Tag: Intermestic

THE VISTA: May 2023

During the month of May, many important resources have been released on both the rise of authoritarianism and on global polarization. Horizons appreciates the opportunity to learn from across regional contexts and supports deep understanding of how the authoritarian playbook is used to fuel divisions and toxic othering. In “America Needs a Cross-National Approach to Counter Authoritarianism” Yordanos Eyoel provides an overview of the newly released report, “Defending and Strengthening Diverse Democracies” that offers lessons from Brazil, India, South Africa, and the United States. The Institute For Integrated Transitions also published as a part of their global polarization program: First Principles: The Need for Greater Consensus on the Fundamentals of Polarisation. Aditi Juneja makes The Case for Expanding the Landscape of Democracy Work; and People’s Action Institute highlights the need for an organizing revival, in their recent report: The Antidote to Authoritarianism.

Horizons Chief Organizer, Maria Stephan, published a comprehensive piece this month on how the global authoritarian playbook is being executed in Florida and lessons for the pro-democracy movement. A special thanks to all the front-line movement leaders in Florida who contributed to this analysis and who continue such important organizing work under such difficult circumstances.

As we kick off the summer in the US with LGBTQI+ Pride month in June, we recommend the new resources provided by Georgetown University’s Institute for Constitutional Advocacy & Protections on Protecting Pride Events from Armed Extremist Activity. Our hope is that we continue to care for each other and find new ways of being and doing across our many difference.

Enjoy some of the other resources that the Horizons’ team has been reading, watching and listening to:

READING

Why Voters Who Value Democracy Participate in Democratic Backsliding

by Alia Braley and Gabriel Lenz, Nature Human Behavior

“Around the world, citizens are voting away the democracies they claim to cherish.” This article summarizes research that shows this behaviour is driven in part by the belief that our opponents will undermine democracy first. The study finds that US partisans are willing to subvert democratic norms to the extent that they believe opposing partisans are willing to do the same. When partisans were exposed to the fact that their opponents are more committed to democratic norms than they thought – they became more committed to upholding democratic norms themselves and less willing to vote for candidates who break these norms. “These findings suggest that aspiring autocrats may instigate democratic backsliding by accusing their opponents of subverting democracy and that we can foster democratic stability by informing partisans about the other side’s commitment to democracy.”

How King’s ‘Letter from Birmingham Jail’ parallels the Tennessee Three

by Kristen Thomason, Baptist News Global

One of the Tennessee Three, Rep. Justin Jones tweeted: “There comes a time when you have to do something out of the ordinary. We occupied the House floor today after repeatedly being silenced from talking about the crisis of mass shootings. We could not go about business as usual as thousands were protesting outside demanding action.” This article connects this action to the reasoning of Martin Luther King Jr. 60 years ago as explained in his famous letter from a Birmingham Jail that sometimes actions out of the ordinary are necessary. “Nonviolent direct action seeks to create such a crisis and foster such a tension that a community which has constantly refused to negotiate is forced to confront the issue. It seeks so to dramatize the issue that it can no longer be ignored.”

Being Human > Being Right

by Thomas Coombes

“Does your approach to social justice depend on showing people that they are wrong (and, therefore, that you are right)?” Our friend The Hope Guy has written a wonderful summary of the insights from four recent books to challenge this all-too-common approach to “being right” and lays out three helpful steps: (1) Recognize when our certainty makes us bad communicators; (2) To change minds, listen; and (3) Make the conversation (not its subject) the story.

WATCHING

The Growing Threat of Christian Nationalism

“What is Christian nationalism and how does it threaten our democracy? Investigative reporter Katherine Stewart, author of The Power Worshippers: Inside the Dangerous Rise of Religious Nationalism, Eric K. Ward, executive vice president at Race Forward, and Guthrie Graves-Fitzsimmons, communications director at  Baptist Joint Committee for Religious Liberty (BJC) and a member of BJC’s Christians Against Christian Nationalism campaign discuss the rise of Christian nationalism, its intersection with antisemitism, racism, and extremism, and why we should be paying attention.” (This is the second program in a four-part series on Exploring Hate.)

A Brief but Spectacular Take on Finding Hope in a Difficult World

PBS Newshour

Simran Jeet Singh is executive director for the Aspen Institute’s Religion and Society Program and author of “The Light We Give: How Sikh Wisdom Can Transform Your Life.” Singh shares his Brief But Spectacular take on how by focusing on the positive aspects of our multi-religious, racial and ethnic world, society can disrupt bias and build empathy.

The Abortion Talks

This documentary film by Josh Sabey and Sarah Perkins follows the crimes and trial of John Salvi—and the story of six women, all of them leaders in the pro-life and pro-choice movements, who sought to ensure that it would never happen again. To coincide with the film’s impact campaign, Picture Motion has launched a Screening Tour, providing access to the film and an accompanying Discussion & Action Guide at a sliding fee scale. If you are interested in hosting a film screening, you can contact Picture Motion here.

Imagination Infrastructure

ICYMI, the Joseph Rowntree Foundation recently released all the video recordings from their convening “A Time Between Worlds” where a series of inspiring speakers from around the world discussed aspects of imagination infrastructure. Olivia Oldham summarizes various concepts of imagination as a way “of seeing, sensing, thinking, dreaming” that creates the conditions for material interventions in, and political sensibilities of the world. Imagination is thus a transformative practice, which has the capacity to cultivate and foster alternatives to social, political, cultural and economic conditions; it is a prerequisite for changing the world for the better.”

LISTENING TO

“Polarization” Is Not the Problem. It Obscures the Problem – with Shannon McGregor

Is this Democracy Podcast

In this interview McGregor discusses her recent article, A Review and Provocation: On Polarization and Platforms and reflects on: “Why do scholars, politicians, journalists, and pundits cling to the idea of “polarization”? [Her] answer lies in the fact that the empirical, normative, and historical inadequacy is not a bug, but a feature of the polarization narrative – it is precisely the fact that is obscures rather than illuminates the actual problem that makes it attractive. The “polarization” concept is useful if you want to lament major problems in American politics, but either don’t see or simply can’t bring yourself to address the fact that the major threat to American democracy is a radicalizing Right, is the threat of rightwing authoritarian minority rule. In this way the concept even provides a rhetoric of rapprochement since it does not require agreement as to what is actually ailing America, only that “polarization” is to the detriment of all.”

A Slow Civil War? Jeff Sharlet

Future Hindsight Podcast

Jeff Sharlet discusses his latest book, The Undertow: Scenes from a Slow Civil War, reflecting on the democratic decline in the US, and the role of myths and martyrdom within fascist narratives. “On the Far Right, everything is heightened―love into adulation, fear into vengeance, anger into white-hot rage. Here, in the undertow, our forty-fifth president, a vessel of conspiratorial fears and fantasies, continues to rise to sainthood, and the insurrectionist Ashli Babbitt, killed on January 6 at the Capitol, is beatified as a martyr of white womanhood. Framing this dangerous vision, Sharlet remembers and celebrates the courage of those who sing a different song of community, and of an America long dreamt of and yet to be fully born, dedicated to justice and freedom for all.”

Hungary: Learning useful lessons from your enemies

Strength & Solidarity Podcast

“The election in 2010, of Hungary’s Prime Minister Victor Orban and his Fidesz party triggered a lurch to the right and authoritarian rule. It brought legal restriction, bureaucratic harassment and public vilification to the country’s civil society and human rights community. Official hostility made it difficult for [non-profits] to survive and made individual rights workers’ lives hell. It would not have been surprising if the net outcome of such targeting were a weakened human rights movement and a profound loss of confidence. And yet, says Stefánia Kapronczay, co-director of the Hungarian Civil Liberties Union, that is not what has happened. Instead, finding themselves blocked from their former work of advocacy and litigation, human rights workers pivoted to a model of grass roots activism that puts citizens’ needs and their values about rights and justice at the heart of movement-building. It is work they had not been doing enough of, she argues, and it is making the constituency for human rights stronger.”

How the News Media Shortchanges Nonviolent Resistance

War Stories Peace Stories Podcast

“The right to peaceful protest is considered fundamental in democracies around the world.  Nonviolent protest movements, like the Gandhian movement for independence in India or The Civil Rights Movement in the United States, are celebrated in history books. Yet if you go looking for coverage of nonviolent protest in the news media, most of the time you’ll come up short. In this interview, Horizons’ Chief Organizer, Maria J. Stephan widens the lens on nonviolent resistance and offers tips for how journalists could apply that lens to tell more complete and captivating stories.

INTERESTING TWEETS

FOR FUN

Astronaut shares the profound ‘big lie’ he realized after seeing the Earth from space

by Tod Perry Upworthy

“Sixty-one years ago, Yuri Gagarin became the first human to make it into space and probably the first to experience what scientists now call the “overview effect.” This change occurs when people see the world from far above and notice that it’s a place where borders are invisible, where racial, religious and economic strife are nowhere to be seen.…In a compelling interview with Big Think, astronaut, author and humanitarian Ron Garan explains how if more of us developed this planetary perspective we could fix much of what ails humanity and the planet.”

THE PILLARS PROJECT: Labor Unions and Professional Associations

*This article was written by former Director of Applied Research Jonathan Pinckney.

Why should labor unions and professional associations care about authoritarianism?

American democracy is in a moment of crisis. Long-standing trends and practices that undermined agreement on the rules of the political game have been weaponized by a segment of our political class that seeks to undermine constitutional rights and freedoms, exclude minority groups from power, and suppress opposition through disinformation and violence.

Democratic backsliding in the United States is a particular threat to labor and professional organizations. The research is clear: democracy is good for labor. Democracies not only provide more robust protections for freedom of association, they pay higher wages! Rollbacks in democracyhave led to significant attacks on both labor rights and the autonomy of professional organizations in India, Hungary, and elsewhere. Would-be authoritarians undermine the autonomy of outside organizations to centralize control over all the major organs of society.

Both labor and professional groups have played critical roles in advancing and protecting democracy in the past, and many continue to do so today. When labor and professional groups join social movements pushing for democratic change, they tend to have much higher rates of success and long-term sustainability. Professional disciplines such as the law have particularly important relationships to the state of American democracy. Yet there is a strong need in the current moment of democratic crisis for disparate efforts to protect and advance democracy to be levelled up and conducted collaboratively with the broader pro-democracy ecosystem.

How can Labor and Professional Groups Support Democracy?

  • Labor and professional groups can be influential persuaders for democracy, when it is clear that they are speaking for the interests of their members and not seeking political power. For example, in Tunisia lawyers’ associations played a powerful role in advocating for the rule of law during the Ben Ali dictatorship, and later used the respect and symbolic power of their black robes on the front lines of 2011 “Arab Spring” uprising to lend legitimacy to those protests and help facilitate a democratic transition.
  • Labor and professional groups bring formidable organizing skills and networks to the pro-democracy ecosystem. For example, the civil rights movement in Winston-Salem, North Carolina had foundered, struggling to attract participants and effectively organize the Black community until tobacco industry unions (led by Black workers) organized membership drives for the NAACP, began building dense local networks among the Black working class through activities centered on the local union hall, and organized citizenship classes, political rallies, and mass meetings on civil and voting rights issues.
  • Labor and professional groups can often provide crucial resources for frontline activists struggling to advance democracy, from professional know-how to specialized access to political elites. During the 2017 protests against Trump administration’s “Muslim ban,” thousands of lawyers descended on airports to provide pro bono legal counsel to immigrants caught by the ban. Conversation and connection between organizers and professional groups can help better catalog what resources are needed in the moment, and help streamline effective coordinated action.
  • In moments of democratic crisis, labor and professional groups are critical sources of organized non-cooperation, from organizing sectoral or general strikes to refusing to participate in legal proceedings or unjust professional standards. Research shows that the capacity for such widespread non-cooperation is crucial to counter an authoritarian breakthrough. For instance, widespread strikes organized by labor unions in cooperation with pro-democracy activists have been crucial in pushing back against democratic backsliding across many countries including Sri Lanka, India, Fiji, and South Korea.

The Horizons Project’s Work

  • Research and Analysis: As part of its larger pillars of support project, Horizons is examining how labor and professional organizations have helped protect democracy in the US and other countries during democratic backsliding, and the most effective ways to do so. We will be working with labor and professional groups to share the results of this research, providing practical tools and ideas to help shift priorities and collective action to pro-actively protect democracy from the current authoritarian threat. Horizons will be producing short, action-focused publications and, together with partners, hold a series of salons on Labor and Democracy.
  • Relationship-Building: Research shows that protecting and restoring American democracy will require united effort across a wide range of sectors. Horizons is building connective tissue between labor and professional groups and other key nodes in the pro-democracy ecosystem to strategize how efforts at protecting democracy can be most effectively coordinated both at the state level and nationally. We plan to organize both formal events and informal conversations between labor and professional organizations, grassroots organizers, and others in the pro-democracy space to help build the foundations for united action to protect democracy as we move towards the 2024 election and beyond.

The Pillars of Support Project

Click here for the Pillars of Support Project Page

The complexity of the problem has hampered efforts to coordinate action against authoritarianism. Yet such coordination is crucial. Research shows that the most effective social movements involve broad, diverse coalitions that are united around a shared strategy of success. And a central element of any strategy is a clear understanding of the system that the strategy seeks to address.

One powerful approach that can help make sense of this complexity is the “pillars of support” framework. The pillars framework can be summarized in a simple image: a roof held up by several pillars. The roof represents a political system’s leaders, while the pillars represent the key organizations or institutions that give those leaders the resources and legitimacy they need to exercise power. The model rests on two insights: power in any social or political system is something that flows up from below, and this flow almost always takes place through specific institutions. If we can identify those institutions and the resources they provide to the authoritarian system, then we can understand how power operates in that system and be better equipped to change it.

Horizons is currently conducting a set of research projects to explore and better understand the pillars of support for authoritarianism in the US, and what insights historical cases in the US and around the world can give us on how to change the incentives of key pillars to disrupt authoritarianism and incentivize pro-democracy behavior. Based on conversations with partners, we are focusing on four pillars: business, faith communities, civic/professional groups (including organized labor), and veterans’ groups. Key research questions include:

  • What are specific examples of how these key pillars have employed moral, cultural, social, economic/financial, and political levers to push back against democratic backsliding in semi-autocratic contexts in the US and globally?
  • Which groups and organizations constitute the key network nodes within each pillar in the US today?
  • What lessons from domestic and international cases could inform current pro-democracy organizing in the US?
  • How might these lessons inform best practices and specific tools that cross-partisan organizers can use in their work to push back against the authoritarian playbook across the US at the national level? At the state level? At the community level?
  • What are the barriers to operationalizing these best practices and tools and which groups, networks, individuals, etc. are best placed to overcome them?

To answer these questions, we are currently conducting two large-scale research projects. The first is collecting data on recent periods of democratic backsliding and rising authoritarianism. While scholars of nonviolent action have categorized hundreds of tactics for activists to employ, there is a lack of mapping the tactics that are uniquely applicable to engage specific societal pillars. So, for each period we examine two sets of questions: first, if a movement to protect democracy existed during this time, how did the movement seek to incentivize pillars to push back against authoritarianism, and how successful were such efforts? Second, we examine and systematically categorize any actions by pillars to push back against democratic backsliding and their outcomes. This enables us to identify the most effective levers that pillars have available to them to reverse authoritarianism and restore democracy.

When completed, this research project will provide systematic evidence of global trends both in what has been most effective in swaying pillars away from authoritarianism, and the most effective ways in which pro-democracy allies within these pillars have used their unique position of leverage to disrupt democratic backsliding. We will also harvest a wide range of vignettes that can provide inspiration for organizers and actors within the relevant pillars in the US.

Our second research project is developing a process to conduct comprehensive mapping of the pillars of support for authoritarianism in the US, focused on our four pillars of particular interest (business, faith, civic/professional, and veterans’ groups). The most acute democratic backsliding is taking place within certain states, and levels of authoritarianism vary widely from state to state. Recognizing this fact, we are piloting a process of mapping pillars of support for authoritarian systems at the state level, conducting an initial mapping in the state of Georgia over the course of 2023. Our goal is to offer both the results of the Georgia pillars analysis and the mapping process itself as a resource for pro-democracy organizers to replicate in other states. Ultimately these efforts would be linked in a larger national-level map.

No single framework can fully capture the complexity of the authoritarian system, but through carefully analyzing the key resources that sustain authoritarianism and the pillars of support through which those resources flow pro-democracy organizers can more strategically go on the offense to build key relationships and counter authoritarianism to advance a more just, inclusive democracy.

Click here to learn more about the project and our findings!

Violence and the Backfire Effect

*This article was written by former Director of Applied Research Jonathan Pinckney.

Any movement that seeks to stand up against powerful opposition and advocate on important political issues must be prepared for a violent reaction. Eighty-six percent of major nonviolent movements around the world have faced significant violent government repression. And other forms of resistance to movements, such as disorganized violence or harassment by movement opponents, are so common that social scientists call it a “law” that movements will experience them.

But there are ways that movements can handle violence to their advantage. Through skillful rhetorical and practical strategies, they can cause the violence directed at them to backfire. Violence, rather than suppressing the movement it targets, can end up strengthening it. For instance, during the civil rights movement, attempts by the Selma police to violently disperse civil rights marchers backfired when dramatic pictures and footage of dogs and water hoses being turned on peaceful protesters sparked widespread outrage.

Why does violence backfire?

Violence backfires when news of violence is widely disseminated and the violence is framed as unjust, illegitimate, and possible to do something about. When these messages are clearly communicated and accepted, it can become psychologically costly for previously passive observers to simply stand by and ignore the violence. People sympathetic to the movement who have previously not participated in it can become emboldened to participate, and it can even change the perspectives of former opponents to be more sympathetic to the movement.

All these aspects (wide dissemination, framing as unjust, and framing as possible to do something about) are critical. If violence is perceived as regrettable but justly and legitimately carried out, then those learning about it will not be motivated to attempt to do anything about the perpetrators. If violence is perceived as unjust, but impossible to change, then audiences are more likely to be motivated to simply shrug their shoulders and accept it as inevitable. For instance, the rising frequency of mass shootings in the United States and lack of meaningful policy responses have sparked widespread apathy among most Americans.

What situations make it less likely that violence will backfire?

Structural racism and engrained patterns of prejudice make violence less likely to backfire. In an online experiment, simply showing a picture of Black protesters made American survey respondents more likely to describe a protest as violent and say that police should stop it. However, survey respondents disapproved much more vigorously of actual physical violence. People from marginalized groups face additional challenges when it comes to sparking backfire. Yet through maintaining nonviolent discipline they can maximize their chances of doing so. Highly polarized environments also make backfire more challenging, as partisans may be more likely to simply perceive their opponents’ actions as violent, no matter what they do.

A media environment suffused in misinformation and disinformation also presents a significant challenge to sparking backfire. For example, in 2020, data clearly shows that the Black Lives Matter movement was overwhelmingly peaceful, even more peaceful than the civil rights movement of the 1960s, despite facing significant violence from police forces and movement opponents. Yet polarized media discourses that spread misleading or inaccurate information about high levels of violence in BLM protests undermined support for the protests and reduced the backfire of violence directed towards them.

What can movements do to increase the potential for violence to backfire?

The standard toolkit to prevent violence from backfiring involves five key steps: cover-up, devaluation, reinterpretation, official channels, and intimidation/bribery. Perpetrators of violence seek first to prevent information about the event from emerging, then to devalue the targets of violence, then to reinterpret the facts to make them seem less damaging, then often to diffuse and redirect popular anger through time-consuming official channels, and finally, when all else fails, to intimidate or buy off those who might spread information about the violence. In a polarized environment, reinterpreting the facts is often the centerpiece of this toolkit. For instance, media and political figures on the far Right have sought to downplay the violence of the January 6th attack on the Capitol or claim that the attack was a “false flag” operation conducted by government agents or the far Left.

Enhancing backfire involves denying opponents these five strategies: clearly communicating information about violence, validating the target of violence, interpreting the situation as unjust, refusing to let official channels sap legitimate outrage, and insulating against intimidation and bribery. These struggles over communication and interpretation can be deeply challenging and are best taken advantage of when they have been extensively planned and prepared for in advance. As scholar and activist George Lakey put it: “it is not repression that destroys a movement, it is repression plus lack of preparation.” Researchers have studied many avenues that can heighten the “paradox of repression” and increase the chances of backfire. While the specifics vary widely across cases, a few consistent patterns stand out.

Build Institutions and Trusted Networks: Movements that have strategized about how to respond to violence, and put in place structures to respond to it, are much more likely to successfully spark backfire. One study found that backfire was much more likely when movements had previously invested in external and internal institution-building, particularly in institutions that facilitated “communication channels and tactical adaptability.” Movements that had built strong networks throughout social groups were able to draw on those networks to mobilize in response to that event, and to mobilize participants to engage in follow-up tactics that could show their opposition to the violence while putting them at reduced risk of violence themselves.

Get the Word Out: One of the key things that organized institutional structures can do is ensure that violence is clearly communicated and that attempts to cover up violence fail. Social media has made government cover-ups more difficult, leading to protests spreading more rapidly once they’ve been initiated. Yet social media has also exacerbated misinformation and disinformation, reducing people’s trust in publicly communicated information. Building relationships of trust across partisan and identity lines before a violent event occurs may make it easier to diffuse information about violence when it occurs. Movements should strategize each step in the communication chain, from the original source of information about violence, to the ways in which it is transmitted, to how different audiences receive and react to it.

Maintain Nonviolent Discipline: By adopting and sticking to nonviolent tactics, even in the face of violence, activists can highlight the injustice and illegitimacy of violence towards them, preventing attempts by their opponents to devalue the targets of violence, for example by reinterpreting state violence as necessary law enforcement. A growing series of studies show over and over again that even modest levels of physical violence significantly reduces support for that movement. Movements can improve nonviolent discipline through training, choosing more dispersed tactics that reduce the chances of direct physical confrontation.

Focus on Overcoming Fear and Apathy: Backfire is a product of society’s interpretation of a violent event, not directly of the event itself. One part of shaping this interpretation is through highlighting violence’s injustice. A second is not allowing the violence to lead to paralyzing fear and apathy. In Zimbabwe, the Women of Zimbabwe Arise movement achieved this through building a culture where they “turned arrests into a celebration of successful resistance…beatings, arrests, and detentions became a badge of honor.” Leaders walked at the front of protests that were likely to face police brutality, and thousands courted arrest when a single protester was arrested.

While the situation in the United States differs from Zimbabwe, and the movement for democracy faces a variety of different forms of violence, from online harassment to threats from heavily armed conspiracy theorists the same underlying principle holds reinterpreting violence as a badge of honor and sign of the impact of resistance can keep core members of the movement motivated and defang the power of the violence turned against them. Violence towards the movement should never be accepted as just or inevitable, but neither should it be treated as something so horrific that it paralyzes a movement with fear. Instead, movements can empower their members to accept violence as a sign that their work is touching on critical and impactful issues and is even more important to continue.

THE VISTA: August 2022

In the Northern hemisphere, August is a quiet month when we try to stay cool, hopefully take time off, and then prepare for the academic year to kick off again. The slower pace has been a perfect time for the Horizons team to dig into so many new narrative resources, like this meaty compilation from the Narrative Initiative. Narrative competency is a key area of exploration for Horizons; and we remain committed to weaving bridgebuilding and powerbuilding concepts into our Narrative Engagement Across Difference initiative.

This IFIT report on Narrative, Power and Polarisation highlights that instead of one unifying narrative to counter polarization, we need to illuminate narrative biases, change narratives from within, and amplify smaller stories that help build social engagement at scale. This aligns with More In Common’s new report on American identity, which finds that personal stories of family history are a powerful way to break through the “us vs. them” narrative.

Many narrative practitioners are coming to the conclusion that we must be more conscious of fostering a sense of agency and community, rather than perpetuating a competitive, scarcity mindset that often comes with stories of crises. Framing choices have the power to inspire all of us to work through shared problems and to embrace a civic identity that respects differences, as also highlighted in this wonderful video series from Doing Things With Stories.

Here are some other resources we have found inspiring this month:

READING

Callings from “Fierce Civility”

By: Curtis Ogden

“Civility has (almost) become a dirty word, seen as naive and impossible by some (at least when considering certain cultural and political divides), and as harmful by others, if ‘being civil’ means not speaking or hearing truths or working for social justice.” Fierce civility is not about ‘chronic niceness’ or conflict avoidance, but rather advocates for stances of assertiveness (as opposed to aggression) and receptivity (as opposed to passivity.)”

Cancel Culture

By: Amna Khalid and Jeffrey Aaron Snyder

“In the United States today, the left and right alike have aggressively embraced cancelation campaigns. Each side has its own distinctive objectives, strategies, initiatives and networks—as well as its own particular strongholds.”

How to Be Influenced

By: Ian Leslie

“We live in age of social influence, and while there is no shortage of advice on [how] to influence others, how to build a following, how to change minds – there is a dearth of thinking on how to be influenced…Each human being is bounded but permeable, a creature capable of making its own thoughts and actions but prone to copying and adapting those of others. When everyone around us is doing the same thing, we feel a pressure to join in that is almost physical in its force.”

Not Knowing

By: Maree Conway

“If we accept that we don’t know why someone is doing something we don’t accept, we can begin to accept that it may not be a case of us right, them wrong. We’ve observed something that arouses something in us, but we can reject being judgemental as a response. We can accept that not knowing is okay. Of course, there are situations where this stance won’t apply and events that cause harm to others in particular are just wrong.”

A Funder’s Guide to Building Social Cohesion

By: The Democracy Funders Network, in collaboration with Civic Health Project, New Pluralists, and Philanthropy for Active Civic Engagement

This guide is intended to orient funders to the different ways civil society actors are thinking about and addressing the problems of affective polarization and eroding social trust.

WATCHING

Building a Larger Us

Larger US put out this great video to accompany their new report on the need for collective psychology to counter tribalism and polarization. You can also find excellent explanatory Twitter threads here.

Are Americans Thinking More Systemically?

Check out this roundtable discussion hosted by the FrameWorks Institute featuring community leaders and organizers discussing the implications of shifting mindsets from individualistic to systemic level thinking and the impacts on health equity, the economy, race, and politics.

Radical Belonging and Bridging: A Path Forward for Societies in Crisis?

“…for too long, civic leaders concerned centrally with democracy and those concerned with the rights of marginalized and minority communities have worked in silos, despite the many shared goals and values that both groups share.” Watch this important conversation, the first in a series, that launched the Democracy & Belonging Forum of the Othering & Belonging Institute.

LISTENING

Hungarian Autocracy and The American Right

By: Fresh Air

“New Yorker journalist Andrew Marantz says Prime Minister Viktor Orbán’s administration has rewritten Hungary’s constitution to consolidate his power. U.S. conservatives are taking note.”

Radical Grievance with Malkia Devich-Cyril

By: The Emergent Strategy Podcast

“Grief is power…and a way to strength and intimacy.” This is a great conversation about our collective embrace of grief that can also aid in our journey to build belonging.

Eboo Patel and the Vision for an Interfaith America

By: Ashoka

Eboo Patel discusses his most recent book, We Need to Build: Field Notes For Diverse Democracy, to inspire and equip changemakers to move beyond critique and begin to build the next pluralist chapter of American life.

INTERESTING TWEETS

FOR FUN

Reach for the stars! The images released by NASA’s Webb telescope captured everyone’s imaginations this month. Check out this great breakdown from The Washington Post, which provides more background into exactly what each photo portrays.

So much of the news is consumed with what’s going wrong in the world that it can be hard to point to the bright spots and beauty that also exists. Check out the Peace Dots Project, which seeks to do just that in Buffalo, NY.

Rethinking “Polarization” as the Problem

On June 6, 2022 Horizons’ Chief Network Weaver Julia Roig, shared the main stage at Rotary’s 2022 Presidential Conference in Houston with Gary Slutkin, the founder of Cure Violence and Azim Khamisa, the founder of the Tariq Khamisa Foundation. The following article has been taken from her remarks as she followed Gary’s overview of their approach to treating violence as a public health epidemic and Azim’s personal journey of forgiveness and healing after tragically losing his son to a gang-initiation murder.

I’m going to take a deep breath.

Which I invite you to do too.

First, I want to acknowledge what an emotional time it is right now, probably for everyone in this room in one way or another. We all know that Rotary is a non-political organization, and yet these issues of violence, loss, and forgiveness are so very hard when we are living through a moment in history where there is so much pain, and division, and seeming paralysis to solve some of these existential challenges we face. How do we confront these dynamics and think about the role Rotary might play in creating stronger, more resilient relationships at all levels where you are working and have influence?

I was invited to speak to you about polarization. So, I wanted to share some insights that have been galvanizing my work at The Horizons Project. After more than 30 years working on peacebuilding globally, I recently launched Horizons to focus on the conflict dynamics and democratic decline in the United States. When I first conceived of The Horizons Project, honestly, we did start with the framing of polarization as the problem that needed to be addressed. And I was focused on what the peacebuilding approach might be to work on depolarization in the US, bringing with me the lessons from many other country contexts. But over the past year and half, our team has revised that framework, and I see the limitations of polarization as our central problem. In fact, might there be a way of considering polarization as healthy, and even needed for society to change? I’ve recognized more and more that there is a distinction between “good polarization” and “toxic polarization.”

So let me explain a bit more.

One metaphor for the polarization we’re experiencing right now – articulated by Quaker activist and peacebuilder George Lakey – is that society is heating up, like a hot forge. I.e., the fire that we put metal into that becomes so malleable, we can hammer it into something beautiful… or not. Conflict. Disruption. This is the heat rising. And that is not necessarily all bad – because it’s a sign that we need change. What comes out of the forge, the sword or the plowshare – that’s up to us, how we organize ourselves.

Sometimes this takes the form of actions that are loud and disruptive – naming where they see injustice for example. There is a saying that “we need to polarize to organize.” You are staking out a side (a “pole” … saying that “this is what we stand for!”) And after a lifetime of being in the peacebuilding business, I know that we are living through a moment in history when we need to stand up for what we believe in. It is not a time to be neutral. I’m not talking about anything that has to do with partisan politics. I appreciate so much how much Rotary guards its non-partisanship.

This concept of good polarization feels uncomfortable because conflict is uncomfortable and messy. We have different opinions about how to move forward together. Different truths and sources of information that we trust. We have different ways of being in the world. Holding those tensions of our diversity and agreeing to keep going together is what will make something beautiful out of that forge. Rising heat is a sign of change. What we’re really up against right now is complacency. For example, complacency that these levels of violence that Gary spoke about, in all their forms, continues to be tolerated; and complacency against the forces who are actively trying to divide us to stay in power.

Toxic polarization on the other hand is when we may tip over into “dehumanizing” those we consider “other.” We see this rhetoric alive and well from many politicians, on social media, perhaps even behind closed doors when we hear our colleagues use derogatory terms to describe an entire group of people (for their political affiliation, religion, or ethnicity.) Toxic polarization looks like zero-sum thinking; when we think in binaries (everything becomes black and white – there’s little tolerance for gray;) when we fall into group think (“us vs them”) or herd mentality; when we become increasingly afraid to speak up within our friend groups, for fear of being ostracized.

The social science behind toxic polarization shows how much of these dynamics are fueled by a deep sense of threat to our identities and our way of life. These threats can be perceived or real. But this level of toxic “othering” can ultimately lead to condoning violence, or allowing violence to continue, against those we see – even subconsciously – as less than human. When we feel that our identity, or our group, is under threat we no longer have the ability to deliberate. We have a harder time engaging in difficult conversations where we are able to discuss nuanced, complex issues, to debate solutions. How can we come together across difference if we consider those “different” from us as actually dangerous to our way of life? We see these dynamics playing out all over the world and they are manipulated and weaponized by those who wish to stay in power at whatever the cost.

So then, I don’t believe now is the time to turn down the heat. I believe we need to be organizing together across difference to stand up loudly for our values. We all want to live in safety. We believe in the dignity of all human life.

Martin Luther King Jr has a famous sermon, called “When Peace Becomes Obnoxious” where he described peace that comes at the expense of justice as a negative peace. Rotarians know a lot of about positive peace because of your long-standing partnership with the Institute of Economics and Peace that gives a wonderful framework for bringing together all the ways Rotarians are investing in helping to keep societies peaceful. But to actively work against negative peace, this means we have to incorporate injustice into that same framework. Calls for bringing down the heat; for unity; finding common ground – it may be quieter; we may be civil to each other. But are we sweeping the hardest issues under the rug to keep that peace? Are we seeing the violence in all its forms, hearing some of the loudest voices who are asking for the violence to stop, looking at the root causes as Azim did when he recognized there was a system that needs changing to prevent more gang violence?

I am personally trying to sit with the discomfort of the heat, the polarizing conflict that is pushing us to change, demanding louder action of us. And yet, we CAN all be more aware of the temptations of dehumanization. While we organize and work for change, how are we always centering each other’s shared humanity and our interdependence, even as we confront these hardest of issues? Because another way of reframing polarization, is that what we really need to work on is our “fragmentation.”

Interestingly, forgiveness experts will note that one of the signs of being unforgiving is that we start avoiding each other. We stop working with people – those who have hurt us, those who have offended us. In fact, when we feel “offended,” which so many of us do right now, (we are constantly outraged), the very normal psychological response is that we look down on those who have caused the offense. We feel morally superior. This is another form of “othering” and is deepening our fragmentation.

Gary mentioned the violence of autocracy as one of the forms that is spreading like a pandemic throughout the world. Toxic polarization and dehumanization, this keeps us feeling threatened and staying fragmented. We are fearful and outraged. These are all tools of autocratic systems that ultimately lead to violence. We see this in Russia, and in many other parts of the world, including alarming trends in the US – where people are manipulated and denied the ability to have meaningful voice in the decisions that affect them, to assemble and organize, and to stop the spread of violence. Toxic polarization is a symptom of an increasingly authoritarian regime, not the cause.

So here we are at a Rotary convention, and you have to go back to your communities and your clubs. What do you do with all of this? Hopefully, get comfortable living with tensions and being in relationship with those who think differently in your communities (maybe even in your clubs and your districts.) Reflect on when you may find yourself feeling offended or outraged and how you want to channel that – not to turn away, not to feel morally superior – but committed to being true to your values in a way that is restorative of relationships and allows for healing together.

Rotarians are so good at acting together and conducting shared activities that build on a common identity as Rotarians. We need to remind each other of our many shared identities – we are all complex, not just one thing. And we need to put a stop to dehumanizing behavior. Gary mentioned behavior change to prevent the spread of violence and the need to establish new norms.

Rotary can be a big part of establishing these new norms, not just in the projects you fund, but also in the way you work together and with others. You set an example by living your values. These new norms won’t really take hold when we convene dialogues that center our identities as different from each other, for example, blue hats and red hats in the US. They do grow when activities center what we share, as mothers, football fans, or gardeners. Whatever helps us connect as human beings, that slows down our thinking, allows us to live with complexity and nuance again – not black and white. Everything Rotary does, whether it’s projects on maternal health, clean water, girls’ education. All of Rotary’s areas of focus are potential peacebuilding efforts when you bring together unlikely bedfellows and combat that fragmentation, to work on problems together. When you recognize and see injustices in a system that needs to change no matter where you’re working, use your collective voices to call for change, centering those values.

I am here today because I believe in Rotary as a force for changing norms. Sitting with tension, feeling the rising heat. Something beautiful can come out of the forge because we are all here, working on the different pieces of peace together.

Thank you.

Authoritarianism: How You Know It When You See It

What is democracy?

Forms of rights-based representative government in which:

  • elected government leadership is constrained by constitutionalism, the rule of law, the separation of powers, the free expression of the people, and the legal protection and moral affirmation of the rights of individuals; and,
  • groups and parties that are not part of electoral majorities cannot easily be disenfranchised or suffer loss of rights of association, voice, and legal protection by the electorally determined leadership.

Source: Our Common Purpose: Reinventing American Democracy for the 21st Century

What is authoritarianism?

Authoritarianism is a constellation of traits in a political, economic, and/or social system, which often include:

  • The concentration of power in the hands of a small group of people who act in ways that are not constitutionally accountable to the people they are meant to represent and serve.
  • A concerted effort by a network of organizations and institutions (governmental, legal, educational, media, business, military police, religious and cultural institutions, etc.) to legitimize an oppressive system by providing it legal and political support, material resources (i.e. money, communication networks), and human resources (people, skills) to maintain control.
  • A system that is willing to engage in a spectrum of undemocratic practice from corruption and sowing lies and conspiracy theories, to using fear and violence in order to manipulate, divide people, and maintain power.
  • The misuse of the power of the state to advance the personal and/or partisan desires of the head of state or a ruling clique (e.g., persecuting political opponents, subverting honest elections).
  • Often emerges “legally”, by democratically elected leaders who subvert democratic norms and institutions to stay in power.
  • A slow and quiet advance over a period of years where small battles weaken the foundations of democracy, which can culminate in a period of rapid democratic losses and decline.

What is it not?

  • A single individual or a few individuals, their character, or a presumed lack of morals.
  • A partisan policy position that you may find disagreeable.
  • A “red”, “blue”, “left”, or “right” phenomenon – any party or ideology is susceptible.

What are the core attributes of authoritarianism?

  • Rejecting democratic rules of game.
  • Denying the legitimacy of opponents.
  • Tolerating or encouraging political violence.
  • Curtailing the civil liberties of opponents.
  • Breaking down social cohesion to divide and rule a society.

What are the top elements of the authoritarian playbook?

  1. Divide and rule: Foment mistrust and fear; actively scapegoat and pit groups against each other.
  2. Spread lies and conspiracies: Actively promote mis/disinfo; undermine the public’s belief in truth.
  3. Destroy checks and balances and undermine institutions: Quietly use legal or pseudo-legal rationales to gut institutions (bureaucracies, courts, electoral institutions), undermine their independence, and weaken opposition.
  4. Demonize opponents and independent media: Undermine the public’s trust in those actors and institutions that hold the state accountable.
  5. Undermine civil and political rights and criminalize dissent: Actively suppress free speech, the right to assembly and protest and the rights of women and minority groups; restrict NGO activities.
  6. Blame minorities, immigrants, and “outsiders” for a country’s problems: Exploit national humiliation while promising to restore national glory.
  7. Deploy military forces to address public security problems and/or declare national emergencies to seize unconstitutional powers.
  8. Reward loyalists and punish defectors: Make in-group members fearful to voice dissention.
  9. Encourage or condone violence to advance political goals: Dehumanize opposition and/or out-groups to justify violence against them.
  10. Organize mass rallies to keep supporters mobilized against made-up threats: Use fearmongering and hate speech to consolidate in-group identity and solidarity.
  11. Make people feel like they are powerless to change things: Solutions will only come from the top.

What can we do to push back against authoritarianism?

  • Educate publics about how authoritarianism works; demystify its allure; and shine a spotlight on tried-and-true methods of countering hate, violence, and authoritarianism.  
  • Form large, diverse, cross-partisan and cross-ideological pro-democracy fronts or movements with a shared vision; strategy; and clear, concrete demands.
  • Build the capacity of pro-democracy coalitions and movements to manage constructive tensions, center relationships, and prioritize larger collective goals.
  • Train pro-democracy coalitions and movements in nonviolent discipline and violence de-escalation in the face of authoritarian violence.
  • Invest in opportunities for inter- and intra-group dialogue connected to collective action to break down assumptions, develop empathy and understanding, and build trust at the grassroots by working together to combat authoritarian practices.
  • Diversify the range of nonviolent tactics to include methods of concentration (protests, rallies, sit-ins), and methods of dispersion (walkouts, stay-aways, consumer boycott, labor strikes); not doing what authoritarians expect and want.
  • Engage members of key organizational “pillars” like religious institutions, business groups, unions, professional associations, bureaucracies, media institutions, and security forces in pro-democracy mobilization.
  • Provide pathways for individuals within key pillars that morally or materially support the authoritarian system to join the pro-democracy cause.
Maria Stephan explains the authoritarian playbook and V Fixmer-Oraiz describes how the playbook impacts local elected officials.

Practical Tips and Tools for Everyone:

Practical Tips and Tools for Media:

Practical Tips and Tools for Business:

Additional Key Resources: 

Sources: Hannah Arendt, Ruth Ben-Ghiat, Erica Chenoweth, Larry Diamond, Rachel Kleinfield, Steven Levitsky, Juan José Linz, Ivan Marovic, Hardy Merriman, Kim Scheppelle, Timothy Snyder, Jason Stanley, Maria Stephan, and Daniel Ziblatt
For easy dissemination you can download this post as a pdf here.

THE VISTA: April 2022

WHAT WE’RE READING, WATCHING, AND LISTENING TO AT HORIZONS

In April, we joined many friends and colleagues in mourning the sudden loss of Peter Ackerman, a visionary and treasured leader in the field of civil resistance. One concrete way to honor Peter’s memory is to read and help spread his most recent publication the Checklist To End Tyranny, an important resource for anyone who cares about organizing to expand freedom over oppression. Mixed in with this sense of loss is also the great joy we experienced this month, as the Horizons team convened our first in-person gathering of an amazing group of women network leaders. During this time, we shared deeply our individual practices of “sensemaking,” a topic near and dear to us as one of our three lines of work at Horizons. You can read more about these practices in our most recent blog. We are also excited to welcome a new teammate, Nilanka Seneviratne, who joined us April 1 as Director of Operations and Systems!

Horizons continues to curate resources each month that bring together different ideas and perspectives linking issues of democracy, peacebuilding, and social justice. We hope you enjoy the many thought-provoking materials in this month’s VISTA:

READING

Dissent and Dialogue: The Role of Mediation in Nonviolent Uprisings

By Isak Svensson and Daan van de Rizen, U.S. Institute of Peace

While both mediation and nonviolent resistance have been the subject of significant scholarly work, the connection of the two fields has received less attention. Using newly collected data on nonviolent uprisings over several years in Africa, this report explores four distinct challenges: how to determine when the situation is ripe for resolution, how to identify valid spokespersons when movements consist of diverse coalitions, how to identify well-positioned insider mediators, and how to avoid the risk of mediation leading to pacification without transformative social change.

Red/Blue Workshops Try to Bridge The Political Divide. Do They Really Work?

John Burnett, NPR

Using an example of a Braver Angels dialogue in La Grange Texas, this article explores the work of bridgebuilders in the US including some limitations and criticisms of these approaches.

The Racial Politics of Solidarity With Ukraine,

Kitana Ananda, Nonprofit Quarterly

This article delves into the nuances of the racialized response to the war in Ukraine both within the United States and abroad, highlighting existing tensions and different perspectives about the need for an anti-war movement to be aligned with racial justice.

How Companies Can Address Their Historical Transgressions

Sarah Federman, Harvard Business Review

Some multigenerational companies or their predecessors have committed acts in the past that would be anathema today—they invested in or owned slaves, for example, or they were complicit in crimes against humanity. How should today’s executives respond to such historical transgressions? Drawing on her recent book about the effort by the French National Railways to make amends for its role in the Holocaust, the author argues that rather than become defensive, executives should accept that appropriately responding to crimes in the past is their fiduciary and moral duty. They can begin by commissioning independent historians, publicly apologizing in a meaningful manner, and offering compensation on the advice of victims’-rights groups. The alternative is often expensive lawsuits and bruising negotiations with victims or their descendants.

How to Avoid (Unintentional) Online Racism and Shut Down Overt Racism When You See It

Mark Holden, Website Planet

Special thanks to Ritta Blens for sharing this piece for us and our readers! While lengthy, this great article provides a comprehensive breakdown of how racism is showing up online in the US and abroad, as well as statistics for how Americans and others are choosing to respond. The article ends with some helpful recommendations for how organizations, journalists, and individuals can avoid unintentionally racist language, as well as address racism when you see it in your online communities.

WATCHING

A Community-Led Approach to Revitalizing American Democracy

The Horizons Project

During the 2022 National Week of Conversation, The Horizons Project, Beyond Conflict, and Urban Rural Action led a conversation on how communities can lead the way to revitalizing democracy in the US and beyond. You can check out the first part of the event in the link above.

America Needs To Admit How Racist It is

The Problem with Jon Stewart (Video) Podcast

This is a heart-felt discussion on race relations with Bryan Stevenson, civil rights lawyer and founder of Equal Justice Initiative about how racism has poisoned America from the very start. The interview also offers ideas on how the country can reckon with our past and repair the damage it continues to do.

The Neutrality Trap: Disrupting and Connecting for Social Change

Great Reads Book Club (Video) Podcast by Mediate.com

Bernie Mayer and Jacqueline Font-Guzman discuss their wonderful new book, with important reflections from the perspective of conflict resolution professionals about how the social issues that face us today need conflict, engagement, and disruption. Avoiding conflict would be a mistake for us to make progress as a country.

Frontiers of Democratic Reform

The American Academy of Political and Social Science, Democracy in the Balance Series

This recording is the third in a series of discussions on democratic vulnerability and resilience in the United States. The final webinar focused on the practical steps that can be taken to guard against democratic backsliding in the United States and how to bolster the integrity of our democratic institutions. Panelists included Judd Choate (Colorado Division of Elections), Lee Drutman (New America), Hahrie Han (Johns Hopkins University), and Larry Jacobs (University of Minnesota). You can download all the journal articles that served as a basis for this series here.

LISTENING

Desacralizing The Culture War

Podcast: The Whole Person Revolution

David French is a columnist for the Atlantic and the author of Divided We Fall, and Jonathan Rauch is a senior fellow at the Brookings Institute and the author of The Constitution of Knowledge: A Defense of Truth. In this podcast they discuss why the current culture wars have been intensifying and potential ways forward.

The Future of Hope

Podcast: On Being

Ai-jen Poo and Tarana Burke join each other in conversation for this episode in a series from On Being on the future of hope. They discuss their beautiful friendship that has powered and sustained them as they are leading defining movements of this generation. It’s an intimate conversation rooted in trust and care, and an invitation to all of us to imagine and build a more graceful way to remake the world.

Deva Woodly on Reckoning: Black Lives Matter and The Democratic Necessity of Social Movements

Podcast: Conversations in Atlantic Theory

Deva Woodly from the New School for Social Research has published widely on democratic theory and practice, focusing on the function of public meaning formation and its effect on self and collective understanding of the polity. This podcast explores the role of social movements in democratic life and how we come to produce knowledge from those public conversations.

How Many Americans Actually Support Political Violence?

Podcast: People Who Read People

A talk with political scientist Thomas Zeitzoff, discussing survey results that seem to show an increase in Americans willingness to think political violence is justified, and how that relates to our fears about future violent conflicts and “civil war scenarios” in the United States. The podcast also covers the psychology of polarization, the Ukraine-Russia conflict, and the effects of social media on society in general.

INTERESTING TWEETS

A twitter thread breaking down the recent Jon Haidt article in the Atlantic, Why the Past 10 Years of American Life Have Been Uniquely Stupid.

Check out this overview of new research from Ike Silver and Alex Shaw published in the Journal of Experimental Psychology on how the common tactics people use to avoid taking a stand on hot-button issues can backfire, and the costs of moral neutrality.

Luke Craven reflects on the need for “values alignment” for effective coalition-building versus creating the conditions for “values pluralism.”

Using the Climate Crisis as an example, Prof. Katherine Hayhoe highlights the limitations of fear-based messaging, emphasizing the need to not only describe the problems we are facing as a society, but to also offer actions people can take and hope that change is possible.

An interesting discussion on the implication for journalists and media outlets on the ways their reporting is skewed by the highly polarized, politically informed populace versus most Americans who are not politically engaged and tuning out.

Gabriel Rosenberg is an Associate Professor of Gender, Sexuality and Feminist Studies at Duke University and describes why the new label of “groomer” being thrown at political adversaries is so dangerous.

AND NOW FOR SOMETHING COMPLETELY DIFFERENT

With all the heaviness of the world we want to leave you with something a little different. Music is such a powerful force, it has the power to inspire, celebrate, and even galvanize action. This section won’t always be a song but hopefully it’ll strike a chord with you as you go about your day.

Since Mother’s Day is quickly approaching, we wanted to include a musical tribute to all the mothers out there. And someone who’s music inspired has several of us over the years is Brandi Carlile. Her album By the Way, I Forgive You remains in heavy rotation. So, we present for your enjoyment, The Mother.

THE VISTA: February 2022

WHAT WE’RE READING, WATCHING & LISTENING TO AT HORIZONS

The Horizons Project continues to reflect deeply as a team and with our partners on the wonderful resources produced by so many inspiring actors within the ecosystem of social change in the US. For example, during the month of February, we had the opportunity to connect with several key partners on developing future narratives within movement campaigns. This spurred us to compile our favorite resources on Narratives, Imagination Skills and Futures Literacy.

Also in February, Chief Organizer Maria Stephan participated in a discussion on the launch of the new book Checklist To End Tyranny with author Peter Ackerman and other colleagues; and Chief Network Weaver, Julia Roig celebrated her chapter on Adaptive Leadership for Peacebuilders at the virtual launch of the new e-book on 21st Century Mediation by the Center for Peace & Conflict Studies in Cambodia.

Here are some other recommendations the Horizons Team would like to share for this month’s VISTA:

READING

Radicalism or pragmatism? A look at another divide in racial justice advocacy

By: Stephen Menendian

This blog discusses the recently released Structural Racism Remedies Project from The Othering & Belonging Institute and describes the tensions between urgency and gradualism. Learn more about this tension and others the Horizons team have also identified in the overall social change ecosystem here.

“One form or mode might be more accurately described as a ‘technocratic’ position…based on a close and careful assessment of the available empirical evidence, and pushes toward a set of policy prescriptions or recommendations that emphasize pragmatism and feasibility. The other approach might be described as a ‘radical’ position. This approach is informed by lived experience, emphasizing ground-truth and community power rather than technocratic expertise, but it is also more explicitly and clearly tied to an expression of values and ideals. One difference between these two modes is the relevant time horizon. The more radical policy stance on each of these issues is defined, in part, by the immediacy of its demands, for example, by ending use of fossil fuels immediately. In contrast, the more pragmatic position tends towards gradualism, for example, transitioning to renewable energy sources within a realistic timeframe.”

Black History Month is about Seeing America Clearly

By: Esau McCaulley, Assistant Professor of New Testament at Wheaton College.

“Black history offers America a chance to see itself both as what we have failed to become and as we wish ourselves to be. It is not to inspire hate for one race or to foment division. America seeing itself clearly is the first step toward owning and then learning from its mistakes. The second step is the long journey to become that which we hope to be: a more perfect — and just — union.”

The Reframing History Report and Toolkit

This resource was recently released as a collaboration between the FrameWorks Institute, National Council on Public History, and Organization of American Historians

“Amid ongoing national controversy, it is more important than ever to be able to clearly explain what history is, how we come to understand the past, and why it matters to society. This report provides historians and others with a new set of evidence-backed recommendations for communicating about history.”

The Corporate Civic Playbook 

By: The Civic Alliance

This playbook provides companies with guidance on helping to strengthen democracy in the U.S. It provides the business case for companies engaging in democracy and provides interesting resources, including scaled levels of engagement and corporate activism.

Reset Narratives Community: The story so far…

This is a beautiful reflection of the learning journey of Ella Saltmarshe and Paddy Loughman as they created the Reset Narratives Community in the UK over the last 18 months and are investing in narrative infrastructure, with a lot of insights on the intersectionality of movement narratives.

Running Headlong Into the Limits of Love

By: Pastor Greg Arthur from the Ideos Institute

This blog discussing issues of empathy and love within the evangelical community in the US:

“Much of the turmoil within the American church, especially in evangelical circles, has come around these issues… Politics, immigration, the realities of a racialized society, the LGBTQ community, how we teach our country’s history, these are topics that continue to reveal and accentuate the divisions within the church. The question many have been asking is what these antagonisms reveal about us as followers of Christ? An equally important question might be how can what is being revealed in these antagonisms become a catalyst to the healing of the church and of a broken world?”

Emergent Strategy

By: adrienne maree brown

“Inspired by Octavia Butler’s explorations of our human relationship to change, Emergent Strategy is radical self-help, society-help, and planet-help designed to shape the futures we want to live. Change is constant. The world is in a continual state of flux. It is a stream of ever-mutating, emergent patterns. Rather than steel ourselves against such change, this book invites us to feel, map, assess, and learn from the swirling patterns around us in order to better understand and influence them as they happen. This is a resolutely materialist “spirituality” based equally on science and science fiction, a visionary incantation to transform that which ultimately transforms us.”

WATCHING

Next Normal Introduction Video

Short discussion from Jigsaw Foresight of the 10 Principles for the next normal for our work effectiveness. Favorite insight: “Becoming Indistractable is the skill of the century” By: Nir Eyal

Tackling Extremism: The Greek experience and comparisons with the US

This event from The Social Change Initiative includes great resources on how Greek civil society came together to fight against rising extremism from the far right with insights on lessons learned from US organizers.

LISTENING

The Complex Truth About American Patriotism

This episode of The Argument podcast with Jane Coastan features a discussion with Ben Rhodes (who recently wrote This is No Time For Passive Patriotism in The Atlantic) and Jamelle Bouie. It’s a fascinating debate about whether we can build a new unifying “story” of America, or whether we are too diverse to rally around a “baseline of meaning” and rather need to move forward based on our distinct values.

Forward: Practical Ways to Create Narrative Change 

On this episode of Forward: How Stories Drive Change, Rinku Sen, from Narrative Initiative discusses her organization’s approach to narrative change and gives some great examples of their current work in practice.

INTERESTING TWEETS

America’s Democracy Moment

*This article was written by Chief Organizer Maria J. Stephan and was first published on Just Security.

As Americans prepare to celebrate Independence Day on July 4th, it is crucial to recognize the gravity of the threats still facing U.S. democracy, even after Donald Trump left the presidential stage. And it is more vital – and possible — than ever to mobilize a powerful movement in response.

That means, first and foremost, to find ways of talking about the threat that transcend partisan narratives, which limit the national conversation and shrink the collective imagination about how to respond together. Second, we Americans have to intensify community and national dialogue efforts with the aim of dismantling walls that prevent people from humanizing each other and recognizing that the fight for democracy is a shared struggle – and that confronting the legacy of slavery and white supremacy is an integral part of that struggle. Third, grassroots pressure must be sustained – including, when necessary, through organized non-cooperation and civil disobedience — to defend against attacks on fundamental democratic practices like free and fair elections. Americans have done it before and can do it again.

Starting with the declaration of independence from British rule, to the struggles to abolish slavery and win universal suffrage, to the Civil Rights movement, the people have flexed the muscle of democracy to expand meaningful participation and inclusion. In 2016, with Trump’s election, the United States confronted the prospect of losing its democracy altogether. Now, six months after the Jan. 6 insurrectionary attack on the Capitol, more than 100 democracy scholars have warned that U.S. democracy remains in grave danger. Citing state-level restrictions on voting rights and efforts to politicize election administration, they argue the foundations of American democracy are cracking, risking future violence and chaos, and they propose steps to prevent a downward spiral.

While Americans like to think that their democracy is exceptional, bolstered by a powerful Constitution and a set of institutional checks and balances that can serve as bulwarks against democratic breakdowns, the past few years, punctuated by the Jan. 6 attack, revealed how fragile it really is. This is the story playing out around the world, in places like Hungary, Poland, Turkey, India, the Philippines, Venezuela, or Brazil. Those dramatic cases of backsliding did not occur as a result of a revolution or a military coup. Rather, as Steven Levitsky and Daniel Ziblatt, the authors of “How Democracies Die,” remind us, “Democratic backsliding today begins at the ballot box.”

The electoral road to democratic breakdown, these authors note, is often dangerously deceptive and imperceptible to most people. It happens when democratically elected leaders, supported by politicians and others outside of government, subvert democratic norms and gradually eviscerate the substance of democracy. They use “legal” means that are approved by legislatures and accepted in the courts, and their efforts are often portrayed as being necessary to combat corruption, or to reform electoral processes. With the veneer of legality, elected autocrats and their backers have weaponized democratic institutions and changed the rules of the game to ensure they remain in power.

This is, essentially, how democracy died in the American South during the post-Reconstruction period in the 1870s, when “reform” measures (like poll taxes and literacy tests) were imposed by post-Confederate state governments to disenfranchise Black Americans. The result was nearly a century of institutionalized white supremacy and single-party (Democratic party) rule, and a lingering and pernicious ignorance of the role white people played in ending reconstruction.

As much as we like to focus on the authoritarian tendencies of Donald Trump, it is important to recognize that his actions were supported by enablers within his administration, within Congress, and within civil society. It is equally important to recognize that it took a broad-based coalition, including progressive organizers, civil servants, Republican and Democratic state and local election officials, military leaders, religious groups, and the business community, to forestall this subversion of democracy.

Devastatingly Effective Disinformation

Still, the United States came alarmingly close to the brink, as the violent Jan. 6 attempt to overturn the result of the election made clear. The #StopTheSteal campaign is, by one account, “the most audacious disinformation campaign ever attempted against Americans by any actor, foreign or domestic.” It has been devastatingly effective. Nearly two-thirds of Republicans continue to believe that the election was stolen, and almost half of independents think the election was rigged or are unsure. These dynamics help explain why the Fund for Peace’s Fragile State Index 2021 found that “the country which saw the largest year-on-year worsening in their total score [is] the United States.”

Yale historian Timothy D. Snyder recently laid out a chilling scenario: that key U.S. states adopt voter suppression laws now and the Republican Party recaptures control of the U.S. House and Senate in the 2022 midterms. Then in the 2024 presidential election, even if a Democratic Party candidate wins the popular vote and the electoral college with a few states, several key states challenge the count and overturn the results. Snyder continues: “The House and Senate accept that altered count.  The losing candidate becomes the president.  We no longer have `democratically elected government.’ And people are angry.”

So, with such a plausible scenario looming, how can Americans once again rise to the challenge of upholding the country’s democracy, especially coming out of a pandemic that has devastated so many, particularly the poor and communities of color?

First, we need to find ways to talk about the situation that break out of the traditional script of Republicans vs. Democrats. Stories and narratives need to make clear that this is not a struggle between red and blue America; this is a struggle between an anti-democratic faction in the country and a movement for an inclusive, multiethnic democracy.

We need to reflect together on what democracy means for us in today’s age, and the values that underpin our conviction to both a system of government and to each other as citizens. Our new democracy narratives need to convey urgency, transcend partisan formulations, and invite the maximum number of people to join the movement. This was critically important during the 1930s, when a national conversation about democracy played a significant role in challenging the rise of fascism in the United States and globally. Artists, entertainers, scholars, journalists, unions, and others spearheaded television series, town halls, lectures, and other fora to debate and discuss various topics on democracy.

Social science research shows that people tend to consume stories that affirm their social identities and disengage from stories that challenge them. Individuals and groups hold certain values and narratives to be sacred, or non-negotiable, and will perceive attacks on those values (both real and perceived) to be attacks on their identities. The choices we make in communicating about democracy therefore can either further entrench opposing identities and non-negotiable sacred values or can open up discussions for further understanding and a commitment to joint action.

Pro-democracy narratives need to embrace nuance and accept that human beings are complex and capable of change. This will take organizers, analysts, communications experts, peacebuilders, and creatives being willing to cross ideological, demographic, and political divides. As Levitsky and Ziblatt noted, “Coalitions of the likeminded are important, but they are not enough to defend democracy. The most effective coalitions are those that bring together groups with dissimilar — even opposing — views on many issues. They are built not among friends but among adversaries.”

Important, research-backed progressive efforts are underway to develop democracy narratives, including the Race Class Narrative Action project. These initiatives must be complemented and expanded by efforts that intentionally engage conservatives and others from across the political and ideological spectrum. Our Common Purpose, a report drafted last year by the Commission on the Practice of Democratic Citizenship, offered a blueprint for reimagining 21st century American democracy. The new, trans-partisan Partnership for American Democracy could be one such platform for developing and disseminating inclusive democracy narratives. Embedding narrative competency for restorative movements and creating spaces for shared democracy narratives is one of the main lines of work of the Horizons Project (on which I’m advising).

Second and relatedly, there should be an expansion of national and community-level dialogue efforts to challenge the social media-amped toxic polarization that is eroding U.S. democracy. While debate, argument, and fact-finding have their place, there is also a need for nonjudgmental spaces where people can come together and listen to each other with openness and curiosity. This work is not for everyone, and meeting with people does not mean endorsing their views. The purpose of this work is not to find the middle ground between opposing sides, but to find common ground anchored in shared values and shared humanity.

There are hundreds of dialogue and bridge-building efforts taking place across the country, including those led by networks including the Listen First Project, the Bridge Alliance, and the TRUST Network. Organizations like Search for Common Ground, Urban Rural Action, Braver Angels, and Hand Across the Hills are experimenting with different dialogue models designed to bring people together across difference. Organizations like Over Zero are working with local communities to recognize and prevent cycles of identity-related violence.

Counterintuitive Effects

However, not all initiatives to bring people together across divisions have had a positive impact, and some have been harmful. A growing body of research on intergroup contact has found that in some cases, increased contact with members of the other side actually increased prejudice, anxiety, and avoidance. In still other cases, interaction with the other side undermined the willingness of historically marginalized groups to challenge social injustice. The evidence suggests that dialogue efforts should ensure participants have equal status and share a common goal, and that the contact is endorsed by communal authorities. Bringing people together in ways that do not emphasize their partisan identities holds particular promise at a time when people are exhausted with politics.

One particular dialogue tool used to advance social change, deep canvassing, could play a helpful role in bolstering popular support for basic democratic norms, like free and fair elections. Deep canvassing focuses on non-judgmentally asking people about their views on particular issues and includes follow-up questions that emphasize personal stories and experiences – of both the voter and the canvasser. A growing body of research has documented the effectiveness of deep canvassing in generating increased support for LGBTQ+ non-discriminatory laws and more humane immigration policies.

Developing a democracy-oriented deep canvassing script could involve the active participation of thoughtful Americans from across the ideological and political spectrum. It’s powerful to imagine a diverse, inter-generational group of organizers and volunteers going door to door together to talk with fellow Americans about what it would take to build a truly inclusive, multi-ethnic democracy that works for all Americans.

While dialogue is a critical element of social change, so too is mobilization and direct action. From the mass refusal by the colonists to pay taxes to British overlords, to the creation of the underground railroad for ushering enslaved Black people to freedom, to the bus boycotts and lunch counter sit-ins aimed at defunding Jim Crow, to worker strikes demanding fair pay and safe working conditions, to sit-ins and “die-ins” to demand urgent action on climate change, people power has motored American democracy. Last summer’s Black Lives Matter protests following George Floyd’s murder at the hands of police were the largest and most persistent demonstrations in U.S. history – and they were overwhelmingly nonviolent.

Nonviolent direct action of all sorts is necessary to push back against racist, anti-democratic behavior and to shift power in favor of organizations and institutions that defend democracy. The very purpose of nonviolent direct action, as Dr. Martin Luther King wrote so eloquently in his Letter from a Birmingham Jail, is to raise the urgency of issues, shift power, and to make meaningful dialogue and negotiation possible.

During the 2020 election, Americans organized “joy to the polls” campaigns filled with music and dance to encourage people to vote in the midst of a deadly pandemic. They organized rallies and vigils to demand that everyone’s vote be counted and to recognize election officials for doing their part to defend democracy. At critical moments, leaders from entertainment and business issued statements affirming the results of the election and calling for a peaceful transfer of power. After the Jan. 6 attack, military leaders reminded those in uniform that their oath was foremost to the Constitution – not to any particular political leader. The success of this peaceful pro-democracy movement was probably one of the most consequential victories in U.S. history.

Grassroots Action

Today, direct action will likely be necessary to prevent state-level attempts to restrict voting and to politicize the election administration and certification process, particularly given Senate Republicans’ vote against federal voting rights protection. Progressive groups like Indivisible are organizing grassroots actions and campaigns to defend voting rights. Moral leaders and grassroots organizers from For All, Faith for Black Lives, Until Freedom, and others are pledging to join or help organize nonviolent direct action this summer across the country to suspend the congressional filibuster, which has historically been a tool to defend segregation and block civil rights legislation.

The challenge and opportunity now is to find common cause with key groups, including within the business community, veterans’ groups, and faith-based groups (including Catholic and Christian Evangelical groups), who are committed to multi-ethnic democracy and are willing to take action to defend it. Historically, large, diverse movements that innovate tactically, maintain organizational resilience and nonviolent discipline in the face of violence and disinformation, and that prompt defections from key pillars have been most effective at advancing change in the United States and around the world. Maximizing and diversifying participation in a new movement for democracy is key, since it expands pressure points that will be critical in the lead-up to the 2022 and 2024 elections.

This is truly an all-hands-on-deck moment for U.S. democracy – and that will go a long way to setting the pace for democracy around the world. Now is the time for progressives, conservatives, and everyone in between to come together to defend the very basic foundations of America’s republican, constitutional system of democratic governance. The United States needs a national democracy narrative that liberates the populace from the red vs. blue stranglehold that is blocking a positive vision of freedom and democracy. It needs a vision that invites the maximum number of people into a shared movement for democracy. Americans must invest in dialogue spaces that embrace shared humanity and encourage multi-racial democratic solidarity. Direct action at all levels can raise the urgency of this moment and generate moral, political, and economic pressure to preserve the great American democratic experiment.