Current e-Journal

Special Edition
Getting Beyond Polarization

This is a special edition of our eJournal, sharing a resource that we found particularly insightful – research on polarization, democracy, and political violence, done by the Carnegie Endowment for International Peace.

While the paper focuses primarily on the political system in the United States, for us it raises a bigger question: 

• In what ways are community benefit organizations contributing to polarization – perhaps unwittingly, perhaps intentionally? 
• Just as politicians are using polarization to raise money and gain votes, are we, too, using divisive, us-and-them scare tactics to raise money and gain support? 
• Are we demonizing the “other side,” discounting people (elected officials, family members) with whom we disagree rather than seeking to find common ground?

The paper’s findings note that there are so many issues about which we agree, and yet we assume the worst.

From the research…

American voters are less ideologically polarized than they think they are, and that misperception is greatest for the most politically engaged people.

Polarization is a highly nuanced field, and small assumptions can lead to big mistakes. Practitioners and philanthropists should be particularly careful about their assumptions.

People working in the social change ecosystem tend to be among those “most politically engaged people.” We tend to be the ones making assumptions about the “other side.”

Sadly, every time we do so, we are jeopardizing our own efforts to create a more just and equitable world.

This is NOT about folks who are hell-bent on seeing you fail. If there is no good faith on their part, there is no point in trying to have a conversation (good advice in community work and in life!) But as the research shows, that is a small fraction of the people we assume are on the “other side.”

While the findings of this research paper include items that may seem intuitive, are those intuitive conclusions guiding our work? Or are we, too, succumbing to the dark side?

From the research (emphasis is ours)…

•  … interventions to change individuals’ emotions must be paired with efforts that alter how politicians are incentivized to instrumentalize or amplify polarization as a strategy.
•  … The most effective interventions involve reducing fears that the other side is intent on breaking democratic norms.
• Win-lose-style, adversarial advocacy that amplifies the belief that members of the other party are bent on destroying democracy itself is likely to deepen polarization.

Are we amplifying polarization as a strategy for raising money? For doing advocacy work? Are we reducing fears of the other side or amplifying them?

In these times of deep divide worldwide…

In these times of war, of taking sides…

We have a choice. We can participate in demonizing the “other side.” Or we can listen to what may just be our favorite finding in this paper…

• A different form of pluralistic work that coordinates groups to act on shared goals, despite other differences of opinion, may work to bridge partisanship, build trust, and advance a more just democracy.

And isn’t that at the heart of what so much of social change work is all about?