Beyond Intractability
Hyper-Polarization Blog
Includes BI/CRQ Discussion
Selected Recent Posts
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Things You Can Do To Help | Conflict Frontiers | Conflict Fundamentals
Beyond Intractability in Context | Colleague Activities
- Paul Monteiro, Former Director of the Community Relations Service, Talking About How CRS Works its Magic -- A few of the many important things Community Relations Service Paul Monteiro shared about the way CRS operates, what makes it successful, and most importantly, how it needs help from locals.
- Colleague and Context Posts for the Week of May 15, 2023 -- Our weekly selection of interesting organizations and projects in the conflict/peacebuilding field, and articles of interest from outside our field.
- An Award for NAFCM + Conflict Mapping and Other Tools for Understanding Complex Problems -- Conflict mapping is a tool to help understand what, besides "the other guys" are driving a conflict or social problem, and hence what might be done to fix it.
- John Lande: The Importance of Really Listening – For Ourselves, Others, and Democracy -- Some of our biggest errors are that we generally assume that we correctly understand the world and that being wrong is bad. Rather, we often are wrong--and that is good!
- Colleague and Context Posts for the Week of May 8, 2023 -- Colleague activities to strengthen democracy, and outside the field articles on democracy, polarization, and related issues.
- D.G. Mawn Talks About Community Mediation and NAFCM -- Conversation with D.G. Mawn about the National Association for Community Mediation and the work of the hundreds of member centers which have been helping resolve community conflicts for decades.
- Colleague and Context Posts for the Week of May 1, 2023 -- Colleague activities to strengthen democracy, and outside the field articles on democracy, polarization, and related issues.
- Conversation with D.G. Mawn, President of the National Association for Community Mediation -- Video conversation with D.G. Mawn about the history and current activities of the National Association for Community Mediation and the work of the hundreds of member community mediation centers.
- Colleague and Context Posts for the Week of April 23, 2023 -- More stories about our colleague's efforts to defuse polarization and strengthen democracy, along with similar stories from outside the conflict/peacebuilding field.
- ChatGPT — Can It "Listen" Better Than We Can? -- Can ChatGPT "listen to" and understand the other side better than we can? And if so, is that useful for de-polarization?
- Sharing Ideas From Around the Globe on Ways to Strengthen Democracy - A BI/IGN Discussion -- A summary of ideas generated by the joint BI/IGN discussion on ways to strengthen democracy using negotiation, conflict resolution, and related processes.
- Polarization's Toll on US Credibility, Progressives' Reverse CBT, and Other Colleague and Context Links -- Our readers share their thoughts: how progressive attitudes are deeply hurting progressives themselves, and how polarization is damaging US credibility abroad. Plus normal colleague and context posts.
- Our Problem Isn't "Them" -- We need to learn more about the other side--not about how bad they are, but why they believe what they believe, why they respond to us the way they do, and why they advocate for the things we think are so awful.
- Carrie Menkel-Meadow: Freedom of Speech and Freedom to Protest -- Who has the right to speak how and when? The Stanford Law School controversy has lessons for all of us.
- Colleague and Context posts for the week of April 9 -- Ideas and announcements from several of our colleagues, as well as observations from people in allied fields about stresses to our democracy, and how to address them effectively.
- The Power Strategy Mix — Empowering the Pursuit of the Common Good -- Power is not just force. It is the ability to get things done. And that usually is maximized by using integrative and exchange power to encourage collaboration whenever possible, with force used little if at all.
- Alan Yarborough: Getting to Meaning -- To better understand both others and even ourselves, we must dig deeper into the words and terms we use to ensure we are conveying precisely what we want to convey and nothing more.
- Colleague and Context posts for the week of April 2 -- Notable organizations working to strengthen democracy and reduce hyper-polarization, along with important readings on those topics from within and outside the conflict/peacebuilding field.
- Julia Roig and James Savage: Exploring Narrative Practices for Broad-based Movements in Contexts of Democratic Decline -- The narratives we engage and deploy shape our world. In the face of rising authoritarianism, what stories and tactics drive collaboration within and between movements?
- Helena Desivilya Syna on The Paradox of Tolerance with a response from Heidi Burgess and Guy Burgess -- Israel presents a dilemma for conflict resolvers: should one seek dialogue and compromise, or should one advocate and work for total victory without compromise because one side is so extreme?
- Rachel Kleinfeld's "Five Strategies to Support U.S. Democracy" -- US democracy is failing. Each moment deepens the polarization that makes its problems harder to fix. As Americans, we must start now, at scale, strategically, with a broad, cross-party coalition to save our democracy.
- Colleague and Context Posts for the Week of March 19 -- Reader-suggested links, colleague activities to strengthen democracy, and outside the field articles on democracy, polarization, and related issues.
- Planning a Constructive Confrontation Strategy: Understanding the Relationship between Negotiation and Power -- Healthy conflict resolution systems rely primary on interest-based negotiations, using rights and power contests much less frequently. US democracy currently does the opposite.
- Institute for Global Leadership -- IGL provides training and consultation for leaders and teams to adapt to the changed dynamics of a post-9/11 world. They train reconciliation leaders with personal, interpersonal, systemic, and global competencies in business, community, institutional, national, and world environments.
- Kevin Clements' "Authoritarian Populism and Atavistic Nationalism: 21st Century Challenges to Peacebuilding and Development" -- Are liberal, democratic capitalist states operating under the rule of law capable of meeting the economic, welfare, and identity needs of citizens in the 21st century? If not, what can?
