HFG Launches Multi-year Initiative on Violence, Politics, and Democracy

July 17, 2024

(NEW YORK) — As shocking events in the US and elsewhere show, political violence is real. The scope of the threat is unclear, as are the motivations that drive people to harm others they disagree with and the effects of such violence on the outcomes of elections and the health of democratic institutions.

While media reports and online commentaries convey the sense that incidents of political violence are increasing in frequency and intensity, assessing the actual likelihood of politically motivated acts of physical harm remains challenging, as does determining what to do about such threats.

This year, with more than sixty countries, including the US, holding elections, The Harry Frank Guggenheim Foundation will explore these issues and seek to identify ways to preempt and respond to such dangers by launching its multi-year Violence, Politics & Democracy initiative.

Through research, convenings, and publications, the Foundation will draw on and seek to advance understanding of antidemocratic threats in the United States and other mature democracies. The project will seek both to expand the relevance of this work beyond the scholarly community to those most often tasked with confronting such challenges in policy and practice and to inform public discourse through a focus on factual analysis and civil dialogue.  

The initiative will initially ask:

• What is an appropriate definition of “political violence”? At a time when perceptions of an increase in such violence are widespread and definitions have become more expansive, what qualifies as “violence” and when is it “political”?  

• Does political polarization precipitate violence? Widely held, or at least broadly reported, presumptions contend that political polarization is increasing, unyielding, and all but certain to create an environment in which political violence thrives. Does this view accurately describe the relationship between polarization and violence? 

• Does violence increase when perceptions of government legitimacy wane? When citizens believe that structures of governance and the governments that operate within them are lacking in credibility or otherwise illegitimate, what influence does this have on violence, both political and ordinary?

• Do digital communication and social media, often rife with falsehood and fearmongering, distort objective reality and promote political violence? Can objectivity, truth-telling, and rational thought be reintroduced to the consideration of current events on social media?  

• Do changes to the practice and business of journalism—and threats to journalists themselves—erode democratic norms and institutions that the profession has long sustained? Do these changes damage the environment in which mature democracies are able to prevent or control violence?  

“Protecting democracy requires a deeper—and more widely understood—assessment of the threats it faces, particularly those associated with political violence,” said HFG President Daniel F. Wilhelm. “It calls for a thorough examination of the source and nature of violence that threatens to undermine democratic institutions and ideals. With the Violence, Politics & Democracy initiative, the Foundation seeks to apply a research lens to these threats and provide a forum for civil discourse about them.”

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HFG launches the initiative with simultaneous activity from multiple perspectives designed to address the questions above.  

Government Legitimacy, Social Solidarity, and American Homicide in Historical Perspective, a report by Randolph Roth, 2013 HFG Distinguished Scholar and professor of history and sociology at The Ohio State University, explores the strong historical correlation between citizens’ feelings about their government and fellow citizens and homicide rates in the US. 

In The Polarization Project, HFG Distinguished Fellow of Practice Greg Berman will conduct a series of interviews with scholars and practitioners who examine or address violence in their work. The interviews will be copublished by The Fulcrum, an editorial site dedicated to civil discourse and good governance.

Our Violence, Politics & Democracy speaker series kicks off with “Democracy Tested: How Violent Threats are Affecting Global Elections,” a discussion of election-related violence in the US and beyond. Future events in the series will explore identity politics and othering, the rise of illiberalism, and democratic recession. Register for the first event here. 

The Role of Social Media in Fostering Political Violence, a collaboration with The Center for Business and Human Rights at the New York University Stern School of Business, will offer a comprehensible assessment of current research on the relationship between social media use (and abuse) and political violence. The report will provide a useful empirical resource and reform roadmap for policymakers, regulators, civil society organizations, industry executives, and serious-minded citizens. 

Polarization and Violent Threats to Democratic Systems: Assessing the Threats and What We Can Do about Them, a partnership with the Salzburg Global Seminar, will convene an international cohort of researchers, journalists, political scientists, historians, and others with expertise on political polarization, incitement, and violence to assess current dangers and propose responses to them.

With Journalism, Democracy, and Violence, the Foundation is exploring the role of journalism in spurring and addressing violent threats to democracy. This inquiry is advised by Tom Goldstein, former dean of the graduate schools of journalism at Columbia University and the University of California, Berkeley, and Harry Frank Guggenheim Distinguished Fellow of Media. Goldstein, author of Journalism and Truth: Strange Bedfellows and other books about the media, will examine how changes in journalism affect democratic norms, institutions, and the violence that threatens them.

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The Foundation invites those interested in the relationship between violence, politics, and democracy to participate in this inquiry through publications, events, and conversations on LinkedIn, Facebook, and X. 

The Harry Frank Guggenheim Foundation is a leader in creating and disseminating knowledge on the nature, consequences, and reduction of violence in its many forms, including war, crime, and human aggression.

For more information contact: 

Nyeleti Honwana, Program Officer

info@hfg.org | 646.428.0971