BI ArticleSee the Complexity It's not Just "Us versus Them"
It is impossible to effectively confront a conflict if you don't understand what is going on--in all its complexity.
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Constructive Conflict Guide >
The Massively Parallel Strategy for Dealing with Scale and Complexity
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BI Article
See the Complexity It's not Just "Us versus Them"
It is impossible to effectively confront a conflict if you don't understand what is going on--in all its complexity.
BI Article
Peter Coleman's "Five Percent" -- Part 1
One of the most important concepts in Coleman's book The Five Percent--one of the first books to look explicitly at complexity science and conflict.
BI Article
Peter Coleman's Five Percent -- Part 2
Coleman advises 1) complicate to simplify, 2) build up and tear down and 3) change to stabilize intractable conflict systems.
BI Article
Robert Ricigliano: Making Peace Last
SAT= Structures, Attitudes, and Transactions; PAL = Planning, Acting, Learning. This is another new systems approach to peacebuilding.
BI Article
Review of Peter Coleman's The Way Out
A review of Peter Coleman's recent book, The Way Out: How to Overcome Toxic Polarization.
BI Article
Universities Need to Do Better
A reflection on how universities could do better understanding and addressing intractable conflicts and what CR professionals can do to make more of a difference.
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Complexify Worldview
Many of us assume that most of our socioeconomic and political problems are caused by the other side, if not one particular person on the other side. While some people with a lot of power can, indeed, be very problematic, the system is always much more complex than one "bad guy." We need to develop a much more complex and nuanced sense of the conflict system we are in, recognizing that there are multiple causes (often including "us") that are contributing to any particular problem.
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Types of Complexity
Society is so complex that no single scientific field can possibly understand it all. That's why we have wide range of social science disciplines, each focused on a different aspect of the social, economic, and environmental systems.
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The Additional (and Even Bigger) Challenge of Societal Complexity
It isn't just scale, the intractability of society-wide conflict is also attributable to the complexities of human psychology, social interactions, high-tech communication systems, modern economies, environmental constraints, and other factors.
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Strategies for Effectively Dealing with Scale and Complexity
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Democratic and Authoritarian Strategies for Handling Complexity
In democracies, societal complexities are handled through division of labor-based, distributed decision-making which is vastly more efficient than the authoritarian approach in which the leader tries to dictate everything.
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The Relationship between Complexity, Scale, and Diversity
Guiding modern societies requires an in-depth understanding of the ways in which millions of people (with a diverse array of motivations) interact in society's many institutional settings.
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Complexifiers
Specialists working in the various academic disciplines help us understand the complex workings of society in their areas of expertise and, especially, dynamics that threaten the viability of the system as a whole.
Colleague Activities
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.
News and Opinion
To Build a Bridge: The Bridge Alliance Podcasts
A podcast series focused on illuminating the complex societal issues we face and highlighting the solution-oriented work of the many organizations and community leaders in the Bridge Allinace Network.