How to Overcome the Trauma of the 2016 Presidential Campaign

co-authored by Louis Kriesberg and Bruce W. Dayton
originally posted on the Huffington Post on 12/2/16

For many Americans, the 2016 presidential election campaign has been traumatic. Many supporters of Hillary Clinton, and others, believed that Donald Trump’s assertions and conduct violated the norms that are traditional in U.S. election campaigns, thereby undermining American democracy. On the other hand, some of Trump’s supporters regarded such charges against him as elitist denial of their legitimate grievances and some demonized Hillary Clinton.

Somehow, after this dreadful election campaign, we Americans must help each other to overcome the campaign’s horrors and work effectively to correct the circumstances that produced the trauma. Many avenues can help meet that need at the neighborhood, city, state, and national levels by diverse citizens working together.

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National politics aside, governing still takes collaboration across boundaries

By Kirk Emerson (University of Arizona) and Tina Nabatchi (Syracuse University), co-authors of Collaborative Governance Regimes, Georgetown University Press, 2015

You wouldn’t think it from the tenor of our current presidential electioneering, but not everyone in this country is as at each other’s throats, failing to listen to each other, or disrespecting differing views. News coverage and social media posts may be disheartening, suggesting polarized politics, incivility, and failure to address problems; however, evidence of our ability to collaborate – to work together across boundaries to solve problems and strive for the common good – is bountiful.

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President Barack Obama’s Legacies

Despite some claims that Barack Obama will be seen as a failed president in the future, the current primary election campaigns make it clear that he is likely to be viewed historically as a highly successful president. It is becoming evident that those Republicans and others who worked hard to oppose and defeat Obama’s policies have gravely damaged themselves. Their efforts to destroy his presidency have harmed the country and their own standing. This can be seen in many arenas.

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Imagining America, 2013 Conference: University Centers for Civic Engagement

The voices calling for universities to reinvigorate their significance to local communities are growing louder. Renewed interest in community-centered teaching and learning is being driven by an increase in campus engagement offices, and students and academic staff committed to connecting their studies with community engagement.  All this is driving universities to find new ways to work with their communities in the 21^st century. Sometimes, that means redefining their relationship to the local community. Imagining America is a consortium of artists and scholars opening pathways for these new forms of engagement and scholarship in community.

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Addressing Non-Communicable Diseases (NCDs): A Challenge for Collaborative Global Governance

Addressing Non-Communicable Diseases (NCDs): A Challenge for Collaborative Global Governance

By Hans Peter Schmitz

Non-communicable diseases are creating rapidly rising health issues across many nations.  The main NCDs include cardiovascular disease, cancer, diabetes and chronic respiratory illnesses and share common behavioral risk factors, including smoking, unhealthy diet, physical inactivity, and the harmful use of alcohol. The World Health Organization (WHO) estimates that 60 per cent of global mortality, or 35 out of 59 million deaths in 2005 were caused by NCDs. Six of the top ten risk factors leading to death are NCDs. This burden is particularly high in low and middle-income nations, where 80 per cent of all deaths caused by NCDs occur. While many still believe that the biggest health challenges in developing nations continue to be infectious diseases, this view is long outdated. NCDs today are a greater threat to global economic development than fiscal crises, natural disasters, corruption, or malaria, tuberculosis, and HIV/AIDs. Addressing NCDs more broadly represents a crucial link between single issues such as alcohol and tobacco and the broader development agenda, including the discussion on what should follow after the Millennium Development Goals expire in 2015.

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Thinking like a Planet

Over lunch the other day, colleague Harry Lambright and I were discussing his interest in the connection between space exploration and environmental problems, particularly climate change.  In his view, a main problem with a great deal of environmental thinking and policy-making is that it doesn’t take a big enough perspective. Environmental problems – the most pressing ones at least – are problems that must be understood at the scale of the planet.  To deal with them effectively, we need to “Think like a Planet.”

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Guerillas in our Midst (post by Rosemary O’Leary)

This is a post from Rosemary O’Leary.

With the imprisonment of Private Bradley Manning for allegedly supplying WikiLeaks with classified information, we are reminded of the challenge of guerrilla government facing the Obama administration.

Guerrilla government is my term for a form of dissent usually carried out by insiders who are dissatisfied with the actions of public organizations, programs, or people but who typically, for strategic reasons, choose not to go public with their concerns. A few guerrillas end up outing themselves as whistle-blowers, but most do not.

In addition to leaking information to the media, guerrillas might obey their superiors in public, but disobey them in private; ghostwrite letters, testimony and studies; neglect policies and directives they disagree with – stall; fail to implement orders they think unfair; hold clandestine meetings to plot a unified staff strategy;  fail to correct superiors’ mistakes.

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Participation 2.0 white paper

(Crossposted from Social Media in the Public Sector blog)

Professors Tina Nabatchi and Ines Mergel have published a white paper for the report “Connected Communities” edited by James H. Svara and Janet Denhardt, Arizona State University. Our paper, titled “Participation 2.0: Using Internet and Social Media Technologies to Promote Distributed Democracy and Create Digital Neighborhoods” (pp. 80-88) used a citizen engagement framework and matched the theoretical dimensions with evidence from interviews I conducted with city managers and government IT professionals.

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The Shape of Environmental Collaboration

It is well known that the shape of environmental problems does not match the shape of political and social institutions. Water pollution spills across the borders of the neat lines delineating counties, states, and nations. Emissions released into the air from energy use drift across continents, and their collective impacts expand beyond the physical earth to shape the atmosphere.

What is not known is how to design systems and structures that allow for effective collaboration at the shape and scale of such problems.

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