Newsletter #328 — March 6, 2025
Note about our last newsletter entitled "James Coan and Katie Hyten on Scaling Up Dialogue and Other Forms of Interpersonal Communication to Bridge Political Divides." Heidi thought it made sense to combine James' and Katie's ideas in one post, but James wrote that he thought doing so, and especially the post's title, misconstrued what he and co-author Imre Huss were trying to say. James explained:
In Newsletter #327 this Monday, Beyond Intractability re-published an article from James Coan and Imre Huss of More Like US, and also included excerpts from a conversation with Katie Hyten of Essential Partners in October 2023. Both More Like US and Essential Partners want to achieve scale, but it may have been unclear how they differ. James and Imre argued for the potential to go beyond interpersonal communication to achieve scale, and they described other options: parasocial contact, vicarious contact, and correcting misperceptions — especially of threat. Meanwhile, Katie highlighted ways of trying to achieve scale within the field of interpersonal communication, and she pointed to approaches like partnering with organizations to embed it in the life of that space, and collaborating across organizations.
Reader Suggested Links
Highlighting links suggested by our readers. Please send us links to things that you find useful.
- Civil Society
Civic Learning Week: Empowering the Future of Democracy, March 10-14 — Join iCivics from March 10-14 for Civic Learning Week (CLW), an annual event dedicated to highlighting the crucial role of civic education in strengthening constitutional democracy. - Non-Violence
BATMo! Beautiful Action Trainer Modules — A series of modules designed to support Nonviolent Action Trainers as they try to teach groups and individuals how to be the most effective advocates possible. - US Politics
What Erratic Government Does to a Country — A review of some of the costs associated with uncertainties about where Donald Trump's radical changes will ultimately take us. - Theories of Change
Can we find common ground without a shared reality? — A perceptive examination of the role that a shared vision of reality plays in crafting a broadly accepted political agenda. - Saving Democracy
The Nature of Our Power: A Conversation with Political Scientist Erica Chenoweth — Institutions really can’t save us; civil society and mass mobilization are a more potent check on backsliding democracy in the long term, rather than relying on institutional checks and balances alone. - US Politics
'Reboot' Revealed: Elon Musk's CEO-Dictator Playbook — A critical look at the many parallels that exist between DOGE's actions and the kinds of things that aspiring dictators frequently do. - Constructive Advocacy
Fighting Authoritarianism Beyond Left vs. Right — Scot Nakagawa, co-producer of the 22nd Century Initiative, argues that we need a non-partisan, people-powered resistance working together to build the future we want, not just fight against the present we fear. - US Politics
The Coming Showdown in Trumpworld — An analysis of the deep conflicts that are simmering just below the surface of Donald Trump's multifaceted coalition.
Colleague Activities
Highlighting things that our conflict and peacebuilding colleagues are doing that contribute to efforts to address the hyper-polarization problem.
- Constructive Advocacy
Can you resist Trump while also working on political depolarization? — Is political activism at odds with reducing political toxicity? (Spoiler: no, says Zachary Elwood.) - Superpower Conflict
The Trump-Zelensky Oval Office blowup. — This is from Tangle--a much more balanced and insightful analysis of the event and its meaning than others we've seen. - Bridge Building
Breaking the Cycle: Why Bridge-Building Feels One-Sided (and How We Fix It) — If both sides wait for the other to engage, no one ever will. - Violence
Survey on Threats and Harassment: Fourth Quarter 2024 — Threats and harassment continue to have a chilling effect on the functions of local government, with officials less willing to work on controversial topics or post on social media. - Education
Cultivating a Culture of Dignity in Schools — Much of the growth in UNITE's work has been happening in the K-12 education space. Teachers and school leaders across the country are asking how they can uphold and promote the value of dignity within our schools. - Peacebuilding
What Happens When Peace Programs Shut Down? — A Search for Common Ground Emergency Town Hall to explain about the impact of the U.S. foreign aid freeze and what it means for communities worldwide. - Peacebuilding
International peacebuilding goes local: analysing Lederach's conflict transformation theory and its ambivalent encounter with 20 years of practice — This article examines how peacebuilding theory has influenced the shift from the international to the ‘local’ in the practice of international peacebuilding. - Climate / Environment / Health
Americans are united: send wildfire aid — Ashley Fabrizio, PhD, Head of Research for More in Common US, writes about Americans’ desire for federal aid to California. - Suppressing Opponents
Humiliation Always Damages Peace — A thoughtful Facebook post by longtime peacebuilder and scholar Ron Kraybill on the Ukraine War and the debacle in the Oval Office between Trump, Vance, and Zelensky. - Saving Democracy
Election Integrity — There is more to democracy than free and fair elections, but there can be no democracy without them. A set of articles from Freedom House on assuring electoral integrity. - Monitoring and Evaluation
Forum: Fostering Cooperation in Conflict Research Beyond Borders — An examination of the current state of the Peace and Conflict Studies field that highlights the importance of bridging the gap between theory and practice. - Peacebuilding
A New Local Turn for Track One Peace Process Research: Anthropological Approaches — This article advocates for incorporating local perspectives into high-level peace negotiations, addressing the often-overlooked gap between theoretical research and practical applications in peace processes. - Civil Society
Engaging Democracy: A Citizens' Assembly on Youth Homelessness — This initiative demonstrated how ordinary people can navigate complex political issues effectively, fostering constructive dialogue in contrast to the usual polarization seen in public discourse. - Media Reform
Debunking some myths about Tangle (and me). — Tangle exists to deliver political news that can be trusted by the left, right, and center all at once. It gives people of all stripes a more accurate image of their world than they can get elsewhere.
News and Opinion
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. (Formerly, Beyond Intractability in Context.)
- Superpower Conflict
Trump and Vance Are Stripping Away Foreign Policy Illusions — A rare look at the Trump/Zelenskyy conflict that tries to look at both the strengths and weaknesses of the President's approach. - Developing a Unifying Vision
The Full Common Sense Democrat Manifesto — From Matt Yglesias, a proposed vision for a democracy in which most all of us would like to live -- something worth seriously considering. - US Politics
Vengeance Is His — A summary, with lots of links, of the in-depth examinations of Donald Trump's actions being conducted by political scientists. - US Politics
Is This What America Voted For? — Opinion poll data highlighting what the voters think of DOGE's effort to downsize and reform the federal government. - US Politics
Democrats Need to Clean House — An update on the Democratic Party's big conflict over how best to respond to last year's election defeat and the unfolding Trump Presidency. - Family / Gender / LBGTQ+
Supreme Court Considers Reverse-Bias Lawsuits Amid DEI Backlash — An update on some usually consequential cases that the Supreme Court will be considering with respect to accusations of reverse bias. - US Politics
Here’s How Government Spending Has Grown—and Where the Money Is Going — Amid the ongoing fight over what federal expenditures are and are not worth defending, a primer on where all the money is going. - Progressive Left
Explaining Canada's Cult of 'Decolonial Futurity' to Americans — A report on how Canadians are coming to terms with their history as a British/French colony and the way they see the larger anticolonial movement. - Freedom of Speech
Listeners’ Rights in the Time of Propaganda: The Story of Lamont v. Postmaster General — We hear lots of passionate debate about the advantages and disadvantages of freedom of speech. This article looks at a different right -- our right to choose what we listen to. - Race / Anti-Racism
DEI Has Lost All Meaning — An argument that we could do much to defuse the conflict over DEI if we would just be clearer about exactly what we want and why. - Communication Complexity
A Theory of Media That Explains 15 Years of Politics — An interview with CIA media analyst Martin Gurri in which he explains how he thinks the shift from scarce to abundant media sources has transformed modern society. - Communication Complexity
The Price of Mass Amusement — A review of some of the big theoretical ideas underpinning our understanding of the role that our complex high-tech communication system plays in shaping our lives. - Saving Democracy
The Death of Competition in American Elections — The surprising and disturbing look at how few US elections are contested in any meaningful way. Democracy can't work when the views of so many voters are irrelevant. - US Politics
One Word Describes Trump — An examination of the meaning, history, and significance of patrimonial systems of governance and an argument that this is what Donald Trump is trying to build. - Superpower Conflict
World Order in a Time of Monsters by Minouche Shafik — Valuable food for thought as we struggle to understand this period of radical change in virtually all aspects of international relations. - US Politics
Ten reasons for modest optimism — An update on Robert Reich's reasons why those shocked by Donald Trump's actions should not give in to hopelessness and despair. - US Politics
Why Did Democrats Lose Their Edge with Women? — Surprising information about how support from one of the Democratic Party's core constituencies (women) is declining. - Violence
A Federal Judge Says: Knock Off the Threats — From a distinguished Federal judge, a report on the growing instances in which jurists are subjected to efforts to intimidate them. - US Politics
DOGE’s Reign of Ineptitude — Good (or at least defensible) intentions are not enough. Policy initiatives that are not based on an accurate understanding of the system that they are trying to influence are doomed to failure. - Constructive Communication
Want to Be a Better Listener? Take Lessons From a Chatbot. — AI's studying success is based on carefully listening to most all of the voices on the Internet. Could we learned something about listening from the way in which it does this? - Interstate War
The war in Ukraine has changed — and it’s deadlier than ever. — An update on the many ways in which cheap, high-tech weapons are making the war in Ukraine ever more deadly (while also changing the nature of war).
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About the MBI Newsletters
Two or three times a week, Guy and Heidi Burgess, the BI Directors, share some of our thoughts on political hyper-polarization and related topics. We also share essays from our colleagues and other contributors, and every week or so, we devote one newsletter to annotated links to outside readings that we found particularly useful relating to U.S. hyper-polarization, threats to peace (and actual violence) in other countries, and related topics of interest. Each Newsletter is posted on BI, and sent out by email through Substack to subscribers. You can sign up to receive your copy here and find the latest newsletter here or on our BI Newsletter page, which also provides access to all the past newsletters, going back to 2017.
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