Research, teaching and practice on polarization and political violence
Polarization & Violence Transformed (PiVoT) is a research and practice lab working on a connected set of problems: political polarization, extremism, and the violence that can follow. We teach, convene, research, and bring the public in.
Five programs, one goal
PiVoT’s programs share a single aim: understanding why societies polarize and working toward practices that reduce extremism and violence. Research informs what we teach, teaching builds student talent, and convenings and public programs carry the work outward.
DeLTA Network
The Depolarization Labs & Trainers Alliance, an academic-practitioner network on political polarization. It fosters collaboration among institutions, including DC-area faculty and student events, with student research presented to faculty panels at two fall conferences and two spring summits to date. The third annual conference is October 30, 2026.
Secondary Education Project
High school workshops on why polarization has intensified and how to promote productive exchanges. They combine teaching tools from GMU’s College of Education with a communication framework from nonprofit partner Braver Angels.
Polarization in America: Depolarization for America
Studies the causes and consequences of U.S. extremism, aiming to reduce extremist violence and encourage respectful engagement with political opponents.
Young Men & the Manosphere
Explores whether young men can move away from male supremacist ideology toward gender equality, caring for all, and openness to all lifestyles. Being designed with Mindbridge’s Countering Extremism Directive and currently seeking funding. The partners are co-hosting a public event on November 17, 2026.
Polarization and Mass Atrocity
Examines the long-standing hatreds, dehumanization, and manufactured existential threats behind mass atrocities, with the goal of developing atrocity-prevention practices.
Partners: Braver Angels, GMU College of Education, the DeLTA Network, and Mindbridge.
How the Secondary Education Project is designed to work
The workshop curriculum teaches participants what drives polarization (identity, misperception and overgeneralization) and gives them tools and practice for talking constructively with people who see politics differently. The program has been piloted at two high schools. The model below is a draft program logic: it shows what we invest, what we do, and the changes we intend to produce. These are intended results that evaluation is meant to test, not findings.
1 · Inputs
- People: administrators, facilitators, evaluators
- Time for planning, workshops, team meetings and evaluation
- Venues and online platforms
- Workshop materials
- Funding
2 · Activities
- Depolarization workshops: causes, harms and forms of polarization
- Constructive-communication tools, with live practice
- Practice with different groups, not only peers
- Regular evaluation and team reflection
- Delivery in person and online to test what works
3 · Intended outputs (in the workshop)
- Better understanding of polarization and one’s own role in it
- Stronger constructive-communication skills
- More curiosity about others’ experiences
- More positive attitudes toward the other political group
- Less willingness to harm the political “other”
4 · Intended outcomes (beyond it)
- Fewer inaccurate assumptions about the other group
- Willingness to interrupt polarizing thought patterns
- Deeper cross-political conversations
- Fewer toxic personal conflicts
- Long-term, productive relationships across political lines
5 · Impact
- Long term: less polarization at community and national scale
- A model designed to be replicated by other schools and partners
How it scales
- Participating students and schools teach classmates and spread the program.
- The model is built for replication with Braver Angels and other local partners.
- The DeLTA Network connects the program to other practitioners.
Grounded in theory
- Contact theory and social psychology
- Identity-based conflict (Prof. Daniel Rothbart)
- Conflict transformation (Bush & Folger, Lederach, Gopin)
- Behavioral change theory
Evaluation at each stage is designed to refine the curriculum.
Recent school engagement
- March 2026: Polarization in America: Depolarization for America at Woodberry Forest School, Virginia
- April 2026: Workshop at Mountain View High School, Virginia
The program is developed in partnership with Braver Angels.
Workshops, talks and community events
Events led or presented by lab members, 2025–2026.
| Date | Event |
|---|---|
| Feb 26, 2025 | Social Psychology of Extreme Polarization |
| Apr 16, 2025 | Peace Week: Countering Violent Extremism (facilitator and speaker) |
| Apr 25, 2025 | DeLTA Network Political Bridging Summit |
| Sep 25, 2025 | Peace Week: Addressing Domestic Extremism & Fostering Dialogue Over Division (facilitator and speaker) |
| Oct 8, 2025 | From Conflict to Convergence Workshop, George Mason University |
| Oct 27, 2025 | DeLTA Network Political Bridging Summit, Van Metre Hall, GMU |
| Oct 29, 2025 | Bridging the Divide: Conversations on Polarization (podcast recording) |
| Mar 19, 2026 | Polarization in America: Depolarization for America, Woodberry Forest School, Virginia |
| Mar 31, 2026 | The War in Iran: Challenges to Peacemaking |
- March: Polarization and Path to War: Iran in Perspective
- February: Fractured Lines: Politics and Domestic Conflict, featuring student research by Olivia Jacobson and Amber Henry
2025
2024
- Working for Unity: Enlisting Our Workplaces as Shared Spaces for Depolarizing America (Sept. 24) Watch →
- How to Investigate Human Rights Violations: Sudan at War Against Civilians
Conference on Sudan: Addressing the Humanitarian Crisis and Achieving Sustainable Peace
George Mason University · December 4, 2025
Scholarship by PiVoT-affiliated faculty and students
Work by PiVoT-affiliated scholars spans extremist aggression, civilian experience of war, and data-science methods for monitoring conflict. Doctoral and master’s students co-author alongside faculty.
- 2024Political Narcissism of Right-Wing Extremists: Understanding Aggression of the Proud Boys, Peace and Conflict: Journal of Peace Psychology
- 2024Extremist Aggression: A Social Psychological Explanation, The Handbook of Social and Political Conflict Communication (Wiley)
- 2023The Proud Boys Raging Righteously at the U.S. Capitol on January 6th, 2021: A Hate Group in Action, Peace and Conflict
- 2021Righteous Rage as Political Force, Peace and Conflict
- 2025Sudan at War with Itself: Civilian Devastation in the Civil War, Conflict Resolution Quarterly
- 2025Resilience Practices and Post-Traumatic Growth among Sudanese IDPs, Conflict Resolution Quarterly
- 2024Sudan’s Comprehensive Peace Agreement, in Identity and Religion in Peace Processes (Routledge)
- 2023The Production of the Meaning of Justice in the Aftermath of War in Sudan, Peace and Conflict
- 2023Living Through War: An Oral History of Civilians in Sudan, Conflict Resolution Quarterly
- 2025Comparative Analysis of BERT and GPT for Classifying Crisis News with Sudan Conflict as an Example, Algorithms
- 2025Optimizing Context-Based Location Extraction by Tuning Open-Source LLMs with RAG, International Journal of Digital Earth
- 2025Automating Data Collection to Support Conflict Analysis: Scraping the Internet for Monitoring Hourly Conflict in Sudan, Cloud Computing and Data Science
Student mentorship
Students co-author with faculty. Examples include publications with doctoral students Betina Gjeloshi and Mathieu Bere, and a manuscript under review with master’s student Libby Langsdale on conspiracy thinking in America (the Oath Keepers).
Conference presentations
- Conflict Resolution Youth Summit, GMU (June 2025)
- Carter School Political Leadership Academy (May 2025)
- Carter School–Rotary International Partnership (March 2025)
- ACCAP, University of Notre Dame, Washington, DC (Nov. 2024)
Earlier talks in Kigali, London, Belfast and Tokyo.
Track record: a completed federal research award
Sudan Conflict Observatory
Sponsor: U.S. Department of State · Period: Feb. 1 – Dec. 31, 2024 · Role: Principal Investigator and Project Manager
Documented, preserved, analyzed and disseminated evidence of war crimes, mass atrocities and major human rights violations in the Sudan conflict, to support future accountability and potential prosecution under international humanitarian law. The project produced nine reports, archived at George Mason University.
Support work that connects research, teaching and practice
We welcome conversations with funders, schools and community organizations interested in depolarization and prevention of political violence. Tell us what you are looking to support and we will show you where it fits.