Parent (Previous) Guide Folders
Constructive Conflict Guide >
Civic Knowledge and Skills That We All Need to Constructively Handle Intractable Conflict >
Defending Democracy from the Bad-Faith Actors Who Seek to Undermine It >
A Collective Strategy for Protecting Democracy from Bad-Faith Actors
______________________
Related Folders
Cultivating Compromise
Within almost all disputes there are mutually beneficial ways of resolving the issues (at least as compared to alternatives) . The key is learning how to identify and take advantage of this "zone of possible agreement."
Related Folders
Disenfranchising Moderates, Denouncing Compromise
Bad-faith actors insist that their views are the only correct views and opposing views are completely wrong. So they denounce moderates who can see value in both sides as sell-outs or traitors, and denounce compromise as unacceptable submission.
Related Folders
Lack of Support for Compromise-based Solutions
In our hyper-polarized political environment, compromise is seen as "selling out" ones' own side. So it is seldom even considered as a plausible approach to problem solving.
Related Folders
Failure to Search for and Recognize Potential Compromises
Even when parties do sit down together, they often assume that they are in a win-lose situation, and work to win the most they can, instead of trying to either collaborate to "enlarge the pie," or at least look for legitimate compromises that would share whatever is being negotiated fairly.
News and Opinion
A Dispatch from the Exhausted Majority
A comprehensive look at how the extreme us-vs-them rhetoric of the hard left and the hard right is viewed by the majority of voters who inhabit the political center.
News and Opinion
No Labels group raises alarms with third-party presidential preparations
An update on the promise and the potential pitfalls of an effort to empower the more compromise-oriented political center.
Colleague Activities
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.
News and Opinion
The Gaping Hole in the Center of the Electorate
Almost as many people (49%) identify as political independents as identify as Democrats and Republicans combined. Yet, somehow, the system can't field candidates who represent this moderate center.
News and Opinion
Democrats Should Embrace the "New Centrism"
At a time when politics is dominated by the extremes of the right and the left, an argument that Democrats ought to move toward the center -- home of the all-important swing voter.
News and Opinion
Rupa Subramanya: I'm Stuck Between the Woke Left and the Nativist Right
An anguished appeal for a revitalized political center that avoids extremes on both the left and the right.
News and Opinion
Will the Center Hold?
A review and summary of an important new book exploring the philosophical foundations and political viability of centrism around the globe.
News and Opinion
Britain's Starmer Is Trying to Fight Populism From the Lonely Center
A profile of the one major country in which centrists are actually in power and offering voters an governing alternative between the populism of the left and the right.
News and Opinion
Don't Just Let Radicals Dictate Your Opinions
An interesting effort to get beyond us-vs-them thinking and explore the conflict between those at the extremes of the political continuum and those at the center.