Civil society actors around the world are grappling with competition between values systems. Rising geopolitical tensions affect international civil society and its role in this shifting global order.
let s talk about solutions. what can we do to depolarize? can we unite a divided america? john avlon has some thoughts on that tonight in his reality check. as you know there have been boat loads of books and studies warning about the dangers to our democracy. all that is starting to sink in obviously culminating with january 6 and trump s attempt to overturn the election. a new npr poll shows 64% of americans think our democracy is in danger. in the search for solutions one recent study jumped out at me. it s by the folks at the carnegie endowment for international peace particularly jennifer mccoy and ben press on what they call pernicious polarization and how it has affected other democracies around the world. they define it as basically when someone s partisan identity starts affecting their social identity which is certainly something we re seeing here in the united states. they looked at 52 countries around the world since 1950
one recent study really jumped out at me. by the folks at carnegie, particularly jennifer mccoy and ben press and it s on what they call pernicious polarization. and how it s affected other democracies around the world. they define pernicious polarization as basically when someone s partisan identity starts affecting their oeshl identity, which is certainly something we are seeing here in the united states. and they looked at 52 countries around the world since 1950 that where polarization has impacted democracy negatively. has degraded democracy. and here is what they found. half the countries only half the countries managed to pull out of that death spiral. the united states is far and away the most developed, long-standing democracy out of any in this group. but some lessons from that group are absolutely worth looking to, and particularly i point to election reforms that emphasized increased choice and representation as a way of depolarizing the debates.