Newsletter #109 — April 23, 2023
Colleague Activities
Highlighting things that our conflict and peacebuilding colleagues are doing that contribute to efforts to address the hyper-polarization problem.
- Peacebuilding
Digital Peacebuiling — A description of an "open community of practice" to advance the analysis and response to online conflict dynamics and harnessing digital tools to further peacebuilding success. - Empowerment
3 Collaborative Practices for Advancing Social Impact — Know what you're good at and what your partners can do better, find the most powerful leverage point, and allow for failure and learn from it. - Peacebuilding
Peacebuilding, Conflict and Community Development — How do local communities effectively build peace and reconciliation before, during and after open violence? This book gives practical examples of communities addressing conflict in divided and contested societies. - Superpower Conflict
New and Old Wars, New and Old Challenges to Peace! — A discussion at Notre Dame wondering if nonviolence and nuclear disarmament are now moral and policy imperatives, or if current events call for continuing the just war tradition and strengthening nuclear deterrence? - Constructive Communication
Vengeance or Forgiveness — An exploration of the thinking of the conservative right. We must be able to "walk in the shoes of the other" to heal this nation. Here's one step. - Peacebuilding
A Pivot To Prevention: How The 118th Congress Can Prevent Violent Conflict & Build Peace Globally — A briefing book for the U.S. Congress (and interested others) on what Congress can do to further peace in 2023. - Empowerment
The Trifecta of Civil Resistance: Unity, Planning, Discipline — These attributes can make the difference between success and failure for nonviolent movements around the world.
Beyond Intractability in Context
From around the web, more insight into the nature of our conflict problems, limits of business-as-usual thinking, and things people are doing to try to make things better.
- Left / Right Conflict
Rise of the Independents -- But not of third parties — Interesting observations – increasing numbers of people are identifying as moderate, political "independents"andbut this trend is not being reflected in increasing support for third-party candidates. - Race / Anti-Racism
Glenn Loury and the Great Partisan Divide — Glenn Loury, from a Black conservative perspective, offers a provocative challenge to progressive views on inequality and race (as well as a reminder that there really are issues worth debating). - Saving Democracy
‘A Crisis Coming’: The Twin Threats to American Democracy — A progressive assessment of the threats to democracy (one that conservatives will doubtless challenge). If we really want to save democracy, we need to define it in ways that both sides can support. - Hate Mongering
Bad incentives and the politics of fear — An exploration of the complex and often hypocritical interplay between real-world threats, political reactions to those threats, public opinion, and electoral outcomes. - Freedom of Speech
An Illustrated Guide to Self-Censorship — An interesting exploration of the many ways in which modern society influences what we do and do not feel comfortable saying. - Saving Democracy
Voters See Democracy in Peril, but Saving It Isn’t a Priority — It is hard to agree to work together to save something when you can't agree on what you are trying to save or how it is threatened. - Effective Problem-Solving
The Man Who Settled the Fox-Dominion Defamation Case From a Romanian Tour Bus — An interesting profile of how a mediator brokered the out-of-court settlement in the Dominion / Fox News case. - Superpower Conflict
Ukraine and Russia Need a Great-Power Peace Plan — An outside the box strategy for ending the terrible carnage in Ukraine (and reducing the risk of a wider war). Making peace is likely to require bold and disagreeable compromises like the one proposed. - Race / Anti-Racism
Biden’s OMB Plans to Divide America Into More Racial Groups — For a society in which so much effort is being devoted to providing some racial groups with more opportunities, news about upcoming changes in the way the government defines those groups. - Left / Right Conflict
How Identity Politics Aids the Right and Divides the Left — An assessment of the political implications of dividing society into separate (and often competing) identity groups. - Positive Perspectives
America’s economic outperformance is a marvel to behold — A good news story that challenges the popular belief that the US economy (and the larger society) is collapsing and won't be able to meet the needs of its citizens. - Disinformation
How Disinformation Splintered and Became More Intractable — An update on recent trends in disinformation campaigns and the the rapidly advancing technologies that are making them increasingly effective. - Disinformation
The Autocrat Sliding into Your DMs — Sobering news for those who might be tempted to discount the dangers associated with high-tech authoritarianism. - Class Inequity
The ‘Diploma Divide’ Is the New Fault Line in American Politics — For a time when so many believe that the United States' principal fault lines revolve around race and gender, an argument that education is even more important. - Class Inequity
As enrollment plummets, academia gets schooled about where it went wrong — For those disturbed about trends in higher education, a thought-provoking and controversial examination of what went wrong.
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