Tag: Intermestic

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 21^st 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

• A discussion of “populism” and the truckers’ protest in Canada
• A thread featuring new “Solidarity Is” resources from Building Movement Project
• Meaty thread about the work of Monica Guzman at Braver Angels, and the benefit of the Bridgebuilding community and lessons for journalists

*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.

*This article was written by co-Leads Julia Roig and Maria J. Stephan and was first published on Just Security.

As the United States celebrated Martin Luther King Day this January, Americans also confronted the reality of the recently failed attempt to pass voting rights legislation and the ongoing dysfunction of the national-level political system. With this defeat, many political analysts, academics, and organizers feel a growing sense of existential dread that the country is at a tipping point of democratic decline, including an alarming pushback against the struggle for racial justice. International IDEA’s recent report on the Global State of Democracy classified the United States as a backsliding democracy for the first time in its history. Yet, many other Americans feel the threat to democracy is being overblown, taking comfort that “our institutions will protect us,” as they did when President Joe Biden was sworn in a year ago despite a violent uprising to prevent the certification of the election results.

Institutions are made up of people, however, who are influenced and held accountable by citizens and peers. In fact, there was significant organizing and coordination between different groups during the presidency of Donald Trump and around the 2020 election, when it had become clear that he posed a clear and present danger to U.S. democracy and was actively seeking to stay in power by whatever means necessary. That mobilization generated the largest voter turnout in U.S. history and an organized, cross-partisan campaign to ensure that all votes were counted, that voters decided the outcome, and that there was a democratic transition.

Today, a similar organizing effort is needed to confront a threat that has mutated and is in many ways more challenging than what Americans faced in 2020.

Yet even with the many painful commemorations of January 6^th, polls show that democracy is not top of mind for most Americans. When asked to rank their five biggest priorities for national leaders, only 6 percent of those polled mentioned democracy – instead voicing concerns for their health, finances, and overall sense of security. Those who are inspired to organize to protect democracy, have radically different views of the problem, with a large swath of the country still believing “the big lie” that the 2020 election was stolen. The country has become dangerously numb to all types of violence, but especially political violence, as many Americans report that violence would be justified to protect against the “evils” of their political adversaries.

Time to Face the Authoritarian Threat, and Organize Accordingly 

With all these competing priorities and different perspectives of the seriousness of the threat, what is most needed in this moment are the skills and infrastructure capable of organizing across these many schisms to find common cause. This is in a sense, a peacebuilding approach to combatting authoritarianism: deploying savvy facilitation to convene groups and sectors to identify and act on shared goals; and, using a systems lens to determine the most strategic interventions to break down the burgeoning authoritarian ecosystem and build up the democratic bulwark in response. What would this look like in practice?

First, leaders of the many networks, coalitions, and communities that are already organizing around various social and political issues across the ideological spectrum should be brought together in cross-partisan settings with democracy experts to reflect on the true nature of the threat.

While Trump gets most of the attention because of his continual drumbeat about the “stolen election,” the slide towards authoritarianism does not unfold because of just one individual. Authoritarianism is a system comprised of different pillars of support, including governmental institutions (legislatures, courts), media outlets, religious organizations, businesses, security and paramilitary groups, financial backers, and cultural associations, etc. that provide authoritarians (and other powerholders) with the social, political, economic, coercive, and other means to stay in power.

A key feature of post-Cold War authoritarianism, as described by Ziblatt and Levitsky in “How Democracies Die,” is that democratic erosion happens subtly, gradually, and often “legally,” as democratically elected officials use legal and institutional means to subvert the very processes and institutions that brought them to power. This is happening at the state level, where GOP-controlled states have become laboratories of democratic backsliding. In Georgia, for example, the Republican-controlled legislature has given itself more control over the State Election Board and the ability to suspend county election officials.

But the larger and more diverse the movement is that comes together to counteract these forces, the more likely it is to succeed. In fact, research shows that the most successful democracy movements that have been able to stem the tide of authoritarianism in their countries have always included a coalition of Left and Center Right actors and networks.

The cross-partisan nature of mobilizing against authoritarianism, therefore, is crucial and yet particularly fraught given the levels of chronic, toxic polarization the country faces. There is an urgent need to support movement-building techniques that bring together unlikely bedfellows and allow for a diversity of different approaches to achieve a shared goal of upholding democracy.

Breaking Down Siloes and Embracing Tensions

Authoritarianism, like any oppressive system, thrives on divisions and disorientation. It is fueled by a rhetoric of us versus them and fortified by the creation of walls between people who might otherwise align and organize. One response to this phenomena in the United States has been the explosion of depolarization initiatives, operating under a theory of change that citizens need to listen to each other more, communicate across difference, and “bring down the temperature” so people can have civil debate and come together “across the aisle.” These are important efforts; and yet are often in direct tension with social and racial justice groups that are focused on addressing past and present harms targeting minority and other vulnerable groups and shifting power dynamics. Still other coalitions have formed as bipartisan platforms for strengthening democratic institutions, tackling election reform, gerrymandering, and advocating for needed legislation. These many efforts in the United States are unfolding in their siloes, and are approaching polarization, justice, and democracy from their different vantage points.

Polarization, in fact, may be a good thing. Sociologist George Lakey likens polarization to a blacksmith’s forge that heats up society, making it malleable to change. In some highly polarized contexts, like Germany and Italy during the 1930s, extreme polarization led to Nazism and fascism, and allowed for violent dehumanization and toxic othering. There were pockets of resistance in both places, but no broad-based coalitions materialized that could have provided a bulwark to extremism. A contrast is the United States in the highly polarized contexts of the 1930s and the 1960s, when polarization paved the way to the New Deal and a massive expansion of civil rights. Of course, polarization also paved the way to the Civil War in the 1860s, but that only illustrates that polarization is neutral – what matters to the outcome is how people organize, and the strategies and tactics they use to wield power together to channel the forces driving change.

Likewise, the existence of tensions within and between groups is not necessarily a bad thing – healthy tensions can lead to innovation and expanded opportunities. They can help balance the need to project urgency with the imperative of building relationships. Bill Moyer and George Lakey describe four main types of movement actors – radicals, reformers, organizers, and service providers. It is common for there to be tensions between radicals and reformers, between those working on the inside and those on the outside, and between those who focus more on dialogue and more on direct action. The challenge is how to navigate these tensions.

Part of the answer is to identify and support systems-level organizers who have access to and credibility with both radicals and reformers, and who can help establish lines of communication, build relationships, and identify common cause.  Building broad-based movements takes organizers and facilitators capable of convening network leaders, helping groups understand the complementarity of approaches, and supporting learning across spaces. Breaking down these siloes and building connective tissue is what it will take to puncture the “divide and conquer” strategy of the authoritarian playbook. 

Sustained Cross-Cause, Multi-Sectoral Movement Building as Antidote

There was a recognized threat to democracy before, during, and after the 2020 election, and the recognition was shared by many diverse groups who came together to organize at that time. Now that the threat has morphed and dispersed, the ability to sustain a cross-cause, multi-sectoral movement is a little more difficult, but no less urgent. There are notably few spaces where conservatives are being brought into strategic conversation with progressive and left-leaning groups (and vice versa) about how to respond to current threats to democracy, and even fewer that bring grassroots and national groups into the same conversation. Key networks like the Partnership for American Democracy, the TRUST Network, and the Bridge Alliance could facilitate such strategic planning and coordination.

Convening leaders from conservative groups like Americans for Prosperity with more progressive social justice networks and democracy groups, like Indivisible, could yield unexpected results. Base organizers like the Industrial Areas Foundation, People’s Action, and Faith in Action have the infrastructure and relationships to be able to reach core constituencies on democracy issues, particularly locally. The Race-Class Narrative is an empirically-backed messaging and organizing framework for mobilizing the progressive base, persuading the conflicted, and challenging opponents’ worldview by fusing economic prosperity for all directly to racial justice.

Although building coalitions across groups is important, equally important is work within groups that can address toxic and anti-democratic behaviors, like acting on the belief that the 2020 election was stolen. After all, social psychology research highlights the fact that people are more likely to change their behaviors when they see other members of their in-groups change their behavior.

The private sector, religious communities and veterans’ organizations will all be key actors in this multi-sectoral democracy movement, requiring strategic outreach and relationship-building between actors who may not often collaborate on other issues. But reaching a shared understanding of the democratic threat as a higher-order shared goal will require concerted organizing. In the lead-up to the 2020 election, business coalitions such as the Civic Alliance came out strongly in support of voting rights and took actions to help their employees exercise the right to vote. Influential coalitions like the Business Roundtable, the U.S. Chamber of Commerce, and the National Association of Manufacturers issued statements acknowledging the election results and calling for a peaceful transition of power. These same groups could use various levers to hold candidates, officials, and themselves accountable to basic democratic norms in the current context: all eligible voters should be able to vote, election administration and certification should be nonpartisan, and the outcome of elections should be determined by voters.

Religious groups are another key group that could be activated in defense of democracy, such as the important role played by the Southern Christian Leadership Conference during the Civil Rights movement. Coordinated direct action between African American and white evangelicals would be a powerful driver of change in the future, and there is great potential in collaborations between groups like Faith for Black Lives, Interfaith Action, American Awakening, Matthew 5:9, Sojourners, and Catholic networks like the Ignatian Solidarity Network.  Veterans groups are an especially important voice to speak out against the infiltration of extremists elements within the military and security sectors; several organizations such as the Black Veterans Project, the Black Veteran Empowerment Council, and the Veterans Organizing Institute provide needed vehicles for cross-ideological relationships and collaboration.

The key to successful movement building to protect American democracy in this moment will be to identify what leverage these different communities have to incentivize good behavior and disincentivize and (nonviolently) punish bad behavior. And success requires all these different groups – progressive and conservative alike – to be able to see themselves as a part of a larger ecosystem capable of collective action against authoritarianism. The power of civil resistance comes through organized non-cooperation – denying the authoritarian system the human and material resources it needs to wield power and undermine democracy. When a significant number of people within these key pillars coordinate and plan together to stop providing support – workers go on strike, consumers organize boycotts, students stage walkouts, businesses stop supporting political candidates and media outlets that spread dangerous conspiracies, bureaucrats ignore or disobey unconstitutional and unlawful orders, etc. – authoritarians lose their power.

Organized broad-based movements and non-cooperation were key to ending apartheid in South Africa, dismantling communist tyranny in Central and Eastern Europe, ending Pinochet dictatorship in Chile, and dismantling Jim Crow. Americans can find inspiration in those moments in history and from other country contexts to remember that it is possible for citizens to organize for freedom, justice, equality, and democratic values – and to succeed.

There are challenges to achieving this kind of broad democracy movement in a country as large and diverse as the United States. The country is deeply divided. It has not adequately confronted the historical legacy of slavery and racial hierarchy. What is unhelpful is succumbing to a sense of fatalism, to believing that civil war or falling into the authoritarian abyss is inevitable — “the other big lie.” The most important peacebuilding approach and mindset required of all Americans right now is one of conviction, hope, and mutual respect, to know that change is possible when people find common purpose and take action together.

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

President Joe Biden’s early reversals of Trump policies have included at least three that were the direct or indirect result of grassroots movements. The administration froze the extraction of oil and gas from federal lands, ended US support for Saudi Arabia’s war in Yemen, and launched an initiative to advance racial equity in the federal government. The youth-led Sunrise Movement, which made climate change a central issue of the 2020 election, is largely responsible for the first victory. Relentless grassroots pressure ended U.S. support for Saudi Arabia’s disastrous offensive in Yemen. The Black Lives Matter movement forced national action on systemic racism at all levels.

Broad-based civic movements provide the energy, dynamism, and power-shifting ability necessary to address the world’s interconnected social, political, and economic crises, including climate change, staggering inequality, structural racism, and resurgent authoritarianism linked to white nationalism. Given the inextricable linkages between domestic and foreign policy, the ability of movements to bridge these domains is critical to addressing these challenges.

These kinds of powerful movements operating in the United States have human rights and human dignity at their core and bring together domestic and foreign policy. They are critical to developing and implementing effective solutions at home and abroad. And practical steps can enhance collaboration between domestic movements and the U.S. foreign policy community, building on previous efforts to bridge domestic and foreign policy.

Why Movements Matter 

For centuries, grassroots movements have driven social, political, and economic changes in the United States and globally. From abolishing slavery and ending apartheid, to winning women’s suffrage and worker protections, to resisting dictatorship, movements have achieved impressive successes while contributing to more democratic and inclusive societies. Rooted in communities and driven by volunteers, movements are fluid entities made up of diverse actors including youth groups, faith-based organizations, professional associations, neighborhood committees, trade and labor unions, NGOs, and artist groups. Movements have change-oriented goals and use extra-institutional tactics like vigils, marches, demonstrations, boycotts, strikes, and sit-ins, often in combination with courts and legislative actions, to raise the urgency of issues, disrupt the status quo, and shift incentives and power dynamics.

There has been a dramatic rise across the globe in the number of protests and movements focused on resisting authoritarianism (Hong Kong, Belarus, and Uganda); challenging corruption (Iraq, Lebanon, and Chile); and advancing religious freedoms (India), among other causes. The Black-led protests in the United States following George Floyd’s murder, which the Crowd Counting Consortium called the broadest in U.S. history, forced a national and global reckoning on racism and police brutality. The COVID pandemic, which has disproportionately harmed vulnerable and marginalized communities, exposed structural injustices and spawned protests demanding government accountability. Not all protests have focused on public health – there have been anti-mask protests as well in the U.S. and across world. 

Movements and U.S. Foreign Policy

Movements in the United States focused on issues including climate, labor rights, immigration, anti-poverty, and racial justice link domestic and foreign policy in their analyses, platforms, and coalitions. However, for institutional, budgetary, and other reasons, contact between these movements and the foreign policy community (particularly in the executive branch) has been limited. Exceptions to this include antiwar and labor movements, which have targeted defense and international trade agencies in the U.S. government.

The walls separating domestic movements and foreign policy should be dismantled by policymakers and civil society for three key reasons.

First, the intersectional approach that movements like Black Lives Matter, the Poor People’s Campaign, the Sunrise Movement, and feminist anti-war movements apply to their organizing efforts strengthens the analysis of issues like inequality, racism, and climate change by highlighting the linkages among them. For example, the Movement for Black Lives (M4BL) policy platform connects systemic racism and police brutality at home to aggressive militarism, police and security force training, and the marketing of violent technologies abroad. The M4BL platform calls for the demilitarization of police forces and offers a plan for reinvesting war-making funds in domestic infrastructure and community well-being.

The Poor People’s Campaign, a faith-based U.S. anti-poverty movement, focuses on the five interlocking injustices of systemic racism, poverty, ecological devastation, militarism, and the war economy, and the false narrative of religious nationalism. Drawing inspiration from Dr. Martin Luther King, Jr., the movement connects U.S. militarism abroad to violence and poverty at home. Its 2020 Jubilee platform prioritizes “provid[ing] for the common defense” and lays out a plan for defunding militarism and reinvesting in communities. The movement has facilitated connections between U.S. labor groups, like the Service Employees International Union, and the proposed U.S.-European Union Transatlantic Trade and Investment Partnership to push for worker rights and fair trade.

A feminist peace initiative established in 2019 by Grassroots Global Justice Alliance, a group of 60 U.S.-based grassroots organizing groups comprised of working and poor people; Women Cross DMZ, a global movement of women mobilizing for peace on the Korean peninsula; and MADRE, an international women’s human rights organization, highlights how militarized approaches to security through weapons sales, militarized policing, and mass incarceration have contributed to violence and insecurity domestically and internationally. It calls for a reorientation of foreign policy around an intersectional, movements-focused framework. These movements and others, including the Women’s March and #MeToo, the DREAMers, and the LGBTQ and transgender movements, focus on those most adversely impacted by violence and inequality at home and abroad, including indigenous populations, Black and brown communities, and women.

A growing veterans’ movement, which includes traditional organizations like the Vietnam Veterans of America and newer groups like VoteVets, Secure Families Initiative, and Common Defense, works on both foreign and domestic policy. Common Defense focuses not only on traditional veteran issues but also larger society issues like health care, the minimum wage, and anti-poverty. These groups, which are starting to organize military families for alternatives to war and militarism, could play a significant role in changing the public conversation about national security priorities.

A second reason to remove the wall separating domestic movements and foreign policy is that engaging with grassroots movements would democratize U.S. foreign policy. That would bring motivated and mobilized constituencies into the foreign policy arena and make cross-national connections.

While technical expertise is critical to effective policymaking, the concentration of foreign policy expertise and decision-making in a relatively small number of hands inside the Beltway has disconnected foreign policy from mainstream America. The best way to address this disconnect is to diversify the foreign policy and national security communities to make them more reflective of the country, something groups like Women of Color Advancing Peace and Security and the Diversity in National Security Network are doing effectively. An additional and crucial approach is to engage with those movements that represent broad and diverse constituencies across the country.

Democratizing U.S. foreign policy through movement engagement would make it more inclusive of the interests and needs of domestic constituencies. At the same time, such actions would connect foreign policy to the kind of grassroots pressure needed to reduce reliance on military solutions and invest in alternatives. Movements led by youth and women are particularly adept at building diverse alliances and challenging the status quo.

A prime example is the Sunrise movement, a multiracial youth-led environmental movement with over 400 hubs across the United States that was established in 2017 to stop climate change and create a green economy. The movement, with tactics such as sit-ins at congressional offices and acts of civil disobedience, has driven the Green New Deal, which aims to shift American society to 100 percent clean and renewable energy over the next 10 years. Sunrise has combined skillful direct action, backed by extensive training, with successful campaigns to turn out the youth vote for political candidates who endorse the Green New Deal. The result has been a number of prominent electoral victories and a greater public understanding of the urgency of climate action.

Other youth movements have combined mass action with institutional politics to advance key policies. The DREAMers youth movement has built a broad, nationwide coalition to protect the rights of undocumented youth, fundamentally shifting the immigration debate. Dissenters, a youth-led anti-war group led by people of color, has mobilized hundreds of young people through local chapters to oppose war with Iran, linking the uprisings against policy brutality to the struggle against global militarism.

Feminist and women’s-led movements have a long history of resisting war and militarism, including the famously audacious campaign undertaken by Liberian women to end a civil war in 2003 that featured blockades and a sex strike. More recently, women marched across the demilitarized zone separating North and South Korea to demand a negotiated peace to end that war. CODEPINK, a women-led grassroots organization in the United States working to end war and militarism, uses similar audacious tactics. The Black Lives Matter movement was founded in 2013 by a small group of Black women fed up with systematic police killings and centuries of entrenched racism in the United States.

The resolve of these movements and their ability to mobilize people across divisions and national borders make them a significant foreign policy asset – even if they do not feature prominently in foreign policy discussions. Their organizing prowess could strengthen efforts to increase U.S. foreign assistance in public health, women’s development, indigenous and LGBTQ+ groups, support for violence prevention initiatives, and greater investment in renewables.

Meanwhile, the cross-national nature of feminist, youth, environmental, anti-corruption, and racial justice movements is an added strength. The transnational solidarity around the Black Lives Matter movement, which included a campaign organized by U.S.-based BLM activists targeting the Nigerian government after its violent crackdown on activists protesting police brutality, is a case in point. The global environmental movement that includes the Sunrise movement, and which made Greta Thunberg a household name after her sit-in outside the Swedish parliament, has focused priorities and coordinated global mass actions.

The third reason why building bridges with movements is critical for foreign policy is that it could help close the hypocrisy gap between the values the United States professes overseas and the realities at home. As Travis Adkins and Judd Devermont of the Center for Strategic and International Studies (CSIS) wrote, the failure to acknowledge and confront the legacy of slavery and racism in the United States has weakened claims to defend human rights and fundamental freedoms abroad. It was difficult for American diplomats to condemn apartheid in South Africa while Jim Crow was deeply entrenched in the United States. Similarly, it is hard for the United States to credibly criticize human rights abuses in places like Myanmar, China, and Russia in light of the systematic state-sanctioned killings of unarmed Black men and women in the US and militarized police responses to protestors.

Movements force honesty and self-improvement at home, which in turn enhances credibility and leverage abroad. The Civil Rights movement in the 1950s and ‘60s, which exposed profound injustices at a time when the United States and the Soviet Union were competing for global influence, ended legally-sanctioned racial discrimination in the United States and bolstered U.S. moral authority abroad. Similarly, the Black Lives Matter movement, which has brought together an unprecedented number of Americans from different generations, genders, races, and ideologies, has forced a conversation about police reform and systemic racism, while inspiring global solidarity actions.

At a time when foreign aid and development are coming under criticism for their role in perpetuating racist and neo-colonial policies and practices, listening to the experiences of individuals fighting to end poverty and advance racial and economic equity in the United States could deepen diplomats’ and foreign aid practitioners’ understanding of those issues. Those focused on human rights and democracy would do well to learn how movements in the United States, led by people of color, are countering anti-democratic policies and practices, the challenges they face, and how they are learning from activists and movements challenging authoritarianism abroad. 

Getting Practical 

Building meaningful relationships between domestic movements and the foreign policy community will take time, patience, prioritization, and commitment. While there are already strong connections between movement leaders and progressive members of Congress, notably through the Congressional Progressive Caucus, which recently introduced the 2021 People’s Agenda, developing links to the executive branch may take more effort. The National Security Council (NSC) and the White House Domestic Policy Council (DPC), along with the State Department and the U.S. Agency for International Development (USAID), could start by acknowledging the powerful role of movements at home and abroad and commit to a listening tour. They might tap the experience and expertise of their younger staff, who are undoubtedly clued into these movements and familiar with their work.

The NSC or the DPC could help coordinate federal government engagement with movements and include both domestic and foreign policy officials. It may be a propitious time for such engagements given National Security Advisor Jake Sullivan’s depth of experience on domestic policy and DPC leader Susan Rice’s background in foreign affairs.  For example, meetings with the Poor People’s Campaign could include representatives from the State Department and USAID, in addition to the Department of Health and Human Services and other relevant domestic agencies. Meetings with M4BL activists or leaders of the Feminist Peace Initiative could involve a similar mix of State, USAID, the Department of Defense, the Department of Homeland Security, the Department of Justice, and other agencies as appropriate. The purpose of these meetings would be to build relationships, exchange ideas, surface tensions, and discuss potential alignment around shared priorities.

Trusted intermediaries in civil society, including think tanks, academic institutions, faith-based groups, human rights and peacebuilding networks could host movement-centered roundtables and other convenings whose goal is to build relationships between movement leaders and policymakers and align strategies on shared goals in various issue areas. They could include domestic movement priorities in their outreach and advocacy strategies, something that the Friends Committee on National Legislation, a Quaker lobbying group, and Win Without War already do. While think tanks like the Quincy Institute and the Institute for Policy Studies have highlighted movements in U.S. foreign policy, and CSIS hosts a webinar series on Race and Diplomacy, more think tanks, foundations, and the NGO community could follow suit.

In its 2019 report, “Reimagining U.S. Security Spending for the 21st Century and Beyond,” Win Without War recommends four priorities: halting the spread of global authoritarianism, combating the climate crisis, reducing mass inequality, and repudiating militarism. These priorities could inform a series of roundtables or other meetings involving movement leaders and the FP community. The Poor People’s Campaign, whose People’s Agenda emphasizes the close interlinkages between domestic and foreign policy issues, could serve as a key conduit for these convenings. The movement roundtables that formed after the 2016 election, including Fight Back Table, the Social and Economic Justice leaders project, and The Frontline, which unites M4BL, United We Dream, and the Working Families Party, are other key interlocutors.

There are existing models of effective coalition building between foreign and domestic policy groups that could inform this process. One is the partnership that has developed in recent years between foreign policy experts and U.S. officials and civil society for the United Nations Sustainable Development Goals (SDGs), a global plan adopted in 2015 to end extreme poverty, reduce inequality, and protect the planet by 2030. In Pittsburgh, in an effort led by the mayor, different constituencies and stakeholders including city workers and Carnegie Mellon University have mobilized around the SDG framework and committed to achieving goals set out in the SDGs, notably those related to green jobs.

Another example is the Open Government Partnership (OGP), an alliance between governments and civil society organizations launched in 2011 to strengthen transparent and accountable governance. There are now 78 OGP national members, a growing number of local governments, and thousands of civil society organizations that come together to co-create OGP action plans focused on reinvigorating democracy. U.S. civil groups have prioritized combating corruption, protecting civil rights and electoral integrity, and tackling disinformation in the fourth OGP national plan. The linkage between open governance and racial justice opens new avenues for OGP engagement with domestic movements in the United States.

The Biden-Harris administration could use platforms like the SDGs and OGP, along with other high-level initiatives, to highlight the work of movements and build bridges between the domestic and foreign policy communities. One such opportunity is the Summit for Democracy that the administration has committed to hosting and that Secretary of State Antony Blinken said would likely occur by the end of this year. The summit, which will seek to address democracy challenges at home and internationally, could put movements fighting corruption, authoritarianism, and inequality in the United States and abroad at its center. Prioritizing engagement with activists and movement leaders in the lead-up to, during, and following the summit would signal humility and a recognition of their importance in advancing democracy.

Exchange and fellowship programs could be used to build and strengthen relationships between movements and the foreign policy community. Existing exchange programs that send diplomats and Foreign Service officers to work with state and local government offices could be expanded to include “postings” with social movement organizations. The State Department and USAID could consider hosting “activists-in-residence” to build bridges between domestic movements and offices focused on human rights and democracy overseas. Think tanks, NGOs, and philanthropies could establish fellowships for movement leaders and federal government leaders dedicated to forging these relationships.

Others have recommended creating venues where foreign policy professionals could talk openly with American and overseas audiences about their experiences with racism. Establishing and institutionalizing these fora, and inviting movement leaders to participate in them, would generate honesty while building trust and relationships between the domestic and foreign policy communities. At the same time, there is always a risk that such interactions between movements and policymakers could lead to exploitation of the former by the latter. Movement leaders should establish clear ground rules for policy engagement, guard their political independence, and use their best judgement about whether and how to engage with policymakers.

Anticipating Challenges 

The perspectives, approaches, and tactics used by activists and movements may differ from what government officials are used to. Unlike government bureaucracies and traditional NGOs, grassroots movements are fluid, non-hierarchical, and decentralized by design. For this reason, inclusivity and flexibility on issues of rank are particularly important. Some of the most impressive activists and organizers are local youth leaders who will be at first unknown to most policymakers and NGO leaders.

While movements include policy experts and those skilled in advocacy and negotiation, they also feature activists who have no qualms about engaging in civil disobedience or being arrested for challenging government policies. They would likely be very sensitive to attempts to coopt or water down their goals and strategies. While some activists may not wish to engage with government officials for ideological or other reasons, others will see engagement as core to their inside-outside strategy. Policymakers should avoid “choosing favorites” and prioritize the agendas of movement leaders. They should be aware that U.S. movement leaders, who have experienced many hardships and traumas over the past few years, may have immediate priorities that take precedence over engagement with the foreign policy community.

Public and private funding pose further challenges to bridge-building. Philanthropic funding, for example, is usually divided between domestic and international programming. There are some noteworthy exceptions, including efforts by the Colombe Foundation, Arca Foundation, Compton Foundation, and Ploughshares to bridge these arenas. The campaign to right-size the Pentagon budget, which brought together the National Taxpayers’ Union, Americans for Tax Reform, Win Without War, and the Coalition on Human Needs, is a good example of philanthropic funding that incentivized domestic-international collaboration. The Colombe Foundation has actively connected M4BL with anti-war groups.

Furthermore, the amount of private funding to groups focused on peace and security (about 1 percent of total foundation giving) is miniscule compared to the amount of funding in the social- and environmental-justice ecosystem. This disequilibrium poses a challenge to effective collaboration between groups focused on social justice and those focused on peacebuilding and anti-militarism.

The federal budgeting process creates further barriers. The 2011 Budget Control Act (BCA), which created a decade-long budget cap and a firewall between domestic and defense funding and which requires that any increase in domestic spending has to be matched by increases in defense spending, discouraged honest conversations about budget priorities and resulted in an explosion of post-9/11 defense spending. The expiration of the BCA this year creates an opportunity to revisit budget priorities and could prompt collaboration and alignment between domestic and foreign policy groups. Movements will be key to making this happen.

Conclusion 

Movements are natural bridges between domestic and foreign policy. They bring fresh ideas, critical perspectives, and the ability to mobilize diverse coalitions over interrelated issues. Movement participation could democratize U.S. foreign policy while strengthening domestic constituencies for foreign assistance programs and priorities – because they would be seen as improving communities and priorities at home. These partnerships could build momentum for focusing U.S. foreign and national security priorities and budgets on human security.

Tensions and disagreements between movements and the foreign policy community are inevitable and healthy. While intermediary organizations such as universities, NGOs, think tanks, and foundations can help facilitate relationship-building and problem-solving, it may not be possible or even desirable for movements and policymakers to reach unified positions on key issues. Still, their interaction could pave the way to dynamic new coalitions, and create a sense of urgency about the interconnected crises faced jointly by the United States and the world. Ultimately, they could build the power necessary to transform these crises and build a more just and peaceful world.

*This article contains contributions from Director of Partnerships and Outreach Tabatha Pilgrim-Thompson and was first published on InkStick.

“We Didn’t Start the Fire” is a column in collaboration with Foreign Policy for America’s NextGen network, a premier group of next generation foreign policy leaders committed to principled American engagement in the world. This column elevates the voices of diverse young leaders as they establish themselves as authorities in their areas of expertise and expose readers to new ideas and priorities. Here you can read about emergent perspectives, policies, risks, and opportunities that will shape the future of US foreign policy.

As the Biden-Harris administration enters its second year in office, it will grapple with formidable foreign policy challenges that affect the wellbeing of Americans and global citizens alike. Seven members of Foreign Policy for America’s NextGen Initiative highlight seven of these challenges, ranging from ending the COVID-19 pandemic to reducing dependence on fossil fuels to identifying Unidentified (and perhaps unidentifiable) Aerial Phenomena — not to mention getting national security officials past the Senate and into leadership roles in order to tackle all of these challenges.

1. ENDING THIS PANDEMIC AND PREPARING FOR THE NEXT ONE 

As the world heads into the third year of the global COVID-19 pandemic, the Biden administration will be looking to end the current pandemic and invest in programs to prevent and respond to future pandemics. With vaccination rates plateauing and high-income countries consider authorizing fourth doses, the need to vaccinate low- and middle-income nations will become that much more critical, as will increased access to diagnostics, therapeutics, and PPE tools.

As we have seen time and again, inequitable access to vaccines led to the development of more lethal, more contagious, and more severe forms of the disease. Rapid and accurate tests will need to be brought to scale as the world becomes more dependent on negative test results to attend school, travel, and access essential health services. Shortages of tests seen in the United States are far more severe in less wealthy countries and will not improve without significant donor intervention. It will be especially exciting to track new therapeutics, like those that significantly lower the risk of severe disease in immune-compromised patients. Careful attention should be paid to existing therapies, like medical oxygen and steroids, to avoid supply chain stock outs.

RAPID AND ACCURATE TESTS WILL NEED TO BE BROUGHT TO SCALE AS THE WORLD BECOMES MORE DEPENDENT ON NEGATIVE TEST RESULTS TO ATTEND SCHOOL, TRAVEL, AND ACCESS ESSENTIAL HEALTH SERVICES.

This year will also see US bilateral and multilateral global health programs pivot from the immediate response to the current crisis to planning on how best to prevent, prepare, and respond to future pandemics. To be determined are how the US government will structure and resource pandemic preparedness programs at State and USAID, and the role of US President’s Emergency Plan for AIDS Relief (PEPFAR) headed by the former Africa CDC Chief, Dr. John Nkengasong, who has not yet been confirmed by the Senate. In the fall of 2022, the United States will host the Seventh Replenishment Conference of the Global Fund to Fight AIDS, Tuberculosis and Malaria, the largest global health funder. The upcoming Replenishment Conference will bring together donor and implementing governments, private sector, civil society, and affected populations to rally resources to end the deadliest infectious diseases and invest in efforts to prevent the spread of future epidemics. The Global Fund’s ability to draw on its strengths of achieving results against HIV, TB and malaria, civil society inclusion, and strengthening health systems will lay the groundwork for future pandemic preparedness and response. This will be a significant opportunity for the Biden administration to diplomatically engage other donors to increase contributions in global health, an area where many other high-income donors have fallen short. Without leadership — diplomatic, political, and monetary — there will be no end to this, or future, pandemics.

Shannon Kellman is the Policy Director for Friends of the Global Fight Against AIDS, Tuberculosis and Malaria. 

2. A CITIZEN-LED APPROACH TO REVITALIZING DEMOCRACY

The deterioration of freedoms under the guise of pandemic response, successful coups in places like Myanmar and Sudan, and a violent insurrection in one of the most well-established democracies signal that democratic decline is unlikely to abate in 2022 without significant course correction. With general elections in declining democracies like India, Brazil, and Hungary, deepening toxic polarization heading into the US midterms, and a never-ending global pandemic, it is evident that we are at a turning point. Democracy advocates around the world will have to organize in ways that they never have before.

Commentary surrounding the Summit for Democracy and the one-year anniversary of the January 6 insurrection provide exhaustive diagnoses of the problems facing the US and its democratic allies. Some proposed concrete solutions, including crafting country-specific agendas, pursuing electoral reform and establishing a formal global democracy alliance. Yet, many recommendations targeted governments and political party infrastructure and offered less detail for how civil society can organize for democracy globally and here at home in the United States. With so much at stake, we need an all-hands-on-deck approach.

A sustainable movement for democracy needs a global coalition of activists, peacebuilders, organizers, academics, and community leaders to create pressure for local, national, and global reforms that translate into meaningful action at the community level. It requires organizing within and outside of elections, cross-sector strategic and scenario planning and mobilizing people who represent diverse constituencies, ideologies, and geographies. This is a big ask, but we have seen this level of coordination (albeit imperfect) before for issues like racial justice, climate change, and, on a smaller scale, to protect the 2020 US election results. With renewed attention internationally and new investments domestically, previously siloed democracy champions have a new opportunity to come together, learn, and share experiences, and plan this global movement.

Tabatha Pilgrim Thompson is the Director for Partnerships and Outreach at The Horizons Project, a new initiative focused on strengthening relationships among social justice activists, peacebuilders, and democracy advocates working to advance a just, pluralistic democracy in the United States. 

3. OVERCOMING CONGRESSIONAL OBSTRUCTION TO NATIONAL SECURITY APPOINTMENTS

While not as headline-grabbing as other issues, one trend that will have major foreign policy implications in 2022 is the Congress’s refusal to confirm necessary staffing to national security positions. The Partnership for Public Service found that just over half of key Senate-confirmed positions, 97 out of 173, were filled as of Dec. 31, 2021. In part, this is the fault of Senator Ted Cruz (R-TX) who single-handedly held up a number of positions due to disagreements over the Biden administration’s waiver of NordStream 2 sanctions. While Senator Cruz and Majority Leader Chuck Schumer were able to find an agreement to move forward with confirmations, it only takes one senator to keep these jobs vacant.

This slowdown in appointments creates a variety of problems that often lurk in the background of headlines. France recalled its ambassador to the US over the cancellation of a submarine contract related to AUKUS. How might have that situation been different if we had had an ambassador in Paris or an Assistant Secretary for European and Eurasian Affairs at the State Department? Potentially to avoid these issues, the president has grown the staff of the National Security Council (NSC) to approximately 350, but the impact of growing the NSC is unclear. America needs these key national security and foreign policy positions filled now.

Grant Haver is the host of the Next in Foreign Policy podcast, podcast producer and new content coordinator at TRG Media, and Senior Fellow for National Security at the Rainey Center.  

4. MITIGATING THE IMPACT OF FOSSIL FUEL DEPENDENCE 

The pain of global dependence on fossil fuels will increase, with many domestic fuel issues exacerbating social unrest and bubbling up to become international security issues and humanitarian crises. First, there is the post-COVID demand recovery outpacing supply, increasing fuel costs, and angering consumers. Second, there is the volatility of geopolitics mixed with fossil fuel dependence, resulting in some groups harnessing the demand for fuel to impose their will. Any combination of these two factors makes fuel shortages a potent weapon.

WHILE FUEL MAY NOT BE THE DIRECT CAUSE OF SOME OF THESE PROBLEMS, THE WORLD MAY REALLY START TO FEEL THE NEED FOR ENERGY DIVERSIFICATION THIS YEAR.

Kazakhstan is a good example of what may be in store for 2022. What started as a protest over increased fuel prices grew into a humanitarian crisis stemming from a violent crackdown and internet blackout. Russian military involvement, through the Collective Security Treaty Organization, unnerved the West as experts initially speculated whether Russia’s military would leave. There is also Yemen, where potential rebel control over the oil-rich city, Marib, could financially legitimate Houthi governance over the country. In Haiti, gangs cut off fuel supplies in October 2021 to provoke domestic chaos amidst the turmoil sparked by the assassination of President Jovenel Moïse. With the end of the assassinated president’s term nearing in February, some are concerned over the potential flash point this could create, forcing more refugees to the US border. If the gangs weaponized fuel once, they may do it again.

While fuel may not be the direct cause of some of these problems, the world may really start to feel the need for energy diversification this year.

April Arnold is a Senior Nonproliferation Adviser for Culmen International, where she advises the Department of Energy’s Office of Nuclear Smuggling Detection and Deterrence.  She is currently pursuing her MA in Sustainable Energy at Johns Hopkins University’s School of Advanced International Studies.

5. REVIVING THE IRAN NUCLEAR DEAL 

After a full year of stop-and-go diplomacy, 2022 could finally be the year that the United States and Iran return to full compliance with the Iran nuclear deal, the Joint Comprehensive Plan of Action (JCPOA). The JCPOA put into place the most stringent nonproliferation restrictions on a country in history until the Trump administration withdrew in 2018 and reopened the nuclear crisis with a failed “maximum pressure” policy. In response, Iran increased its nuclear leverage by reinstalling advanced centrifuges and stockpiling uranium up to 60% enriched. For a nuclear weapon, 90% enrichment is required, but under the deal, Iran can not surpass 3.67%.

In 2022, the reality that a diplomatic agreement is in the interest of the United States, Iran, and global security will not change. CIA Director Bill Burns has said there’s no evidence Iran intends to build a nuclear weapon while State Department spokesperson Ned Price has stated that Iran has made “modest progress” since the negotiations in late December 2021. We should, therefore, remain optimistic. Still, negotiators need to move faster as there are two looming hurdles ahead: Iran’s growing stockpile of highly enriched uranium and increasing technical knowledge, and the political chaos of midterm elections in the United States. Tehran is also demanding assurances that the US won’t withdraw, again, under a future president. Meanwhile, the Iranian people continue to suffer under corruption at home, economic sanctions from abroad, and an ongoing pandemic. A return to the JCPOA, or at least an interim deal to give diplomats breathing room, cannot come soon enough for all involved.

Shahed Ghoreishi is a Middle East Analyst and communications consultant.

6. REPEALING ANTIQUATED WAR AUTHORIZATIONS

In 2022, expect Congress to debate whether to reclaim its ever-eroding constitutional war powers and withdraw far-reaching authorizations for the use of military force. Soon after withdrawing US troops from Afghanistan, President Joe Biden said, “for the first time in 20 years the United States is not at war.” However, the open-ended laws that authorized the Global War on Terror (GWOT) and the Iraq war remain on the books. Congress will likely consider whether to repeal standing authorizations for the use of military force this year. Recent revelations of widespread civilian casualties from airstrikes conducted under GWOT and Iraq war authorizations make Congress’s efforts to rein in executive uses of military force all the more important.

Last summer, Biden announced his support for a repeal of the 2002 Iraq war authorization. The House of Representatives then passed Representative Barbara Lee’s bill to repeal the Iraq war authorization. Schumer soon after promised a 2021 Senate vote on a bipartisan proposal to repeal two laws authorizing the Gulf War and Iraq War. The vote, however, was delayed amid negotiations around the year’s largest defense policy bill. If the Senate finally votes on the repeal, it will likely pass, teeing up a debate over the 2001 war on terror authorization. Congress may also try to update the War Powers Resolution, a Vietnam War-era law that governs when the president may conduct military operations and what the president must report to Congress.

John Ramming Chappell is a J.D. and M.S. in Foreign Service candidate focusing on human rights and national security law at Georgetown University.

7. FINDING A NEW APPROACH TO UNIDENTIFIED AERIAL PHENOMENA

Perhaps the most fascinating trend in national security in the last year was increasing executive and congressional interest in the topic of Unidentified Aerial Phenomena (UAP). Following the bombshell 2017 revelations in the New York Times that the Pentagon had concealed an ongoing UAP monitoring effort, public interest has grown regarding repeated incursions into protected US airspace. A June 2021 unclassified report from the Office of the Director of National Intelligence (ODNI) investigated 144 incident reports from 2004 through 2021, and 18 reports included what ODNI termed “unusual UAP movement patterns or flight characteristics” — including movement that defied physics and craft that operated without visible propulsion systems or emitted radio frequency energy. In addition, no evidence was found that any of the investigated cases could be attributed to a foreign adversary. As such, the report concluded that “UAP clearly pose a safety of flight issue and may pose a challenge to US national security.”

When asked about the report, Director of National Intelligence Avril Haines recently remarked that the obvious question remains, “…is there something else that we simply do not understand, that might come extraterrestrially?” Haines’ remarks seem to reflect a growing tone shift within the US government at both the executive and congressional levels. The Rubio-Gillibrand-Gallego UAP Amendment included in the 2022 National Defense Authorization Act authorized the first publicly acknowledged UAP office since the 1969 termination of the US Air Force’s controversial Project Blue Book.

While Air Force Regulation 200-2 prohibited the public release of UAP incident reports without a conventional explanation, the new UAP office will provide annual unclassified briefings and biannual classified briefings to Congress. Regardless of the explanation(s) behind these phenomena, the UAP issue represents an ongoing threat to US territorial sovereignty that must not be silenced due to the decades-old stigma attached to the topic.

Katie Howland, MPH, is an award-winning humanitarian with experience managing programs related to genocide response, literacy, and global health across the Middle East and Africa. She has been recognized as a 2021 National Security Out Leader, 2020 Aerie Changemaker, and a 2019 Nonprofit Visionary of the Year finalist by San Diego Magazine.

*This article was written by Chief Network Weaver Julia Roig and was first published on The Fulcrum.

“How did we get to this point?” was how the third day of the January 6^th hearings began on June 16^th. Many Americans are asking the same question, with a mix of exhaustion, exasperation, and alarm that our country has devolved to the heightened levels of violence and dysfunction that the Select Committee has outlined thus far. It has been painful to re-watch the violence that took place at the Capitol, but also to hear the personal stories of the violent threats and intimidation unleashed on elections officials and poll workers throughout the country.

One of the thorniest questions of our times is how we will come together to reckon with the clear and present danger of the growing authoritarian threat in the United States ,while also healing a fractured nation dealing with collective trauma, distrust, outrage, and despair. The answer is that we must do both. While there are clearly urgent legal and political imperatives required in the short term, these actions and organizing focused on truth-telling and justice will not be unfolding in a vacuum and will form the foundations needed for long-term cultural and institutional transformations to take place.

As we engage with the January 6^th hearings as a nation, therefore, we have an opportunity to hold the tensions between accountability (insights + remorse + making amends); and healing (the process of making or becoming sound or healthy again) – as the only way forward. The path of truth, justice, and repair will be long, messy, and full of curves in the road, but the work of finding strength, not resentment, in our differences is an equally important ingredient to protecting our democracy.

First things first. The United States of America is a democratic republic founded on the rule of law, and in this system of government it is imperative that those who commit crimes must be held accountable, even – and especially – those given the privilege of serving at the highest levels of political power. The fact that these hearings are taking place at all, in some ways is a triumph of our democratic institutions. Although the Committee appears to be narrowly focused on the actions and responsibility of former President Trump and his top advisors, authoritarianism is a systemic threat that goes beyond any one person or persons. Whatever its partisan sources, laying out the evidence behind the attack on the Capitol is important for the American people and for future generations to know the truth. Our vigilance against the authoritarian threat must also include accountability at all levels of government and other sectors in society (such as media, corporations, or faith leaders) who continue to this day to spread or tolerate the same dangerous lies about the 2020 elections, or who are actively undermining both the integrity of and access to our electoral process.

For example, the Texas GOP recently voted in a platform that denies the validity of President Biden’s election. In New Mexico, a three-person commission in Otero County refused to certify the results of their primary elections, citing unsubstantiated complaints of Dominion voting-tabulating machines. The importance of shining a light on the January 6^th hearings is to acknowledge that the threats to America’s free and fair elections continue to spread throughout the country and must be confronted and defeated, especially from a larger number of courageous leaders from within the Republican party and conservative movement. In the near term, our gaze will have to shift from the January 6th hearings to focus on how the threats to democracy are metastasizing at the state level.

And yet once while establishing the truth, we need to also prepare to heal. As we head into the mid-term elections and rightly rely on both legal and political processes to demand accountability for anti-democratic rhetoric and behavior, our organizing tactics should also be grounded in a long-term vision for and commitment to societal healing and healthy pluralism. Distinct from holding political leaders accountable, is how we engage with our fellow citizens about these “threats to democracy,” including those who may be having a different reaction to the current January 6^th hearings. There are those who are either completely certain or confused about the 2020 elections. Many people no longer believe in the democratic system – that every American has a right and freedom to vote for a leader of their choice – because they no longer trust any politicians. All of us are being fed a media diet of fear of the other side and are falling victim to cynicism of political theater. Spanning from the COVID endemic to economic insecurity, these are difficult times for many Americans, who are feeling excluded, isolated, humiliated, unsafe, angry, or just doing their best to get by. Calls to please watch the hearings are often met by this segment of society with either disdain or frustration that the issues affecting their daily lives are not being prioritized. Reflecting on the importance of the hearings with this population can be quiet work, one on one, as Zimbabwean activist Pastor Evan Mawarire recently emphasized “people don’t care how much you know, until they know how much you care.”

Lies cannot be allowed to stand in a healthy democracy. Building a bigger coalition of trusted messengers becomes some of the most important work in effectively discussing the current threats to our democracy. This is not appeasement, nor blindness to on-going injustices and oppression in our society. This is an acknowledgement that one of the most tried and true tactics of any authoritarian regime is to divide and conquer, and to keep people confused and distrustful of each other. Part of the equation of protecting democracy, therefore, is the work it will take to break this cycle, to reinforce our shared identities as Americans, to rise above partisanship and to see past any one electoral cycle.

Programs like those led by Urban Rural Action, and the United Vision Project are creating bridges and helping Americans see that we can come together to find common ground and take action on issues we care about most, without centering our ideological identities. These kinds of programs directly combat authoritarianism that feeds off of making people feel like they are powerless to change things. The way that we organize together across difference, centering restorative relationships within our communities where multiple and intersecting identities are celebrated in all our complexities, allows Americans to remember that we belong to each other, and that we all want to live in a society that functions where we are free to work, love, and flourish.

We cannot merely vote our way out of the current democratic crisis, but the January 6^th hearings provide an entry point to build upon our common values and vision for the country. This moment is an important opportunity for a broader pro-democracy coalition to form. Citizens must feel that their voices matter and are counted, so voting integrity and participation is essential to democracy. At the same time saving democracy cannot be a partisan undertaking and we cannot engage with our fellow citizens only as voters. Thinking only in terms of “persuadables” or “the moveable middle” for example can be a dehumanizing mindset that ignores the complexities of Americans’ beliefs and values and in turn, that keeps us in a trap of us versus them. Experts who study successful pro-democracy movements have shown that progressives and conservatives must come together to stop those who are actively changing the rules of the game to stay in power undemocratically.

The time to act is now. Heeding the warning that our democracy is on the “knife’s edge” as Judge Luttig stated in his written testimony, requires what some peacebuilding experts refer to as a “multiple parallel approach” – acknowledging the diversity of actors and initiatives to be galvanized within complex systems. Accountability for crimes committed must come out of the January 6^th hearings. Conservative leaders must be more courageous, and when they are they must be supported and encouraged to expel the anti-democratic forces from within their ranks by progressives and liberals. All of us must vote and support pro-democracy candidates in the upcoming elections. And, at the same time, citizens must center our shared longer-term goal of healing our toxically divided nation if we are going to uphold our democracy.

On September 14, 2022, The Horizons Project hosted a webinar to bring together movement trainers, facilitators, and organizers to discuss the current state of movement-building support in the US and how training and convening spaces could be better coordinated and envisioned more creatively to build a broad-based pro-democracy movement to counter the rising authoritarian threat.

Maria Stephan’s opening remarks are below.

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=idhRipoq19c

“Hello everyone and welcome to today’s discussion on Facilitating and Training in Cross-Sector Movements: Turbo-Charging Efforts for Coordination and Collaboration. Today we’ll be speaking with a distinguished group of panelists about the current state of movement-building support in the US, and how training and convening spaces could be envisioned more creatively to support a broad-based front or movement to counter the rising authoritarian threats and to build a democracy that works for all Americans. While our conversation today will be focused on the US, we think there is significant cross-border import and relevance.

Why are we having this conversation now? Like most or all of you in this room, Horizons is deeply concerned about the state of US democracy, which was formally classified as “backsliding” last year by the Stockholm-based International IDEA. We’re concerned about the alarming rise of political violence and extreme us vs. them politics. This is not our first experience with authoritarianism in the US, however: the system of Jim Crow following the end of the Reconstruction period was one of the most virulent and violent forms of single-party rule. While the January 6th 2021 attempted insurrection was a dramatic reminder that “it can happen here” (to cite Sinclair Lewis, who wrote about rising fascism in the US in the 1930s), the rise in political violence (mostly but not exclusively from far-right groups) and state and local efforts to undermine free & fair elections are worrisome no matter which issues we care about the most – whether that be climate, health care, workers’ rights, or many others.

At the same time, we know that the only way that we have ever gotten closer to freedom & justice for all in the US, and what plenty of research has shown to be the strongest bulwark against authoritarianism globally, has been powerful, broad-based coalitions and movements capable of mobilizing people across difference. The history of USA is in many ways the history of movements – to achieve independence from colonial rule, to abolish slavery, to make suffrage truly universal, to expand civil and political rights for all. These movements have relied on a combination of dialogue and nonviolent action to build bridges, build power, and build belonging.

Training and facilitation are essential to building movement strength and sustainability. They have played a critical role in pro-democracy movements in the US (including the Civil Rights movement), the Philippines, Serbia, South Africa, and countless other places. Members of our panel have written extensively on this topic.

At Horizons we believe that both dialogue and direct action, organization, and mobilization, blocking harm and building democratic abundance, are necessary to overcome the divide and rule tactics that endemic to the Authoritarian Playbook.

To help shed light on the roles played by movement training and facilitation in both upholding and reimagining US democracy, we will now turn to a very talented and accomplished group of speakers. Let me introduce them briefly.

• Ivan Marovic is the Director of Field Education and Applied Research at the International Center on Nonviolent Conflict. Since playing a leading role in Otpor, a youth movement which helped bring down Slobodan Milosevic in Serbia, Ivan has become one of the leading educators in the field of strategic nonviolent conflict.
• Nadine Bloch is the Training Director at Beautiful Trouble, a global network of organizers, artists, trainers, and writers where Nadine’s work explores the potent intersection of art, movements, and politics.
• Jake Waxman is an advisory board member and senior trainer with the Leading Change Network. He has led over 200 workshops and trained over 1,500 coaches and 15,000 participants in the craft of Public Narrative and Leadership, Organizing, and Action.
• Carlos Saavedra has been active in the immigrant rights movement for the last 20 years building and co-founding organizations for immigrant students and workers. Since founding the Ayni Institute in 2013, he has been coaching and training organizers and leaders in movement building.
• Reverend Stephen A. Green is an activist and pastor who leads with radical love in action through his ministry at the St. Luke AME Church in Harlem, and as Chair of Faith for Black Lives, a faith-based social justice organization. He is also the creator and host of the podcast, “Sacred Desk with Rev. Stephen A. Green,” which features conversations with thought leaders and change agents focused on the latest headlines.”