Zach Elwood is the author of “How Contempt Destroys Democracy,” a book aimed at helping liberal Americans understand our toxic divides and learn better ways to approach disagreement. He hosts the psychology podcast People Who Read People.
The Hyper-Polarization Challenge to the Conflict Resolution Field
We invite you to participate in an online exploration of what those with conflict and peacebuilding expertise can do to help defend liberal democracies and encourage them live up to their ideals.
Follow BI and the Hyper-Polarization Discussion on BI's New Substack Newsletter.
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Beyond Intractability
Beyond Intractability
The Intractable Conflict Challenge
Our inability to constructively handle intractable conflict is the most serious, and the most neglected, problem facing humanity. Solving today's tough problems depends upon finding better ways of dealing with these conflicts. More...
Selected Recent BI Posts
Including Hyper-Polarization Posts
- 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.
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Constructive Conflict Initiative
Join Us in calling for a dramatic expansion of efforts to limit the destructiveness of intractable conflict.
Things You Can Do to Help Ideas
Practical things we can all do to limit the destructive conflicts threatening our future.
Conflict Frontiers
A free, open, online seminar exploring new approaches for addressing difficult and intractable conflicts. Major topic areas include:
Scale, Complexity, & Intractability
Massively Parallel Peacebuilding
Conflict Fundamentals
An look at to the fundamental building blocks of the peace and conflict field covering both “tractable” and intractable conflict.
Beyond Intractability / CRInfo
Knowledge Base
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BI in Context
Links to thought-provoking articles exploring the larger, societal dimension of intractability.
Colleague Activities
Information about interesting conflict and peacebuilding efforts.