Guide Overview
1. Introduction, Overview, and User Guide
Hyper-Polarization and Intractable Conflict
In the United States (and a great many other democratic societies), political hyper-polarization has intensified to the point where the viability of many of these democracies is now in serious jeopardy. In the United States, where most of our expertise lies, hyper-polarization has reached the point where political disagreement has, for many, escalated into deep intergroup hatred. Political agendas increasingly focus on undoing the policies and programs of the other side (without really considering the merits of those programs.) More extreme is the use of lawfare tactics in an attempt to suppress or even imprison political opponents. In addition, rule-of-law-based constraints are being discarded in favor of naked efforts to assemble as much political power as possible, and political violence (and threats of violence) are starting to undermine the willingness of people to take on political roles.
While many lament these trends, the most common response is still for people to either pick a side and join the fight, or disengage from the responsibilities of democratic citizenship altogether. This, unfortunately, tends to further intensify the hyper-polarization spiral. What makes this so especially tragic is the fact that we are nowhere near as divided as our turbulent politics suggests. While there are real problems that sorely need to be addressed, research shows that we are actually not as divided as we think we are. There are ways forward that large majorities view as reasonable compromises.
To take advantage of such compromise opportunities, we need to step away from the simplistic us-vs-them thinking that now dominates our political discourse and replace it with a collective effort to more constructively address the complex substantive and procedural issues we face. Doing this will require a shared commitment to work together to build a 21st-century democracy that truly lives up to its ideals.
This is not going to be easy. The challenges we face are enormous. Still, the work that we've done in conjunction with the BI project over the past 35 years convinces us that these challenges are surmountable. All we need to do is abandon our simplistic enemy images and apply a complexity-oriented, division of labor-based strategy to today's tough issues.
Fortunately, this is not something that we need to start anew. A gigantic movement to repair and revitalize democracy (and learn how to more constructively address intractable conflicts) has already been underway for some time. Documenting and helping people understand the full scope of this movement has been the major focus of the Beyond Intractability project with its hundreds of contributors over the last 35 years. This Guide represents our latest and most comprehensive effort to make the information that we've assembled more accessible and easier to understand.
Overview of the Constructive Conflict Guide
After a short "Start Here" Section, the first substantive section of the new Guide (given a number 2 on the landing page) highlights materials that we've collected that explain the many threats associated with hyper-polarized intractable conflict and the learning potential of constructively handled conflict. Put another way, this section highlights resources that explain why it really is in our collective best interest to walk away from our hyper-partisan rhetoric and join the movement to build a society in which most everyone would like to live.
The Guide goes on to explain the complex factors that make conflict so difficult, including: 1) the difficult core disagreements that lie at the center of our conflicts, 2) "overlaying" conflict handling problems that complicate efforts to reach reasonable compromises on these core issues, 3) the astonishing scale of society-wide conflict with its millions of actors, 4) complexity arising from the independent way in which these actors operate, and, finally, 5) the challenges posed by bad-faith actors who deliberately try to undermine democracy and collaborative efforts.
While this part of the Guide, with its focus on the enormity of the stakes and the many difficulties that those wishing to handle conflict more constructively need to overcome, is inevitably depressing, it is essential. We can't solve problems if we don't understand their nature. And, we can't mobilize the necessary resources unless people understand the consequences of failing to address those problems. That said, the remaining sections of the Guide focus on solutions. We try very hard to avoid leaving readers with a sense of hopelessness and despair that comes from just talking about problems and not solutions. In its place, we try to cultivate the optimism and involvement that comes from seeing a realistic and workable path forward.
In the next section of the Guide (Part 4) we outline the key components of this hopeful strategy — something that we call a Massively Parallel Strategy for Dealing with the Scale and Complexity of democracy building and peacebuilding (i.e. building a society that constructively handles intractable conflicts). We go on (in Part 5) to identify eight principal goals of this massively parallel effort.
These materials are further developed in the next section (Part 6) on Civic Knowledge and Skills, which brings together the most useful articles and videos from BI's catalog of materials on the full range of conflict handling strategies. In addition to providing lots of useful information for people working to diminish political polarization and repair (and improve) democracy, this section also contains many resources useful for tractable and intractable conflicts in other, smaller-scale settings.
The term "massively parallel" refers to the fact that the strategy revolves around many different people, in many different roles, pursuing many different projects that all, in a division of labor-based system, contribute to strengthening democracy. The Specialized Massively Parallel Roles / Tasks section (Part 7) lists over 50 roles that need to be fulfilled if we are going to fundamentally transform our broken societies into places in which everyone can thrive. None of us can fill all these roles, but most all of us can fill and make important contributions to at least one of these roles. To do so, however, we are likely to want to affiliate ourselves with one of the many excellent organizations already working in the "democracy space." And, we are all going to need to continue developing our conflict handling skills.
Finally, the Guide includes a collection of information about some of today's most prominent and intractable conflicts — conflicts that lie at the core of our hyper-polarized politics. Here, we have tried to highlight information that offers fresh and thought-provoking perspectives that illuminate competing arguments and complex trade-offs.
Guide Status and User Tips
Users will likely notice that the Guide isn’t yet done. Still, there is a tremendous amount of information already available (almost 4000 references). So, we are posting what we have now, with many updates and improvements planned over the coming months. At this point, we have no or too few resources on a few topics, but more often we have way too many resources listed, as we haven't had time to carefully review and cull them. We are starting to mark the recommended readings with stars, but have a long way to go before we are done with that. So, if you see something that should be starred and isn't (or something that isn't even listed, but is useful), please let us know. Likewise, if we have starred something that doesn't deserve a star, please tell us why you think that. (You might well be right.)
When this Guide is complete, we will have coded many of the 17,000 pages of content on BI, putting them into one (or more) of 300+ topical categories. We realize that there is far more material in this Guide than any one person can read. If you know what you are looking for, use BI's search tool to find BI articles on that topic. (Some will be in the Guide, and some will not.) If you only want materials from the Guide (which are ones that we have chosen as our best readings on each topic), use your browser’s search function to search the Guide Map. Use control F (for PCs) or command F (for Macs) to search the Guide Map. (if you use BI's main search tool you will get results from within and outside the Guide.)
If you don’t know what you are looking for – or if you just want to know, in general, how we can possibly claim to have a solution to this highly intractable problem, scroll through the top level headings of the Guide sections. Click down a layer to two to find articles or ideas that interest you. You might also look at this series of five newsletters that offer a reasonably succinct summary of the overall thinking behind the Guide.
Once we have completed the Guide, each topic page will have an introductory essay that highlights key ideas; a few links to "Recommended Readings" (marked by stars) which are key readings (or videos) related to the topic, followed by a limited set of "Additional Readings" for those who want more information. In general, we show Beyond Intractability resources first; then subsidiary Guide folders; then Colleague resources and lastly News and Opinion resources from our Links Newsletters at the end. (If a specific colleague or news and opinion resource is particularly important, we might move it up.) We won't be linking to all 17,000 resources, though those will still be available through the main BI "search" (on the top menu bar) and in the other sections of the Beyond Intractability site: the Newsletter, Knowledge Base, Links, and Videos.
We are still working on the Guide navigation. Right now, many Guide folders have subfolders, which open in a new window. So the back button doesn't work to go back to where you were before (though that page will still be available in an earlier browser window).
Unfortunately, because of the way the new BI system is constructed, this is something that is not fixable within our current funding constraints. However, at the top of the box with each list of references, you will see a list of all the "higher-level" or "parent" folders under which the topic you are now looking at resides. So, if you want to go back to a previous folder, use those links at the top of the resource listing you are on. (Note: individual articles do not have such links, as they can be accessed in many different ways. But they will always open in a new window, so look in your other open windows to find the Guide folder you were exploring.)
We hope you find the Guide useful. Please send us your suggestions for improving it. Our goal is for this to be a collaborative project with lots of contributions from our readers.
Guide Map with Section Descriptions
Go To the Guide's Next Section: The Intractable Conflict Threat and Opportunity
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NOTE: In using the word “thrive” in this context, we are copying the key idea behind Thriving Together US.
Current Guide Version: v1.03 August 30, 2025
