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Globally, authoritarianism has been on the rise, and political freedoms have been steadily declining. Authoritarianism is not just a threat to democratic governance or a concern for political actors. It is a concern to us all, as it both relies on and fuels violence in order to take root. Authoritarians intentionally sow divisions, cast vulnerable groups as enemies, and stoke feelings of superiority to justify and/or distract from unpopular policies, including those that aggrandize their power. Underlying this is a politics of us versus them: a guilty and threatening “them” that endangers “our physical security,” “our way of life,” and “our women and children;” and a virtuous “us” in need of protection. These narratives also dehumanize marginalized groups, criminalize opponents, and erode accountability for the use of violence in alignment with authoritarian goals, ultimately creating a permissive environment for political and identity-based violence.   

We are very grateful to have learned from Dr. Anna Szilágyi, a long-term partner and friend of Over Zero, about the power of labels, metaphors, and divisive linguistics in either facilitating conflict or unlocking our shared humanity.

Dr. Szilágyi is an expert in communication, media, and politics who explores the linguistic dynamics of public speech and private interactions. She has taught classes at the Savannah College of Art and Design in Hong Kong, Central European University in Budapest, and Saint Louis University in Madrid. Her writings have appeared in academic journals and books, including The Journal of Language Aggression and Conflict and Advances in the History of Rhetoric. She has also written articles and provided commentaries for media outlets in different parts of the world, including Global Voices, Público, Quartz, Rappler, and Vice News. Her global educational program, “Words Break Bones” equips journalists, professionals, and citizens with crucial linguistic skills to detect and counter patterns of wounding, divisive, and discriminatory speech.

Read the full interview here.

We look forward to continuing to bring you interviews from relevant experts across research and practice.

Covering political violence and violent extremism can be a fraught endeavor for the media. In an environment of polarization, social tension, and widespread misinformation, it is essential but also challenging to avoid inadvertently spreading false narratives, fueling conflict, or providing platforms to extremists.

In partnership with Protect Democracy, we’re working with organizations like the Institute for Constitutional Advocacy and Protection to compile best practices into guides for newsrooms looking to accurately and responsibly cover political violence and violent extremism in a range of contexts.  

Each guide includes core principles, key questions reporters and editors can ask to guide coverage, examples of thoughtful coverage from a range of outlets, and links to additional resources on conflict sensitive reporting.

Additional guides will be posted on this page as they are developed. 

Media Guides:

• Reporting on Political Violence Risks Throughout the Election Cycle

This report explores the connection between two escalating crises: the systematic targeting of LGBTQ communities and democratic backsliding worldwide.

It examines how the rhetorical, political, and physical attacks targeting the LGBTQ community are, in addition to a critical rights issue, a key tactic in the authoritarian playbook, cloaking themselves as culture war politics as usual.

LGBTQ scapegoating is not random. It is not a natural consequence of polarization or an expected backlash to rights advancements, but rather a strategy to deepen divisions and erode democracy.

To care about democracy is to care about LGBTQ scapegoating.

Read Decoding LGBTQ Scapegoating here.

The report provides a framework for better understanding LGBTQ scapegoating, identifying its political goals, and distinguishing it from “politics as usual.” 

It outlines six goals of LGBTQ scapegoating: 

• Stigmatize: By censoring discussions and depictions of marginalized groups, perpetrators further stigmatize them, reinforcing their status as scapegoats.

This refresher guide focuses on Over Zero’s core area of expertise: Unpacking the narrative patterns and underlying psychosocial dynamics that precede and occur throughout identity-based violence.

We release this guide in the wake of Hamas’ October 7 attack on Israel and the Israeli government’s ongoing assault on Gaza – violence that has collectively killed tens of thousands and displaced millions more. As we’ve supported our partners in better understanding and addressing the dangerous narratives playing out in the United States related to this violence, they have requested written guidance on the core concepts surrounding communications and violence for their work and for personal reflection.

Our hope is that this guide is a very small contribution in supporting partners who are leading their communities in finding a different way forward, toward rejecting identity-based violence and acknowledging, valuing, and celebrating our shared humanity. We share it with humility and compassion, noting that the violence abroad and here at home affects many of our partners and their communities directly.

Despite the national unity that initially followed the January 6 Capitol insurrection, conversations surrounding the attack quickly became politicized and the subject of heated disinformation as polarized narratives about “what happened” entrenched.

Developing a shared narrative of and ensuring accountability for political violence is critical for its non-recurrence. Over Zero, in partnership with New America’s New Models of Policy Change Initiative and Protect Democracy, conducted research to: 1) better understand how Americans are thinking about the events of January 6th, and 2) identify alternative inroads for engaging cross-partisan Americans in conversations surrounding January 6 and related accountability efforts. .

Amid the Select Committee’s subpoena to Donald Trump and continued conversations on accountability for January 6, we are sharing a recent report: Sacred Values, Willingness to Sacrifice, and Accountability for the Capitol Insurrection: Exploring How Deeply and Why Americans Hold Their January 6-Related Views.

In partnership with Protect Democracy, Laura Livingston co-authored Towards Non-Recurrence: Accountability Options for Trump-Era Transgressions. This paper applies historical case studies and transitional justice frameworks to explore the various considerations and tradeoffs that should inform whether and how the U.S. pursues accountability for wrongdoing that occurred during the Trump administration. It grapples with a common question: What measures could be taken to ensure transgressions—from criminal misconduct to democratic norm violations—do not recur?   

The paper specifically interrogates the following: 

• What do we mean by ‘accountability’?

• How would accountability work towards non-recurrence?

• What are the risks and limitations of an accountability scheme?

• Which kinds of transgressions should be held to account?

• Which instruments are available to generate accountability?

• Who are the appropriate parties to pursue accountability?

• Who must legitimize an accountability scheme?   

  Read the full paper here.

Working paper authored by Rachel Brown, Sadia Hameed, Heather Hurlburt, Laura Livingston, and Alexandra Stark. Access the full paper here.

U.S. philanthropy is keenly focused on re-invigorating and renovating democracy, supporting a wide range of actors and approaches. Successful strategies to strengthen formal and informal institutions, and reverse polarization, will need to include strategies to prevent and build resilience against political violence. International experience teaches that the risks of violence endure—and sometimes reach their heights—amidst efforts to reform dysfunctional systems and address democratic backsliding.

In other words, rising risk of political violence is not just an outcome of democratic failure, but a side effect of efforts at democratic renewal. As such, philanthropy needs to prepare to minimize and mitigate violence as part of longer-term efforts to renew U.S. institutions and build bridges among American communities.

In this paper for the National Endowment for Democracy, Laura Livingston highlights the offline, contextual dynamics that contribute to the resonance, spread, and impact of online misinformation, and implications for civil society responses. Access the full paper here.

“Misinformation, while normally consumed online, is not purely an online problem. Offline dynamics like intergroup tensions, competing world views, and institutional distrust compounds, reinforces, and amplifies the particular features of social media that serve to spread misinformation. Solutions to curtail the spread of disinformation need to account for the offline context that fuels online content.”

Access the full paper here.

The report, “What Immigration Issues Do Americans Hold Sacred? A Psychological Journey into Attitudes Towards Immigrants,” digs deeply into how respondents think about immigration issues through the lens of sacred values, threats, norms, and social identity. Download the full report here.

Undertaken in partnership with the Center for Inclusion and Belonging at the American Immigration Council, we ran a nationally representative survey to assess whether immigration issues are considered sacred (e.g., non-negotiable moral rules rather than values that can be deliberated) by Americans today, and if so, why? This report describes sacralization patterns across 14 immigration issues and examines Americans' mental models on the subject, revealing how social identity, perceptions of immigration threat, and other aspects of one's experience and worldview influence sacralization of immigration stances.

Co-authored by Nichole Argo, PhD (Over Zero) and Kate Jassin, PhD.

In this guest blog post for Philanthropy for Active Civic Engagement (PACE), Laura Livingston and Rachel Brown provide an overview of the vulnerabilities that brought us to January 6 and urgent priorities for philanthropy in stemming future risks for political violence.

“In the wake of the January 6, 2021 Capitol insurrection, addressing risks for political violence remains an urgent priority. Preventing future violence requires understanding and creating resilience to the dynamics and vulnerabilities that brought us to the current moment.”

Access the blog post here.

In the immediate wake of the January 6th insurrection, Over Zero’s Dr. Nichole Argo, Rachel Brown, and Samantha Owens sat down with PACE to discuss what civil society groups and funders can do to mitigate the possibility of political violence in the immediate-term as well as near- and longer-term scenarios. Read the interview here.

“It’s important that messaging in this moment goes beyond condemning recent, specific acts of violence; it needs to tie these acts to a bigger picture, identifying them as the inevitable consequence of the sustained stoking division, fear, and distrust in democratic institutions by leaders in recent years.”

Read the full interview here.

Following the release of the U.S.-focused “Counteracting Dangerous Narratives in the Time of COVID-19” guide, Over Zero, in collaboration with Caleb Gichuhi, has developed a globally-focused set of resources on counteracting dangerous narratives in times of uncertainty, including the current COVID-19 pandemic. Access the full guide here and the workbook here.

As the pandemic and related economic downturns continue, we are witnessing intensifying narratives that demonize, scapegoat, and otherwise target marginalized groups. We’ve also seen governments and political elites use the pandemic as a pretense to tighten their grip on civil society, the press, and others working to support vulnerable populations. As questions abound surrounding how the vaccine will be distributed, these dynamics may further intensify and entrench. 

We also know that community leaders, civil society organizations, and individuals have shown incredible resilience in navigating and pushing back on these dynamics. These resources aim to support such efforts amidst periods of threat and uncertainty, including the COVID-19 pandemic.

In Foreign Affairs, Rachel Brown, Heather Hurlburt, and Alexandra Stark discuss how the coronavirus pandemic has heightened risks for political violence globally. Access the full article here.

“As the United States has witnessed over the past ten days, a public health crisis can highlight inequalities and contribute to domestic unrest. In fact, UN Secretary-General António Guterres recently warned the Security Council that the pandemic poses a significant threat to international peace and security.”

Access the full article here.

In the face of COVID-19, the actions of leaders — be they formal, informal, long-standing, or emerging leaders — will shape how we as a society respond to the challenges of this moment.

Over Zero has developed a guide — “Counteracting Dangerous Narratives in the Time of COVID-19” — for such leaders. Access the full guide here and the guide summary here.

This guide offers insights for analysis and action to prevent increased division and identity-based violence and other harms. It seeks to:

1) Equip leaders with additional tools to identify and understand the relationship between communication and group-targeted harm and violence, in part by illustrating how these dynamics are playing out in the face of COVID-19 thus far; and

2) Suggest ways in which leaders can prevent division, hatred, and violence amidst the increased risks created by COVID-19.

Access the full article here.

In a Lawfare article, Over Zero’s Regional Director, Europe, Laura Livingston, discusses how Hungary’s government has leveraged the coronavirus pandemic and group-targeted rhetoric to further consolidate power. 

‘In the face of what the U.N. labels “the most challenging crisis since World War II,” governments across the world have introduced sweeping measures purportedly aimed at containing the novel coronavirus. These policies span border closures, enhanced surveillance, dramatic speech and media restrictions, election postponements, and shuttering of legislatures and courts. While some forbearance of civil liberties is reasonable in the face of a grave threat, the pandemic has already served as an opportunity for would-be authoritarians to consolidate the power they have long coveted.’

Access the full article here.

Access “The Science of Polarization and Insights for Bridge-building” here.

Over Zero’s Director of Research and Field Advancement, Nichole Argo Ben Itzhak, writes on the science behind polarization and its implications for practice in a piece for Philanthropy for Active Civic Engagement (PACE). This piece is adapted from a presentation to PACE members and grantees given during its Member Meeting in November 2019.

‘..for actors who seek to build bridges amidst polarization, using the lens of social identity and intergroup dynamics can enable you to better understand what may be able to be controlled or “nudged”, and what cannot. Bridge-building efforts focused on the end-goals of fostering “bipartisanship” or “civility” will likely not be sufficient…’

Much of the content in this blog draws upon a recent report by Over Zero and New America.

In September 2019, Over Zero convened civil society representatives from the Visegrád four or “V4” (Czech Republic, Hungary, Poland, and Slovakia) working to combat discrimination, xenophobia, hate speech, and other group-targeted rhetoric and violence. Access the report here.

This event took place as part of a series of convenings seeking to offer a regional lens to negative trends in the region – growing polarization, ethnic nationalism, and group-targeted rhetoric and violence – and promising strategies for pushing back. This report captures key discussion points and takeaways from the convening.

Access the report here.

In a Toda Peace Institute Policy Brief, Over Zero provides readers with approaches to counteract hateful and dangerous speech online and a deeper understanding of this speech and the factors that enable it to resonate, spread, and drive offline action.  

“Throughout history, as new channels for communication have emerged, they have tapped into and interacted with the surrounding context and dynamics, at times fomenting and amplifying intergroup tensions, protest movements, and violence - even genocide. Social media, as a new communication platform, inevitably impacts the information ecosystem and broader offline context. In so doing, these platforms create both challenges and opportunities for responding to harmful communications online.”

Policy paper by Dr. Nichole Argo Ben Itzhak, Rachel Brown, Heather Hurlburt, Laura Livingston, and Samantha Owens. Download the full paper here and the paper. summary here.

The rise of violence and hate speech, the increase in public rhetoric that seems to condone if not encourage violence, and the declining legitimacy of U.S. democratic institutions are all well-documented. The 2019-2020 period brings a set of political and cultural events — including the run-up to a U.S. presidential election and census — that will likely further escalate tensions and increase the risk of violence and instability. Research on international violence and peacebuilding reveal that a great deal can be done to prevent (and, if necessary, de-escalate) violence and increase resilience — if leaders with influence and resources are ready to face these challenges squarely now. With this in mind, this paper reviews insights and lessons learned from social science and international peacebuilding — positioning them amidst the specific U.S. experience — to identify and discuss those areas most likely to bolster U.S. resilience in the face of political violence.