One of the markers of a deeply polarized society is an inability to talk with those outside one's political or social groups. There's a heightening of the "us versus them" dynamics that make any intergroup interactions undesirable or even impossible. This breakdown in communication contributes to the iterative nature of polarization; we spend more time sequestered in our in-groups and develop stronger animosities towards our out-groups. How, then, do we break this cycle?

Restorative Justice may have an answer to that.

Restorative Justice principles are used throughout the world as an alternative to punitive forms of justice and remediation. It brings victim and perpetrator together to communicate why the harm was committed and encourages all parties involved to participate in repairing the damage caused by said harm. In other words, these principles offer a framework for building lines of communication between polarized communities. 

Jennifer Llewellyn is the Director of the Restorative Research, Innovation, and Education Lab, and Professor of Law at Dalhousie University in Nova Scotia. Jennifer explains how Restorative Justice shapes one's relationship to the community around them and reminds listeners of the agency they have in actively pursuing a less divisive relationship with those around them. We also talk about how punitive justice reproduces systems of inequality and the organizations that are bringing theory into practice in small and large ways. 

How do you repair polarized relationships? Many political depolarization strategies emphasize the value of common interests and elevating similarities to drown out our differences - contact theory, for short. Such strategies certainly have their place, but there is something to be said about learning skills that allow you to co-exist with someone whose worldview stands in firm contrast with your own, absent of any consideration of any shared traits.

Byron Bland is a peacemaker who's worked in some of the world's most highly polarized conflict zones - Northern Ireland, Israel-Palestine, and South Africa. Over the years, he's made critical observations about what it takes to co-exist with your enemy. Peace is complex. It does not guarantee harmony, nor does it grant either side exactly the outcomes that they desire. At its core, however, it ensures we can all live and share space.

Byron talks with us about what peace and justice in conflict looks like. He elaborates on the difference between "a vision for a shared future" and "a shared vision of the future". His insights offer an honest, realistic take on what depolarization can and must look like to have meaningful, sustained impact. 

What happens when a polarized society turns violent? In Rwanda, decades of tension between the Hutu and Tutsi ethnic groups came to a head in a Civil War that, seemingly overnight, devolved into one of the bloodiest genocides of the 20th century. With concerns about a potential civil war in the United States, it's worth examining what exactly was happening in Rwanda that led to the mass slaughter of Tutsi men, women, and children at the hands of their Hutu neighbours. What, or who, were the main drivers of division between Hutu and Tutsi Rwandans? What were the differences in lived experiences between the two groups? What was going on in the social, political, and cultural institutions in the years leading up to the genocide?

Omar McDoom - takes through a brief yet insightful history of precolonial, colonial, and postcolonial Rwanda, and of the relationship between the Hutu and Tutsi. We learn how those ethnic groups interacted with each other before the European Imperialist period, the impact of Belgian colonization on codifying those ethnic divisions, and what happened after independence that set Rwanda on its tragic course. 

There are a lot of parallels to draw between Rwanda just before the start of the genocide and the most perniciously polarized democracies of today. Without establishing false equivalencies, it is essential to take what lessons we can from Rwanda to avoid an overwhelming outbreak of violence to occur elsewhere.

You can find Omar's writings on present-day conflicts here.

Writings and Writers mentioned:

The Origins of Violence: Approaches to the Study of Conflict by Anatol Rapoport

We Wish to Inform You That Tomorrow We Will Be Killed With Our Families by Phillip Gourevitch

It is not enough that we find ourselves in a global polarization crisis. No, no, no. We simply needed to be entrenched in a global mis/disinformation crisis as well. Indeed, there is reason to believe that the two are interlinked - nefarious actors manufacture false information for a public searching for answers and assume positions of power based on those fallacies.

Mis/disinformation sits on the liberal/conservative fault line - those on the right find their views subject to scrutiny by mis/disinformation researchers, and so deride those researchers as malicious themselves. It is a powerful tool for those looking to sow societal discord. But mis/disinformation existed long before our current polarization crisis. And not just on the fringes. Mis/disinformation has been weaponised by highly influential figures for decades in the public and private sectors.

Lee McIntyre talks us through the history of mis/disinformation as a tool for governments and big businesses to sway the public. He draws a throughline between science denialism and the present-day mis/disinformation crisis, and why he makes a point to distinguish between misinformation and disinformation.

His book On Disinformation is available wherever you buy books, as is Sander van der Linden's book Foolproof.

And do check out Merchants of Doubt by Eric Conway and Naomi Oreskes and the NATO Handbook on Russian Information Warfare.

Anyone who's spent time on social media can tell you just how divisive the digital communications space can be. Opinions and ideologies take on a life of their own on platforms like Facebook, Instagram, TikTok, and the icon formerly known as Twitter. The combination of opposing views, loud voices, and general lawlessness makes the internet ripe for discourse spectacle.

The role of social media in propagating polarization is a hot topic among researchers, and for good reason. In the venn diagram of polarization, misinformation, free speech advocacy, and politics - social media sits firmly in the centre. Any positively impactful depolarization strategies will have to consider how we reform social media towards this end.

Yoel Roth - Former Head of Trust & Safety at Twitter and visiting scholar at UPenn's Center for Media at Risk - examines how social media became a powerful tool in elections and governance, the social and financial arguments for content moderation, and examples of apps that promote a healthier digital communications ecosystem.

I encourage everyone to read Yoel's NYT op-ed about how his defence of trust and safety on the internet put him in the crosshairs of some pretty powerful enemies and what that says about the state of social media and the internet at this moment. 

Writings and Writers mentioned:

Digital Empires by Anu Bradford

Foolproof by Sander van der Linden

Thomas Kuhn

How much of our identity is informed by our ideology? How much of our ideology is informed by our identity? Are politicians pulling the electorate to the extremes? Or are voters demanding that politicians take more hard-line policy stances? These are just some of the chicken-and-egg scenarios that come to light when trying to understand what drives polarization.

It's perhaps easy to assume that deepening social discord is worsening at the hands of political entrepreneurs. But are we underestimating the agency voters' leverage in their decision-making? Are voters as radicalized as their party? If not, why do they continue to vote in the way that they do? In fact, why are electorates as polarized as they are if voters aren't as extreme as their party's platforms imply?

Yphtach Lelkes - Co-Director of the Polarization Research Lab - explains how lineage can predict political leanings, how politicians and voters interact to polarize the public, and why he thinks polarization is not as bad as we think it is. 

You can find his research here.

Writings and Writers mentioned:

The Other Divide by Yanna Krupnikov and John Barry Ryan

Vanya Washington

Andy Hall

Pernicious polarization is spreading like wildfire across democracies around the world. And the outlook for the world is, well, awful. The World Economic Forum ranks "Societal Polarization" third in its list of short-term risks - and ninth in long-term risks - in its 2024 Global Risk Report. Adding to the concern are the interactions between polarization and misinformation, worsening economic opportunities, and intrastate violence.

But what if depolarization is a real possibility? What if polarization itself is not wholly adverse or harmful? What can we learn from moments of deep polarization across time and space to inform the crisis of today?

Jennifer McCoy talks about different countries' experiences of polarization, how what's happening in the U.S. stands out from the rest of the world, and countries that have managed to walk back from the cliff's edge.

You can find more of Jenn's research here. I highly encourage you to read her report Reducing Pernicious Polarization: A Comparative Historical Analysis of Depolarization and Overcoming Polarization by her and her colleague, Murat Somer.

Democracies are divided. So divided, in fact, that Tom Carothers - Co-Director of the Democracy, Conflict, and Governance Program at the Carnegie Endowment for International Peace - wrote an entire book on it.

If someone asked you to think about a democracy in trouble, chances are the United States comes to mind. And not without reason; the current presidential race is shaping up to be a re-match between two deeply unpopular candidates - one of whom poses a threat to the very institution of Western democracy.

The reality is that democracies everywhere are struggling. Carothers' book provides insights into the challenges facing democracies in Europe, Asia, Africa, and South America. We talk with Tom about what and who is responsible for this troubling trend in democracies.

You can find more of his analyses here, and his book Democracies Divided is available for purchase.