O’Connor Institute Ambassadors Civics & Debate Club

Calling all high-school-age leaders! The JOHN JAY FETZER MEMORIAL SCHOLARSHIP is now open! Want to impress colleges, sharpen your leadership talents, connect with other driven students from around the country, enhance your civics knowledge and civil discourse skills, and debate the most important civics topics facing our communities and nation? Look no further: The O’Connor…

What is Civil Discourse?

Civil discourse is not simply polite conversation, though courtesy and respect are crucial to it. Civil discourse goes beyond politeness. It is conversation with purpose—that is, constructive dialogue. Though they may disagree, participants in civil discourse are committed to hearing each other’s fact-based opinions and dispassionately evaluating those opinions against their own. Participants enter into…

Civil Discourse in Public Policy

For as laws are necessary that good manners may be preserved, so there is need of good manners that laws may be maintained. – Machiavelli Several years ago, political scientists at Washington State University, the University of Kansas, and the University of Arkansas conducted a study to determine the relationship, if any, between “legislative civility…

How to Engage in Civil Discourse

Civil discourse is an active pursuit: participants should be actively respectful, open, friendly, and generous. Good faith is communicated not only through words but also facial expressions and body language. Disagreement is a natural and healthy part of conversation; you can and should disagree without being disagreeable. How can I engage in civil discourse?One need…

Civic Collaboratory

We utilize our core values of inclusivity, civility and collaboration to help move society forward. Our civic engagement laboratory gathers stakeholders on challenging issues or topics to explore collaborative solutions. We build partnerships to promote civil discussion and cooperative problem solving for the betterment of society. If you or your organization are in need of…

On American Political Compromise

The headlines proclaim it: compromise in public policy, especially legislative compromise, is now passé.

Are these reports true? If so, how did we get here? Have political compromise and bipartisanship really become little more than relics? The answers, perhaps unsurprisingly, are more complicated than the headlines would have us believe.