Beyond Intractability started the Constructive Conflict Initiative in 2019.  The Initiative was based on our 30-year inquiry into the challenges posed by intractable conflict and our belief, based on that work, that society's chronic inability to constructively handle it's most difficult conflicts constituted the single, most serious threat to democratic societies and, humanity, more generally. The following papers (listed in chronological order with the most recent being last) outline the development of our thoughts on these issues in the ensuing five years, and form the background documents for our current work.

• Initial (2019) Constructive Conflict Statement - This statement was published at the beginning of the Constructive Conflict Initiative.  It explained why the Initiative was needed (what the nature and extent of the destructive, intractable conflict problem was), and what the CCI proposed to do to address this problem.
   
• 2019 Constructive Conflict Initiative Summary - A shortened (2 page) version of the initial CCI statement.
   
• The Constructive Conflict* Imperative A  motivational article (also written in 2019) for students and others interested in understanding the conflict problem and options for addressing it.
   
• 2022 CRQ Paper: Applying conflict resolution insights to the hyper-polarized, society-wide conflicts threatening liberal democracies. In this paper, the Burgesses, together with colleague Sanda Kaufman, provide a focal point for a wide-ranging discussion about how those with conflict-related expertise might do more to contribute to efforts to slow, and ultimately, reverse, the hyper-polarization spiral now threatening so many developed democracies.
   
• 2022 Follow-up to the CRQ Paper:  The Key to Revitalizing Liberal Democracy: Think of It As a Conflict Handling System - This paper lays out seven "essential elements" of successful democracies, five obstacles to the implementation of those elements, and puts those together in a "Limiting Hyper-Polarization  Matrix, which suggests actions people can take to either overcome an obstacle, and/or strengthen one of the seven essential elements.
   
• 2024 Toda Policy Brief: Massively Parallel Problem Solving and Democracy Building: An Ongoing Response to Threats to Democracy in the U.S. - This paper again lays out the many ways in which democracy is currently being threatened, particularly in the United States. But it then argues that the forces of resilience and adaptive change are present in abundance. The paper introduces the notion of "massively parallel problem solving and democracy building" as the way the society is already successfully organizing to solve problems and shore up democracy at the local, state, and national levels and talks about what else needs to be done to increase the likelihood these efforts are successful.