Cognitive Policy Works

I would like to share with you some work that is led by Tom Crompton, change strategist for WWF-UK and author of Weathercocks and Signposts: The Environmental Movement at a Crossroads, which builds a framework for political campaigns based on cognitive policy. Tom and I are working along with a host of other people to [...]

What would politics be like if we thought about the way citizens experience it? We have all had the experience of a clunky website or technical gadget that was difficult to use. Typically, the experience prompted us to look elsewhere. Perhaps it’s time to consider the “user interface” design of political systems that lies at [...]

I recently had the pleasure of appearing on the Jeff Farias show and would like to share it with you. We talked about the political mind, how people feel about manipulation in politics and consumer culture, and what we can do to transform the political world. The entire show is three hours long and my [...]

Changing our politics will involve significant shifts in political – and interpersonal – culture. This may seem like a truism, yet it is common practice among progressive “political junkies” to place nearly all their attention on electoral campaigns and legislative battles. The assumption seems to be that if only we get more of our people [...]

Early last November (shortly after last year’s election), the staff of Cognitive Policy Works published our strategic initiative on prop 8. Our motivation was to help the progressive movement by offering a timely and practical demonstration of the value our perspective offers. It is with great pleasure that I can now say that we were [...]

We are bound to make the world in our own image. So we had better be sure we have the right values in mind as we think about our selves in this historic transition. The current economic crisis is causing a massive redistribution of wealth across society. With a newfound capacity to shape our nation’s [...]

Something as simple as a metaphor can mean the difference between shared prosperity and widespread suffering. It’s time to tell the truth about tax cuts. This phrase dominates political discourse and is coughed out every time a conservative public figure opens his mouth. It is treated like the basis of sound reasoning, yet no one [...]

Politics in the 21st Century will be based on new understandings of what it means to be human. Cutting-edge research in the cognitive and behavioral sciences has much to offer in helping reveal how political behavior works. The progressive movement can benefit greatly from these insights by investing in a cognitive infrastructure – the ideas, [...]

I recently had the pleasure of speaking about the future of politics in the Canadian province of Alberta at the Parkland Institute’s conference, The Moral of the Story: Art, Culture, Media and Politics. The lineup of speakers was inspiring. (You can find audio of the other talks here. Mine is embedded below.)