Recent BI and Substack Posts

Are we facing a "constitutional" or "rule-of-law" crisis? What can/should the peacebuilding community do in such circumstances? This is what we call "the peacebuilder's dilemma."

Weekly readings and viewings of interest.

A reflection on the relationship between love and power and what makes nonviolent protests effective.

David Eisner asks whether the fires we talked about in our "Fiddling While Rome Burns" series are controlled burns or forest fires. The Burgesses respond "out of control forest fires" -- and explain why.

Our weekly readings for your enjoyment! (Or blood pressure increase).

We finish answering Ashok Panikkar by talking about other drivers of hyper-polarization: globalization and technology driven job loss, identity politics, cable news and social media, and distrust of institutions. We also address Ashok's notion of theory of continuity and share what we think it will take to "save" liberal democracy in the U.S.

We reflect on the implications and impact of the closing of FMCS, USIP, and probably CRS, what might be done about that, and then turn to answering Ashok Panikkar's question about whether hyper-polarization is "logical and rational," given the current state of the world.

The second half of Guy and Heidi Burgess's conversation with Lamar Roth and Tom Klaus on their podcast "Getting to Third Space." Here we talk more about what is driving American polarization, why it is a problem, and what can be done to address it.

Lots of readings about the Trump administration and responses to it -- plus other readings and videos of note.

The Burgesses respond to Bernie Mayer's comments on "Are We Fiddling While Rome Burns," arguing that bridging and advocacy are both needed for change, along with other elements in David Eisner's "renewing democracy ecosystem."

A discussion with David Eisner and Bernie Mayer of how bridging efforts relate to other efforts to strengthen American democracy in what David refers to as the "renew-democracy ecosystem."

Our weekly collection of readings, not surprisingly, heavily focused on Trump's moves and responses to those moves.

In the United States, hyper-polarization has escalated to the point where President Trump is trying to destroy pretty much everything Democrats care about. The question is how can the Democrats defend themselves while also working to defuse the hyper-polarization that made Trump's Presidency possible.

A reflection on why it still makes sense to try to find a middle ground between the far left and the far right, even as the far right seems to be profoundly threatening U.S. democracy.

Our selected readings from colleagues journalists writing on peace, conflict, and democracy topics.

Taking Kriesberg's essay as a starting point, this newsletter explores, from left-leaning and centrist perspectives, a range of hopeful responses that are emerging to the most extreme actions of the still young Trump presidency.

Interpersonal communication is not the only way to reduce political divides; other much more "scalable" approaches work in addition to, not instead of, one-on-one communication to reduce hyper-polarization.

Our weekly collection of interesting and important readings.

Complex adaptive systems cannot be fixed using typical engineering problem solving. Rather they need to be approached using a "medical model," which is designed to deal with systems we don't entirely understand.

Rosa Zubizarreta-Ada explores solutions to the "Achilles Heel of democracy," in which free speech allows illiberal speech, which then threatens the very democracy that allows it.

Tom Klaus and Lamar Roth talked with Guy and Heidi Burgess about Beyond Intractability, hyper-polarization, constructive conflict, and ways we are going to get out of the "mess" we are in.

More important readings from our colleagues and journalists of note.

Daniel Stid's three key "take-aways" from a conference on Pluralism in Action: we have a choice between pluralism and war; political resistance and civic renewal are different tasks, and pluralism is not a field. See why!

We are good at understanding and responding to sharp feedback, but continue to have serious trouble seeing and responding to fuzzy feedback. These difficulties do much to explain why society is in such serious trouble.

Our weekly set of readings renamed to clarify the contents, trying to help our readers understand the challenges we face.