Disrupted Societies Institute

In times of disruption, citizens retrench to their own social group and tend to emphasise identity differences. This leads to misunderstanding and further polarization. We map such social division, identity polarizing labels and discover identity characteristics that bring people together. As a graduated nationalism expert from the University of Edinburgh, Luuc has experience in researching the dynamics of group identities and why people feel divided or connected as a result of these identities. Read his chapter in Political Science and Changing Politics and check out our session at the Innocracy conference.

Trust is the glue that holds our societies together. We need some degree of trust in government, institutions and each other to function and find agreements on controversial issues. Problematically, recent trust barometers show historically low numbers. To understand and counter distrust, we first need to know how trust dynamics work in a specific context. As an academic researcher at the University of Amsterdam, Larissa analyses trust developments in negotiation settings, on the crossroads of social psychology and politics.

Policy changes, disconnected from the public, risk causing a high degree of uncertainty, face low acceptance and severe dissatisfaction in society. We see that mainstream public participation programmes are not effective. What is needed is a real rapprochement between the government and the governed. DISI created an innovative five-step process for policy design that involves agile, educational and mediative elements. We provide guidelines and helpful correctives to overcome social divisions. They are case-proven and academically published, as in Anatol's article in the Harvard-based Negotiation Journal.

Understanding the others’ point of view starts with talking about it in an accessible way. Podcasts are an excellent tool to start a conversation between different groups, reaching a broad audience and thus having a big impact. By organising so-called ‘neighbourhood radio’ we facilitate the production of a series of podcasts about (social, economic, public) issues in a certain neighbourhood. Discussions between community groups takes central stage while recording. Publishing these podcasts online enables us to extend public outreach to a wider audience. DISI’s qualifications are grounded in Luuc’s extensive experience producing podcasts for Radio Swammerdam.

States, regions and neighbourhoods are increasingly segregated into smaller ‘bubbles’. These fault lines make it more and more difficult to create effective policies and tackle pressing issues. DISI works with a #reconnectingpeople approach, to dampen the shock of potential societal changes, breaking bubbles and facilitating encounters in a safe environment. Accordingly, Anatol helped reducing the impasse and polarization surrounding Germany’s energy transition. He contributed to connecting more than twenty distrusting and fragmented stakeholders that now work together collaboratively towards a functioning future energy system.

We are not pretending that we can simply ‘build’ trust. However, we are convinced that we can create awareness about the distrust – and trust – that exists in a certain environment. Through workshops and role playing with concerned stakeholders, we can find out where trust exists and where it doesn't exist: trust between citizens might be strong, while trust in the local government may be lacking. In our trust workshops, participants learn to recognize and understand dynamics of trust and distrust. Larissa’s expertise about this topic is grounded in her academic research, just as is Anatol’s practical experience reconnecting local communities and government to build trust during the UN’s climate conference in Bonn.