- The Biden Challenge
- Saving Democracy and Biden’s Challenge to the Conflict and Peacebuilding Fields – Part I -- An argument that the key to saving democracy is assuring political adversaries that, even in defeat, their interests will be protected.
- Saving Democracy and Biden’s Challenge to the Conflict and Peacebuilding Fields – Part 2 -- Repairing democracy will require both sides to replace today's winner-takes-all / loser-loses-all approach to politics with coexistence, tolerance, and mutual respect.
- A Guide to More Constructive Approaches to Intractable Conflict -- A Introduction to a five-part strategy for overcoming the conflict problems that are preventing us from building a society in which we would all like to live.
- Reconciliation
- Small Scale Reconciliation – Part 1: De-escalate Destructive Us-versus-Them Confrontations -- Reframing us-vesus them, conciliatory gestures, and using the optimal power strategy mix are several approaches that can further reconciliation.
- Small Scale Reconciliation – Part 2: Promote Effective Communication -- By first listening, and second speaking in respectful and surprisingly "reasonable" ways, people can de-escalate conflicts and begin to work on reconciliation.
- Small Scale Reconciliation – Part 3: Develop a Unifying Vision for Society -- Small groups can use the tools of large groups to develop consensus visions of their future relationship--often with even more success.
- Small Scale Reconciliation – Part 4: Leveling the Playing Field -- Equalizing power actually helps both the powerful and the powerless, as it makes negotiation and mutually-beneficial outcomes possible for all.
- Small Scale Reconciliation – Part 5: Take Advantage of Opportunities for Mutually-Beneficial Joint Actions -- Even when conflicts are stalemated, some common ground is likely to give disputants a toe-hold onto transformation.
- "Bad-Faith" Actors
- Part 3: Challenging "Bad-Faith" Actors Who Seek to Amplify and Exploit Our Conflicts -- A big part of why democracy is in so much trouble is that "bad faith" actors are actively working to subvert it. We need to understand and learn how to stop them.
- “Bad-Faith” Actors -- Our Sources of Vulnerability -- Like the vulnerable US football players, we need better ways to protect ourselves from destructive efforts to undermine our ability to work together.
- Types of “Bad-Faith” Actors -- While it is always hard to make good-faith democratic governance work, it is even harder when people are actively trying to make it fail.
- “Bad-Faith” Actor Tactics -- We need to better understand how to see and avoid the many traps (and sinister cons) that are dragging us into ever more destructive conflict.
- The Blood-Boiling Trap -- Our tendency to focus on things that make us furious distorts the way we look at the world in ways that threaten rather than advance our interests.
- The King Soopers Shooting: This Time It Was Personal -- Motivated by a mass shooting in our community, we've spent the last week thinking about how our insights into the intractable conflict problem can help.
The Hyper-Polarization Challenge to the Conflict Resolution Field
We invite you to participate in an online exploration of what those with conflict and peacebuilding expertise can do to help defend liberal democracies and encourage them live up to their ideals.
Follow BI and the Hyper-Polarization Discussion on BI's New Substack Newsletter.
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Beyond Intractability
Beyond Intractability
The Intractable Conflict Challenge
Our inability to constructively handle intractable conflict is the most serious, and the most neglected, problem facing humanity. Solving today's tough problems depends upon finding better ways of dealing with these conflicts. More...
Selected Recent BI Posts
Including Hyper-Polarization Posts
- September 11, October 7, and Our Changing Responses to Terrorism -- A comparison of the differing reactions to the terrorism of September 11 and October 7 plus an exchange of views on the role that dehumanization is playing in the ongoing Middle East wars.
- Massively Parallel Problem Solving and Democracy Building: An Ongoing Response to the Threats to Democracy in the U.S. - Part 1 -- The first of a five part series on massively parallel democracy building. This installment briefly introduces the core argument about what the threats to democracy are, and what is needed to meet them.
- Caleb Christen and Vinay Orekondy Talk about the Better Together America Project -- Caleb Christen and Vinay Orekondy talk about the democracy and civic hubs they are helping form around the country to bring "democracy back to the people" where it can actually work.
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Conflict Frontiers
A free, open, online seminar exploring new approaches for addressing difficult and intractable conflicts. Major topic areas include:
Scale, Complexity, & Intractability
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Conflict Fundamentals
An look at to the fundamental building blocks of the peace and conflict field covering both “tractable” and intractable conflict.
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