Beyond Intractability
Hyper-Polarization Blog
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Things You Can Do To Help | Conflict Frontiers | Conflict Fundamentals
Beyond Intractability in Context | Colleague Activities
- Richard Harwood Talks With Heidi Burgess About His "New Civic Path" -- Heidi Burgess talks with Richard Harwood, President and Founder of the Harwood Institute about how community members can work together to overcome even their most difficult problems.
- An Entreaty: An excerpt from The New Civic Path: Restoring Our Belief in One Another and Our Nation by Richard C. Harwood -- The catalyst we need to heal ourselves and our nation must begin in our local communities. Rich Harwood's new civic path starts with turning outward toward one another, figuring out what we can agree on amid our differences, and getting in motion together to take action on what matters in our daily lives.
- Colleague, News, and Opinion Links for the Week of June 15, 2025 -- More interesting and important articles to share.
- Comments on Our Webinar with Ashok Panikkar on "Whither Peacebuilding" -- Our discussion with Ashok about peacebuilding after USAID and USIP generated three very different comments. We share them all and respond here.
- Bridge-Building in Times of Hyper-Polarization: An ACR-EPP Webinar -- A report on the webinar Guy and Heidi Burgess did with the Environmental and Public Policy Section of the Association for Conflict Resolution, focusing on how environmental and public policy mediators might be able to help strengthen U.S. democracy.
- Colleague, News, and Opinion Links for the Week of June 1, 2025 -- A note about the Boulder terror attack, followed by our weekly set of readings.
- Ashok Panikkar, Guy Burgess and Heidi Burgess Discuss: Whither Peacebuilding? Is There Life After USAID and USIP? -- The peacebuilding field has been seriously shaken by the closure of USAID and USIP. What does this (and other real-world pressures) mean for the field? A conversation with three people who have been thinking about these challenges for a long time.
- Kenneth Boulding's First Law: If It Exists (or Has Been Done), It Must Be Possible -- Reflections on the vital role played by nongovernmental organizations (NGOs) and the fraught relationship between those organizations and governmental sources of support.
- Colleague, News, and Opinion Links for the Week of May 18, 2025 -- More interesting readings.
- Every Problem Creates an Opportunity to Develop Something New and Better -- A retrospective look at the long and hopeful history of the conflict resolution and peacebuilding fields -- a history punctuated by a long series of societal crises and, ultimately, constructive responses to those crises.
- Colleague, News, and Opinion Links for the Week of May 11, 2025 -- Another in our weekly sets of interesting readings
- Better Together America: Another Example of Massively Parallel Democracy Building at Work -- A report on Better Together America's first Hub Accelerator Workshop -- an inspiring get together of people from around the United States who are working in a wide variety of ways to strengthen civic engagement in their local communities.
- Colleague, News, and Opinion Links for the Week of May 4, 2025 -- Insightful readings for this week.
- Things to Think About -- Alone and Together - Part 2 -- Two more interesting exercises to think about ways of constructively approaching intractable conflicts and the role of intervenors in those conflicts.
- Things to Think About -- Alone and Together - Part 1 -- An introduction to a set of exercises that people can do alone or in groups to think through difficult conflict situations and find ways of overcoming obstacles to moving forward more constructively.
- Colleague, News, and Opinion Links for the Week of April 27, 2025 -- This weeks readings from colleagues and journalists of note.
- Daniel Stid: Competitive Authoritarianism Comes for Civil Society -- An exploration of the critical role that civil society needs to play in the defending US democracy and thoughts about how civil society might overcome the challenges that are making it difficult for it to play that role.
- Harry Boyte and the Burgesses on Thinking Politically -- What does "thinking politically" mean in terms of nonviolent action. It doesn't mean thinking along party lines. Rather, it means thinking strategically about audiences, desired outcomes and best strategies to meet those outcomes.
- Colleague, News, and Opinion Links for the Week of April 20, 2025 -- Useful readings for today.
- Predicting a "Rule-of-Law" Crisis? -- Are we facing a "constitutional" or "rule-of-law" crisis? What can/should the peacebuilding community do in such circumstances? This is what we call "the peacebuilder's dilemma."
- Colleague, News, and Opinion Links for the Week of April 13, 2025 -- Weekly readings and viewings of interest.
- Harry Boyte On Nonviolence Training and Effective Nonviolent Action -- A reflection on the relationship between love and power and what makes nonviolent protests effective.
- David Eisner's P.S. -- Are Trump's Moves -- and the Results -- Controlled Burns or Out-of-Control Wildfires? -- David Eisner asks whether the fires we talked about in our "Fiddling While Rome Burns" series are controlled burns or forest fires. The Burgesses respond "out of control forest fires" -- and explain why.
- Colleague, News, and Opinion Links for the Week of March 30, 2025 -- Our weekly readings for your enjoyment! (Or blood pressure increase).
- Part 2 of the Burgess's Answer to Ashok Panikkar's Questions about Hyperpolarization and Today's World -- We finish answering Ashok Panikkar by talking about other drivers of hyper-polarization: globalization and technology driven job loss, identity politics, cable news and social media, and distrust of institutions. We also address Ashok's notion of theory of continuity and share what we think it will take to "save" liberal democracy in the U.S.
