Beyond Intractability
Hyper-Polarization Blog
Includes BI/CRQ Discussion
Selected Recent Posts
You can subscribe to Selected Posts on Facebook, Twitter, and LinkedIn.
Or, if you prefer, you can subscribe to the more extensive series of All Posts, also on
Facebook, Twitter, and LinkedIn.
In addition, lists of recent posts are available separately for each BI Section:
Things You Can Do To Help | Conflict Frontiers | Conflict Fundamentals
Beyond Intractability in Context | Colleague Activities
- Addressing The "Grey Zone*" Warfare Threat to Negotiation -- The "invisible hand" upon which so much of liberal democracy depends is now being undermined by a wide range of "gray zone" attacks on negotiation processes.
- Universities Need to Do Better -- Universities need to teach about ways of understanding and influencing complex systems, and encourage true multi-disciplinary efforts to do so. #mbi_cci
- The Power of Art in Gray Zone Conflicts -- Armies of artists can engage people in peacebuilding the way other conflict handling professionals cannot. #mbi_cci
- Review of Peter Coleman's The Way Out -- Addressing hyper-polarization as a complex problem is essential--but figuring out how to do so successfully is very tricky. #mbi_cci
- The Importance of Academic Impartiality -- An in-depth look at the philosophy behind academic impartiality with important lessons for those thinking about neutrality in the conflict resolution field. #mbi_context
- Is reconciliation in a divided America possible? Look to Northern Ireland to see what could happen. -- For peace to be sustained, it requires a shared vision of the future that’s anchored in a shared understanding of the past. #mbi_colleague
- Civics Secures Democracy Act: The Greatest Education Battle of Our Lifetimes -- Civics education is critical to the revitalization of democracy. To be successful, however, it can't cross the line into political advocacy. #mbi_context
- The Reunited States of America: New Documentary Seeks to Bridge Political Divide -- A documentary showing how everyday Americans are finding their own solutions to bridging the partisan divide, inviting others to pledge to do so too. #mbi_colleague
- Building Bridges Towards Equality -- New study provides insights into how intergroup contact should be structured to promote support for social change #mbi_fundamentals
- Millions of Conversation's Conversationalist Series: State of the Union after January 6. -- At noon CST on Jan 20, 2022 Millions of Conversations will convene to discuss the state of American democracy a year after the storming of the capitol. #mbi_fundamentals
- The Everyday Chemicals That Might Be Leading Us to Our Extinction -- If you are looking for another mega-worry that goes to the core of social sustainability, this is an excellent candidate. #mbi_context
- Massively Parallel Peacebuilding: Video Presentation to the Institute for Global Negotation -- Saving democracy isn't the job of politicians; it is the job of everyone who wants a secure and prosperous future. The time has come to stop complaining and start acting. #mbi_fundamentals
- The Fundamentalist -- Reflections on the many dangers of being absolutely, positively sure that you are right and they are wrong. #mbi_context
- How to be an anti-racist -- A look at strategies for fighting racism that seeme more promising than the current generation of diversity training programs. #mbi_context
- Reversing Polarization and Escalation - Part 2 -- We now have a list of 28 things that can be done to reverse or prevent escalation, but one sums up them all: respect. #mbi_fundamentals
- The progressive mobilization myth is alive and well -- Much of our divisiveness is driven by the perceived imperatives of "mobilize the base" politics. Here is an important challenge to the validity of this view. #mbi_context
- Reversing Polarization and Escalation - Part 1 -- While there are many things driving destructive escalation and polarization, there are also many things that can be done to reverse them. #mbi_fundamentals
- Republicans are testing messages to reverse their suburban slide, and education is a winner -- A look at the political risks for Democrats in their support for aggressive antiracism and gender equity programs. #mbi_context
- Not Everyone in New York Wanted the Coronavirus to Lose -- A window into one manifestation of what we call the Bad-Faith Actor problem -- people who try to profit by promoting division and dysfunction. #mbi_context
- Intractable Conflicts Are Always More than "Us-Versus-Them" -- We tend to assume that it is their choices and their behavior, that is causing our own problems. It isn't. It is almost always US TOO! #mbi_cci
- How Experts Overlooked Left-Wing Authoritarianism -- "A look at how political biases have distorted psychological research in ways that have underestimated the level of left-wing support for authoritarians. #mbi_context "
- What (if anything) have we learned since Vietnam? -- A discussion of the dangers of over-simplification and what can be done to better understand the complexity of a conflict before you choose a course of action.
- The rapidly shifting Hispanic experience of American criminal justice -- A surprising and encouraging report indicating that Hispanic Americans may no longer be disproportionately disadvantaged in terms of criminal justice. #mbi_context
- America Is Giving the World a Disturbing New Kind of War -- The war on terror is no longer what it was in the years following 9/11. It has morphed into a new kind of warfare with profound implications. #mbi_context
- Meet The Censored: Ivermectin Critic David Fuller -- Before we celebrate the tech companies newfound commitment to fighting disinformation, a look at one case in which they apparently got things wrong. #mbi_context
