s confronted by some movement that possesses rival power."
Bob Bordone and Joel Salinas: How to Deal With Conflict — A podcast With Bob Bordone and Joel Salinas MD on their new book Conflict Resilience: Negotiating Disagreement without Giving Up or Giving In
Loretta J. Ropss: Don't call people out -- call them in. — A toolkit for starting productive conversations instead of fights and strategies that help challenge wrongdoing while still creating space for growth, forgiveness and maybe even an unexpected friend.
Why Activism Without Bridge Building Falls Flat — If we want to save democracy, we have to act like we live in one.
Spread Courage — An exploration of a critically important question, what can be done in these unsettling times to build morale and strengthen opposition to the President's excesses.
Does Protest Even Work? — Jonathan Stray and Eve Sneider argue that protests can be successful if they are big enough and nonviolent.
Lessons on change from the immortal jellyfish. — Tips for organizations facing organizational change on how to manage that change and come out strong.
What is Systems Gardening? — An explanation of how those seeking the strengthen complex social systems could benefit from thinking about their work using organic (not mechanical) metaphors.
Learning to Overcome Conflict: Global Insights from Political Adversaries — Civic Genius spent two weeks with two exceptional South African leaders who offered a model for working across profound differences. While their challenges are by no means an exact analogue to ours, their experience can guide us forward.
The Promise of Co-Design — Co-design is a process that guides a group of people through various iterations of coming together to create something. This something might be a product, an activity, a project, or a service
A Matter of Survival — Both a roadmap and a rallying cry, this report from the Kairos Center reveals how survival organizing can transform into a powerful movement for systemic change.
Getting Small to Go Big: Lessons in Interdependence — An interesting and thought-provoking article that asks us to rethink our theories of change in ways that better account for the complex interactions of the societal ecosystem.
Don't Escalate Doesn't Mean Don't Fight — An important explanation of why activism can be compatible with bridge-building.
Our Approach to Mediating Self-Determination Conflicts — Conciliation Resources published a collection of resources on mediating self-determination conflicts gleaned from its three-year partnership with Sasakawa Peace Foundation.
Civic Tech Field Guide — An introduction to the world's largest collection of projects using tech for the common good.
Philanthropy's Fork in the Road — The Trump Administration is hellbent on "deconstructing the administrative state" and consolidating power. This is blowing up the strategies of many big grant makers. How should they respond?
Joy as Reparative Rehumanization — Reparative rehumanization restores dignity and cultural identity through art, dance, and music, so we can reclaim our humanity and rebuild bonds that trauma has fractured.
How to Stop Fighting Each Other and Start Fighting the System with Denise Padín Collazo — A podcast on building a better world without tearing each other down, and how to approach conflicts constructively so that our energy stays focused on the bigger fight --- the systemic issues affecting our communities.
Defending Democracy with Humor and Dilemma Action Tactics — A YouTube video outlining a strategy for placing authoritarian regimes in a bind where any response they make will either backfire or highlight the absurdity of their oppression. By combining such tactics with humor, these movements can magnify their impact.
Regenerative Innovation Ecosystems — Regenerative Innovation Ecosystems focus on building coalitions of diverse organizations or departments to foster systemic innovation rooted in regenerative principles and practices.
2025 and Beyond: Why Reflection Is Key to Reducing Political Toxicity — From the Builders, an article on how we all play a role in reducing toxicity -- or increasing it. Which do you want to do?
Why protests work, even when not everybody likes them — From Waging Nonviolence, an article explaining that organizers must learn to embrace the polarizing nature of protest in order to use it effectively.
The Social Capital Atlas — Social capital -- the strength of our relationships and communities -- has been shown to play an important role in outcomes ranging from income to health. You can explore the social capital in your community here.
Leading Systems Change from Within — Stepping into the work of changing systems is not just an additional set of activities and strategies; it is also a dramatic and intentional shift in how you show up in your own leadership.
Challenge-Led Innovation: Organising for Systems Innovation at Scale — To be alive in this moment is to be innovating by necessity. We need to organize many diverse innovations across institutions and geographies to address our most pressing challenges.
Responding Across the System — To tackle complex challenges, we know we need to go from disjointed isolated responses, to coordinated multi-point strategies -- or from confetti to spaghetti as Ingrid Burkett would say.
A Framework for Democracy Philanthropy — A framework developed by Daniel Stid to help would-be philanthropists decide where, when, and how to invest money to make the biggest difference in strengthening democracy.
Unpacking Massively Parallel Peacebuilding with Guy Burgess — A discussion Guy Burgess had with David Beckenmeyer with Outrage Overload about the threats to democracy and how massively parallel efforts can help address those threats. Though this was recorded 6 months ago, it was just released.
Horizons' Pillars of Support Projects' "Caselets" — Exploring tactics and strategies employed by key pillars throughout history and around the world in support of a pro-democracy agenda; notably faith-based organizations, businesses, unions and professional associations, and veterans groups.
The system within: Addressing the inner dimensions of sustainability and systems transformation — This paper highlights the overlooked inner dimension of system change, and offers systems thinkers the language to advocate for psychological, social and spiritual factors crucial to sustainable solutions.
Between Thick and Thin: Improving Public Engagement through a Wicked Problem Lens — One of the key concepts tied to deliberative engagement is the recognition that many of the issues we must engage in our communities can be best understood as wicked problems
More Perfect Union — More Perfect Union is a nonprofit education, advocacy, and journalism organization with a mission to build power for the working class.We pair reporting with activism to win policy fights that support families and the working class.
Little changes, Big Impacts by Jake Klaus — The beginning of a series on data analytics and how it can be used to identify small "tweaks" to a group, organization, community, or system that can create significant change.
Change Makers: People Making a Difference — A 25 minute video from Common Ground Committee highlighting people who really have made a difference on polarization in their communities. And if they did it, so can you!
3 Ways to Make Conflict Less Destructive — From Bill Ury, one of the biggest names in the conflict resolution field, his thoughts on things we can do to escape spirals of destructive conflict.
When Transitional Justice Met Narrative Change Theory — An exploration of the similarities and differences between these two fields, and how, if combined, they can bring out the best of both for more meaningful change.
Essentials of Social Innovation - Articles — from the Stanford Social Innovation Review, a starter kit for "leaders of change" who are beginning to explore social innovation .
Listening is powerful. This one skill can transform relationships, and even lead to social change — A story with many powerful examples of how and why listening is so important to conflict resolution and reconciliation.
Jazz and conflict resolution — Jazz is a great metaphor for constructive approaches to conflict. It has tension, yet creates beauty out of chaos. Everyone needs to listen to each other, exchange ideas, and find mutual inspiration.
Rediscovering Social Innovation — Social entrepreneurship has become popular for those trying to improve the world, but social innovation is a better vehicle for understanding and creating social change in all of its manifestations.
The Dawn of System Leadership — The deep changes necessary to accelerate progress against society's most intractable problems require someone who catalyzes collective leadership.
Design Thinking for Social Innovation — By working closely with the clients and consumers, design thinking allows high-impact solutions to social problems to bubble up from below rather than being imposed from the top.
Collective Impact — Large-scale social change requires broad cross-sector coordination, yet the social sector remains focused on the isolated intervention of individual organizations.
The DNA of Organizational Transformation--Structure, Relationships & Shared Purpose — These three elements are intertwined together, much like the strands of DNA. By working together, they can transform organizational culture and improve members' well being.
The role and power of re-patterning in systems change. — Shifting systems towards equity is possible. But to make that happen, it is the responsibility of everyone to start doing and being differently, in every part of every system, every day.
What does theory of change have to do with justice and peace? — An explanation of what "theories of change" are, and why they are useful.
Moving From Ladders of Engagement to Self-Organizing As Decentralized Leadership — A description of a self-organizing strategy for producing a decentralized, non-hierarchical type of engagement and leadership that is better suited to the demands of large and complex societies.
CBT and Peacebuilding — A Chip Hauss blog post looking at how cognitive behavioral therapy can be brought "to scale" and used for conflict resolution and peacebuilding.
Scaling-Up Peacebuilding and Social Justice Work: A Conceptual Model — An academic exploration of one of the most important and difficult challenges facing peacebuilders -- scaling up their efforts to the point where they can positively alter the trajectory of society.
Failing Productivity and Systems Change: Key Mindsets and Practices — As we struggle with today's many problems, we are going to have to take on deeper systemic challenges. This will require us to learn how to embrace failure as an inevitable part of the work of shifting complex systems.
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Massively Parallel Peacebuilding

Reducing Political Divides Must -- and Can -- Occur at Massive Scal — In terms of America's democratic stability, the most pressing need for these efforts comes from dramatic misperceptions of the threat posed by everyday Americans from the other political party.
U.S. Democracy Hub — The most comprehensive, insightful, and accessible data platform for the U.S. nonprofit Democracy field providing visibility into what's happening, who's involved, and how funding is flowing in the parts of the U.S. Democracy Field that matter to you.
The Healthy Democracy Ecosystem Map — The Healthy Democracy Ecosystem Map is the first comprehensive look at the universe of organizations promoting healthy democracy in America.
53 Roles That Make Democracy Work, and The People In Them --- BCB #120 — An external review and summary of the Burgess's Toda Peace Institute Paper on Massively Parallel Democracy Building,
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Hate Mongering

3 Surprising Ways WYSIATI Causes Undue Hate — "What you see is all there is" is a fundamental cause of unnecessary, inappropriate, and destructive hate.
The War on Empathy by Musk, Trump, and Evangelicals — One of the cornerstones of authoritarianism is the destruction of the ties that bind citizens of the democracy together in ways that lead them to protect one another's interests.
Humiliation Always Damages Peace — A thoughtful Facebook post by longtime peacebuilder and scholar Ron Kraybill on the Ukraine War and the debacle in the Oval Office between Trump, Vance, and Zelensky.
Thwarting conflict profiteers to save the republic — A review of the way that conflict profiteers are trying to break us apart, and efforts to break the influence of those profiteers.
Equal opportunity rage farming — Stretching the truth to arouse ire isn't just a tactic of the right; the left does it too. This short article appears toward the end of Better Conflict Bulletin's Feb. 22, 2024 Newsletter.
The Village Square--Chris Stirewalt: Broken News — A former Fox News political editor gives an inside view of the rage-driven political environment in which we find ourselves.
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Disinformation

MediaWise Education Resources — MediaWise provides resources to help people identify misinformation through engaging, innovative media literacy education. Their goal is to inspire savvy digital citizens who know that when facts prevail, democracy wins.
Disinformation Stops With You — A useful infograpic explaining how we all have the power to stop foreign (and domestic) disinformation campaigns.
Unlocking the Secrets of Misinformation with Samuel Spitale — A conversation about how misinformation shapes our reality -- and what we can do about it.
Class 35. How to Inoculate Your Mind Against Disinformation — For a world in which so many people are trying to deceive us, a class on how to protect ourselves.
Asking people to "do the research" on fake news stories makes them seem more believable, not less — A new study asked thousands to evaluate the accuracy of news articles --- both real and fake --- by doing some research online. But for many, heading to Google led them farther from the truth, not closer.
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Suppressing Opponents

Experience with Hostility Increases Worry Among Local Officials, Negatively Impacting Willingness to Engage in Political Processes — Report finding that demographic factors and personal experiences with hostile incidents are connected to concerns about hostility, as well as the chilling effect these trends can have on local democracy.
New Data Shows Threat and Harassment Events Doubled in July — A report on a new study that quantifies the level of threat and harassment facing public officials.
Backfire Basics — A primer from the International Center for Nonviolent Conflict on how to create backlash against injustice, making it less likely to "get away with it."
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Making Collaborative Democracy Work

Today, We Launch Generation Refresh — and Invite America to Imagine a Refreshed Constitution — An announcement of a new nationwide campaign to crowdsource a proposed Citizen’s Constitution.
Introducing Block / Bridge / Build / Belong — Block / Bridge / Build / Belong is a clear map of the democracy ecosystem—four complementary modes that run in parallel and help us act together without demanding we all act the same.
The Ohio State University's Divided Community Project's Virtual Toolkit — This toolkit is designed to support community leaders as they identify and address issues tearing at the social fabric of their respective communities with materials for on-campus and off-campus audiences.
Locally-Led Peacebuilding: From Policy To Action — A call for a "tectonic shift" in donor culture and operations to overcome existing barriers to locally-led peacebuilding efforts.
The State of Public Discourse on Campus — Episode 9 of Areas of Agreement, a podcast featuring students and faculty discussing the need for viewpoint diversity and constructive disagreement on campuses.
Princeton University's Bridging Divides Initiative (BDI) — BDI is a non-partisan research initiative that tracks and mitigates political violence in the United States by building community resilience.
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Conflict Advice

Managing Stress, Anxiety, and Hopelessness in Times of Crisis — From Scot Nakagawa, lessons from immigrants, refugees, and activists who have survived the collapse of the familiar.
We Rate Thanksgiving Advice — Written for Thanksgiving get togethers, the advice offered here also applies to Christmas and other December/January holiday festivities.
6 Steps for Mending a Politically Strained Relationship — 1/5 of all Americans say politics has harmed a close relationship. If you are one of them, here are six steps you can take to repair the damage and restore the friendship.
DIYcivity — Civity launches a new Do-It Yourself Page with tipcs for practicing civity, seeding civity, and resources for doing both.
Conflict Hacks: A Summer Survival Kit from Amanda Ripley — Easy ideas everyone can use to defuse tension and create community.
Dr. McFiddle's Brilliant Book of Creative Conflict Potions and Other Magical Things — Terrific news! From Josh Weiss (a longtime colleague and contributor to Beyond Intractability), a new book that teaches kids how to handle conflict more constructively.
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Constructive Advocacy

Where Are You in the Outrage Overload Listener Journey? — David Beckemeyer invites us to reflect on where we are in our own attempt to develop a healthier relationship with media and political discourse and offers articles for helping at each stage.
Overcoming despair and apathy to win democracy — Lessons on movement building from one of the founders of the Serbian student movement that brought down dictator Slobodan Milosevic.
Right-Wing Populism -- A Constructive Conflict Approach — Longtime colleague Lou Kriesberg made this presentation to PARCC at Syracuse niversity. Watch the video here with the passcode =yd4?*&Z
How to make sure your disruptive protest helps your cause. — From Waging Nonviolence, an article highlighting five key factors which determine whether controversial protests are more likely to spark backlash or create positive outcomes.
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De-Escalation Strategies

Violence de-escalation trainings are key to making movements stronger — As provocateurs try to discredit protests, having civilians trained in the skills of de-escalation gives people power a greater chance of success.
When the World Feels on Fire, Must We Keep Shouting? — In the final chapter of Outrage on the Mic, David Beckemeyer traces the evolution of rage-as-a-strategy in media -- from the firebrand preachers of the 1930s to today’s slick, emotionally charged podcasts.
Forgiving Our Enemies and Our Exes — When we are willing to engage in a forgiveness process and are willing to do the work, it is like peeling the layers of an onion. First you have to acknowledge your grief, pain, and fear, then you can release it.
Loretta J. Ross: Don't call people out -- call them in — Loretta Ross shares a toolkit for starting productive conversations instead of fights -- what she calls a “call-in culture” to challenge wrongdoing while still creating space for growth and forgiveness.
Make It A Habit: Ask ‘Why Is This Issue Important to You?’ — Most of us go into political conversations armed with stats and comebacks, ready to win the argument. But what if we started with a different question: “Why is this issue so important to you?”
Enemy Roulette — Amanda Ripley talks about how to exit "the blame game."
Tools for Meeting the Moment — From Over Zero, a set of tools for preventing violence, defusing tensions, and responding when violence does occur in ways that minimize harm and quickly restore norms of peace and civility.
Tips for writing in less politically polarizing, triggering ways — For depolarizers, journalists, activists, and politicians: Guidance on how language can unintentionally drive people away.
An Emerging Tool in the Polarization Reduction Toolbox: A Guide to Using and Understanding Meta-Perception Correction Interventions. — Science-informed conflict management strategies, from Beyond Conflict.
How stance-taking and stance-criticism can weaken depolarization efforts and unnecessarily drive people away — Zach Elwood argues that depolarization work requires the avoidance of stances and criticizing others' stances, which he sees as a form of activism.
To Overcome Our Divides, We Must Try to Understand the Other Side's Anger — A reminder that, in this time of even more rapidly increasing hostility toward one another, we still don't really understand why the other side hates us so much.
"Why Is It on Us to Take the High Road?": Opposed Views on Our Divides — Two letters, one from a Trump supporter, the other from a Trump opponent are compared, with a goal of helping both sides better understand where the other is coming from.
The Mirror Effect - Tim Shriver — Tim Shriver, Co-Creator of the Dignity Index, shares how participants initially used the Index to judge others, only to realize that it also serves as a mirror---helping them reflect on their own words and actions.
The Dignity Movement in Action — The Students for Dignity team recently appeared on the School Conversations podcast to discuss using The Dignity Index to navigate challenging interactions and promote dignity on campuses nationwide.
Three Ways I Have Updated My Priors Since the Election — Reflections from Daniel Stid on what the election meant and how we can best move forward from it.
To avoid destruction, we must own our role in political polarization — Zach Elwood argues that both sides have contributed to political polarization, though in different ways and for different reasons. We must recognize that, and recognize the legitimacy of the other side's concerns.
Can Dignity Prevail in America's Polarized Landscape? — From More in Common, thoughts about the critical importance of treating one another with dignity and respect and strategies for encouraging such behavior.
Radical Unity's Inaugural Year Concludes in Arizona and Georgia — A report from the Mediators Foundation on how the arts can be used to unite people across deep divides.
If You Can Imitate Them, Maybe You Can Understand Them --- BCB #122 — Sun Tzu famously said that in order to win a battle you need to know yourself and know your enemy; we could say the same about making peace.
How South Africa Avoided Civil War and Built a Democracy — The story of South Africa's transition provides powerful lessons that Americans can apply to find common ground, re-humanize the "other," and safeguard democracy.
2024 Healing Starts Here Retreat — Essential Partners' reflection on the New Pluralists retreat, together with the inspiring video shown at the retreat.
Traitors and the Advantages of Criticizing Your Side -- BCB #117 — An explanation of an important de-escalation strategy -- accepting responsibility for your side's role driving hyper-polarization and undermining democracy.
UNDIVIDE US' Film is Breaking Down Barriers for Civil Conversation — From the Philanthropy Roundtable, guidelines for promoting more constructive ways of discussing controversial issues.
What Can a Chicago Gang Member Teach Us About Our Divides? Amanda Ripley Explains — Reflections on our hyper-polarized politics from a surprising source (with a different perspective on conflict) -- the street gangs of Chicago.
Cynical interpretations of our adversaries' actions can amplify divides --- and help our adversaries — Zach Elwood talks about the responses he has received to a controversial article that he published in The Fulcrum on the consequences of cynicism.
Dr. Jay Van Bavel: Deprogramming the Partisan Brain | Debate Without Hate: 2024 Elections — A video outlining a strategy for getting beyond partisan animosities and actually debating the issues.
Reasons To Be Optimistic About Polarization --- BCB #113 — Things could be worse, they have been worse, and they will get better.
Are You Willing to Walk a Mile in Their Media Shoes? — Distorted views of our political opponents often lead us to interpret their news and their positions in the worst possible way. Try watching "their" news to see where they are coming from.
Calling People Forward Instead of Out: Ten Essential Steps — Excerpted from a book, "How We Ended Racism," this article explains that calling out leads to a cancel culture which is ineffective and further divides, while calling in is much more effective at addressing racism.
Resisting Polarization in an Election Season: A Four-Part Curriculum — This self-paced curriculum will help you develop the internal capacities, skills, and confidence you need to become a positive force in conversations around the election where you live, work, worship, and learn.
What's the best strategy for reducing toxic divides? Cultural change or systemic change? — Zach Elwood talks with David Foster of Know the System.org about ways we can change the media environment to improve political discourse and decrease toxic polarization.
True or False? Political Passion Is at Odds with Depolarization — One can work toward any political goal while trying to reduce toxic polarization. In fact, taking less polarizing approaches can aid one's political activism.
Political Forgiveness and the Healing of Nations — This was Eileen Borris's keynoe address to the Ethiopia Symposium on Higher Eduation for Post Conflict Transformation
A depolarization-aimed speech I'd like to see President Biden give — An imagined, fictional speech that would (it seems to us) do wonders to disarm the polarization wars--if it would be heard and taken to heart. One can only wish!
Dignity Press — Dignity Press has published more than 30 books that explore the dynamics of human dignity and humiliation from diverse standpoints and global perspectives.
Deep Healing and Emotional Expression: Political Forgiveness as a Unique Peacebuilding Process — For a time when the focus is on good-vs-evil politics, social justice, and holding people accountable for past misdeeds, a look at political forgiveness and its role in building a lasting peace.
Why Your Presence Alone Is Surprisingly Powerful — Just sitting with someone can reduce pain and anxiety; making eye contact reduces perceived social distance and improves cooperation.
Are Our Political Rivals As Bad As We Think They Are? DTH Episode 161 with Daniel F. Stone — A conversation talking about how to understand the mistakes we make about those on the other side of the political spectrum --- and how they drive the affective polarization that is tearing us apart.
Americans think the "other side" is the problem when it's really the solution — We have the power -- and with that power, the responsibility -- to open our eyes and look across the aisle and see not an enemy but a potential partner for change.
Political Forgiveness 101 — With all the division and "us versus them" mentality, to heal these divisions and transform conflict we need to change our mindsets. This is where political forgiveness can come into play.
The Building Civic Bridges Act — A Congressional Act introduced by a bipartisan coalition to establish a pilot program within AmeriCorps, focused on building relationships across lines of difference, led by a new "Office of Civic Bridgebuilding."
Collaborating with the Enemy — A summary and review of Adam Kahane's book on how to work with people you don't agree with, like, or trust.
Listen, Watch, Read, Experience A Better America! — Scores of on-demand videos about ways to bring people together across political divides.
Moving Beyond Partisan Polarization: Some First Steps — From Essential Partners: 5 steps (with detailed questions for each) to have illuminating conversations with yourself, allies, and others to reduce polarization.
New Study: A Promising Method to Build Trust in Information and Reduce Partisan Animosity — A new method significantly reduced feelings of hostility between political party members to a level that resembles the political climate of the 1980s, when Republicans and Democrats got along.
A Tale of Two Karens — They are political polar opposites, but through Braver Angels, they're forging a path toward productive conversations, and even friendship.
ONE TEAM: Using sports to build bridges between Jewish and Bedouin teenage girls — During these heart-wrenching times in Israel, Danny Hakim's inspiring work offers a touching, optimistic, much-needed break from the painful daily Israeli news cycle.
Creating Space for Democracy: A Primer on Dialogue and Deliberation in Higher Education — A set of case studies illustrating ways different campuses have successfully navigated the political conflicts that are riling so many colleges and universities.
Higher Ed's Delicate Dance: Safeguarding Freedoms and Stewarding Culture — Kristen Hansen examines curricular and co-curricular (outside the classroom) approaches to navigating political conflicts on college campuses.
Not in Our Town — NIOT is a movement to stop hate, address bullying, and build safe, inclusive, communities for all, using film, social media, and community organizing. NIOT helps local leaders build vibrant, diverse cities and towns for everyone.
How to Avoid High Conflict — Yascha Monk talks with Amanda Ripley about "high conflict" in which the focus becomes on "the other," instead of the substantive issue in dispute. Amanda, here, discusses "the way out."
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Escalation & Violence Limiting Projects

We Can't Talk to People That Way — If we can't even communicate what an authoritarian is, how do we stop one from taking power?
Christian Nationalism,' 'Never-Trumpers' and Other Biased Terms This Election Season — Catchy terms are often polarizing and exaggerated, making them common in popular tabloids and on social media. This makes it easier for media consumers to get trapped in filter bubbles.
Addressing Chronic Violence from a Gendered Prespective: Fostering People-Centered Approaches at the National Level — This report argues for reconceptualizing violence based on feminist conceptions, recognizing that societal structures, systemic discrimination and even pervasive cultural norms can be sources of violence.
Bridging Divides & Strengthening Democracy: From Science to Practice — The conference presented the approaches that most effectively reduced anti-democratic attitudes, support for political violence, and partisan animosity. Recordings of the sessions are available here.
Finding the Way Out: A Once-a- Day Political Courage Challenge — This is an invitation to look deeply but kindly within yourself and work with others to fight the toxic division that's tearing our country apart. Based on the research of our colleague Peter Coleman.
The Alternatives To Violence Project-USA — AVP-USA is an association of community, school and prison-based groups offering experiential workshops in personal growth, community development and creative conflict management.
Parallel Networks — Parallel Networks is dedicated to combating polarization, hate and extremism in the US and abroad. Founded by a former Al-Qaeda member and the NYPD officer who arrested him.
Nonviolent Peaceforce — Their mission is to protect civilians in violent conflicts through unarmed strategies, build peace side-by-side with local communities, and advocate for the wider adoption of these approaches to safeguard human lives and dignity.
International Center for the Study of Violent Extremism — An action based, interdisciplinary, research center working on psychosocial, cultural, political, economic, ideological, and technological topics impacting global peace and security.
Cure Violence Global — CVG helps communities to implement violence prevention programs that are effective in significantly reducing violence by using a rational, data-driven, evidence-based and smart approach to crime.
Black Women for Positive Change — A national policy-focused network of predominately African American women and "Good Brothers" working to strengthen the American middle and working classes (particularly among Blacks) and changing the culture of violence in America.
Council on Technology and Social Cohesion — Social cohesion is the glue that hold society together -- particularly in the face of toxic polarization. We need technology that builds trust and civic health rather than outrage and division
Rise of American Radicalism: The Good, The Bad, and the Ugly — A Renew America Foundation study of extremist candidates running for public office in 2022.
How to Defuse a Classroom Conflict: Make It More Complex — Five practices to help students break through all the binary thinking: setting norms, establishing trust, foster complex thinking, model constructive behaviors, and grounding discussions in personal stories.
What's your 'red line'? | Jonathan Haidt with Mónica Guzmán — Does engaging bad ideas across the divide make you a bad person? Renowned psychologist and author Jonathan Haidt talks with Monica Guzman in this Braver Angels video.
The Dignity Index — An eight-point scale that scores speech on its power to unite or divide. Start your own journey by taking the Dignity Pledge.
Bridging Divides Initiative Building Resilience Ecosystem Map — An interactive map showing both political violence in the US and bridging organizations working to prevent such violence.
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Constructive Communication

Where Myth & Reality Merge: How Storytelling Can Carry Us Through & Beyond the Polycrisis — Through the lens of story, we can see the polycrisis of our time as a pivotal crossroads in a timeless battle between the path of separation, exploitation, and destruction or unity, creation, and regeneration?
Monitoring Dialogue in Conflict-Affected Contexts: Guide for Practitioners — This guide merges theoretical insights with practical tools to present an innovative dialogue monitoring approach designed to help practitioners identify and track meaningful progress made by dialogue programs in conflict-affected contexts.
How to Have Constructive Political Discussions w/ Guy and Heidi Burgess — Guy and Heidi were recently on Paul Rader's "Politics with Paul" Podcast where we talked about what has made American politics and society so broken, and what we need to do to start to fix it.
Program helps bridge political divides by connecting people through personal stories — PBS' News Hour profiled Civity's program in Rhode Island, where they are trying to rebuild trust across the red-blue divide. "When people are given the opportunity, they choose to connect and care. This gives us hope."
Listening for (a) Change — Longtime friend and peacebuilder Chip Hauss reflects on how he (and most of us) have allowed our listening skills to atrophy, and how reviving them can bring wanted change -- in us and others.
What can social listening tell us about the bridge-building movement? — More in Common analyzed user data from nearly a million followers of bridge-building organizations on X (formerly Twitter). Here they share how these social media users compare to typical X users.
Telling Stories of Aliveness: A Call for Regenerative Culture — From extracting to cultivating. This article explains how storytelling can help shift from a culture of commodity to one of ecology.
The Quiet Power of the Potluck — Yet another powerful way to bring communities together.
The power of deep listening: insights from Emily Kasriel’s new book and our research — BBC journalist, Emily Kasriel, is coming out with a book on her pioneering method for high-quality listening: Deep Listening: Transform Your Relationships with Family, Friends, and Foe. She talks about the book here.
The Last Of Us Warns That Us Vs. Them Thinking Is As Deadly As The Zombies — In season 2 of HBO’s The Last of Us, humanity has survived a zombie apocalypse long enough to remember what it loves most: pointless, self-destructive wars against each other.
The Pöster Project: Infographics for Democracy. — The Pöster Project points out that statistics don't change minds, but stories do. They provide infographics to help people to visually tell the stories about what is happening to US democracy.
Why Do They Think We're Extreme? — Drawing from More in Common's Perception Gap, Jonathan Stray talks about dynamics that increasingly make us fear "the other" and what we can do to try to resist these pressures.
Build Community Norms and Reduce Intergroup Anxiety — James Coan reflects on the findings of More in Common's "The Connection Opportunity" project and some of the examples it offers to highlight ways in which people have been able to successfully connect across divides.
Why talking to your enemies matters — Builders' Movement Partner Daryl Davis has single-handedly persuaded many white supremacists to renounce their racism. In 2020, Daryl went on Joe Rogan's podcast to highlight the importance of engaging with empathy even with people we see as dangerous.
Well, That Went Sideways! Beyond Intractability with Heidi Burgess — Heidi Burgess talks about Beyond Intractability and our work studying that and dialogue processes on a local conflict resolution podcast.
Community Mediation: Finding the Center of Hope with Guests Cassie Lively (CCR) and D.G. Mawn (NAFCM) — In this episode of The Other Chair Cassie Lively, Executive Director of the Center for Conflict Resolution (CCR) in Chicago, and D.G. Mawn, President of the National Association for Community Mediation (NAFCM) are guests.
Millennials, Boomers, and the Struggle to Be Understood — For decades, each generation has had its complaints about the one that came before. But when it comes to mental health, wellness, and the weight of expectations, the disconnect between millennials and boomers feels particularly stark.
Using Empathy Reflection at Home and Work. — A video presentation on how empathy circles can help familes and executives function better at home and at work.
Disagree Better' by the numbers. Did Gov. Cox's initiative work? — A new study by a Stanford sociology professor found that the National Governor's Association's 'Disagree Better' videos decrease polarization among viewers.
What We Get Wrong About Each Other: Perception Gaps — More in Common's Research Manager writes about the ubiquity of "perception gaps" and how they hurt us.
Discovery Through Dialogue: Expanding Brown's ethos of open inquiry through dialogue — A new campus-wide project will create more opportunities for students, faculty and staff to advance dialogue skills and participate in meaningful conversations across a wide range of perspectives.
I Don't Think That Word Means What You Think It Means — Republicans and Democrats often use the same words, but they mean different things. A new project seeks to build a bipartisan dictionary to help us better understand one another.
A simple Recipe for Complex Community Change: Make Stone Soup — Yet even when trust is low and resources seem scarce, communities possess capacity for successful collaboration that, when properly activated, produces remarkable results.
Millions of Conversations' Pledge to Listen — To help break down the misunderstandings that keep driving us apart, Millions of Conversations is asking us all to take a "Pledge to Listen." And, to make this easier, they also offer a listening guidebook.
The Civic Information Index — The Civic Information Index uses data to map drivers of engaged, informed, equitable, and healthy communities nationwide.
Think Fast, Talk Smart: Communication Techniques — In October of 2014, Matt Abrahams, a lecturer of strategic communication at Stanford Graduate School of Business, gave a lecture at Alumni Weekend that went viral. This video touches on many of those same topics.
6 Reasons Why Understanding Each Other Is More Important Than Ever — Though neither side is likely to be interested in understanding "the other" after the U.S. election, Starts with Us argues that when we fail to understand each other, we push each other away and amplify our divides.
6 Reasons Why Understanding Each Other Is More Important Than Ever — Trying to understand the other side is more important now than ever, says Starts with US. They explain why here.
Working on the Ground with Communities — From the Harwood Institute for Public Innovation, case examples of how it is possible to build more equitable, fair, just, inclusive and hopeful paths forward.
Promising Revelations: Undoing the False Impressions of America's Faithful — This study, from More in Common, finds significant perception gaps relating to faith in America today. It examines how Americans are navigating the country's deep polarization from the perspective of their faith identities.
The Constructive Cycle — From Essential Partners, a guide for dialogue facilitators on how to help people have a constructive, though "tough," conversation. These guidelines work for all of our personal "tough" conversations too.
Convenings, Cohorts + Communities: Notes on so-called "impact" gatherings — Previous models of conferences and events are getting blown up and replaced with an array of experiences, interventions, connectivity practices and celebrations to foster deeper engagement and more substantial change work.
From Essential Partners: It's Not You! Questions are Hard to Write. — An essay exploring the critically important role that questions play in framing conversations.
Exposure to Outgroup Members Criticizing Their Own Group Facilitates Intergroup Openness — Across four experiments, Israeli Jews who were exposed to a Palestinian criticizing Palestinians were more open to the Palestinians' perspective of the conflict, than those not exposed to the criticism
A Liberal Reader Criticizes Us for "Both-sides"-ism — Starts with Us explains that examining polarizing behaviors from people across the political spectrum helps people on all sides see that they have an important role to play in healing our divisions and helping solve problems.
Debate Without Hate: A Podcast to Help You Navigate the Election — A podcast series with experts delving into our nation's division, threats that arise from this division, and how we can all engage in healthier, more productive political discourse.
Narratives of American Project — This summer, the Narratives of America project has been part of important conversations with organizations and individuals who share a common goal: creating a new vision of social well-being where everyone can thrive.
The Tennessee 11 — This intimate, fly-on-the-wall document puts you in the room where eleven local leaders from across the political spectrum gathered to discuss gun rights and safety --- and to achieve the impossible: find common ground
A Free Education Resource that Helps Students Engage Across Differences in Better Ways — The guide includes best practices, resources, and recommendations for those working in middle school to college education to promote critical thinking, ideological diversity, empathy, respect, and tolerance of others.
Are You Willing to Walk a Mile in Their Media Shoes? — Description of an experiment you can do to try to better understand "the other side."
Online Community Organizing Is Not an Oxymoron — Daniel Stid's report on a conversation with Deepti Doshi, co-director of New Public, a nonprofit working to imagine new media and technologies that can build constructive online spaces that serve democratic purposes.
Mismatch by AllSides — With Mismatch, students talk to other students across the country, inspiring them to connect beyond their immediate world and build a healthy democracy - without leaving the classroom.
Dialogue Lab: America | Documentary Film (2022) — A video about Ideos Institute's experiment testing whether constructive dialogue is possible in today's polarized culture, and if so, how dialogue might be a first step in healing our nation.
On Relational Facilitation: Supporting the Creative Potential of Divergent Perspectives — In this blog post, Rosa Zubizarreta explores the potential of participatory processes for supporting new forms of governance, which she illustrates with their use in Austria and Germany.
The Village Square — Building the town hall of the 21st century across the partisan divide. A nervy bunch of liberals and conservatives who believe that disagreement and dialogue make for a good conversation, a good country, and a good time.
Elon Musk is making political debate more toxic --- here's how to change course — An op-ed by our colleague Zachary Elwood using the Elon Musk story as an "attention getter" to get readers (and high profile media outlets) to start thinking about polarization as a serious problem.
Fighting to Understand — Fighting to Understand brings "ordinary people" together to learn and talk about contentious issues.
Essential Partners' Guide to Conversations Across the Partisan Divide — Drawing on four decades of real-world experience and rigorous research, this guide will equip you to address polarization in your own context.
MWEG's Media Literacy Toolkit — A collection of materials from MWEG (Mormon Women for Ethical Government) on news consumption, misinformation, bias, conspiracy theories, propaganda, and more.
Checklist for Listeners — From Ohio State's Divided Community Project, a checklist for campus leadership to help them listen to students, faculty, and staff effectively after a divisive event.
LEADING A DIVIDED CAMPUS: Ideas and Illustrations — From the Ohio State Divided Community Project, a guidebook to help college and university leaders effectively support students and promote respectful engagement as students react to the ongoing violence in the Middle East.
Three Organizations Teaching Students to Navigate Political Difference -- BCB #94 — Profiles of 3 organizations (Essential Partners, Braver Angels, and the American Exchange Project) with noteworthy approaches to teaching students (and everyone else, really) do better deal with political conflict:
Are we really as divided as we think we are? — According to Beyond Conflict's March 29, 2024 Newsletter, the answer is no.
Aches, Pains, and Alternative Facts. Do the stories you tell yourself help you or hurt you? — The stories we tell ourselves about ourselves determine the quality of the selves we imagine we are. The stories we tell about others determine the quality of our relationships with them.
Being Valued, Seen, and Heard in a Polarized Society — Eileen Borris distinguishes between people's "personal stories" and "larger stories" -- who we are as part of a global human family, connected by transcendent values and spiritual natures.
The All-America Conversations Toolkit — This free toolkit from the National Civic League helps people take small, specific actions that give them a sense of confidence that they can work across dividing lines to create stronger and more equitable communities.
Conversations in Troubled Times — How can we balance the need for immediate action with the ability to check in, listen, and support each other? How do you honor a complex history and personal connections to troubling events? This conversation guide can help.
DIY Resources — These MANY! Civity-created resources can support and guide your efforts to grow civity (a culture of deliberately engaging in relationships of respect and empathy with others who are different) in your community.
National Week of Conversation | April 15 - 21, 2024 — National Week of Conversation was created for those exhausted by the division and hatred who seek ways to turn down the heat of polarization. it is a week to become inspired, equipped and engaged in bridge-building activities.
Understanding Pro-Democracy Conservatives — This report by the SNF Agora Institute at Johns Hopkins University explores the contours of a conservative pro-democracy movement in the current American political landscape
Knowledge Sharing for Collective Growth — A video of a conversation with longtime "network weaver" June Holley talking about conflict transformation, learning communities, network and knowledge weaving, and self organizing for productive change.
Contact Theory with No Contact: Facilitating Dialogue Online — An examination of the degree to which online dialogue can overcome impressions of difference without in-person contact.
Three Dirty Little Secrets To Improve Your Political Conversations — Being conscious of harmful habits leads to more meaningful political conversations. We don't really listen or even understand our own views.
Braver Angel's "E-Courses" — These professional level 40-minute courses have been crafted by experts in communications and depolarization. They provide an effective and "safe" way to interact with people in difficult situations.
ConnectEffect — This is a live, 60 minute entertainment experience that will profoundly shift the way you see "the other side." It is an "in-person hard reset of humanity."
The Horizon's Project Sensemaking Podcasts — Sensemaking, or what we'd call framing, is essential for understanding what's happening and how to respond to world events. Here are six short videos with leading peacebuilders about their sensemaking practices.
Embracing civil disagreement — The Intercollegiate Civil Disagreement Partnership is a space for Stanford students to discuss political differences with their peers across the country.
LivingRoom Conversations Conversation Topics — A listing of topics by category, each with a free, easy-to-use conversation guide.
Polarization Conversation Guide — A simple, easy-to-use guide that will allow anyone to lead a constructive conversation about political polarization from LivingRoom Conversations.
Why A Liberal Should Want To Share A Table With A Conservative (Like Me) — A look at the significant lost opportunities when the left gives up on the right.
Getting to Third Space with Lamar and Tom — This podcast features an exploration of how to talk with one another about significant, even controversial, issues with grace and humor.
Straight Arrow News Achieves AllSides Balance Certification — Straight Arrow News is on a mission to set a new standard for quality journalism in a time of media bias and mistrust. Allsides just awareded them a coveted "balanced" certification.
Academic Success Tip: Guide Students in Constructive Dialogue — A University of Delaware professor shares why and how she makes dialogue about difficult-to-discuss issues a foundational skill in her classroom.
The Art of Collaborative Facilitation — The crux of good facilitation is to remove the obstacles to connection and collaboration -- obstacles like disconnection, debilitating conflict, and other forms of "stuckness."
Digital Community Stewards Training — This free online training curriculum aims to help digital community stewards who host online groups prevent harm and build social cohesion through those online interactions.
Amplifying Sameness and Damping Difference — Though a search for common ground is useful, it can be taken too far. Disagreement and difference are essential for learning, change, and growth. Ideas should be challenged before they are accepted.
The Response: The World Talks — Bringing together people from around the world for 1:1 virtual dialogues, The World Talks is a global dialogue experiment built by a coalition of independent media partners from 15 countries.
Narrative Competency — A short description of the meaning of narrative competancy, together with annotated links to 15 documents on how to develop and use such competence.
AMERICA'S DIVIDED MIND | Video Intervention — This video is an attempt to correct partisan misperceptions and create a space for Americans to cooperate to address the major challenges we share.
Youth Talk: Youth Vocies for Change — This initiative of Search for Common Ground empowered a group of more than 100 young radio journalists to report on local conflicts and create radio programs to help people find common ground.
Difficult Dialogues National Resource Center — DDNRC seeks to ensure that college campuses sustain freedom of expression and academic freedom, promote pluralism, and expand opportunities for constructive communication across different perspectives.
International Storytelling Center — The International Storytelling Center believes that storytelling can yield a better life and a better world for the tellers and the listeners.
With no waitstaff, menus or regular hours, this café isn't your average coffee house — A restraurateur provides the opportunity for meaningful interactions with people whose paths may not otherwise cross while learning something new --- and maybe gaining a new perspective or even a friend.
Dialogue Lab: America | Documentary Film (2022) — A video about Ideos Institute's experiment testing whether constructive dialogue is possible in today's polarized culture, and if so, how dialogue might be a first step in healing our nation.
Conversations That Matter — A free guide from the Foundation for Developing Compassion and Wisdom to inspire conversations about values based on their "guidelines for life."
Empathy Circle Game — The Empathy Circle Game was created to enrich listening and communication skills through a series of engaging in-person group activities.
How The Current uses community listening and solutions journalism to make an impact in Louisiana. — A video showing how one community uses solutions journalism to hold local government accountable and to explore opportunities for mutually beneficial problem-solving.
Leveraging solutions journalism for revenue growth — If media organizations produce solutions journalism, will they generate more revenue? YES! (With caveats)
Civity & the "Tough Issues" — Learn how Civity is addressing really tough social issues by improving civic relationships.
National Week of Conversation — For those exhausted by division and hatred, join others from across the countryApril 17-2 to explore better ways of relating to each other.
Vengeance or Forgiveness — An exploration of the thinking of the conservative right. We must be able to "walk in the shoes of the other" to heal this nation. Here's one step.
Americans seek stories of solutions and inspiration from the media — From More in Common, a study showing Americans want the media to provide a balance of positive and negative stories and more solutions-oriented reporting
BridgeUSA — BridgeUSA is a youth-led nonprofit organization that creates spaces on high school and college campuses for open discussion between students about political issues.
Strengthening Social Connection and Opportunities in Rural Communities — This report illustrates the benefits of including a broader array of voices in determining needs among residents of rural communities.
America Talks Conversation Guide — A guide for participants in the National Week of Conversation; this can also be used by others wanting to have a productive conversation with people across differences.
National Week of Conversation — An annual online event matching 1000s of people across the political divide to talk, listen, learn and act together.
Democracy and the Epistemic Commons — The ultimate responsibility for good governance in a democracy falls to the voting citizenry, which can only exercise this duty well when it has accurate information about the world.
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Persuasion

What If Listening Isn't the Key to Persuasion -- BCB #119 — Listening may not change minds like we thought it did. Still, there are many other effective ways to build understanding and collaboration among those who disagree with you.
What, Me Think? — A government 'of the people, by the people, and for the people' is utterly dependent upon- wait for it.... the PEOPLE. Ashok Pannikar's initial Substack essay on democracy and critical thinking.
Is it still possible to change minds in politics? — A conversation about the possibility and difficulty of persuasion in a time of polarization, disinformation, conspiracy theories, political violence, and more. Is it still possible to reach people?
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Effective Communication Strategies

AllSides Media Bias Chart™ Version 9: Updated Ratings for AP, IJR, TIME, TheBlaze, and More — An update on a systematic effort to assess the political bias of major news sources -- an assessment that reveals that many publications are not as objective as their audience thinks.
Can Spanish and English speakers thrive in the same city? — In Emporia, KS, a small group of residents is working to make the community more cohesive and welcoming to Spanish-speakers and immigrants by practicing Spanish together. But is that enough?
Speaking Out to Strengthen the Guardrails of Democracy — A new report from the Ohio State University Divided Communities Project focusing on how effective speech can encourage hope, counteract fear and hate, and strengthen democracy.
AllSides for Schools — AllSides provides tools and activities teachers can use with students to help cultivate their skills and proficiency in bias awareness, news literacy, and dialogue across differences.
Ending This Zombie Apocalypse: How to Have Better Political Conversations — From The Village Square, a websinar with Kristin Hansen of the Civic Health Project and Robb Willer (Prof. of Sociology and Director of the Polarization and Social Change Lab at Stanford, and Kristin Hansen of the Civic Health Project.
The Persuaders — A new book by Anand Giridharadas that profiles activists, politicians, educators, and everyday citizens who are effectively changing minds, bridging divisions, and fighting for democracy.
In Ohio, one man's quest to get more voters to agree to disagree — The story of one man in Ohio who has started Dinner and a Fight--a dialogue process to get people talking across differences.
Livingroom Conversations' Ranked-Choice Voting Conversation Guide — Information about how ranked choice voting works and a guide for having a constructive conversation about it.
National Coalition or Dialogue and Deliberation (NCDD) — A network of innovators who bring people together across divides to discuss, decide, and take action together effectively on today's toughest issues. NCDD serves as a gathering place, a resource center, a news source, and a facilitative leader for this vital community of practice.
Listen First Project — Listen First enhances the impact, visibility and voice of the interpersonal bridge building field by aggregating, aligning, and amplifying the efforts of 500 #ListenFirst Coalition partners.
Overview of Monthly Conflict Transformation Empathy Cafes — Information about how you can participate in monthly Empathy Cafe for the Conflict Transformation, Mediation, Peacebuilding, Bridging, and Security Community to come together and connect.
Designing Tech for Social Cohesion — A Search For Common Ground conference, exploring how tech design and algorithms can promote pro-social content, instead of divisive content. Feb 23-25 in San Francisco and online.
Establishing Conversation Norms and Defusing Conflict — The key to any productive public, civil conversation is ensuring all participants follow a set of expectations and norms. Here's a suggested list of norms to follow.
Confronting Controversial Issues in the Classroom — Discussions of controversial issues are frequently prescribed by theorists, professors, and civic organizations, but most school systems are reluctant. Here's how to do it well.
ABA Cornerstones of Democracy: Civics, Civility and Collaboration Commission — ABA's Cornerstones of Democracy Conversation Guide to learn how to engage members in your community in civil conversations on critical issues.
Constructive Dialogue Institute — CDI seeks to repair our civic culture by spreading the practices of curiosity, critical thinking, and constructive dialogue across our nation's education systems and workplaces.
Livingroom Conversations Resources — We've highlighted LRC before, but haven't focused on their excellent resources for the times we get together with family and friends.
Braver Angels Media — Braver Angels' work is about building civic trust in the USA, healing the wounds between left and right. This video series highlights the stories of the people doing this work.
American Bar Association's Corerstones of Democracy Conversations Guide — The cornerstones are civics, civility, and collaboration, and this conversation guide helps lawyers (and others) as they work to strengthen all three.
All Sides — AllSides is a media solutions company that strengthens our democratic society with balanced news, media bias ratings, diverse perspectives, and real conversation.
The Flip Side — Sharing thoughtful news stories from the left, right, and middle on a variety of issues--emailed once per day.
We are Not Divided: Reasons to Be Cheerful Project — A good news media outlook posting stories about people using collaboration and other conflict resolution strategies to come together to solve problems.
Complicating the Narratives. What if journalists covered controverial issues differently. — An article by Amanda Ripley looking at how journalists can write better stories to help people become less polarized and suspicious.
Abortion -- Conversation Guide — A practical guide for those wanting to know how to convene and facilitate constructive dialogues capable of spanning partisan divides and meaningfully addressing our most controversial issues.
Democracy is at risk. Ten newsrooms explored what's strengthening it. — Profiles of ten news organizations that are going beyond superficial, horse-race (who's winning, who's losing) political reporting and helping their audiences understand how democracy could be improved.
Midterm Monitor -- A tool to analyze and assess the information landscape prior to the 2022 US midterm elections — An impressive effort to make what goes on in the largely hidden world of social media-based political advertising visible.
Rule Omega — Daniel Schmactenberger and Jordan Greenhall talk about listening for the "meaningful signal" hidden within the "noise" of any statement.
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Networking

Putting Relationships First — This monograph from the Relationships Project assembles the evidence base for putting relationships first, describing why relationships matter, what great relationship-centered practice looks like, and how it could make an impact in your context.
The Original Protocol Was Love: Building a Networked Civilization from the Ground Up — The spread of early Christianity and the architecture of the internet both succeeded through simple, decentralized protocols. This insight can help us build a new, trustworthy network of communities today.
All of US — A directory to help people find organizations near them working to improve communities, schools, jobs, and daily life. Find out how to get involved, learn new skills, and contribute to massively parallel democracy building!
Self-Organization Needs Activators: The 9% Who Turn Networks into Movements — Effective collaboration across networks of groups requires supporting the "middle layer" of participants -- network catalysts who step into leadership roles but aren't part of the core team.
Bridging Communities, Events and Insights in a Fragmented World — This draft paper is for boundary-spanners, community catalysts, and organizational leaders who see cycles of duplication and knowledge loss. It’s for anyone who believes that how we weave knowledge across divides might be as important as the knowledge itself.
Hubs, Humans & Half-Baked Potatoes — Better Together America: How Civic Hubs Are Weaving Democracy from the Ground Up
Network Values Flyer — A List of Network Values -- a flyer to use in digital presentations or to print off to use as a handout or to hang up listing values that help networks of any kind work better together and achieve more.
Exploring multiscalar networks: What makes networks effective and transformative? — June Holley, 'grandmother of networks' joined the Socialroots team for one of the monthly Network Coordination Commons calls to talk about -- and invite collaboration on -- her current inquiries into multiscalar networks.
The SHIFT Action Lab — The SHIFT Action Lab is a collective for learning and action on democracy. It has been co-designed with practitioners who hold a desire to collaborate across the typically siloed fields of bridging, organizing, and governance.
Panel discussion on generating the connective tissue of American civil society — A panel with authors, scholars, and practitioners at the Stanford Center on Philanthropy and Civil Society, shares stories about where and how U.S. civic life is actually thriving.
Power of Networks: Interconnectedness Drives Change — Our world is beset by societal challenges that are large, complex, dynamic and highly contextual. Networks can play a transformative role in resolving these challenges by sparking an interconnected web of actors and actions.
Check Out the New Functionality and 15 Additional States in the Healthy Democracy Ecosystem Map! — The National Civic League has added data and new functions to its Health Democracy Ecosystem Map.
Horizon's VISTA — An amazingly rich compilation of resources every month, but the September 2024 issue was particularly full of excellent resources on threats to democracy and responses to those threats.
The Aspen Institute's Weave: the Social Fabric Project — Weave tackles the problem of broken social trust that has left Americans divided, lonely, and in social gridlock. Weave connects, supports, and invests in local leaders stepping up to weave a new, inclusive social fabric where they live.
A Conversation about Partnering with Community Mediation Centers — DG Mawn, President of NAFCM and Caleb Christen, Co-Founder of Inter-Movement Impact Project have a thought-provoking conversation about incorporating community mediation centers into local democracy hubs.
7/29 IMIP Hosted Generate Democracy! "Open House" — The Inter-Movement Impact Project (IMIP) is an informal, Zoom-focused effort to bring together and exchange information between the many individuals and organizations who are part of the ongoing, "massively parallel" effort to defend and strengthen democracy. On July 29 at 3:00 pm Eastern/noon PDT, IMIP (in conjunction with LinkedIn group Generate Democracy!) is hosting an online Open House for those interested in learning more about the many ways in which people are working to strengthen democracy and how YOU can get involved in this effort. Click the above link for more information. Here's the calendar link for those who would like to attend.
Learning from Experience — From Network Weaver, a conversation between Rachel Donald and artist Maggie Robers on perspective, vision,AI, bias, resistance, extraction, imagination, and the role of art in a crisis.
Network Failures: 2023 Edition — From Network Weaver, a reflection on things they tried in 2023 that didn't work as planned--and what they are doing in 2024 to fill those gaps. These ideas have broader applicability for other networkers!
The Relationships Project — Connecting the dots between organizations focused on relationship-building, the Relationship Project is helping to develop the infrastructure to support a thriving field of relationship-centered practice.
A Partnership for Peace — Search For Common Ground and Preemptive Love Coalition are merging! This strategic merger will amplify the impact of both organizations as we pursue a shared vision of advancing global peace.
Join Restorative Justice Map & Directory Launch List — 0
PeaceCon 2023 — The "Skinny Agenda" is out for the Alliance for Peacebuilding annual meeting to be held May 3-5 in-person and online.
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Monitoring and Evaluation

How Can We Effectively Use Evidence in Peacebuilding Project Design? | ConnexUs Thursday Talk Recording — This webinar shared findings from research examining the role of evidence in shaping & improving peacebuilding initiatives, and USIP shared what they are doing to integrate the findings into their own programming.
Mapping Civic Measurement: How Are We Assessing Readiness and Opportunities for an Engaged Citizenry? — A report on a review of existing resources and tools we can use to evaluate the success of efforts to improve our constitutional democracy.
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Constructively Addressing Complex Issues

Strategic Planning in 2025: Five Ways to Navigate Chaos with Clarity — Conventional strategic planning often assumes a stable environment. In today's chaos, we need strategic direction instead.
The is No Right Answer — Thoughtful reflections on the degree to which conflict and peacebuilding efforts require the abandonment of the notion that there are "right answers."
But what if their side is actually wrong? — Jonathan Stray shares six arguments for "intelligent bothsidesism."
Why Certainty Can Be Dangerous - A Chat with Ilana Redstone — "Certainty is the thing that justifies outrage. Certainty that you're right, certainty that the other person is a horrible person."
Affinity Diagrams: How to Cluster Your Ideas and Reveal Insights — Not limited to peacebuilding, this idea organization strategy is powerful for garnering insights from many people, and highly complex situations and issues.
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Developing a Unifying Vision

A Conversation with Joolz Casey — What if…the world were a kinder place? What would it look like? What would it feel like? How would a kinder world begin?
DEBUNKED: 10 Myths Keeping Us Divided — From Builders, 10 (very familiar) myths we hold that keep us apart, and what we should realize instead.
Revitalizing the American Commonwealth — Harry Boyte calls for reviving the “commonwealth” tradition—the idea that democracy relies on citizens stewarding and co-creating the public good.
The Problem with Empathy — In recent years, empathy has come under siege—from conservatives who see it as weakness and from liberals who wield it like a sword: Is the word actually dividing us more than bringing us together?
Contempt Can’t Live in The Light — “To get less contempt, we need to expose contempt, and to expose contempt, we need to surround it with dignity.”
New Pluralists 2030 Strategy — The New Pluralists' 2030 Strategy seeks to address 3 pernicious barriers to pluralism: dehumanization, disconnection, and distrust.
Core values guide us, especially during times of uncertainty — Chuck Salter of the News Literacy Project explains what the project is and why he believes that news literacy is so important in uncertain times.
Targeted Universalism Explained — Targeted Universalism is a framework developed by the Othering & Belonging Institute that invites members of any community to co-create new structures designed to serve everyone, not just a few.
Surviving the Storm: Strategies for Resilience in a Fractured America — Authoritarian movements aren't invincible---the challenge is being ready with a better alternative.
Introducing the Beacon Project, an Effort to Build a New Civic Vision for America — From More in Common, The Beacon Project will combine polling data, cutting-edge methods in data science, and disciplinary experts to build a new vision for civic life in America.
Standing on solid ground in uncertain times — An article from the Foundation Against Intolerance and Racism, describing their efforts to stay focused, despite ongoing political changes, on the set of universal principles that they believe span the political divide.
Shared Rights as the Foundation of Pluralism — Reflections on what makes pluralism work and what holds it back from three conferences all focusing on ways to navigate deep difference.
Trump wants to be a unifier. Here's how he could do it. — Stephen Hawkins from More in Common argues that neither President Trump's supporters, nor his opponents want him to override the Constitution.
How We Can Block, Bridge, and Build Our Democratic Future Together — Julia Roig and Jarvis Williams lay out the basic framework that the Horizon's Network is following to strengthen democracy and combat authoritarian trends.
Pluralism in the Trump Era — A growing movement of "new pluralists" has made real headway. But now we have come to the hard part of the journey.
The Quiet Tragedy of a World Without True Community — From David Beckemeyer, How the Pursuit of "More" is Eroding Our Sense of Community and Fulfillment.
Champions of Compassion — Greatness is about uplifting others. The Ali Compassion Pledge, inspired by the Muhammad Ali Index, is your call to act with kindness, justice, and compassion.
The Prosocial Ranking Challenge: Experiment Launched! Project Midpoint Update — Jonathan Stray's update report on the Prosocial Ranking Challenge progress and future plans.
How Do We Get Through This? — A new podcast mini-series with Beyond Conflict CEO Tim Phillips who speaks with leaders of other countries who were key to shaping their countries' futures at times when everything was at stake.
Solidarity is Hard — A webinar discussing the evolution and power of local action in the South and in Los Angeles, showing how each community's unique path fuels a shared fight for justice, resilience, and real change.
Cultivating Solidarity and Hope in a Fractured World — Eric K. Ward and Deepa Iyer offer thoughtful reflections on the recent US elections, discussing strategies to confront authoritarianism, strengthen transnational solidarity, and build long-term infrastructure for social justice.
A Call to Hearten: Let Tender Tenacity Walk with Fierce Patience — John Paul Lederach offers a poetic reflection on resilience and compassion following the U.S. November, 2024 election.
It's Time for Institutional Insurgency — Playing defense on behalf of a broken status quo isn't an effective strategy. Democrats need to be bold, grounding its democracy rhetoric in reforms the public will strongly support.
Building Resilient Communities — Can we coexist as a technologically advanced society without eroding the innate human instincts that enable us to harmoniously weave societies, thereby allowing life to fulfill its magnificent evolutionary destiny?
The UN's New Pact for the Future: A Milestone That Can Set a Path for Change — The UN Pact for the Future, though imperfect, can serve as a stepping stone for even more ambitious, high-impact improvements within the UN system.
U.C. Brekeley's Othering and Belonging Institute — The Othering and Belonging Institute at UC Berkeley advances groundbreaking approaches to transforming structural marginalization and inequality. They are scholars, organizers, communicators, researchers, artists, and policymakers committed to building a world where all people belong.
We All Win, or We All Lose — An essay Duncan Autrey wrote several years ago, and just recently reposted, asking how we can work together to build a world better for all of us, not just half of us.
ProSocial World — The purpose of ProSocial World is to consciously evolve a world that works for all.
The New Paradigm Coalition — Chip Hauss reports on an new coalition which seeks to "consider new paradigms that focus on interdependence, evolution, commons-related problems, and psychological flexibility."
Love in Action: Embodying Love in our Organizing and Organizations — The moment we choose to love, we begin to move toward freedom, to act in ways that liberate ourselves and others.
Are Grievances Running Our Nation and Is Political Forgiveness Our Way Out? — The June issue of Political Forgiveness Monthly is a deep dive into how we as a country got to this high tide of grievance and how humility can pull us back to a place of listening and mutual trust.
The Mediators' Foundation Newsletter — The Mediators' Foundation highlights useful articles by its members and colleagues that relat to helping us all build a better, more just and more peaceful world.
Citizens for Ethics — Using bold legal actions and in-depth investigations, CREW targets government officials who sacrifice the common good to special interests and personal gain.
5 Ways to Build Bridging Social Capital and Develop a Sense of Common Purpose — Five ways to counter the sense of loneliness and helplessness that is driving polarization and the weakening of our community and civic ties.
Faith Over Division Tour — Bringing together people of faith to find hope and a shared future in the midst of toxic divisiveness.
Grand Bargain Project — Together, We Are Addressing Six Challenges Critical For Our Democracy And The American People To Thrive: Economic Mobility, Education, Health Care, Climate Change, National Debt and the Tax Code.
Thriving Together Springboard — A systems approach to recovering from COVID, this "springboard for equitable recovery and resilience in communities across America" can be applied to future challenges as well.
Daniel Lubetzky TED Talk: Replacing "Us vs. Them" with a Movement of Builders — Founding Partner Daniel Lubetzky publicly launches Builders, a new platform that takes the Starts With Us mission (equipping citizens to overcome toxic polarization and solve our toughest problems) global.
Voices for the Future — Interviews with leading figures in the fields of climate change, democracy, economics, healthcare, education, community, trauma healing, activism, diversity, and much, much more.
America's Divided Mind: Video Intervention — This is a 4-minute video which was named one of the most effective interventions to reduce support for political violence, anti-democratic attitudes, and animosity across partisan lines.
How Contempt Destroys Democracy — Zach Elwood is distributing his second ebook free to subscribers to his substack: Defusing American Anger: A Depolarization Endeavor. This is a "pre-release" but he's eager for comments.
Our Common Purpose: Reinventing American Democracy for the 21st Century — A report by the Commission on the Practice of Democratic Citizenship on how we can work together, instead of against each other to achieve a true democracy.
The Plurality Institute — The Plurality Institute is building an ecosystem to push boundaries to reimagine collaborative frameworks. They serve as a hub for academics, industry researchers, practitioners, and leaders from both civil and governmental sectors
Imagination Activism | Phoebe Tickell — An interview with the founder of Moral Imaginations on the role of imagination in activism, the universality of values in human culture, and the crisis of imagination within the current system.
Our divided nation will fall unless we return to American pragmatism — Our country is disturbingly polarized, and the future of our republic is at stake if we don't change course ... and soon. This long-time civil servant observes that we are our own worst enemy.
Getting to 3rd Space - Seth Kaplan-Part 1 — Lamar Roth and Tom Klaus from Tenacious Change interview Seth Kaplan, about his book Fragile Neighborhoods, which explains how we can "repair American society, one zip code at a time."
Democracy as the Foundation that Grounds Us — A short but surprising and interesting article about the intersection of philanthropy, democracy, and faith.
US@250 Initiative — This initiative provides a unifying framework for America's semiquincentennial, hosts an annual fellowship, and organizes a network of organizations and individuals who champion the spirit of a more inclusive America.
A Quilt Meditation on Democracy, Social Connection, & Civity — Democracy is like quilting. We are all different pieces of different fabrics of different shapes and sizes -- and we piece ourselves together to make something different and bigger. We each make a contribution.
Transitioning to tripartisanship — Between 40% and 44% of American voters, according to Gallup, do not identify with either major party. They need to be represented in Washington too.
How business can help address the American schism without touching political "third rails" — Historically, the U.S. has navigated political divisions by letting facts and data lead the conversation and working together constructively to engage multiple perspectives and work toward consensus and compromise.. Businesses do that all the time.
Indigenous voices on reconciliation — Do you ever feel that you'd like to advance the work of reconciliation, but you're confused or unsure where to begin? Videos from indigenous voices in Canada compiled by the Canadian Friends Service Committee can help.
One Humanity Institute — One Humanity Institute is a social incubator, a global nexus where one can experience both the micro and macro potential of a united humanity.
A New Agenda for Peace — S.G.'s Guterres' New Agenda for Peace outlines his vision for multilateral efforts for peace and security, based on international law, for a world in transition.
New Pluralists — The new pluralists are committed to healing our divisions by helping Americans recognize our shared humanity, embrace our differences, and solve challenges together.
Positive Peace provides a framework to understand and then address the multiple and complex challenges the world faces. — IEP's empirically derived Positive Peace Framework involves the use of a systems-based approach to better understand the creation and maintenance of peaceful societies.
The Eight Pillars of Positive Peace — Based on almost 25,000 indices and survey variables, the Institute for Economics and Peace identified 8 factors that are particularly important for peaceful societies.
Our Relationship to The Future: Narratives, Imagination Skills and Futures Literacy — A discussion of and resources to help people envision positive futures while also engaging honestly with the past.
The Belonging Barometer: The State of Belonging in America — The Belonging Barometer calls attention to belonging as a critical dimension of life that should matter to all stakeholders who seek to improve America's physical, social, civic, and democratic well-being.
Principles of Ethical Government — Mormon Women's Principles of Ethical Government are good advice for everyone. They stress the importance of the rule of law, human rights, civic duties, and mutual accountability.
Fight the Return of the Old Normal: A Guidebook for Envisioning a Racially Just & Transformative Future — We can choose to live in the "old normal" of racial injustice and human exhaustion or we can imagine and design a "new normal" built around a vision for a better future.
Tanenbaum Center for Interreligious Understanding — Podcasts highlighting the experiences of international religiously-motivated peacebuilders, plus many more text profiles of religious peacebuilders with descriptions of their work.
Creating a Place to Belong by Pursuing Peace: Preemptive Love's 2022 Impact Report — Peace underpins thriving communities. More than the absence of conflict, peace is the absence of worry. That's why Preemptive Love's programming addresses people's deepest concerns.
Building The Bridge To Peace: Reframing Peace And Peacebuilding — A discussion of existing mindsents around peacebuilding; research-based suggestions for reframing the way we present this work to outsiders so they understand what it involves.
Citizenship and American Identity Program--The Aspen Institute — This program explores the question of what it means to be American, and how to promote a shared sense of national identity in an age of demographic flux and severe inequality.
The New Pluralists — New Pluralists is a funder collaborative focused on supporting the growing field of practitioners, storytellers, researchers, and innovators working to foster a culture of pluralism in America.
Imagining a better future for American democracy, with Suzette Brooks Masters — A much more positive way of looking at democracy's problems -- instead of focusing on things that are going wrong, focus on things that could go right.
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Pursuing a Unifying Common Vision

Join or Die — Chip Hauss revisits the critical concept of bridging social capital, and reflects both on its widespread loss and its importance to both peace and democracy worldwide.
More Perfect — A a national campaign to align American citizens and institutions around a shared vision for our democracy -- and to marshal all the energy and resources it will take to achieve that future together.
Democracy Innovation — Working to understand, test, and disseminate innovations that can make democracy more participatory, equitable, and productive with a focus on scale, redesign of the civic infrastructure, and measurement.
Building Bridges Without a Foundation for Peace Won't Work — An article comparing different bridge-building strategies and the goals of negative peace versus positive peace. Just getting people to "talk nicely" isn't nearly enough to solve our problems.
Compassionate Humanity Community — An emerging network of people working to build movements dedicated to serving humanity, the environment, and life. Reducing conflict and fostering collaboration are tools advocated to achieve these goals.
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Effective Problem-Solving

Reunited Wisconsinites who disagree on abortion fight to extend postpartum Medicaid — Another "it has been done, it must be possible" story that we ought to try harder to replicate in other areas.
Cross-Sector Leaders Release Groundbreaking Consensus Report on Child Care in Kentucky — A great example of state-level consensus building in action.
Citizens' Assemblies Inspire Love & Truth in Our Politics — An introduction to citizens assemblies and the role that they might be able to play in building a democracy that is truly "of the people, by the people, and for the people."
Congress Ranked: Top Problem Solvers and Dividers — Compiled by Starts with US, a weekly rundown of the top (and bottom) players in America's most popular full-contact sport -- politics.
Critical reflection: Ethical marketing of conflict resolution services — Samantha Hardy argues that mediators need to be very careful to use an honest and accurate approach to marketing, to develop credibility and maintain the legitimacy of the field.
Are You Really Thinking Critically? Let's Find Out! — Separating Critical Thought from Cynical Noise with David Beckenmeyer and science educator Melanie Trecek-King.
The Thinking Citizen — Ashok Panikkar asks whether this is an oxymoron or an existential imperative. Given that successful democracies are dependent upon THE PEOPLE, he concludes that deep thought is essential for democracy.
Conflict Engagement and Peacemaking — A Peace Talks Radio podcast exploring "conflict engagment" and explaining how this differs from more familiar "conflict resoloution."
CSU Center for Public Deliberation — Our aim is to improve the way our community is able to talk through complex issues so that we can arrive at better decisions. CPD provides the space, good information, and skilled facilitation to facilitate such collaborative decision making.
Resolutionaries — Resolutionaries is an organization dedicated to bringing Americans together. Our goal is to shift the current paradigm --- from fighting over our problems to working together to solve them.
IREX and the Community Solutions Program — A report on innovations in networking and cooperation, looking at ways to build trust , overcome the free-rider problem, and inspire participation in collaborative projects among widespread participants.
Make it a Habit: Be Hard on Issues But Soft on People — A quick "how to" (and why) from Starts with Us as a good way to reduce polarization, improve relationships, and get more done.
Community Mediation--Year 2 — Community mediation, says Chip Hauss, is the "best-kept secret" in the peacebuilding field.
Tamarack Institute — The Tamarack Institute develops and supports collaborative strategies that engage citizens and institutions to solve major community issues across Canada and beyond.
Summer 2023: CBI in Action — Short summaries of the many projects the Consensus Building Institute is currently working on, showing that consensus can be built in very difficult situations.
Citizen Solutions: America's Hidden Opportunity Revealed. — Starts With Us' inititiave to empower Americans to overcome our misperceptions and co-create solutions to shared challenges. This article shows how badly we misjudge "the other" on many dimensions.
Fighting for a U.S. federal budget that prioritizes peace, economic security and shared prosperity — An online tool to explore budget trade-offs between the military and other spending priorities. The National Priorities Project asserts that the budget should reflect our priorities--but does it?
3 Collaborative Practices for Advancing Social Impact — Know what you're good at and what your partners can do better, find the most powerful leverage point, and allow for failure and learn from it and the three practices highlighted here.
The Democracy, Politics, and Conflict Engagement Initiative (DPACE) — A Mediators Beyond Borders initiative to enhance social movements and communities to engage in conflict constructively.
Healthy Democracy — Healthy Democracy is a US-based nonpartisan nonprofit that designs and coordinates innovative deliberative democracy programs
Ethelo.com Case Studies — Case studies illustrating the many ways that Etholo has been applied to reach consensus solutions to tricky problems.
Ethelo — Ethelo is a "digital democracy platform" that helps organizations come to consensus solutions after involving many stakeholders in an online deliberative process.
Keystone Habits for a Collaborative Learning Culture — "Keystone habits" have the power to start a chain reaction, changing other habits as they move through an organization or system. They can jump start collaboration.
Humanity's Phase Shift', Daniel Schmachtenberger — A video discussing why modern day governance isn't working, and what every individual must do within themselves to enable us as a community and society, to work out our problems together.
Consensus Building Institute Resources — Another "if it being done it must be possible" story -- an extensive collection of resources explaining how people are successfully collaborating despite deep differences.
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Negotiation / Collaboration

Emotional Intelligence for Peer Mediators — An announcement of an upcoming webinar with Frederick Golder on November 8, 2024. In a note to us, Frederick observed that the "best way to get beyond intractability is to teach our children the benefits of constructive conflict resolution."
The Mediation Group: Conflict Coaching — Conflict coaching is a one-on-one process that develops the client's skill at handling conflict, or supports the client in working through a particularly difficult or complex conflict.
Association for Conflict Resolution — ACR is an international professional association for mediators, arbitrators, educators and other conflict resolution practitioners.
Negotiation: A Very Short Introduction — Leading negotiation scholar Carrie Menkel-Meadow's basic book highlighting things everyone should understand about negotiation.
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Effective Problem-Solving Efforts

Network for Responsible Public Policy — NFRPP provides stories that educate, inform, foster civic engagement, and generate a sense of shared purpose to help keep US democracy dynamic and viable.
A Guide for Building a Sustainable and Resilient Collaboration — Five elements are required for collaborative success: a common agenda, shared measurement, mutually reinforcing activities, continuous communications, and backbone infrastructure.
Weighing difficult choices for a more promising future — Our choices will determine whether we continue on the path of dehumanizing one another in ways that fracture society and promote conflict, or will we change directions so that America can thrive again.
Divided Community Project — DCP provides dispute resolution and systems-design expertise to help local community and university leaders enhance community resiliency and prepare for and respond to events that polarize their communities.
Common Ground Committee's Podcast: Let's Find Common Ground — A podcast exploring paths to more progress and less division. How to find common ground with "the other side."
Mediators Beyond Borders International — MBBI builds local skills for peace and promotes mediation worldwide, emphasizing inclusivity cultural competency, and trauma healing.
National Association for Community Mediation — A member organization, and a hub for advancing the work of community mediators, aggregating their wisdom and amplifying their voice.
Urban Rural Action — UR Action brings together Americans across divides to tackle our nation's most urgent challenges. They focus on building relationships by solving problems together in all 50 states.
Institute for Negotiation Innovation — INI is a new nonprofit which bridges negotiation research and practice, provides negotiation thought leadership, and mobilizes capacity for highler levels of negotiation competence and excellence.
Bringing a Conflict Lens to the US and Corporations as Agents of Peace — The first of a series of webinars held by the Alliance for Peacebuilding examining the need for and methods for doing peacebuilding in the United States.
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Bridge Building

Why 500 Organizations Joined Forces to Bridge America's Deepest Divides. — David Beckemeyer talks with Karissa Raskin, the new CEO of Listen First.
The Heat of Resistance Meets the Cool of Dialogue — Eileen Boris and Julia Roig talk about the continuum from raising the heat (resistance) to cooling things down with dialogue. They go on to explain why both approaches are valid and needed.
Action over Dialogue: The Case for Prioritizing Local Civic Engagement — A report from the Trust for Civic Life showing how processes that focus on one issue or problem and move toward action are more impactful than processes that just focus on dialogue.
Exploring a new typology of types of bonding, bridging, and breaking groups — Recording of a "deliberative journalism" call Martin Carcasson holds monthly, this one focused on new material he is developing on bonding, bridging, and breaking/toxic groups.
This Week’s Bridge Moment: Cameron Cohen on Narrative vs. Reality — What if we could improve conversations, not by changing our views, but by changing how we talk?
Bridge Building, To Where? — A provocative essay asking hard but important questions about the theory of change underlying the "bridging" movement (and strategies for increasing its probability of success).
What I’m thinking now, as a political bridge-builder and democracy-strengthener — In answer to the question "what can I do?", Kristen Hansen, of the Civic Health Project, lists five things America needs from all of us.
The Tennessee 11 — A documentary capturing the drama and triumphs of eleven Tennesseans working across difference on gun rights and safety.
The Connection Opportunity — A report from More in Common exploring American's interest in and barriers to connecting across race, politics, socioeconomic status and religion.
Bridging Movement Collaborative — BMC is the new name for the Bridging Movement Alignment Council. This document describes their background, their theory of change , and lists some of their accomplishments.\
Americans are united: send wildfire aid — Ashley Fabrizio, PhD, Head of Research for More in Common US, writes about Americans' desire for federal aid to California fire victims.
Breaking the Cycle: Why Bridge-Building Feels One-Sided (and How We Fix It) — If both sides wait for the other to engage, no one ever will.
Introducing the Bridging Dictionary — Could seeing how opposite sides of the US political spectrum use the same words differently be a first step toward greater cross-political understanding?
5 Ways Liberals Can Build More Bridges with Conservatives — An article based on a conversations with Luke Nathan Phillips of Braver Angels about the state of depolarization and bridge-building endeavors.
The Potential of the Building Civic Bridges Act — The National Civic League describes what this legislation would do and how it is being pursued in the coming Congress.
The Reunited States — A film based on Mark Gerzon's book of the same name, follows four everyday heroes as they journey across the US to bridge racial and political divides.
Bridge Pledge — Bridge Grades for Congress objectively identifies the most collaborative and least polarizing politicians by sorting bridgers from dividers based on voting records, bill authoring, and other public 3rd party data.
Supporting Society's Bridge Builders — In a world of increasing complexity and polarization, system orchestrators drive collective action to achieve outsized impact.
Hands Across the Hills Tells Its Story — The story of a six-year bridging project between a progressive and a conservative community, with their voices, training resources & links to media coverage. Available for free as a pdf.
Addressing Questions from Skeptics of Political Depolarization and Bridge-building Work — Zachary Elwood summarizes a talk between Liz Joyner of The Village Square and Melissa Weintraub, the Executive Director of Resetting The Table.
For Students to Change the World, Colleges Must First Teach Them to Bridge Differences — A commentary from our colleague Shamil Idriss observing that the spring's turmoil on campuses highlights what's not on the curriculum: Young people need conflict resolution skills to lead us to a better future.
Solidarity: Building Solidarity In an Era of Silos — In an age of increasing polarization and division, how can we build bridges? This episode explores the challenges and opportunities of building solidarity in our current social and political climate.
Bridging Movement (BMAC) Goals & Measures Program — This is the home of the Social Cohesion Impact Measurement (SCIM) tool - a resource empowering bridging groups and other institutions to evaluate and measure the impact of their programs.
The One America Movement — The One America Movement partners with faith communities across religious, political, and racial divides to confront toxic polarization in our society. Our vision is a resilient, strong, and united country working together to solve our common challenges.
Peace: We Build It! Building Bridges Amid Division: Understanding America's Conflict Dynamics — In this podcast, AfP Executive Director Liz Hume discusses identity-based grievances, polarization, and social cohesion in the U.S with three experts across the political spectrum.
Belonging Design Principles: A resource guide for building belonging — From the Othering and Belonging Institute, a set of ideas about how society can organize itself so that no one is "othered," and we all collaborate to build a society in which everyone wants to live.
Bridge Entertainment Labs — Accelerating the creation of content that fosters social cohesion and pluralistic norms to transform the way Americans see and engage with each other across divides.
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Trust / Trust Earning

5 Reasons Americans Lost Trust in Each Other—and How We Build it Back — The Builders shares "what is feeding the mistrust machine and how we shut it down."
We can be drawn to distrusting elections when "our side" loses — The goal of this article is only to get people to examine how emotions can make their views more pessimistic and unreasonable,
2024 Edelman Trust Barometer — This tool reveals a new paradox at the heart of society. Rapid innovation offers the promise of a new era of prosperity, but instead, it risks exacerbating trust issues, leading to further societal instability and political polarization.
The Aspen Institute's Social Trust Index. — This social trust index, available for every US zipcode, looks at three measures of trust in neighborhoods across the country, and provides info on how to build more trust.
Rebuild Trust in Politics: Common Sense Paper # 48 — Those who choose to run for office should evidence some knowledge and care for the principles of sound government. To build trust, they must exhibit both good intent and competence.
Do you keep your agreements? — Anne Leslie explains why keeping our agreements, no matter how small, has important ramifications for our relationships, demonstrating respect and trustworthiness that are hard to replace once broken.
Using Democratic Innovation to Rebuild Trust between Elected Officials and Citizens — Exploring the use of deliberative town hall meetings. The process brings together a cross-section of the community to have an informed discussion on a topic with an elected official.
Why a Lack of Trust Is So Damaging: Three surprising ways to build greater trust. — We can build greater trust in our lives by focusing on relationships, consistency, and expertise.
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Media Reform

The Next Phase of Democracy Tech — Kristin Hansen of the Civic Health Project explains how we can promote more constructive uses of information technology by moving beyond content moderation and toward more proactive civic technologies.
The Fourth Estate — A timely essay explaining why a free press is essential to democracy with thoughts on how best to defend it.
Want a less polarized society? Support local news — Local newspapers, news websites, and TV and radio stations are a necessary part of public infrastructure that must be supported.
Straight Arrow News — A new news service that independent evaluators believe actually lives up to its promise of being a source for straight, unbiased news.
Social Media Can Support or Undermine Democracy – It Comes Down to How It’s Designed — An article by our colleague Lisa Schirch, about the ways much social media is being designed to optimize profit and political power, but it also can be designed to reinforce democracy.
From Harm to Health — The new Blueprint for Prosocial Tech Design Governance lays out systems that incentivize prosocial design -- and goes beyond just removing harm.
Sourdough, Submission, and the Algorithm: When Wellness Becomes a Gateway — How lifestyle content is quietly radicalizing our feeds—and what it says about culture, gender, and power.
Don’t let the news overwhelm you — use this tool to stay engaged — When it feels like progress isn't happening, a force field analysis can reveal where the status quo is shifting and point to other strategic leverage points.
A Social Feed Without the Rage? Meet Sez Us — David Beckemeyer talks with Yevgeny Simkin, co-founder of Sez Us —a new kind of social media app that’s not built to stoke outrage. The platform’s algorithm is designed to surface thoughtful, meaningful content—not the most toxic or divisive takes.
Debunking some myths about Tangle (and me). — Tangle exists to deliver political news that can be trusted by the left, right, and center all at once. And to give people of all stripes a more accurate image of their world than they can get elsewhere.
Can recognizing and reducing bias in news help with polarization? with Vanessa Otero — Vanessa Otero is the creator of a popular and well respected media bias chart that ranks the bias of many news outlets. Here she talks about the morass of media bias and how to tell what is and what isn't.
The news is polarizing us. Can Tangle News help? — A talk with journalist Isaac Saul, founder of Tangle News (readtangle.com), which shares takes on current events from across the political spectrum.
Isaac Saul: Doing Journalism That's Trusted by Both Sides [Podcast] - BCB # 56 — An interview with the man who is trying to do what many consider to be impossible -- build a widely trusted news source (one that doesn't just preach to the choir).
Conversation on The Social Dilemma - Part 1 — What is your relationship with social media? Do you love it? Do you hate it? Do you avoid it? What if there are good reasons to love it, hate it, and avoid it - all at once?
Faces of X || Capitalism, Gender, Race, & Abortion — A series from Synthesis Media showing opposing points of view on hot-button topics, and how they may not be so opposing after all.
Beyond the Broadcasting Model — Today's communications landscape demands that social sector organizations move away from a 20th-century broadcasting approach and toward dialogue, relationship-building, and fostering community.
News Literacy in America — A survey of teen information attitudes, habits and skills on media and the news finds that teens want more media literacy instruction, and more than half of those surveyed believe the press does more to harm democracy than protect it.
Can We Trust Tech Giants to Rebuild Society? — David Beckemeyer examines the dreams of Elon Musk and Peter Thiel on how they want to reshape society. Beckemeyer argues that they seek a "digital, decentralized world where institutions like government and law are relics of the past."
Announcing Version 10 of the AllSides Media Bias Chart! — Featuring six new sources and strengthened ratings for 10 outlets ahead of the 2024 presidential election
The Breaking News Consumer's Handbook — A guide on how to interpret "breaking news" -- what to believe; what not, and how to find out.
AllSides Bias Checker™ — The AllSides Bias Checker provides instant bias ratings and analysis for any news article, based on AllSides' patented bias rating system.
Fix the News — Fix The News is an independent, subscriber-supported publication that reports good news from around the world, read by 55,000 people from 195 countries.
Strategies for Improving the Global Information Environment: Results from a Systematic Review and Meta-Analysis — This IPIE Summary for Policymakers presents the main findings of two IPIE Synthesis Reports that examine countermeasures to misinformation on social media platforms.
The International Panel on the Information Environment (IPIE) — The International Panel on the Information Environment (IPIE) is an independent global organization dedicated to providing actionable scientific knowledge on threats to our information landscape.
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System Thinking Strategies

The Rondine Method — A blog post from our friend Chip Hauss about innovative ways we can all copy this deep Italian approach to conflict resolution and apply it in our own lives.
The Case for Expanding the Landscape of Democracy Work — A long-term, holistic vision of how democracy could evolve in the US and the role that Organizers could play in that work.
Co-Intelligence Institute — The Institute develops innovations in individual and collective wisdom, choice-making, and co-creativity, developing tools that help people and communities design effective self-governance systems.
The Networks Festival — The Fito Network's "Network Festival" seeks to bring together (online and in person) 1000s of people from other networks to deepen understanding of how we leverage relationships to transform the world.
How to Save Democracy — From The Atlantic, a report on a massive, crowd-sourced effort to find and then test mass audience-based strategies for diffusing our hyper-polarized politics
The U.S. is Heading Toward a Second Civil War. Here Is How We Avoid It — From Peter Coleman, a colleague with a long history of research into the problems posed by complexity and intractability, thoughts about how to escape our current predicament.
Failing Productively in Systems Change: Key Mindsets and Practices — How do we embrace failure as an inevitable part of the work of shifting complex systems?
Applying Regenerative Practice to Systems Beyond Place -- Some Thoughts — Applying the prinicples of living (biological) systems to social systems to help address threats and redesign those systems to thrive.
The Consilience Project — A project exploring how our social systems and institutions need to be redesigned if free, open, non-authoritarian societies are to survive.
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Multi-Faceted Projects

Polarization and Social Change Lab — Our work is focused on developing practical scientific knowledge in three main areas: paths to political consensus, reducing harms of polarization, and effective strategies of social activism.
YOUnify — YOUnify is a nonprofit project which works to (1) reduce polarization and cultural division by uniting people from business, philanthropy, impact investing, non-profits, government, inter-faith, arts , media, and grassroots organizations working to problem solve together.
The Horizons Project — The Horizons Project recognizes the urgency for a social movement to protect democracy to come together now in the United States. Our vision, mission and values represent our deep commitment to systems-level organizing with the existing ecosystem of social change: i.e., all those working for change with different priorities and from different vantage points across the ideological spectrum.
CivXNow — A national cross-partisan coalition of over 260 organizations focused on improving our nation's K-12 in and out-of-school civic education.
Civics Renewal Network — The Civics Renewal Network is an alliance of 37 nonprofit, nonpartisan organizations that provide free online classroom resources for civics education.
More in Common — More in Common works on both short and longer term initiatives to understand and address the underlying drivers of fracturing and polarization, and build more united, resilient and inclusive societies.
Civic Health Projects -- Short, simple interventions can reduce partisan animosity (yay)! So, what comes next? — Ninety ideas for correcting inaccurate stereotypes, appealing to common identities, role modeling, strengthening political leadership, highlighting the threat, modifying social media, etc.
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Overcoming Hate-Mongering Efforts

Building Resilience Against Violent Extremism in Schools (2022-2023) USA — BRAVE Schools, a project of the Karuna Center, works in partnership with middle and high schools in Western Massachusetts to proactively engage students and staff in preventing violence and strengthening resilience.
India Eyes a New Identity — The government's preoccupation with "Bharat" caps a nativist surge under Modi. Can a country that is bogged down in battling its past ever truly hope to win a better future?
How to Encourage Civility From Politicians? Give Them a Score — The Dignity Index encourages everyone, politicians and others, to check their speech and consider whether it dignifies or degrades those they see as political opponents.
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Countering Misinformation

Countermeasures for Mitigating Digital Misinformation: A Systematic Review — This Synthesis Report reviews the findings from 588 peer-reviewed publications, from around the world and many disciplines, to highlight the most effective countermeasures for disinformation.
Internet Censorship 2023: A Global Map of Internet Restrictions — Interested in learning how your country compares to the rest of the world on internet censorship? Comparitek has broken down every country's online restrictions into an easy-to-read guide.
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Saving Democracy

Reluctant Truth-Tellers and Institutional Fragility — In democracies under strain, the most important truths often arrive too late, uttered hesitantly by those who should have spoken earlier.
U.S. Democratic Backsliding in Comparative Perspective — The erosion of U.S. democracy under President Donald Trump shares many features with other prominent cases of democratic backsliding. Yet a close comparative look highlights important distinctive elements of Trump’s approach.
Wisconsin Business Leaders Ensure Fair Elections — An article from the Horizons Project explaining how civic pressure, pledges, and letters helped preserve electoral trust in Wisconsin.
Understanding Democratic Erosion — An interactive conflict map illustrating the reinforcing feedback loops that drive the system of democratic erosion.
Introducing the Democracy Atlas — The introduction to a major project exploring what the world's struggling democracies can learn from one another.
Designing a Bigger “We”: Civic Studies & Civic Innovation Huddle (Aug 18, 2025) — We’re designing a bigger “We.” This Huddle shows how: start with belonging, give people simple ways to join, and tie dialogue to real work that changes local conditions or innovates new civic life.
FAQ: Deliberative Town Halls for Congress — More information from Civic Genius about their "deliberative town halls." What they are, how they work, and why they are a good idea.
Reimagining Congressional Town Halls — Civic Genius announces a first-of-its-kind deliberative town hall designed to facilitate deep discussion with a cross-section of Washington’s 9th District residents
Freedom in the World 2025: The Uphill Battle to Safeguard Rights — A report from Freedom House documenting the 19th year of declining freedom, arguing that "all those who understand the value of political rights and civil liberties must work together in the defense of democracy."
V-Dem — Varieties of Democracy (V-Dem) provides a multidimensional and disaggregated dataset that reflects the complexity of the concept of democracy, focusing on 5 dimensions: electoral, liberal, participatory, deliberative, and egalitarian dimensions.
Open Government Partnership — Open Government Partnership is an organization of reformers inside and outside of government working to transform how government serves its citizens.
Global Democracy Coalition — A multi-stakeholder solidarity network, the Global Democracy Coalition explores and seizes opportunities for collective action and influence for the global democracy agenda.
We the People — As we approach the 250th anniversary of the founding of the United States, We the People is calling on leaders to take up their power, exercise their values, and courageously build a future where all can thrive.
Can Citizens’ Assemblies Become a Permanent Process in the U.S.? — The question now is not whether citizens’ assemblies work --they do -- but whether the United States, with its deep-seated political traditions and institutional inertia, can adopt them meaningfully and at scale.
Endorse the Fair Representation Act — The Fair Representation Act seeks to reduce gerrymandering by implementing ranked choice voiting, multi-winner congressional distructs and uniform rules for congressional redistricting.
How Do We Rebuild Institutions That Serve Citizens? — From Common Sense, description of one important aspect of their 52 point plan for renewing democracy.
Why Even the “Losers” Embraced the Outcome: What Citizens’ Assemblies Teach Us About Democratic Legitimacy — In democratic politics, every decision produces winners and losers. The critical question is: Will the losing side accept the outcome? This concept, known as losers’ consent, is foundational to democratic legitimacy.
RealTime DemTrends — A new substack trying to assess what's REALLY going on with US democracy based on measurements of 39 factors across 13 key dimensions of US Democratic health.
People Say Democracy Isn’t Working — An article in the "Journal of Democracy" showing that people around the world think democracy isn't working as it should, but there seems to be little interest in fixing it. Why? Joel Day asks.
People Power #3: Ostbelgien’s Permanent Citizens’ Council — A New Pillar of Democracy — A story from Just Citizens about a citizens' council established in 2019 in Belgium. Randomly selected citizens are integrated into the legislative process, with agenda-setting powers and a structured platform to influence policy decisions.
Diagnosing and Treating a Withering Democracy — An editorial from Doug Linkhart, President of the National Civic League, about our current predicament and how to address it.
How Do We Resist Trump — A podcast with directors of the Indivisible Project, State Demoracy Defenders Action, and the Horizons Project.
Epistemic Secession: Can Democracy Survive Without a Shared Reality? — When Americans no longer agree on who to trust or what counts as truth, democracy itself is at risk. Rebuilding a shared foundation of facts may be our only path forward.
Principles for Trusted Elections — The Principles for Trusted Elections is a cross-partisan national program helping to restore voters’ confidence along six dimensions: honest process, nonviolent campaigning, secure voting, responsible oversight, and trusted outcomes.
Can democracy take us into the future? — A podcast with Suzette Brooks, a political strategist and Senior Fellow at the Democracy Funders Network, exploring her research on ways to invigorate democratic practice, including citizens’ assemblies and participatory budgeting.
What is democracy, anyway? — To explain the threat, focus on the *why* not the *what*
The Democracy Index - May 23, 2025 edition — An examination of some of the ways Donald Trump is increasingly becoming an autocrat, unbounded by any sense of decency, empathy, or rule of law.
Is Gen Z Giving Up on Democracy? — Is Gen Z really giving up on democracy? Not quite. Rabhya Mehrotra, writes about More in Common's surprising findings – and what they mean for democracy advocates.
Hit Refresh on the U.S. Constitution: A Revolutionary Roadmap for Fulfilling the Promise of Democracy — Our Constitution, while brilliant in its time, is nearly 250 years old. In a new book by Paul Zeitz of #unifyUSA, Zeitz lays out how he thinks we can peacefully and inclusively rewrite the "code" of our democracy—so it truly works for everyone.
From Resistance to Resilience: A Guide for Organizing Civil Society Field Hearings — HOLD til MAY 4!!!This guide provides a practical approach to addressing concerns about presidential overreach by using Civil Society [Congressional] Field Hearings to harness shared intelligence with democratic participation, strengthen oversight, and create a public record that holds elected leaders accountable.
Path Forward: Defining The Democracy Reform Movement, Julia Roig — Julia talks about the Democracy Reform Movement on the Fulcrum's new Podcast series.
Modernizing Congress with Lorelei Kelly — Lorelei Kelly joins The Great Battlefield podcast to talk about her career in working to build a more informed and responsive democracy and founding Georgetown Democracy, Education and Service to continue working on congressional reform.
Exploring Plural Voting as a Method for Citizen Engagement — From New America, this interview is part of a series spotlighting successful stories of co-governance models across rural, urban, and tribal communities.
How You Can Protect Democracy — An article describing 29 concrete actions you can take right now to protect democracy.
Democracy Playbook 2025 — From Brookings, thoughts about how we might better protect the integrity of elections, promote the rule of law, combat corruption, and counter disinformation.
Reasons To Be Hopeful in 2025 -- BCB #131 — From our colleagues at the Better Conflict Bulletin, an essay explaining that people on the other side aren't as extreme as we think, support for violence is low, and people are investing more in healthy conflict.
Democracy Next — DemocracyNext is an international foundation working to accelerate the spread of high quality, empowered, and permanent citizens' assemblies to give everyone meaningful power to shape their communities.
The Future of our Fromer Democracy — Northern Ireland's history and politics offer a blueprint for how the US can implement a better electoral system, especially in the wake of rising polarization and political violence.
Facing Uncertainty Together: How Philanthropy Can Stand for Democracy in Challenging Times — A look at how the philanthropic sector views democracy's ongoing crisis and their role in helping to address that crisis.
Lessons from Around the World: Engaging 'Pillars of Support' to Uphold and Expand Democracy — From Maria Stephan of the Horizons Project, a review of the strategies that politicians, business leaders, religious leaders, trade unions, sports figures, and others have used to fight authoritarianism outside the U.S.
Protect Democracy — Protect Democracy is a cross-ideological nonprofit group that uses litigation, legislative and communications strategies, technology, research, and analysis to defend elections, rule of law, and fact-based debate.
Elections, Democratic Processes — A collection of resources compiled by the TRUST Network on keeping elections fair, free, and safe.
What Worries You About the Other Side? — A list of election planning and communication resources compiled by Nealin Parker from Common Ground USA and Kristin Hansen from the Civic Health Project to help organizations respond to election tensions more effectively.
Journal of Democracy Subject Guides — This subject guide shares reading lists covering crucial contemporary subjects. The materials listed below can serve as no-cost or low-cost reading materials in undergraduate political science courses.
Business for Democracy: A Call for Courage and Action — There is ample evidence that democracies around the world are being threatened by authoritarian populist forces, and that the best antidote to stemming this tide is broad-based, "big tent" organizing to stand up for democratic norms and freedoms.
More Polarization, More Election Distrust: Why We Must Avoid Temptations to Call Elections "Rigged" — Starts with Us argues that we must see that when we call elections "illegitimate" without very strong reasons, we hurt America.
Bipartisanship Reinvigorated — From the journal Democracy, a symposium and set of papers on top down and bottom up ways to invigorate bipartisan democracy.
Democracy Resource Hub — The Hub offers curated tools and connections for democracy practitioners worldwide. Access resources on civic engagement, nonviolent action, peacebuilding, and strategic planning, and joining the global community of dialogue practitioners.
Civilization Works — Civilization Works is a research organization that is defending the pillars of civilization: Free Speech, Cheap Energy, Meritocracy, Law and Order, Equal Justice, Free and Fair Elections, and Childhood.
Taking Democracy for Granted: Philanthropy, Polarization, and the Need for Responsible Pluralism — A new report written by Daniel Stid in which he asserts that philanthropy, as it is currently practiced, has increased polarization. He urges philanthropists to practice "responsible pluralism" instead.
Podcast: Leaning into Paradox: How We Can Block, Bridge & Build Our Democratic Future Together — An audio recording of Horizons' Julia Roig and Jarvis Williams' session at the recent Othering & Belonging Institute conference on the "block, bridge, and build" strategy.
Harnessing our Power to End Political Violence: 2024 Guide — A guide for communities across the United States to organize to counter political violence. The guide is about taking action "because individuals and communities must organize in order to bring about a better democracy and country."
Could Changing how we Vote Make us Less Polarized? --- BCB #105 — An article on "fusion voting." Under this system, third party-nominated candidates won't just appear on the ballot under the new party, but also as either a Democrat or a Republican. The hope is this will encourage multi-party dialogue.
Does deliberative democracy stand a chance in neoliberal times? — This video is part 4 of a 10-part conversation series on 10 Big Questions on Deliberative Democracy convened by at the University of Canberra.
The American experiment -- a democratic republic -- is worth defending — Seth David Radwell argues that we need a deep appreciation for why our democratic republic, with all its historical chapters of tragic injustice, and present day flaws and warts, is still the best example of self-government in our planet's recorded history.
Democracy is US — A nonpartisan nonprofit, dedicated to transforming democracy into a system that genuinely serves all citizens by fostering enlivening conversations, actions, and events that empower and inspire citizens to preserve and vitalize democracy.
Reclaiming Our Democracy' book urges advocacy beyond hashtags and petitions — Sam Daley-Harris talks about how everyday people can take democracy back into their own hands.
Generate Democracy! — An open LinkedIn Group for the Intermovement Impact Project, an effort to build a "movement of many movements," all working to strengthen U.S. democracy in myriad ways.
Democracy Lighthouse — From the Toda Peace Institute, a new web portal designed to make it easier to find information about the world's "massively parallel" array of efforts to strengthen democracy.
Narendra Modi's War on Civil Society on the Cusp — As India undergoes an existential election for its democracy and future, the fate of its civil society hangs in balance. Thousands of NGOs have already wilted in the populist heat, and worse is expected if Modi wins again.
Change the System — Many Americans agree, our political system is broken. Join forces with those working towards a more perfect American democratic system.
Democratic Erosion Consortium. — The Consortium is a collaboration between academics, students, policymakers, and practitioners that aims to help illuminate and combat threats to democracy both in the US and abroad.
OECD's Anti-corruption and Integrity Hub — The Organization for Economic Cooperation and Development's overarching objectives of its anti-corruption and integrity (ACI) work is to support trustworthy institutions and open, efficient and inclusive markets.
Utah opponents made a campaign ad together. Here's what it achieved — During the 2020 campaign season, Utah's Democratic and Republican candidates for governor took the unusual step of recording an ad together. Two years later, researchers found it had an effect on those who saw it.
Perceptions of Democracy — People across the globe lack confidence in political institutions and are dissatisfied with their governments. Citizens generally are more skeptical, however, than are experts.
Reformation Series -- Cover Down: A Conversation with Dr. Richard Barton -- Unite America — A discussion about non-partisan primaries and the benefits they bring to real world issues and the lives of citizens.
The 22nd Century Initiative — The new website of a movement to "forge a people-powered democracy in this century and the next" with a growing "resource hub."
Enduring Hope: Democratic Resilience in Asia — The March 2024 (Vol 19. No. 1) Issue of Global Asia from the East Asia Foundation
Uncommon and nonpartisan: Antidemocratic attitudes in the American public — While American political elites increasingly exhibit an antidemocratic posture, both Democratic and Republican constituencies overwhelmingly and consistently oppose norm violations and partisan violence.
Federation for Innovation in Democracy: Europe — FIDE teaches people how to design and run citizen assemblies on various topics at the local level. While starting in Europe, there is now a FIDE in North America as well (fide.eu/north-america).
How We Could Lose Our Democracy — We prepare for disasters by understanding how they could happen.
Americans' Views on Protecting and Improving Our Democracy — Key findings from a national survey of 1,005 registered voters Conducted December 21-24, 2023, conduced by Hart Research for More Perfect.
Faces of Democracy — A campaign of election officials and poll workers to strengthen U.S. elections
What's the end game of a New Way in our politics? — Our task is to find and grow a new generation and community of leaders who seek the most good for the most people in the most expansive and gracious ways we can imagine.
NEW WAY INTERVIEW: Katherine Gehl — The business leader, innovator, thinker, do-er and reformer on what she's learned and what we need to fix America democracy.
Mapping America's Healthy Democracy Ecosystem — A webinar put out by All-America City, looking at "promising practices" for protecting democracy.
Women's Power Collaborative — The only national-level body dedicated to achieving a gender-balanced democracy by networking, strategizing, resource-sharing and helping women run for office.
Democracy 2076 — Democracy 2076 is developing a vision for a new U.S. constitution which would ensure an effective, responsive, and representative democracy.
The 2023 ABA Frank Sander Award: The House Select Committee on Modernization of Congress — Bruce Patton talks with the Co-Chairs of the Select Committee about what they did to try to make Congress more effective, and reflect on what's working and what is not.
National Endowment for Democracy — The National Endowment for Democracy (NED) is an independent, nonprofit foundation dedicated to the growth and strengthening of democratic institutions around the world.
Roles that Make Democracy Function — From the Better Conflict Bulletin, reflections on Beyond Intractability's Massively Parallel Peacebuilding roles. Thanks to BCB for highlighting these so well!
"How Scared Are You?" Mapping the Threat Environment of San Diego's Elected Officials — This report from the Kroc Institute for Peace and Justice discusses the extent of threats and harassment towards elected officials in San Diego County. San Diego is certainly not unique in this respect.
The Global State of Democracy 2023: The New Checks and Balances — A report from International IDEA observes that the global state of democray is "complex, fluid, and unequal", but that democracy has continued to contract worldwide.
Designing Resistance: Democratic Institutions and the Threat of Backsliding — This report examines democratic backsliding, detailing strategies and actions taken affecting the core institutions of democracy offers recommendations to make democracy more resilient.
Essay IX: Mapping the Healthy Democracy Ecosystem: Future of Citizenship — A series of essays exploring how democracy and citizenship are both evolving and threatened, and how people are thinking about and engaging in politics and community.
Threats to American Democracy Ahead of an Unprecedented Presidential Election - Findings from the 2023 American Values Survey — A look at the state of the country in details show widespread pessimism, fear of and acceptance of political violence and paranoia about the other side.
The Global State of Democracy Initiative — This Initiative provides evidence-based, balanced analysis and data on the state and quality of democracy for 173 countries, producing a variety of indices and an annual report.
Faith in Democracy: Mobilizing Religious Communities for Democratic Change — A robust democracy is essential to safeguard the rights and fostering the civic participation of the religious cannot be overstated. And likewise, religious communities can help strengthen democracy.
Candidate Principles for Trusted Elections — These principles put forth by Team Democracy and the Carter Center include an honest process, civil campaign, secure voting, responsible oversight, and trusted outcomes.
The Carter Center and Team Democracy Unite to Advance Candidate Principles for Trusted Elections — This strategic alliance aims to strengthen the core values of democracy and electoral integrity as defined in the Candidate Principles for Trusted Elections, a national, cross-partisan effort.
Berkeley political scientists chart a promising course to ease toxic polarization — New research co-authored at UC Berkeley details the psychological processes that demagogues exploit to erode support for democracy --- and show a way to bridge the dangerous divide.
Democratic Engagement after Two Summits for Democracy — A report summarizing lessons from the Year of Action and Second Summit, and presenting opportunities for shaping an inclusive and effective Third Summit for Democracy.
Defending and Strengthening Diverse Democracies — Report of an extensive literature review and interviews highlighting drivers of democratic regression and opportunities to strengthen democracy in Brazil, India, South Africa and the U.S.
Can We Transform Our Politics? Utah Governor Spencer Cox Addresses the Braver Angels Convention — Governor Cox talks about his new "Disagree Better" Initiative which he hopes will help revive healthy American politics because, he says "the alternative is unthinkable."
More than Red and Blue: Political Parties and American Democracy — A study done by the American Political Socience Association and Protect Democracy that outlines the challenges too and promise of political parties in the U.S. They are dangerous--but needed nevertheless.
ACTIVATING KEY PILLARS: Combatting Authoritarianism to Uphold Democracy in the United States — A description of how key institutional pillars, notably business, faith, and media, can incentivize pro-democratic behavior and discourage authoritarian behavior at the state and federal levels.
US politics isn't broken. It's fixed — Katherine Gehl says the U.S. political system is working as designed. Yet we can make it better with voting innovations that give voers more choice and incentivize politicians to work towards progress.
The Rise of a Pro-Democracy Coalition — William Kristol and Simon Rosenberg discuss how a coalition between Democrats and Never-Trumpers could form a successful coalition to help save democracy.
Team Democracy — Team Democracy's mission is to rally all Americans - and especially those who we elect to represent us - to a shared identity, and a shared commitment to democracy. They work especially on assuring safe and fair elections.
Mormon Women for Ethical Government — MWEG's mission is to inspire women of faith to be ambassadors of peace who transcend partisanship and courageously advocate for ethical government.
Rebound in Confidence: American Democracy and the 2022 Midterm Elections — A report from Bright Line Watch that found that public confidence in the American election processes improved after the November 2022 midterm elections.
Restoring the Guardrails of Democracy — This initiative brings together America's leading constitutional scholars and thought leaders of diverse perspectives to identify reforms that could preserve the institutional guardrails on which democracy depends.
The 12 Laws of Democracy and Pluralism — For those who feel that the goal of a democracy that lives up to its ideals is slipping away, an online course that asks hard questions about where we are going wrong and how we could do better.
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Civil Society

Why protecting democracy means protecting nonprofits — Threats to civil society are a threat to us all.
Shrinking Civic Space, Digital Funding, and Legitimacy in a Post-Truth Era — The shrinking of civic space, the decline in digital funding, and the erosion of legitimacy are not just abstract concerns—they are existential threats to the future of democracy.
(Part 2 of 2) Gradually and Then Suddenly: The Sixty-Year Crack-up of Federal Funding for Nonprofits — The Trump Administration has decimated longstanding patterns of federally-funded, nonprofit-delivered services. But the system's many and mounting contradictions made it a pushover.
What Americans Really Want is an Opportunity to Make a Difference — A new report from the Beacon Project explores how Americans think about hard work, opportunity, and the American Dream.
Five Steps toward a Resilient Nonprofit Sector — From the Kettering Foundation, five things nonprofits can do to weather the coming storm: don't panic, communicate proactively, don't go it alone, do a risk assessment, and "Learn the lessons of resiliance."
Civil Society in the Second Trump Administration: Reckoning with the Meaning of "Nongovernmental" — An interesting exploration of the ways in which the roles of civil society and nongovernmental actors are being transformed by the Trump administration.
A Fluorescent Moment for Civics — The CEO of iCivics, Louise Dube, reflects on last week's Civic Learning Week. Her key takeaway is that while the civic fabric of America is frayed, it remains durable. She shares evidence, and ways forward.
The Essence of The New Civic Path — Rich Hardwood has started a campaign to develop what he calls a "New Civic Path" that is an alternative to divisiveness and is much like our notion of win-win democracy -- building a society together in which we would all like to live.
Engaging Democracy: A Citizens' Assembly on Youth Homelessness — This initiative demonstrated how ordinary people can navigate complex political issues effectively, fostering constructive dialogue in contrast to the usual polarization seen in public discourse
New Civic Information Index offers crucial insight into civic health in the US — The pioneering data tool monitors the health of local information and civic ecosystems across the country. It underscores journalism as a key part of the local infrastructure necessary to enable robust, thriving communities.
How to Unite America at Scale — Colleague Peter Coleman touts the benefits of volunteering and service to build cross-partisan collaboration "at scale."
Prioritizing Service Years to Strengthen Our Civic Bonds — The Service Year Alliance's policy agenda uses service years (such as AmeriCorps service) to as part of the program to help strengthen civic bonds.
Finding Opportunity in Closing Civil Spaces — At the 9th International Conference on Shrinking Civic Space in Asia, hosted by Asia Center in Bangkok, Counterpart conducted a session on strategies for civil society organizations to use in constricted civic spaces.
Protecting civic space around the world — American Friends Service Committee (AFSC) published an interview, Protecting Civic Space Around the World, with Kerri Kennedy, Associate General Secretary for International Programs at AFSC.
Practitioner Mobilization For Democracy - Launch Event Recap — A summary of (with videos from) NCDD's launch of their Practitioner Mobilization effort, seeking to get mediators and other third parties involved in the effort to encourage constructive democratic engagement.
Bridge USA — BridgeUSA is a multi-partisan student movement that champions viewpoint diversity, responsible discourse, and a solution-oriented political culture.
Sam Daley Harris on NPR's 1A, January 22, 2024 — Sam Daley-Harris is a leader and innovator in the field of citizen advocacy. This is his talk on NPR's 1A on how ordinary citizens can get re-engaged and effective in our democratic processes.
Imagining the Robust Deliberative City: Elevating the Conversations We Need to Support Democracy — How do we elevate the conversations we need to support a healthy democracy? This is best done at the local level, where people already have relationships, local knowledge of issues, and stakes in the outcome.
The Inter-Movement Impact Project — IMIP is connecting pro-democracy leaders, reformers, & change agents, who are working to strengthen American democracy, ethical government, civic health, social cohesion, and social justice at the national, state, and local levels.
Democracy's Good News: The Role of Business in Democracy from The Democracy Group — Host Jenna Spinelle explores the intersection between business and democracy, highlighting the crucial role of business in supporting democracy through consumer trust and solving problems.
America Must Face Its Civic Crisis — Politics is no longer a space for civic inquiry, argument, and creativity, but a place where civic hope goes to die. But it's not dead yet. Everyday Americans are demonstrating how a little civic hope can ignite a chain reaction to build more.
Wicked Problems-Wise Cities - Intro video 1 — This first of 3 videos by Martin Carcasson focuses on how the wicked problems lens can help reframe public issues to transform engagement in more productive ways.
Trust for Civic Life — Trust for Civic Life pools funds from philanthropists and investing them in locally-led civic programming, bringing Americans together to solve shared problems and move our democracy forward.
PACE survey shows the path to civic unity — A report on the Civic Language Perceptions Project showing how civic language unites, divides, and motivates American voters.
Citizen Assemblies: An Interview with Marjan Ehsassi — Civic Genius interviewed Marjan Ehsassi, the founder of FIDE North America about what citizen assemblies are and how they work, and how FIDE hopes to develop them in North America.
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Civic Education

Restoring Power and Agency to the Public for Civic Studies and Renewal feat. Dr. Peter Levine, Dr. Harry Boyte — This civics podcast illustrates how the principles of George Washington's Farewell Address (patriotism, civility, faith, education, national unity, and fiscal responsibility) apply to today.
Growing Young Peacemakers: The Why and How of Youth Peace Education — Peace Catalyst hosted a conversation with U.S. peace educator Julie Lillie and Nigerian peace educator Moses Abolade on how to train young peacebuilders around the world effectively.
Rotary Peace Fellowships — Rotary International is accepting applications for the 2026-27 Rotary Peace Fellowship. Fellows can earn a master's degree or a postgraduate certificate in disciplines related to peace and development.
Civic Learning Week: Empowering the Future of Democracy, March 10-14 — Join iCivics from March 10-14 for Civic Learning Week (CLW), an annual event dedicated to highlighting the crucial role of civic education in strengthening constitutional democracy.
Civic Learning Week: March 10-14, 2025 — From the National Civic League, a nationwide initiative highlighting the critical role of civic education in sustaining and strengthening our constitutional democracy.
Action Guide for Improving Civic Health in Rhode Island — The National Civic League partnered with the Rhode Island Foundation to create this guide to improving civic health -- a guide that has much more widespread applications.
The Unify America Challenge: A Worthwhile Tool for Deliberative Pedagogy — A description of a new tool to help colleage students engage in constructive discourse. The tool promotes communication skills, encourages students to listen to diverse voices, and underscores the shared values that transcend divisive political issues.
Our Common Purpose — A report from the bipartisan Commission on the Practice of Democratic Citizenship, with 31 recommendations for strengthening U.S. democracy by reforming political institutions, investing in civil society, and transforming our political culture.
Fostering Civic Renewal and Building Bridges with Braver Angels — NCDD has consolidated the insights, ideas, and meeting notes from various individuals and groups as they recapped the 2024 Braver Angels Convention
America Must Face Its Civic Crisis — No matter who wins the U.S. election, the return of civic hope---and with it, the future of our democracy---depends on the return of the citizen: the conceptual and practical restoration of everyday Americans to the center of self-government.
Democracy 101 — A program from Citizen Connect seeking to revitalize civic education as a key to raising more knowledgeable citizens and empowering us all.
Civics, Democracy, and Civic Learning Week (With Elizabeth Clay Roy and Abbie Kaplan) — What does civics education have to do with our moment of democratic crisis? How do we create citizens with a sense of agency over society? This video discusses these issues.
Do Americans have civic role models? — New research, by More in Common and others, indicates that we have a reason to be concerned about the status of Americans' civic disposition.
Faces of Civity — Short videos in which people who have attended Civity Workshops reflect on their workshop experience, what "civity" means to them, and how they have incorporated civity in their own work.
Democracy Caravan — A non-partisan podcast presenting stories about how Americans are finding common-sense solutions to what ails our political culture which aims to share hope and resources for constructive civic participation.
Collaborative for Compassionate Civic Engagement — A team of civic professionals and educators that serves as an advisory board to the Civic Crop. CCCE also designs and administers the Civic Service Skills Workshop.
Winter 2023 Issue of the National Civic Review — With articles on addressing aging, racism, and creating thriving workplaces and communities.
National Civic League — The mission of the National Civic League is to advance civic engagement to create equitable, thriving communities. We achieve this by inspiring, supporting and recognizing inclusive approaches to community decision-making.
Educating for American Democracy (EAD) — EAD is a call to action to invest in strengthening history and civic learning in K-12, and to ensure that civic learning opportunities are delivered equitably throughout the country.
Serve America Together — A campaign to make national service part of growing up in America.
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Leadership

Nourishing Liberatory Leadership: Lessons from the John W. Mack Fellows — A cohort of 40 southern California leaders have worked together to disrupt harmful norms, leading with care, shared power, and the goal of sustainability. This website shares their reports.
When leaders fail, people... step up? — While the leadership of many institutions seems to be bowing down to Trump's autocratic demands, many of the people who work in these institutions are refusing to go quietly. It is these individuals (who we normally think of as having less power) who are doing the hard work of defending democracy.
How Young Leaders Are Helping Bridge Divides — In this episode of 12 Geniuses, Layla Zaidane, CEO of Future Caucus, discusses the important role that young leaders can play in addressing political polarization and building a brighter, less divided future.
Revitalizing Political Leadership — A special issue of the journal Democracy, examining ways in which talented and civically minded citizens can be encouraged to enter public service and presents case studies of where that has already happened to good ends.
If you care about movements, you have to care about leaders — Leadership is the single most important indicator of the likelihood of success for any movement for good or for ill.
The Leadership Lab — The Leadership Lab does "deep canvasing" work in an effort to re-engage infrequent voters to increase voting and force representatives to better reflect their constituencies' interests.
National Leadership Network — NLN is a collaboration between the 700,000+ alumni of more than 800 US Community Leadership Programs. Many operate locally, but we know -- now more than ever -- we could be stronger together.
Philanthropy Bridging Divides — This project brings together philanthropic leaders from both sides of the aisle to support bipartisan causes, and connect beyond political divides.
Leadership Now Project — This is a membership organization of business and thought leaders taking action to protect and renew American democracy by focusing on and promoting business's role in pro-democracy efforts.
Future Summit 2023: Shaping Leaders for a Unified Governance — In an era marked by political polarization and complex challenges, the annual summit plays a pivotal role in collectively shaping the trajectory of policymaking for young legislators.
Series Introduction: The Practice of Leadership in the Midst of Controversy and Conflict: — An explanation of how leaders are currently dealing with deep-rooted, highly polarized intractable conflicts--not well, of course. Can anything change that?
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Problem Assessment

Health and Democracy Index — When communities vote, they influence policy decisions that have a big effect on their health. This analysis compares 12 public health indicators and voter turnout to the restrictiveness of voting policies in each state.
Healthy Democracy, Healthy People — A new nonpartisan initiative from major public health and civic engagement groups that supports public health professionals and policymakers who are working to advance civic participation and public health.
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Reliable Problem Assessments

Detect Fakes — Detect Fakes is research project hosted at Northwestern University by researchers at the Kellogg School of Management to examine how people distinguish truth from fiction in online media, especially as synthetic media becomes more and more realistic.
National Issues Forum's Issue Guides — On policing, elections, COVID vaccines, immigration, and lots of other controversial issues.
National Issues Forum — A nonpartisan organization that promotes public deliberation about difficult public issues, publishes issue guides, and promotes collaboration throughout its large network.
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Efforts to Limit Concentrated Power

How Affective Polarization Undermines Support for Democratic Norms — When in power, political parties tend to oppose constitutional protections that they support when they are out of power -- a tendency that undermines efforts to cultivate broadly supported norms.
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Power-Sharing Strategies

Youth-Inclusive Guide to Peace Mediation — Mediation processes that include young people are more likely to generate better conflict analyses, broader national ownership, greater legitimacy, and improved prospects of more sustainable peace.
Citizens' Assemblies: Democracy that Works — A description of a new form of democracy in which a randomly selected group of citizens does an in-depth analysis of an issue, evaluates possible solutions, and then makes an informed decision.
The Two-Party System is Failing Us — A discussion between Duncan Audrey and Benjamin Life discussing why the U.S.'s two-party system doesn't work, and what might be done about that.
Unite America — Working to improve our elections to elect leaders who will really represent us.
Veterans for Political Action — A nonprofit with a mission to mobilize veterans and supporters to advocate for election innovations to make our political system less toxic and more competitive.
Star Voting — An alternative to traditional winner-take-all and ranked choice voting to give voting more meaning and to discourage extremism.
While Alaska votes, ranked-choice voting is gaining steam — From the president of FairVote, a report on efforts to help defuse hyper-polarization and promote collaborative democracy by encouraging the switch to Ranked Choice Voting (RCV).
Citizen Connect Participation Guide to the 2022 Midterm Elections — Amid the flood of deceptive efforts to influence our votes in the upcoming US election, a project focused on helping people fulfill their civic obligations through informed voting.
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Big Picture Thinking Projects

Sources of Wisdom — From the Co-Intelligence Institute's Wise Democracy Project. They suggest ways to comprehend a bigger picture -- that can help us think about how to incorporate more wisdom into our governance processes.
Collaborating Across Differences to Reduce Authoritarianism: A Literature Review — A literature review exploring the question: What are the practices that support groups that come together to collaborate across differences to reduce authoritarianism?
How to rise above partisan politics to uphold our democracy — As we celebrate the International Day of Democracy, here are seven ways to mobilize citizens across differences as partisans for democracy. An article from Julia Roig.
The Karuna Center for Peacebuilding — The Karuna Center bridges deep divides to transform violent conflict to foster reconciliation, interrupt cycles of violence, and strengthen community resilience .
Institute for Global Leadership — IGL provides training and consultation for leaders and teams to adapt to the changed dynamics of a post-9/11 world. They train reconciliation leaders with personal, interpersonal, systemic, and global competencies in business, community, institutional, national, and world environments.
Institute for Economics and Peace — The Institute for Economics and Peace aims to create a paradigm shift in the way the world thinks about peace. They do this by developing global and national indices, calculating the economic cost of violence, analyzing country level risk and fragility, and understanding positive peace.
The Carter Center — Founded in partnership with Emory University, the Carter Center has a fundamental commitment to human rights and the alleviation of human suffering. The Center seeks to prevent and resolve conflicts, enhance freedom and democracy, and improve health worldwide.
American Friends Service Committee — The American Friends Service Committee (AFSC) promotes a world free of violence, inequality, and oppression. They work with people and partners worldwide, of all faiths and backgrounds, to meet urgent community needs, challenge injustice, and build peace.
National Association of Nonpartisan Reformers (NANR) — An association dedicated to structural election reforms that advance the public's interest in robust political competition and a level playing field.
The Forward Party — The Forward Party is fighting for the American people with practical, common-sense solutions, forged by bringing people together instead of driving them apart.
Crossing the Divide — A set of videos highlighting "incredible individuals" who are pioneering new ways to connect with those on opposing sides in the world's "most intense religious, political, and societal conflicts."
National Conference on Citizenship's Civic Health Index — NCoC has created an index of civic health, while simultaneously working with local partners to strengthen the health of communities nationwide to better define and address local problems.
6 Reasons Why Liberatory Leaders Need to Take Play Seriously. — Play is valuable because it helps fuel innovation, promotes wellness, creates new models of strategic thinking, expands leadership opportunities, builds community, and invites wholeness.
The public has a role in defending and sustaining democracy — Places to start: strengthening the electoral system, encouraging the value of public service, and focusing less on identity that divides us and more on commonalities that unite.
Digital Peacebuilders Guide — An online guidebook for peacebuilders interested in using digital tools to advance their work.
Applying Regenerative Practice to Systems Beyond Place -- Some Thoughts — Describing regenerative practitioners who support change-makers by adapting principles of living systems to revive and evolve the places and the systems they are working with
Narrative Engagement Across Difference (NEAD) Project — The Horizons Project is joining forces with funders, researchers, and movement leaders to develop narrative competencies that can be used to strengthen democracies and combat rising authoritarianism.
The Horizons Project: Sharing a United Front — Social change agents need to build a united front by fosterning a shared understanding of the threat, collaborating across difference, and forming dense networks.
Organizing for collective impact: Transforming American democracy together — A second essay on ways in which a mass movement for strengthening democracy might be established.
Organizing for collective impact: The making of a mass pro-democracy movement — Provocative thoughts on a critically important (and often neglected) question, how can the many groups working to support and strengthen democracy integrate their efforts into an effective social movement?
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Peacebuilding

Measuring Our Impact — Search for Common Ground's Peace Impact Framework for understanding the impact of peacebuilding work and how to improve its effectiveness.
Alive and Whole in a World of Hurt: the below and beyond of well-being — A short essay by John Paul Lederach and colleagues at Humanity United, in which they reflect on the tensions that often exist within and between the calls for resilience, resistance, and accompaniment in peacebuilding and allied work.
The Priest and the Guerrilla Fighter — Eileen Borris talks with Fr. Leonel Narvaez who helped people in Colombia heal from the long-lasting violence. He shows how "peace doesn't begin with politics. It begins in the heart."
Healing Memories, Forging Peace — An article describing Fr. Leonel Narváez Gómez tireless work in Colombia’s peacebuilding efforts, focused on healing, hope, justice, and peace.
Summary Report - Democracy in the 21st Century: Fragility and Resilience — A report summarizing the key discussions and outcomes of the 2025 annual meeting of the Toda Peace Institute’s Global Challenges to Democracy Working Group.
Mercy Corps: The Human Toll of U.S. Foreign Aid Cuts Six Months On — An article documenting the devastating and mounting human consequences of the U.S. foreign aid cuts, with millions of people around the world cut off from food, water, shelter, health care, and other life-saving support.
Briefing Paper : Health, Peace and Security Nexus — The Civil Society Platform for Peacebuilding and Statebuilding (CSPPS) published a briefing paper that examines how peace, conflict, and health are interlinked.
Reconceptualizing Atrocity Prevention — A policy brief that introduces a new framework for understanding atrocity prevention focusing on three non-mutually exclusive approaches: proactive, responsive, and redressive.
Shadow Report to Congress on Section 5 of the Elie Wiesel Genocide and Atrocities Prevention Act of 2018 (P.L. 115-441) [as amended] — A report to Congress on US atrocity prevention work, written by experts who were fired by the Trump administration's "Reduction in Force."
Global Governance Innovation Report 2025 — The Stimson Center published a report that provides the first progress review on the Pact for the Future, offering pathways for implementing its 56 Actions, the Global Digital Compact, and the Declaration on Future Generations.
Peace & Conflict Statistics — A new service from the Alliance for Peacebulding, this is a "a go-to resource for peace and conflict-related statistics for use by the peacebuilding community."
Democracy Lighthouse — The Lighthouse is a new research and publications platform for all those interested in addressing global threats to democracy.
Briefing Paper - Digitalization, Peace and Security Nexus — This paper outlines the opportunities and risks digital tools present, particularly in fragile contexts, and demonstrates how CSOs are navigating this evolving nexus.
Global Peace Index 2025 — The GPI ranks 163 independent states and territories using 23 qualitative and quantitative indicators to surface key trends in peace, ascertain its economic value, and identify prospects for the development of sustainable peaceful societies.
The Council on Technology and Social Cohesion's Expo 2025 — Videos from the Council's US summer meeting showcased innovations from the Council's six thematic hubs: prosocial tech policy and design, dignital peacebuilding, deliberative tech, conflict prevent, and LLMs and AI agents.
The Choice Is Still Clear: Renewing the UN Charter at 80 — The text pf a speech delivered on 26 June 2025 to mark the 80th anniversary of the signing of the Charter of the United Nations. It calls for a reaffirmation of the charters' founding principles: peace, dignity, and international cooperation.
Insights Research Partners — EIRP is a group of professionals who work on advancing evidence and learning in the international democracy and development sector. In 2025, they started this collective to support their peers in the face of the termination of USAID funding.
How to Stop a Civil War — A podcast with John Paul Lederach on America's dangerous polarization and the rising risk of political violence. Lederach shares lessons from global conflict resolution to show how we might prevent civil war here.
Alliance for Peacebuilding 2024 Annual Report — This report outlines what the Alliance has done in this past year and is working toward in 2025 and beyond.
With the Peacebuilding Field Under Attack, Risks Abound – But Also Opportunities — Decreasing budgets for peacebuilding across the Global North are forcing a rethinking of the field. Experts say that the dramatic cuts present significant risks, but also offer a window of opportunity for the field to become more efficient and sustainable.
Threads of Peace: Leadership and Conflict Resolution in Nested Negotiation Networks — This article analyzes the intricate dynamics of protracted, asymmetric, and ethnonational (PAE) conflicts across continents, spanning the period from 1960 to 2021.
Triangulating Peace: How Adversaries Build Sustainable Peace through Negotiated Settlements — This article pulls in twelve case examples to show how peace negotiations can be started, successfully concluded, and implemented.
Why It Worked: Redefining “Success” in Conflict Resolution and Peace Negotiations — A special issue of the Negotiation Journal based on a 2-year research project examining why and how peacebuilding can succeed even in the most intractable conflicts.
Pope Francis’s remarkable peacemaking life — As Francis demonstrated, there's no better way to live life than to practice, teach and promote nonviolence.
Threads of Resilience: A Tale of Unity Across Genocides — A survivor of the Bosnia genocide visited the Rwandan genocide memorial and wrote about the resilience of both peoples in the wake of those tragedies.
In the Footsteps of Peacebuilders: Reflections from Montgomery & Selma — Members of the Euphrates Institute met in Montgomery and Selma, Alabama for their in-person meeting and took a journey through the historical landmarks of the Civil Rights Movement, reflecting on what is being asked of us today.
Transformation Futures — In this report, CDA, Peace Direct, and Search for Common Ground share the various transformative outcomes that they have seen through supporting transition processes over the past eight years of collaborative learning and applied research.
AfP Calls on the U.S. to Robustly Support Conflict Prevention and Peacebuilding Programs and Not Shut Down the U.S. Institute of Peace — The Alliance for Peace's statement about Trump and DOGE's actions against the United States Institute of Peace.
A Nuanced Conversation About USAID — This podcast from Making Peace Visible explores the successes and failures of USAID over the last 20 years.
How to Show Up When Your Work Is Under Attack — How can the social sector show up at this moment when it is under such grave attack? Own your work and your success. Speak plainly about the stakes. Bring people in.
Conflict Tipping Podcast 41: Creating Spaces for Transformation with Prabha Sankaranarayan — An interview with Prabha Sankaranarayan, president and CEO of Mediators Beyond Borders International, on her career, including discussion of societal conflict in the United States.
What Happens When Peace Programs Shut Down? — A Search for Common Ground Emergency Town Hall to explain about the impact of the U.S. foreign aid freeze and what it means for communities worldwide.
A Rwandan Lesson to Americans in Reconciliation, Forgiveness, and Community — What is most inspiring about Rwanda's strong cultural values are the ways that they've positively shaped the country's post-genocide reconstruction and reconciliation process.
Great Hatred and Little Room: Building Peace in Northern Ireland — Insights from two individuals who came of age in the deeply segregated Ireland during the "troubles." Like Americans today, they had to learn how to live together despite deep distrust.
What Does Peacebuilding Achieve — n December, the Karuna Center for Peacebuilding held an event on how peace is built at the international level, featuring AfP's Executive Director, Liz Hume.
Measuring Peace: How the Peacebuilding Field Can Enable and Evaluate Effective Interreligious Dialogue — The goal of the initiative was to gather and assess the evidence about the effectiveness of interreligious dialogue (IRD) as a peacebuilding approach, and to promote monitoring, evaluation, and learning.
Making Peacebuilding a First-Order Issue: Learning From the Past and Applying it to the Future — We know peacebuilding is the answer to conflict---so why do we, as a field, have such a hard time making that case to funders, policymakers, and the public? Liz Hume talks with John Marks.
Got Conflict? Let's Talk Peacebuilding! Podcast — Two new episodes discuss what is driving record-breaking global violent conflict, and more importantly, what we can do to prevent and reduce violent conflict and build sustainable peace.
Understanding Peace Agreements: A Journey Through Words and Impact — Conflict Transformation, Peacebuilding and Security explores the layers of peace agreements, exploring their language, intent, and the challenges of implementation.
In conversation: The essential role of women in peacebuilding — From Conciliation Resources, a video with Rosa Emilia Salamanca, Executive Director of the Corporación de Investigación y Acción Social y Económica (CIASE) in Colombia about the role of women in peacebuilding.
Great Hatred and Little Room: Building Peace in Northern Ireland — A podcast from Beyond Conflict, about deeply segregated societies where politics are personal and violence is intimate. Like Americans today, the guests and their communities had to navigate living together in an atmosphere of deep mistrust.
International Center for Religion and Diplomacy (ICRD) — Established in 1998 by Dr. Douglas Johnston, the International Center for Religion and Diplomacy (ICRD) was founded to bridge religious considerations with global peacebuilding policy and practice.
From Ashes to Empathy: Navigating the Path to Peace in a World Divided by Conflict — From the International Center for Religion & Diplomacy, a blog arguing religious peacemakers can be vital agents of change.
PeaceCon 2024 Videos — These 38 videos show some of the more interesting and important sessions from this year's meeting of the Alliance for Peacebuilding.
Introducing the Peace Impact Calculator: A Comprehensive Tool for Measuring Social Impact — A tool developed as a complement to the Peace Impact Framework provides a way for organizations and individuals to assess and report outcomes of their projects in a structured and accessible manner.
How Do We Get Through This? | Episode 2: Great Hatred and Little Room: Building Peace in Northern Ireland — A second podcast from Beyond Conflict, this one looks at what the U.S. can learn from the Northern Ireland peace process.
USIP Newsletters — The United States Institute for Peace sends out weekly and monthly newsletters about it work, important events and resources from their education department. Sign up here.
How Do We Get Through This? A New Podcast Mini-Series — A three-part podcast mini-series showcases leaders from South Africa and Northern Ireland sharing lessons they learned when all hope seemed lost.
ICAN: International Civil Society Action Network — ICAN forcuses on women's rights, peace, and security, promoting inclusive and sustainable peace globally. It connects women peacebuilders across countries to break their isolation and learn from each other's experiences.
The State of Civil Society Peacebuilding between Israelis and Palestinians — An astonishing report with detailed data showing that civil society peacebuilding is thriving in Israel, even during the war.
PeaceCon 2024 and Beyond — A report on the Alliance for Peacebuilding's annual PeaceCon conference and, especially, efforts to focus the Alliance's expertise in the US.
Practitioner Mobilization For Democracy — A gateway for conflict practitioners to more effectively engage in the pro-democracy movement. It's about turning your skills into action, providing clear pathways for participation, and fostering a community of practice where we all learn and grow together.
We are Peacemakers: A Fellowship for Evangelical Leaders — The Fellowship seeks to create a more unified Church that is more resilient to toxic forms of division and ready to lead peacemaking efforts in their community and beyond.
Toda Peace Institute Global Outlook - June 20.2024 — Global Outlook articles from Toda Peace Institute's expert commentators focus on significant developments in treaties and agreements, geopolitical relationships and international legal decisions.
Peace and Security Funders Group — The Peace and Security Funders Group connects and supports the global community of funders advancing peace and security efforts in order to build a more peaceful, just, and equitable world.
Global Fragility Act Coalition — A coalition of 100 peacebuilding, development, humanitarian, and faith organizations, led by the Alliance for Peacebuilding and Mercy Corp to help the U.S. administration to successfully implement the GFA.
Toda Peace Institute's Global Outlook: March 2024 — This issue has articles on the Korean Peninsula, New Zealand's landmark decision on climate, COP 28, and the most worrying international conflicts.
An End-of-Year Letter from AFP's Executive Director, Liz Hume — This letter contains an impressive list of all of AfP's activities over the last year with many links for more details about each of them.
Peacebuilding Starts at Home — A new Alliance for Peacebuilding initiative intended to educate and raise awareness about the drivers of instability and conflict in the U.S. and responses to that.
Religion and Peace building: Lessons from Africa — The Catholic Church has played a prominent role in promoting human rights, sustainable development, good governance, and peace Africa. Cardinal John Onaiyekan reflects on this work.
Women Peace and Security Index — This index put together by Georgetown University scores and ranks 177 countries in terms of women's inclusion, justice, and security.
Parents of the Field: Betty Reardon — Betty Reardon was one of the founding parents of the conflict resolution field. We were saddened to learn of her passing this week, and wanted to share this video that is making the rounds of our email feeds. Hats off to Betty!
Deep Healing and Emotional Expression: Political Forgiveness as a Unique Peacebuilding Process — A political forgiveness process is uniquely different than other peacebuilding measures --- it provides a healing mechanism to deal with the emotional undertow that keeps a conflict alive.
Revisiting the pillars of peacebuilding: understanding the Lederach gaps in conflict transformation — Despite advancements in conflict transformation and peacebuilding, significant gaps remain. Addressing these is imperative for realizing a positive, sustainable, and just peace that goes beyond just a simple ceasefire and the absence of violence.
U.S. Peacebuilding Digest — A compilation of recent statements, activities, analyses, on more on 16 different topics related to U.S. peacebuilding.
What is Peacebuilding — The Alliance for Peacebuilding's new "story map" that explains what peacebuilding is and how it is done in words everyone can understand.
Catholic Peacebuilding in Times of Crisis — Vol. 12:2 of the Journal of Moral Theology featuring original articles coming out of the the Catholoic Peacebuilding Network's summer 2022 conference .
Digital Peacebuiling — A description of an "open community of practice" to advance the analysis and response to online conflict dynamics and harnessing digital tools to further peacebuilding success.
A Pivot To Prevention: How The 118th Congress Can Prevent Violent Conflict & Build Peace Globally — A briefing book for the U.S. Congress (and interested others) on what Congress can do to further peace in 2023.
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Non-Violence

There is Another Way — Award-Winning Documentary That Demonstrates the Power of Choosing Nonviolence - a film documenting peacebuilders in Israel and Palestine, to be live streamed across the world on June 12.
Protests, political violence and its alternatives with Erica Chenoweth: podcast and transcript — Erica Chenoweth, a political scientist at Harvard, discusses historical and contemporary strategies for protesting, democratic backsliding, global comparisons and more.
The Faithful Fight: Practicing noncooperation and civil disobedience — As part of movements for freedom, justice, and democracy, faith leaders and communities have turned to nonviolent action, writes Stephen Green and Maria Stephan.
Understanding and Countering Agent Provocateurs in Nonviolent Movements — Provocateurs pose one of the biggest threats to nonviolent protest movements. This article explores strategies for preventing them from infiltrating and then discrediting a movement with provocative and indefensible actions.
The power and pitfalls of protest: how to speak out without falling victim to Trump’s playbook — For those contemplating protest-based strategies for challenging Trump administration policies, an important review of what separates successful from unsuccessful campaigns.
Don’t believe the doubters: protest still has power — Genuinely useful information about how to distinguish effective from ineffective protest strategies.
Pro-Democracy Movement Playbook — Scot Nakagawa shares his thoughts on how the progressive pro-democracy movement can seize the moment to build lasting power. The key is not just resisting, but advancing a positive, durable vision of democracy.
The creative playbook behind Turkey’s mass protests — The arrest of Istanbul’s mayor has sparked a carnivalesque movement against Turkey’s authoritarian turn, showing how satire can transform fear into hope.
Using Our Power - Nonviolence & Noncooperation In History & Today — Horizon's Project Maria Stephan's recent presentation to the Franciscan Action Network about how nonviolence and non-cooperation has been used in the past to resist authoritarianism, and how it can be used now.
Baseline Study for the NEST Project — Nonviolent Peaceforce is carrying out a survey to set a baseline on the current policy and programming practices for Unarmed Civilian Protection and other forms of direct protection from violence.
The Nature of Our Power: A Conversation with Political Scientist Erica Chenoweth — Institutions really can't save us; civil society and mass mobilization are a more potent check on backsliding democracy in the long term. rather than relying on institutional checks and balances alone.
Can nonviolent struggle defeat a dictator? This database emphatically says yes — The Global Nonviolent Action Database details some 40 cases of mass movements overcoming tyrants through strategic nonviolent campaigns.
A Winning Strategy: Defending Democracy with Civil Resistance, with Maria Stephan — Maria Stephan discusses the historic success of protest and non-violent civil disobedience in protecting democracy and describes how it might be used now to combat authoritarianism and polical violence.
Violent Conflict is Destructive. Nonviolent Conflict is Essential — The entire field of nonviolent conflict exists to help people make their point without firing a gun.
The Science of Violent vs. Non-Violent Resistance — Addressing calls for violent resistance to Israel and Jews on his campus, Peter Coleman points to research by Maria Stephan and Erica Chenoweth that show that nonviolence is about twice as likely to succeed as violence.
Protection and Resilience Strategies for Nonviolent Activists — From the Center for Applied Nonviolent Action and Strategies, a report on the nature of threats nonviolent activists face, and how they can be resisted or mitigated.
We all want a nonviolent world. — From Waging Nonviolence, an announcement about Campaign Nonviolence Action Days from Sept. 21-Oct. 2 to mobilize for a culture of active nonviolence, free from war, poverty, racism and environmental destruction.
Albert Einstein Institution's 198 Methods of Nonviolent Action List — Gene Sharp's list of all the ways people can engage in conflict nonviolently, which results that are usually better than what might be obtained through violence.
Nonviolence News — Each week, Nonviolence News brings 30-50 stories of "nonviolence in action" to readers, illuminating the scale and scope of how nonviolence is actively shaping our world.
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Political Moderates

Project 2025: A cross-partisan approach — The start of a month-long series of articles examining each policy area of Project 2025 with a cross-partisan lens.
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Understanding The Issues That Divide Us

Polarization, Democracy, and Political Violence in the United States: What the Research Says — From Rachel Kleinfeld and the Carnegie Endowment for International Peace, an extensive, must-read analysis of the origins of the United States' ongoing political difficulties.
"Woke" is a Perfectly Meaningful Word - Better Conflict Bulletin #43 — An examination of what the term means, how it is used, and how it is used as an excuse--by both progressives and conservatives to avoid talking about real issues.
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Left / Right Conflict

Our favorite findings from 2024 — At More in Common, we aim to provide Americans with new ways of thinking about our politics. Here are some of MiC's favorite findings from the past year.
Biden said he wanted to bring Americans together --- why didn't he? — An op-ed on Biden's polarizing approaches, and what we can learn from that
Not Just Bigotry, not Just Economics: Why Rural Voters Are Red -- BCB #107 — Rural residents have strong feelings of attachment, pride and loyalty to their homes. When urbanites disparage their beloved communities, they get mad, which then creates a positive feedback cycle of anger and resentment.
You'll Never Guess Where Red and Blue Agree --- BCB #106 — Another reminder that Red and Blue don't disagree as much as we think
Can Texas Create Its Own Immigration Policy? — Texas' Senate Bill 4 would make unlawful entry into Texas a state crime, empowering state troopers and cops to arrest individuals suspected of crossing the border illegally and giving state judges the power to issue deportations.
What is the Building Civic Bridges Act and Why Support it? — A set of essays from conflict resolvers, advocates, a retired four-star general, an educator, a business leader, and others about why the Building Civic Briedges Act is so important.
The Flip Side on the Durham Report — A presentation of views from the Left and the Right about the Durham Report on FBI and other law enforcement investigations of the Trump and Clinton Presidential campaigns.
Finding Common Ground on Election Reform — Free and fair elections are at the cornerstone of our democracy, yet many Americans feel disenfranchised about their ability to cast a ballot. Can we reach agreement on how to fix that?
Civility, civil disobedience or something in between — When does civility become compliance and when does activism that might further divide serve a tactical function that outweighs a more passive approach? A bridge-builder considers this question.
Bridging divides in the workplace — Many companies are witnessing how contentious social and political issues create workplace conflict and reduce productivity. A look at how businesses can help repair America's social fabric --- both in and out of the workplace.
Two Stories of Distrust In America — Fewer than 1/4 of Americans believe the federal government, American corporations, and national media to be honest. Why?
Trust in SCOTUS in the wake of Roe v. Wade — 80% of Americans think the Supreme Court should be independent from politics. Before Dobbs, 39% thought it actually was; after Dobbs that number was down to 24%.
Toxic Polarization: What's the Left Got to Do With It? — An AFP panel looking at how the Left contributes to toxic polarization with Erica Etelson, author of Beyond Contempt with Debilyn Molineaux from the Bridge Alliance, and Steve House with Braver Angels.
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Race / Anti-Racism

Let's have an authentic racial reckoning. — From Tangle, an organization devoted to helping us see both sides of the story, thoughts about how we might have the genuinely healing "racial reckoning."
The Pluralist's Paradox — A controversial and thought-provoking argument that the more you empower minorities, the weaker they become.
Illustrations of Civil Rights Peacemaking & Conflict Resolution — The Divided Community Project in collaboration with Stanford Law School and NAFCM is hosting a webinar on Feb. 26 illustrating effective civil rights peacemaking and conflict resolution strategies .
Dr. King's Call to Justice: A Universal Beacon in Troubled Times — January 20, 2025 was the day President Trump was inaugurated as President in the U.S. and it was also the day we celebrated the life and ideas of Martin Luther King. This coincidence invites a reflection on King's enduring ideas.
Martin Luther King, Conservative? — A podcast highlighting the many ways in which conservatives agree with the teachings of Martin Luther King -- could this be a basis for imagining a way out of our deep divisions?
Bridging America's Political and Racial Divides — Peter Coleman shared several key findings from six studies that can help mobilize citizens to heal growing divisions.
Martin Luther King Jr. and the American Political Tradition — From Daniel Stid, thoughtful reflections on Martin Luther King's wisdom on the occasion of Donald Trump's inauguration.
Historical Monuments: To Remove or Not to Remove — Renaming or removing a namesake does not change the past, it only prevents us from educating future generations.
Can Multiracial Democracy Survive? — An article by Horizon's "Chief Organizer" Maria Stephan on the relationship between democracy, autocracy, white supremacy, and racism.
Horizons' Race and Democracy Resources — An essay on why racial justice and democracy must be pursued hand-in-hand and resources discussing how to do that.
The Horizon's Project New Race and Democracy Portolio — Julia Roig and Jarvis Williams' new focus on race and democracy and their goal of supporting partners to break down siloes to place racial equity and racial healing at the center of our pro-democracy organizing.
Civil Rights: A Most Righteous Hangover — Ashok Panikkar's reflections on how we took away the wrong lessons from US Civil Rights Movement, which has now contributed to the weakening of minority rights and Western democracies over the last few decades.
Rethinking Systems Design for Racial Justice & Equity — Recordings of a Spring 2022 symposium held by the Ohio State Journal on Dispute Resolution and the Divided Community Project, with the Harvard Negotiation Program, and the Stanford Center for Conflict Resolution
A Practical Guide to Planning Collaborative Initiatives to Advance Racial Equity — Ideas and illustrations on ways to help people understand the history of current racial harms, advancing racial equity, and starting healing based on actual programs at the local and state levels.
Bridging Divides & Cultivating Solidarity to Counter Strategic Racism, with Ian Haney López — A podcast exploring how engaging across our racial and class divides and cultivating solidarity can help bring us together to care for and nurture our democracy.
Five Calls-to Action from the 2022 Facing Race Conference — Calls included: 1) don't be afraid of backlash--it means we're winning. 2) reconnect, 3) expose white nationalism for the threat it is, 4) Stop internal implosions, and 5) Look and move forward.
More In Common Report: Dr. Martin Luther King Jr. Highly Regarded as a "Leader, Brave, and Activist" — Presenting a survey showing that Americans' views of MLK Day" found most Americans value and respect Dr. King and they think that racial equality has improved since the 1960's.
Dismantling Structural Racism and Injustice — An AfP webinar discussing the ways structural racism contributes to the current state of affairs in our country and how we can move toward justice, peace, and reconciliation.
The Counterweight Conference on Liberal Approaches to Diversity and Inclusion — An announcement of an upcoming online conference that tries to do more than criticize existing diversity equity and inclusion programs, it tries to offer a less divisive and more unifying alternative.
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Family / Gender / LBGTQ+

Polarization and Extremism Research and Innovation Lab (PERIL)'s Gendered Violence Division — PERIL's new Gendered Violence Division analyzes patterns of gender-based bigotry and violence, including against the LGBTQ+ community, and designs and tests tools to prevent and respond to gendered hate and violence.
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Crime / Policing / Guns

Crime in DC is a Problem, or Maybe It Isn't — We are measuring different things and talking past each other
Both Sides of the Gun Debate Come Together at the Tennessee 11 Premiere — From Starts with Us, a film about all sides working together to find common ground on guns.
Tennesseans have different views on guns, but here's how we know solutions are possible — The authors participated in Citizen Solutions, a national civic experiment by Starts With Us that empowers Americans to work across differences to create solutions to divisive issues.
Polarized Misperceptions of The Magnitude of Police Violence - BCB #72 — It's not just differences in values that can drive conflict, but differences in knowledge. Liberals' estimates of the magnitude of the problem are way off.
Ravenscroft students leverage EP training in the wake of a local shooting — A story from Essential Partners about how their trainings helped high school students deal with a local shooting.
The culture of Punishment: A Critical Approach — The May 2023 Issue of Peace in Progress, the magazine of the International Catalan Institute for Peace has ten articles about the downsides of punishment and constructive, restorative alternatives.
Restorative Movement Building — A short discussion of what "restorative movements" are, how they are built, and why they are powerful, along with 11 annotated links to further readings.
Police2Peace — Police2Peace is a national nonprofit with members from the activist and police communities. Its mission is to unite police departments and communities around programs that uplift and heal them.
What Does the Evidence Say About U.S. Gun Laws? — A Rand report reviewing the scientific evidence relating to the efficacy of various gun-related laws and policies for preventing gun deaths.
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Progressive Left

What We Don't Know Because of Polarization — Partisanship makes most media useless for understanding "grooming gangs," and new research shows psychologists self-censor evidence which suggests "taboo" conclusions.
Campus Deplatforming is on the Rise. Is that bad? -- BCB #95 — A disturbing trend in the one place in society that is supposed to teach people how to think critically and have an open mind to new ideas.
Are Free Speech and Inclusion at Odds on College Campuses? — A comprehensive survey of 2,618 U.S. college students reveals stark divisions in their views on freedom of expression, cancel culture, and the weighing of social justice values against free speech.
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Freedom of Speech

The Great Betrayal: How I messed with Progressive Perfection. — Our colleague Ashok Panikkar explains how he came to believe that progressive beliefs are not always correct -- and what happened when he said so.
Heterodox Academy wants to 'lovingly' push viewpoint diversity at colleges — A description of Heterodox Academy's new Campus Community Network, starting at 23 colleges where its members will host events aimed at remolding "campus culture and institutional practices."
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Immigration

Issue Brief: Mapping the Rise in Immigration-Related Demonstrations in Early 2025 — A report on the widespread pushback against Trump's deportation initiatives, from Princeton University's Bridging Divides Initiative.
The riots in the United Kingdom. — Isaac Saul on Tangle reports on the left's and the right's "take" on the UK riots and then shares his own view that the UK situation is dangerous, not only for them, but also for us in the U.S.
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Class Inequity

It's time to retire this liberal catch phrase — Erica Etelson, Author of Beyond Contempt: How Liberals Can Communicate Across the Great Divide. Suggests progressives should no longer ask "Why do they vote against their own interests?"
Learning (Again) From Les Leopold — Chip Hauss reflects on Les Leopold's presentation about his new book, 'Wall Street's War on Workers' and how it suggests ways of dealing with divisions--and worse.
The Violence, Inequality and Power Lab (VIP Lab) at the Kroc Institute for Peace and Justice at the University of San Diego — The VIP Lab seeks to understand how power inequalities cause violence. They provide actionable ideas to be implemented at the systems level to confront harmful power inequalities and reduce violence.
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Corruption

Kleptocracy Tracker Timeline — A public log of political decisions that benefit private interests. Developed by journalists and SNF Agora Senior Fellow Anne Applebaum, the project builds on her reporting in The Atlantic to document a shift in American governance.
USAID Anti-corruption Policy — In line with the U.S. Strategy on Countering Corruption, USAID's Anti-corruption Policy signals its commitment to countering corruption and outlines its plan for institutionalizing anti-corruption efforts across all its work,
Transparency International — Transparency International is a global movement working in over 100 countries to end the injustice of corruption. It focuses on issues with the greatest impact on people's lives and holding the powerful to account for the common good.
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Climate / Environment / Health

Building Climate and Conflict Resilient Communities (2023-2025) — This Karuna project empowered farmers and herders in northern Benin to better anticipate and respond to tensions over land and water use, in order to prevent escalation of conflict and counter the influence of violent extremism in the area.
Finding Hope in the Environmental Crisis: Insights from Dr. Roger Gottlieb — Gottlieb argues that one of the biggest threats to our planet isn't just the damage itself -- it's our collective avoidance and denial of the crisis.
Making the Climate a Blue Issue Was a Mistake — Climate change can and should be a cause that people across the political spectrum are invested in. The key to making that happen may well be in how we frame conversations about the issue.
Conservative Environmentalist Benji Backer Talks Polarization and the Pressures to Conform — A conversation with the author of a new book The Conservative Environmentalist about the pressures to align with "our team" and how liberals and conservatives are amplifying division on climate.
The Climate Emergency, Conflict and Peace — Part of the Toda Peace Institute's Peace Seminar Series. Dr. Volker Boege discusses why it is important for peace research and practice to engage with the climate crisis.
Climate Security: Finding Shared Solutions to Shared Challenges — ConnexUs's knowledge-sharing campaign is designed to promote discussion, shared learning and collaboration among peacebuilding, development, and humanitarian practitioners working on climate issues.
In This Together — A campaign to help save the environment and repair our democracy by growing a diverse bipartisan community of America's silenced majority: common sense problem-solvers willing to overcome fear, anger, and division.
Climate Protest Tracker — A one-stop source for following global trends in climate policy protests since 2022 from the Carnegie Endowment for International Peace
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Education

Universities have no choice — Thoughts on the role of negotiation and compromise in the context of the ongoing battle between universities and the Trump administration.
Fostering Social Cohesion in Schools & Beyond — This Toolkit is a comprehensive resource designed to promote social cohesion in learning spaces within diversified communities.
Why the Events at Columbia University Will Have Profound Chilling Effects — The United States has a long history of trying to silence speech. What's happening now is different---and dangerous, write Nathan Brown and Zaha Hassan from the Carnegie Endowment for International Peace.
Cultivating a Culture of Dignity in Schools — Much of the growth in UNITE's work has been happening in the K-12 education space. Teachers and school leaders across the country are asking how they can uphold and promote the value of dignity within our schools.
Why Are Academics Liberal?--- BCB #108 — A discussion of why there aren't more conservative academics, plus bridge-building groups to look out for, and protesting isn't change by itself. As always, thoughtful essays!
Campus Protests and Police Force: An Ethical Framework — In a new essay, Archon Fung looks at this current wave of campus protests and asks if civil disobedience is permissible, and how much disruption should be tolerated at universities today.
What is Liberatory Learning — This approach, based on Paulo Freire, argues that learning is a liberating practice that often thrives beyond the confines of educational systems.This approach benefits learners and teachers together.
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Artificial Intelligence

This game-changing AI tool helps students learn constructive disagreement. — Amid all of the AI-related doom and gloom, a positive story about the way in which the technology might actually be able to help to help us deal with conflict more constructively.
Can AI break the engagement trap? — Integrity Institute Co-Founder Jeff Allen reflects on TrustCon 2025, the evolution of trust and safety, and why regulatory pressure—and transparency—still matter most.
AI on the Frontline: Evaluating Large Language Models in Real‑World Conflict Resolution — A study that argues major large language models (LLMs) are providing dangerous conflict resolution advice without conducting basic due diligence and meeting basic thresholds for conflict sensitivity.
Normsy.ai: Strengthening Online Civic Norms At Scale — A white paper explaining how Normy.ai works to transform online conversation threads with the greatest potential for civic harm toward more constructive dialogue.
Normsy.ai — A project of the Civic Health Project, Normsy.ai empowers everyday users to promote respectful discourse, institutional trust, and democratic norms—right in the heart of the online spaces where these values are most under threat.
Everyone thinks AI is biased, but it doesn’t have to be — A report on new research showing that Democrats, Republicans, and independents all agree that essentially all large language models lean to the left.
AI and the Future of Civics (with Adam Hinds, Michael Champigny, and Will Foster-Nolan) — What can experiential learning reveal about students' capacity to engage with complex policy issues? This article explores that and more.
Technology is Part of the Problem, but also Part of the Solution — Researchers are exploring how technology could improve dialogue---and democracy. For instance, could AI help humans find common ground, make hard online conversations easier, and expand the tools available to peacebuilders? Yes!
Is this the most aligned we've seen Democrats and Republicans on any issue? — More in Common studied American attitudes toward Generative Artificial Intelligence, a major technological development poised to profoundly impact our psychology, society, and politics. Dem's and Rep's attitudes towards Gen AI are very similar.
AI mediation tool may help reduce culture war rifts, say researchers — An intriguing exploration of the possibility that AI could play a significant "mediation" role by helping those involved in conflict identify and articulate points of agreement.
Deliberative Technology: Designing AI and Computational Democracy for Peacebuilding in Highly-Polarized Contexts — A Toda report on artificial intelligence, digital democracy, and deliberative technologies that asks intriguing questions about the relationship between 21st-century technology and democratic governance.
Could Congress Leverage AI to Help Restore Faith in US Democracy? — One of those rare stories that asks how AI might actually be used to strengthen democracy and limit political dysfunction.
Depolarizing AI and the Evolution of Political Discourse — A thought-provoking conversation exploring the complex relationships between consciousness, culture, and AI.
Advancing a More Global Agenda for Trustworthy Artificial Intelligence — International AI governance enshrines assumptions from the more well-resourced Global North. These efforts must adapt to better account for the range of harms AI incurs globally.
Nine Major Proposals for Government Regulating Artificial Intelligence Favored by Very Large Bipartisan Majorities of Voters — Public opinion polls show the public is strongly in favor of strong regulation of artificial intelligence.
AI and Geopolitics: How Might AI Affect the Rise and Fall of Nations? — Regardless of whether AI poses an existential risk to humanity, governments will need to develop new regulatory frameworks to identify, evaluate, and respond to the variety of AI-enabled challenges to come.
Unpacking Democracy: Artificial Intelligence and Democracy — A video of an InternationIDEA webinar examining the impact of AI on democracy. worldwide. The panellists discussed the advantages and disadvantages of AI for democratic institutions, rights and values.
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US Politics

The Sultanization of US Politics — As an alternative to seeing Trump's USA as either plutocratic or fascist, an argument that it more closely resembles what the German sociologist Max Weber described as patrimonial, or more precisely, sultanistic.
6 Surprising Beliefs Democrats and Republicans Share — There are six core values that almost all Americans, regardless of political party, still believe in. But here’s the catch: most of us think the other side doesn’t care about these values.
What Would a Third Party Need to Succeed? — Third parties could make for healthier politics, but we'd need voting reform first say Sofia Scarlat and Jonathan Stray at Better Conflict Bulletin.
Congress Should Measure Twice and Cut Once on Charitable Sector Reform — The House GOP's ill-considered excise tax hike on foundations would put these institutions – and the pluralistic charitable sector they support – on a slippery slope. Nothing good lies at the bottom.
There Is a Way Forward: How to Defeat Trump’s Power Grab — A proposed strategy for defeating the most egregious and indefensible aspects of President Trump's efforts to consolidate power.
The Illusion of Transparency: What the Trump Cabinet Meeting Really Reveals — Understanding the emotional appeal of political performance. Devid Beckemeyer of Outrage Overload reflects on a televised Trump cabinet meeting.
The Trump Voters Who Like What They See — More food for thought as so many still struggle to understand why there is such strong support for Trump's efforts to destroy the established order.
How to Survive the Trump Years With Your Spirit Intact — Reflections on the ways in which various cultures and religious traditions have, over the centuries, worked to oppose leaders motivated by "pagan," "might makes right" moral beliefs.
What Trump's Re-Election Means for Democracy: A Call for Transformation, Not Just Defense — Our colleague, Duncan Autrey, wrote this right after the election, and we missed it. But his call for using this moment to transform our culture, not just defend it against Trump's assault, is still very valid and important.
Jay's Notes: Trump's tried and true political strategy will fail him on tariffs — Executive Director of More in Common, Jason Mangone, shares new data on how Americans are feeling about President Trump's proposed tariffs. Spoiler: they don't like them.
In-Group Backlash: Amy Coney Barrett and Gavin Newsom — An article from The Builders on the within-party backlash experienced in recent weeks by Supreme Court Justice Amy Coney Barrett and California Governor Gavin Newsom.
Resistance to Trump is everywhere --- inside the first 50 days of mass protest — A Waging Nonviolence analysis says mass actions are diverse and multiplying and are already having an impact.
Funding the Resistance Is Not a Winning Strategy. Here's What Is. — Billions spent fighting Trumpian populism hasn't worked. Practicing a pluralistic approach to grant making might be much more effective.
Can you resist Trump while also working on political depolarization? — Is political activism at odds with reducing political toxicity? (Spoiler: no, says Zachary Elwood.)
Jay's Notes: From Peak Woke to Peak DOGE — From the E.D. of More in Common, Jason Mangone, this piece points out four ways that wokeism and DOGEism are similar projects, and points to what that might mean for a way ahead.
Trump's Return -- Americans' Views in A New Political Chapter — As President Trump begins his second term, More in Common highlights five key takeaways from our latest poll focused on Americans' views, misperceptions, and aspirations in this new era.
"Blue Collar, Not Billionaires": How We Build Coalitions that Win — Long-term organizing, deep canvassing, and broad coalitions fueled wins for working families across the US. Rural America isn't MAGA country. Housing, health, climate, affordability and despair -- hurt people in small towns and big cities alike.
Even in Victory, Republicans Should Listen to Their Opponents — From the Builders, an article about the need to understand and respect our fellow Americans' concerns. When we fail to do those things, we'll find that we deepen divisions and amplify contempt.
Builders vs. Dividers: Who Fared Better in Elections? — From Starts with US: Among House representatives up for reelection, 82% of Builders reclaimed their seats versus 100% of Dividers. What does that mean?
The Priority Gap — Following the 2024 election, More in Common surveyed 5,005 Americans to explore what shaped their voting decisions, how they perceive polarization and division, and -- most importantly -- how they understand one another.
Making Sense of the 2024 Elections as a 21st Century Paradigm Shift — Seth David Radwell argues that the U.S. political Left-Right paradigm has shifted to focus on where the authority to govern lies.
A Post-Election Path Forward — Jacob Borenstein argues that we can heal our country though local action. We should start, he says, by listening to community needs and aspirations.
Outlooks on Trump's election — Framechange is a non-partisan publication aimed at helping people understand different perspectives on news and events. Read their compilation of views about Trump's election.
Which Way Forward for Red and Blue? — Jonathan Stray has assembled an overview of left and right leaning pundits' views on the election, concluding that "when you shade each state based on 2024 election results, the country looks pretty purple."
The US Elections---A Reason for Anxiety or an Opportunity for Hope and Growth? — International Center for Religion and Diplomacy published an article detailing how faith communities can play a role in reducing toxic polarization and rehumanizing perceived adversaries around the U.S. elections.
Answering all of your biggest post-election questions. — From Tangle, an organization really committed to telling both sides of the story, questions and answers about the election.
Lessons for Kamala Harris - 1 — The first of three essays by Ashok Panikkar on the Democratic loss. Here he explains what the elite of the cosmopolitan world don't understand about democracy (or, as he says, life on planet Earth.)
AllSides Story of the Week: Trump Elected President — AllSides compares the right's and left's reaction to the U.S. Presidential election.
What issues are most important to the Hidden Tribes this election? — A comparison of concerns of progressive activists, devoted conservatives, and the "exhausted majority." The one commonality: high cost of living and inflation.
How To Win and Lose an Election — Published on election day, Jonathan Stray points out that no matter what happens, we will all have new responsibilities tonight.
Sometimes when I get mad, when I get really mad, sometimes I write a poem — A poem by one of our colleagues on the U.S. election and what comes next.
Ready for the Rollercoaster Again? America's Strange Relationship with Calm — David Beckemeyer argues that Biden gave us calm. Yet now Americans seem to hunger for drama and disruption again.
Can Dignity Prevail in America's Polarized Landscape? — More In Common writes that though their work with UNITE and their Dignity Index, they hope to encourage a cultural shift towards noticing and elevating dignity in political discourse.
How Progressivism Turned off Voters — The Better Conflict Bulletin agrees that bold ideas are necessary for social change. Yet there's no substitute for knowing the people you claim to be serving.
Case Study Panel: America's Moment of Truth (Again) — During the annual Athens Democracy Forum hosted by the Democracy and Culture Foundation and the New York Times, this international panel of journalists, academics and activists reflects on the coming U.S. election.
Bipartisanship Reinvigorated — Ideas for moving beyond today's hyper-polarization and figuring out how to really make bipartisanship work
Conservative Environmentalist Talks About Polarized Politics and Simplistic Stereotypes — In this episode of "Debate Without Hate: Elections 2024," Benji Backer, shares insights about building cross-partisan consensus based on beliefs that don't easily align with political stereotypes.
Four Reasons You Should Distinguish Politicians from Their Voters — By separating our feelings about politicians from our feelings about their voters, we can create more constructive political discussions --- and strengthen personal relationships along the way.
Did Trump say he would use the military against his opponents? If not, why did many say he did? — Zach Elwood investigates the New York Times' reporting of Trump's reference to calling in the military, and found out that it was not in the context they suggested. Such mischaracterizations, he asserts, are dangerous.
Dignity Wins at the VP Debate — The Dignity Index scored the two US Vice Presidential Candidates at their debate, finding that both candidates scored well, treating the other with respect.
Eighty-Member Bipartisan National Citizens Panel Uses The Dignity Index To Score the Presidential Debate between Harris and Trump — "Our nation's divisions are not caused by our disagreements," said Shriver, co-creator of the Dignity Index. "They're caused by treating others with contempt when we disagree."
New Survey Results Find That Worry About Hostility Is on the Rise Among Local Elected Officials — New survey results indicate that concerns over harassment, threats, and physical attacks have significantly increased in the wake of high-profile incidents like the shooting of former President Trump.
Within Collaborative 2024 Election Preparation — This guide is designed to help people identify sources of resilience and sustainable action. Their goal is to nurture hope, build connections, promote care and focus, and be prepared for different election outcomes.
Dignity: The Hidden Campaign Strategy — Conspicuous disrespect is one of the most effective strategies for intensifying political opposition. This article explains the advantages of forsaking that strategy.
Want More Votes? Try Depolarization — For a society in which hatemongering, anger-provoking strategies dominate political discourse, an argument that the opposite might be more effective.
The Carter Center U.S. Elections Project — The Center is working to support US elections by providing objective information about the election process and advancing good practices in transparency.
Calls For Unity at the DNC --- But We Need More Than Words — Are democratic calls for national unity political spin? Or, do they reflect genuine aspirations and policy priorities?
How liberals' worst-case readings of Trump actually help Trump — Zach Elwood argues that avoiding highly pessimistic and certain interpretations of Trump is the right thing to do, on its own --- but it's also something politically passionate people should do for purely practical reasons.
Exploring the Dynamics of Project 2025 & Agenda 47 with Dr. Sean Evans — From David Bekemeyer, an examination of two significant conservative policy initiatives and their potential implications for democracy.
J.D. Vance Endorses Book with Dehumanizing "Unhumans" Language — From Starts with Us, thoughts for Trump supporters and Harris supporters on the danger of dehumanizing language and what to do when it is uttered.
Quieting the Noise of this Political Season — Lamar Roth and Tom Klaus talk about quieting the noise around the current presidential election in the United States. They offer three tips for your consideration.
Local Election Officials Survey --- May 2024 — Since 2020, 92 percent of local election officials have taken steps to increase election security for voters, election workers, and election infrastructure.
Not Invited to the Party Primary: Independent Voters and the Problem with Closed Primaries — This report examines who independent voters are, how many there are, shows how they are excluded from primaries, and presents solutions to that problem.
On Black Swans, Gray Rhinos, and the 2024 Election — For those trying to protect the integrity of the upcoming election, a useful guide to the many different contingencies that we need to prepare for.
The Shapeshifting Threat of Election Interference — The Voting Rights Lab most recent report examines how election interference legislation has changed over the past three years and how this is likely to impact the 2024 election.
Why Are Democrats Losing Non-White Voters? — This article argues that the issue is religion: the more Democrats appear like a party of mostly areligious white liberals, the less they will appeal to non-whites
First Principles — The newsletter of Common Sense 250, this issue proposes a new political coalition in the U.S. based on "first principles" that are supportive of the Constitution. This issue lists what those are.
Essential Resources to Combat 2024 Election Polarization — Essential Partners' free election resources are designed to interrupt partisan polarization where people live, work, worship and learn, with lessons, tools, and conversation guides.
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Superpower Conflict

Amerika: MAGA, China, Imperial Decline, Democracy — This report examines the current rivalries between the USA and China—two entangled but differently structured empires—which are triggering mental confusions, public anxieties and political misunderstandings and fears.
The Shift from Smart to Dumb Power — Donald Trump may be a good campaigner, but his government policy in the first few months is characterized by chaotic and irrational decisions: "Dangerous and dumb," according to former Secretary of State Hillary Clinton.
Diplomacy at the End of History, Part III: Diplomacy and Multilateral Cooperation | Thomas Greminger — From the Toda Peace Institute, the third of 3 videos featuring Ambassador Thomas Greminger and Toda Peace Institute Senior Research Fellow Keith Krause on Track II diplomacy, mediation and development policy..
Diplomacy at the End of History, Part I: Ukraine and Cooperative Security | Thomas Greminger — From the Toda Peace Institute, the first of 3 videos featuring Ambassador Thomas Greminger and Toda Peace Institute Senior Research Fellow Keith Krause on prospects for the future of the war in Ukraine.
The Quad, Maritime Security, and Climate Change — The Quadrilateral Security Dialogue with Australia, Japan, India and the US, is now broadening its focus beyond simply countering China to combatting climate change and other security threats in the Indo-Pacific region.
Agonizing over Europe's Defence: Some Narratives are Getting Ahead of the Facts — Russia's war against Ukraine should have been a stop sign for nationally-oriented security and defence policies in Europe. But the opposite is the case.
Is the current world order a clash of ideologies: Liberal Dictatorship vs. a Pluralism of Traditions? — This article suggests that the current world order is characterized by a clash of ideologies: on one side, a perceived liberal dictatorship, and on the other, a call for a pluralism of traditions.
New and Old Wars, New and Old Challenges to Peace! — A discussion at Notre Dame wondering if nonviolence and nuclear disarmament are new moral and policy imperatives, or if current events call for continuing the just war tradition and strengthened nuclear deterrence?
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World Order

Exceptionalism and Rules-based Order: From Biden to Trump — A report from the Toda Peace Institute examining American exceptionalism and President Trump's vision for the U.S. in the global world order.
The Challenge of Nuclear Weapons to the UN Security Council: Adapt or Die — An argument that the majority of the world's countries should give up on the UN and start planning for a replacement international organization more fit for its purpose of addressing and solving emerging challenges and threats.
What Is Bretton Woods? The Contested Pasts and Potential Futures of International Economic Order — The many competing views of the post-1945 international economic order each contribute to the debate over how the Bretton Woods negotiations should guide today's proposed economic reforms.
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Israel / Hamas War

The fear of peace: Iran, Israel, and the path away from their forever war. — Sir Richard Dalton, former British Ambassador to Iran, discusses rising tensions in the Middle East, exploring what it would take to move beyond endless war, and why dialogue and diplomacy offer the best path toward a collective future.
The Most Significant Long-Term Consequence of the U.S. Strikes on Iran — It’s not the damage to Fordow or Natanz. What has changed most dramatically since the strikes is Iran’s internal discourse on nuclear weapons, which used to be secret, and now is open and hardened.
Enough is Enough — In the wake of back-to-back anti-Semitic attacks, Builders' Founding Partner Daniel Lubetzky breaks down how hate --against Jews and others -- isn’t just spreading. It’s being amplified for profit.
Palestinian Risks His Life for a Two-State Solution w/ Israel — Meet Ezzeldeen Masri, a Palestinian-American who grew up in Gaza and now fights for peace between Israelis and Palestinians. As the Chief Field Officer for the OneVoice Movement, Ezz has dedicated his life to a two-state solution.
Iran Is at a Strategic Crossroads — After its latest escalation, Tehran may be forced to reconsider its entire approach to national security, including leveraging its status as a threshold nuclear state to counter Israel.
Peaceworks Foundation — Peaceworks is committed to persuade a critical mass of Israelis and Palestinians to reject the status quo and unlock the full potential of both peoples.
Iran-Israel: The Escalation Calculus — The dance between Israel and Iran continues -- sometimes escalating, sometimes receding. This article is a bit dated now -- things change so fast in that region -- but it still has useful content.
From Discourse to Discord: Dissecting Antisemitism on Campus — A discussion between two experts on the nature of antisemitism and anti-Muslim attitudes on US campuses.
What is the Antisemitism Awareness Act? — A Fulcrum article examining the key elements of the Antisemitism Awareness Act, its intentions, the potential impacts it may have on curbing this age-old prejudice and concerns with its implementation.
Israel and Gaza: Yesterday, Today and Tomorrow — The destruction of the military threat posed by Hamas is a necessary condition for re-establishing some sort of a peace in the Israel-Palestine conflict, but Israel must reign in its most extreme factions too.
Israel-Hamas Conflict Puts Spotlight on American Universities — An AllSides "story of the week," this article looks at the way the media is covering the Israel-Hamas conflict on campuses. Needless to say, there are significant differences.
Difficult Conversations About Israel and Gaza — Suggestions from the dialogue experts, Essential Partners, about how to have a constructive conversation about one of the most divisive issues many of us currently face.
Oasis of Peace Winter 2023 Newsletter — From Neve Shalom/Wahat al-Salam, on how they are dealing with the war and trying to move both themselves and the prospect of peace forward.
Alliance for Peacebuilding's Statement On The Israel-Hamas Violent Conflict — Released on October 26, the Alliance calls for an immediate ceasefire with the release of all hostages, addressing the humanitarian crisis in Gaza and working for a two-state solution.
Canadian Friends Service Committee E-Newsletter In response to the ongoing intensity of violence in Palestine/Israel. — "[F]reedom from the scourge of war will only be brought about through the faithfulness of individuals to their inmost convictions" As such, CFSC calls for an immediate ceasefire and new leaders who are open to paths of nonviolence. It calls for the immediate release of all the hostages and end to the violence of the Israeli military. CFSC calls on each individual to search for and recognize our shared humanity.
Scaling the Wall of Grief in Israel and Palestine — This article by Lisa Schirch recounts how history and stories about that history shape current day thoughts and events. Amid all the despair and horror, we can carve out spaces for hope, for grieving, for care for those traumatized, for those lost. There is a better way. "The violence will end when the occupation ends and there is justice, democracy, and a land for all people and when the world can work against antisemitism without working against Palestinian human rights."
Eileen Boris's Political Forgiveness Monthly for October 2023 — Eileen's main article is entitled "Love and compassion are necessities, not luxuries. Without them humanity cannot survive," a direct quote from the Dalai Lama. Writing after the Israel/Gaza conflict broke out, Eileen goes on to say, "if we want to survive as humanity, violence is not the answer. Instead, we need to make contact with our own hears and shift our mindsets to one of political forgiveness. On then can we meet these changes and begin to heal together.
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Culture and Religion

Does Uncompromising Morality Harm or Help? — Outrage over sacred values -- however morally justified -- can all too easily harden divisions and make progress much harder to achieve.
Answering Tough Questions About Promising Revelations — More in Common answers some tough questins about their report on American religious life.
How does the internet derange and divide us? — Zach Elwood lists ten ways social media is harming us before discussing what we can do to stop or address the harm.
Faith in Policy: Right-sizing religious actors' role in democratic processes — This brief from Search for Common Ground takes a nuanced approach to the role of religious actors in civic space, highlighting some of the ways in which their positive impact has been promoted and more negative influences mitigated.
The Questionable Enlightenment — Ashok Panikkar answers a student's question about the "Age of Enlightenment" and why it still is relevant and important today.
Religious Perspectives on the Narratives of America: The Search for Just, Honest, Inclusive and Forward-looking Tellings — This set of essays was compiled by the US Bahá'í Office of Public Affairs, and the Aspen Institute which collaborated on this collection of essays from people of many faiths in the U.S.
How religious communities are working to ensure a free & fair election — To protect democracy you have to bring together a broad coalition of people who might have major disagreements on politics and policy but who are willing to come together to prioritize its defense. A discussion with Emma Addams of Mormon Women for Ethical Government.
Three Interfaith Organizations Helping Communities Navigate Their Differences -- BCB #99 — There's no question that religion plays a part in Americans' divisions. But it can also help bridge them, as this story illustrates.

Threats Associated with Intractable Conflict

The Complex Nature of Intractable Conflict

The Challenges Posed by Bad-Faith Actors

Constructive Approaches to Conflict

Intractable Conflict Cases