Projects > Transpartisan Dialogues

Mediators Foundation is supporting efforts to foster heathier, more creative communication across the political spectrum in America. Both Bill Ury and Mark Gerzon are facilitating a series of dialogues, convened by Reuniting America, that have brought together a wide range of civic organizations ranging from MoveOn.org on the Left to the Christian Coalition on the Right. Under the leadership of Bill and Mark, the Foundation is exploring how it can contribute to this transpartisan process and bring it into the electoral process in 2006 and 2008.

Reuniting America: Engaging Across the Divides

From Project Director Joseph McCormick:

Political polarization has real consequences.  "A house divided against itself cannot stand."  Breakdown of trust, respect and communication leads to breakdown of relationship.  Broken relationships within a nation, as Abraham Lincoln was aware in 1858, are stage one of civil war. The mission of Reuniting America is to address political dis-integration by strategically re-building relationships among leaders and citizens from across the political spectrum.  Healthy relationships create the opportunity for collaborative thought and action, the necessary condition for effectively addressing the increasingly complex, multi-dimensional challenges of our times. 

The strategy of Reuniting America is fourfold: to engage millions of Americans in grassroots and online transpartisan dialogues in hundreds of communities about the values and ideals we all share, what we are for, and what we want; to convene high level, transpartisan leadership dialogues about the central challenges facing our nation; to form a Transpartisan Institute to research transpartisan policy solutions, collect best practices, and promote “what’s working”; and to convene an American Citizens Summit – a transpartisan national convention – in 2008. 

The goal is to model, in civic practice, the ideals of a democratic republic by integrating the values of a democracy -- freedom, equality, and a regard for the common good, with the values of a republic -- order, personal responsibility and accountability.  When an informal "fourth branch of government" exists as a civic institution for balancing and integrating these complimentary value systems through the process of dialogue, we will begin to manifest the dream of our founders.