The Collective Action Problem: How Should Democratic Societies Respond to Increasing State Violence without Exacerbating Polarization and Political Violence?

Building on the critical findings from the first two years, year three of this project will address the urgent question of how democratic societies can best respond to systemic, long-term threats from polarization and political violence, particularly in the context of the changing role of the state. The October 2026 convening will address the structural transformations threatening the foundations of democratic systems themselves and what can be done to protect democracies from rising levels of political violence at a time when civic engagement, protest, and collective action is becoming more important, but also more dangerous.

The session will organize discussions around six cross-cutting themes and questions:

1. The State's Changing Role and Relationship to Violence: When does law enforcement become institutional extremism? The deployment of federal agencies in contested enforcement operations illustrates how difficult it is to distinguish legitimate enforcement from partisan weaponization when actions remain technically legal. Survey data provide critical context: when Americans are asked whether it is acceptable to use violence to achieve political goals, between 10% and 20% typically give an answer other than “never acceptable.” When the question is reframed to whether violence is acceptable if “the other side started it first,” support rises to 40–50%, reaching 60% for both Democrats and Republicans in June 2024.
2. The Importance of Coalition Building and Civic Engagement: How can new forms of civic engagement counter rising violence? A central focus will be identifying and amplifying new forms of coalition building and civic engagement as practical antidotes to escalating polarization and political violence. Emerging evidence suggests that cross-cutting, community-level initiatives can narrow perception gaps, disrupt mutually reinforcing narratives of threat, and rebuild shared norms of non-violence. The program will examine concrete cases where broad-based civic coalitions, youth-led movements, and locally rooted institutions have reduced recruitment into extremist networks, strengthened trust across ideological and identity lines, and created social and political costs for elites who seek to legitimize violence.
3. The Collective Action Problem: Why do majorities concerned about violence struggle to act? A central challenge is the collective action problem: even when democratic majorities recognize that polarization and political violence pose an existential threat, the costs and risks of acting are borne by individuals or small groups, while the benefits are widely shared and diffuse. This misalignment allows conflict entrepreneurs, illiberal actors, and violent minorities to shape the political environment faster than broad democratic coalitions can organize to defend it. Without institutions, incentives, and narratives that lower the individual cost of engagement and visibly reward pro-democratic behavior, many citizens will rationally remain on the sidelines, leaving the field open to those willing to deploy intimidation, disinformation, or violence to achieve their goals.
4. Security Services: Resistance or Enablement of Partisan Capture: How do security services shape trajectories of violence? The erosion of apolitical professionalism in security forces represents a critical vulnerability, yet some services maintain neutrality while others become partisan actors. Key questions include which institutional, cultural, and structural factors enable resistance to politicization, and whether interventions targeting individual values within compromised institutions can create leverage for reform. When political leadership changes and security services are directed by actors sympathetic to extremist movements, or when the services themselves become partisan, what safeguards remain to prevent institutional violence and domination?
5. Elite Speech and the Weaponization of Meta-Perceptions: How does elite rhetoric translate into violence? Research shows that perceived hostile intent is more predictive of violence than actual animosity. Political elites weaponize these meta-perceptions through narratives such as “Great Replacement” theory, which frame opponents and minorities as existential threats. When elite speech deliberately cultivates false threat perceptions, democracies face a core dilemma: how to respond to dangerous rhetoric that erodes democratic norms and encourages violence without appearing to suppress legitimate political expression and thereby reinforcing claims of persecution.
6. Generational Shifts in Acceptance of Political Violence: What do changing youth attitudes mean for democratic stability? Justification of political violence is increasingly visible among young, politically active Democrats. The 2025 Edelman Trust Barometer suggests that a majority of respondents in the United States aged 18 to 34 view hostile action as a viable force for driving change. Their outlook is not rooted in despair but in a conviction that meaningful change is possible only outside traditional institutions, raising urgent questions about how democracies can channel this energy into constructive engagement rather than extra-institutional confrontation.