All Recent Posts
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Things You Can Do To Help | Conflict Frontiers | Conflict Fundamentals
Beyond Intractability in Context | Colleague Activities
- Meeting the Authoritarian Populism Challenge 1: Authoritarian and Partisan Conflict -- The first key to saving democracy is to understand how that differs from simply trying to advance partisan objectives.
- Conflict Frontiers Seminar 8 -- MPP-based Strategies for Addressing the Authoritarian Populism Problem -- A complexity-based approach to strengthening democracy and avoiding authoritarian populism
- The Divide and Conquer Authoritarian / Plutocratic Threat -- Today's most serious conflicts are, in large part, being engineered by those who seek power over the rest of the society.
- Red, Blue, Gold Interactions, Destructive Polarization and the Peacebuilding Imperative -- Democracy depends on separating the authoritarian/plutocratic threat from left/right cultural and distributional conflicts.
- The Purple/Gold Distributional Divide -- The widely misunderstood complexity of "who gets what" distributional conflicts explains much of our inequality problem.
- The Red/Blue Cultural Divide -- The evolutionary, neurobiological foundation of the cultural divide requires approaching it with mutual tolerance and respect.
- Mapping the Continuum between Democracy and Authoritarianism -- Like the proverbial frog in hot water, democracies have been sliding toward authoritarianism with too few people recognizing the danger.
- Mapping the Authoritarian Populism "Conflict Complex," an Overview -- Meeting the challenge of authoritarian populism will require a sophisticated understanding of "who is fighting who over what."
- Using the MPP Action List: The Authoritarian Populism Example (Part II) -- Find out what you can do to strengthen democracy while reducing the risk of authoritarianism.
- Using the MPP Action List: The Authoritarian Populism Example (Part I) -- How can populist revolts address the real failures of establishment elites without falling victim to authoritarian temptations?
- Conflict Frontiers Seminar 6--Figuring Out What Is Going On (MPP Challenge 1) -- Widespread, and overly simplistic, "us vs. them" ways of thinking about conflict underlies much of its destructiveness.
- Conflict Frontiers Seminar 5 -- Introduction to Massively Parallel Peacebuilding (MPP) -- While there is no simple way to "resolve" intractable conflicts, a complexity-oriented approach can make them less destructive.
- Conflict Frontiers Seminar 4 -- Moving Toward a Complexity-Oriented Paradigm -- We need a new strategy tailored to intractable conflict's gigantic, tangled web of causes and consequences.
- Conflict Frontiers Seminar 3 -- Introduction to Complexity and "Systems Thinking": Theoretical Antecedents -- Nests, cycles, attractors, and paradigms -- new ways of thinking about conflict and its resolution.
- Conflict Frontiers Seminar 2 -- Pushing the Frontier: the Limits of Business-as-Usual Approaches -- More of the same isn't enough--we need new approaches to successfully address intractable conflicts.
- Conflict Frontiers Seminar 1 -- Understanding the Intractable Conflict Problem -- Destructive dynamics associated with intractable conflict are as big a threat as climate change. Find out why!
- Massively Parallel Peacebuilding Action List -- The ten challenges of MPP are daunting, but there is a role here for everyone.
- Factual Disputes -- An overview of the many kinds of disputes over facts that arise in conflicts--and what to do about them. Although getting worse, this problem isn't new!
- Cognitive Dissonance -- Cognitive dissonance can escalate or de-escalate conflict depending on how it is used.
- Siege Mentality -- North Korea's siege mentality is particularly dangerous as the US is exhibiting a siege mentality too!
- Minimize the Use of Force -- Exchange and respect are more powerful than force--they persuade without causing backlash.
- Seek Co-existence, Not Total Victory -- The demand for total victory is a recipe for continuing and deepening strife--co-existence is essential for peace.
- Be Willing to Consider the Possibility That You May Be Wrong -- Most of us are so enmeshed in our own worldviews that we don't consider that we might be wrong. It helps to listen to outsiders and consider that possibility.
- Listen Actively and Empathically -- Empathic listening is amazingly powerful--sometimes that is all that is needed to defuse destructive conflicts.
- Practice - and Preach - Civility in Public and Private Discourse -- Incivility begets more of the same, while civil discourse can help de-escalate conflict and improve relationships.
