In summer 2020, SNF Agora Institute will collaborate with More in Common to organize a convening focused on synthesizing the evidence base for how we create collective settings that develop the behaviors and orientations that underlie a culture of democracy, and proposing a research agenda for moving forward.
More in Common is a global organization—with teams across the United States, the United Kingdom, France, and Germany—that grew out of work undertaken since 2016 to understand why so many societies were dividing around debates about their identity and belonging, and why people were being increasingly persuaded to see debates about immigration, refugees, and diversity through the lens of “us versus them.” The organization gained national attention for a report called “Hidden Tribes,” which sought to shed light on the forces that drive political polarization and tribalism in the United States.
Our collaboration will be an action-oriented convening intended to drive subsequent efforts that conceptualize, test, measure, and evaluate new interventions for shaping a positive culture of democracy. Convening participants will include researchers and practitioners from a diverse set of fields and backgrounds: researchers and academics from political science, psychology, communications, and sociology; advocates and campaigners from democracy reform and racial justice; civil servants from local, state, and federal government; and grassroots practitioners from association organizations concerned with civic engagement, behavior, and values.
More in Common and the SNF Agora Institute at Johns Hopkins University are looking for a graduate student or researcher available to help with literature reviews and background research for a project beginning immediately in the spring of 2021. For more information about this opportunity and the application process, please visit our career page.