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Constructive Conflict Guide >
The Complex Factors That Make Intractable Conflict So Difficult >
Challenges Posed by Bad-Faith Actors Who Who Are Trying to Profit by Undermining Collaboration and Power-with Democracy >
Strategies and Tactics Used by Bad-Faith Actors
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News and Opinion
The Problem with Primaries
An analysis of the many ways in which the structure of US primary elections is intensifying divisions and undermining democratic institutions despite being superficially more democratic. And, some proposed remedies.
News and Opinion
The Case For (Even More) Compromise
A story about what has been gained through compromise and what our stubborn unwillingness to compromise further is costing us.
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
The Nearly $100 Million Election-Reform Flop
A postmortem on the once promising efforts to strengthen democracy through open primaries and ranked choice voting.
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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.
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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.
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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."
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Opposing Efforts to Disenfranchise Those Who Favor Moderate, Compromise-Oriented Governance
This section focuses on the many ways in which democracies tend to disenfranchise those with centrist political beliefs and shares strategies for overcoming this problem.
News and Opinion
How Moderate Republicans Became an Endangered Species
From a Republican perspective, a look at the potential power of political moderates, the difficulties that moderates have faced, and strategies for overcoming those difficulties.
News and Opinion
Radical Moderation
An overview of an important new book, "Why Not Moderation? Letters to Young Radicals" that challenges the widespread disdain for compromise that one now finds on both the left and the right.
News and Opinion
A Guide for the Politically Homeless
News and Opinion
A Conspiracy Against No Labels
For a country in which there are almost as many independents as Republicans and Democrats combined, allegations of a conspiracy against a moderate, third-party, Presidential candidacy.
News and Opinion
Apathy Loses -- If reasonable people disengage from politics, the zealots win.
An appeal for moderates who can see both sides of today's complex issues to get more evolved in politics. Otherwise, our future will be determined by true believers who see no value in competing views.
News and Opinion
Moderate Republicans Continue to Betray Their Principles
A description of how the hyper-polarization process has now almost totally unified Republicans behind former President Trump.
News and Opinion
What Happened to Joe Biden the Moderate?
President Biden was elected as a moderate leader who could bring the country together. This essay explains how, instead, he alienated many of his supporters by pushing the country far to the left.