What Individual, Group, and Societal Mechanisms Allow Breakthroughs in Stalemates, Polarisation, and Gridlock?

Goal

Stalemates, polarisation, and gridlock define all "wicked" problems in which stakeholders are locked together in intractable conflict or division, unable to address problems that are recognised as urgent, mitigate costs that are recognised as unnecessary, or enact values that are recognised as shared. We need to understand these processes at multiple levels of analysis: the subjective experiences and perceptions of individuals, the norms and hierarchies associated with groups, and the processes and institutional factors at societal or macro levels. If we can provide a better understanding and identify best practices, we will see material advances not just in sustaining democratic functioning at local, national, and international levels, but also in domain-specific areas of polarisation and gridlock (e.g., some scientific controversies) and lower-level conflicts (e.g., within particular bureaucracies).
There are dozens of theories of polarisation, stalemates, and gridlock in disciplines such as psychology, management, political science, sociology, and policy studies. Yet there is little interaction between them; empirical studies neglect comparative research and rarely engage multiple levels of analysis; and there is no consensus on the focal drivers, mechanisms, or even outcomes that should be included. The goal is to encourage interdisciplinary research and theorising that will fill this gap.

Opportunity

Given that there is an enormous amount of research on polarisation and gridlock, with established theories from computer science and media studies all the way to psychology, political science and policy studies, there is a clear opportunity to advance the field by encouraging systematic cross-testing of the theories. We can challenge the interdisciplinary community of scholars to come up with comparative studies using big data, case studies, interviews, and surveys that measure or predict increasing or decreasing polarisation and gridlock longitudinally, and identify factors at the individual, group, and macro levels that are linked to this improvement or deterioration.

Roadblocks

By its nature, processes of stalemates, polarisation and gridlock take time, with some stalemates unravelling or forming over decades.
Scholars would need to identify focal areas and measures in initial collaborative agreements.
Particularly entrenched gridlock and polarisation may include stakeholders' mutual refusal to be involved in research if the other parties are at the table.

Breakthroughs Needed

Projects might be invited to be comparatively lengthy (e.g., data collection over 1-2 years) or focused on key moments of stakeholder interaction and decisions (e.g., particular meetings or summits) to generate meaningful results. However, initial changes in individual and group processes (hardening or softening of positions) may also become apparent in the short term and should be measured.
Adversarial collaborations and domain-specific projects (e.g., looking at stalemates and polarisation in particular religious, scientific, or social controversies) can be invited, where theories with different predictions, at different levels of analysis, can be specified and common methodologies agreed to compare their predictive roles.
Research can proceed in the short term with only some parties included, to generate results that include estimates of missing third party, bystander, or opponent perceptions and reactions. Such results can be presented to the missing parties for feedback to gauge accuracy and to invite participation in subsequent rounds.

Key Indicators of Success

3 years: Have the initial events been held? Have theoretically-informed sets of predictor, mechanism, and outcome variables been mutually agreed? Have collaborations formed to pursue the projects? If not, then the initiative will have failed.
5 years: Have the projects collected and published the effects and effect sizes for particular individual, group, and macro-level factors on increasing or decreasing gridlock ? Projects which cannot publish would be deemed to have failed.
10 years: Have processes been identified that robustly (i.e., with large effect sizes) increase or decrease polarisation and gridlock across contexts? Have moderating variables been identified?

Additional Information

To restate the central focus of the proposal: Stalemates, polarisation, and gridlock define all "wicked" problems in which stakeholders are locked together in intractable conflict or division, unable to address problems that are recognised as urgent, mitigate costs that are recognised as unnecessary, or enact values that are recognised as shared. We need to understand these processes at multiple levels of analysis and through inter-disciplinary lens. Yet there is little interaction between the various theories of polarisation and gridlock; empirical studies neglect comparative research and rarely engage multiple levels of analysis; and there is little consensus on the focal drivers, mechanisms, or even outcomes that should be included. The goal of the present proposal is to encourage interdisciplinary research and theorising that will address this gap. The focal disciplines and theories that should be engaged are briefly reviewed here.
A recent Science paper by Finkel and colleagues provides an interdisciplinary starting point (DOI: 10.1126/science.abe1715) focusing on processes of othering, aversion, and moralization that promote sectarianism. The authorship team for this Science piece (esp. Finkel, Bail, van Bavel, and Skitka) would be appropriate for representation on the advisory board, and as collaborators to be invited to put forward projects.
In political research, a key figure is Binder (DOI: 10.2307/2585572 ), who has identified intragroup factors (perverse partisan incentives) that reinforce legislative gridlock. Other political scientists who might be represented in the advisory board, and invited to put forward collaborations and projects, include Hetherington (e.g., on centrist masses vs extremist elites), and Esteban and Schneider (e.g., on polarization vs. fractionalization).
In policy studies, a great deal of energy has centred on the advocacy coalition framework (one recent review: DOI 10.1111/psj.12197), which highlights that gridlock on any one issue emerges in the context of diverse actors seeking power for a range of issues, and forming coalitions to do so. The framework points to framing as a key process unlocking gridlock by altering coalition boundaries. Key figures from this field include Weible and Sabatier, and their followers and students. Policy research on processes that disconnect or connect policy to evidence is also relevant (e.g., Brian Head).
In sociology, key scholars include Baldassari (e.g., DOI: 10.1086/590649), or McCright and Dunlap, important in crossing levels of analysis (e.g., issue vs party polarization).
Three other areas of research that could be represented include the "hurting stalemates/ripeness" field from international relations and conflict resolution (building on Zartman); computer scientists, mathematical modellers, and communications scholars who have examined polarization online and offline (e.g., Barbera, JK Lee, and Farrell); and the rich business literature on organisational change (e.g., Tsoukas, Armenakis, Chia).
My own collaborators and I (Moghaddam, Thomas, McGarty, Fielding, Hornsey) focus on political and social group processes that create volatility or gridlock (doi: 10.1111/pops.12671): for example we have studied norms, conspiracy theories, or mutual radicalisation, when each side's extremists legitimise opponents' actions. Other relevant scholars in psychology and anthropology for this project could include Whitehouse, Swann, or Jetten (identity fusion) and Reicher, Drury, or Haslam (social identity theory).