Mindfulness as a tool to reduce political polarisation

Karen Brounéus is a professor of peace and conflict research and an affiliated researcher at UUniCORN. She began her career as a psychologist, then did her doctorate in peace and conflict research and is now a professor in this subject area. After 23 years working in peace research, she has gone back to her roots as a psychologist and is currently leading the project Mindfulness i Riksdagen. It is a mindfulness programme for members of the Swedish Riksdag inspired by Oxford University’s decades-long collaboration with the UK Parliament.

The project in Sweden is based on Oxford University’s evidence-based mindfulness course, which started being offered in the UK Parliament in 2013, and is still being offered. Larger randomised studies as well as research from the UK Parliament show that practising mindfulness can help to reduce affective polarisation – meaning the emotional distance between people with differing political views – provide an opening for dialogue and cooperation.

Bridge-building between politicians

Karen Brounéus sees the project as a natural extension of both her areas of expertise and hopes that the mindfulness programme will serve as a health-enhancing bridge-builder between politicians.

“We need cooperation in politics of a kind rarely seen to be able to solve the extremely complex challenges that humanity and our world is facing. Having parliamentarians who feel good, are well-grounded and in contact with themselves and their surroundings is absolutely central to good leadership, bridge-building and problem-solving. We hope this project can be a contribution to that,” she says.

The research study in Sweden is being conducted in collaboration with the Riksdag’s preventive health network and it is through this network that Karen Brounéus communicates with the members of the Riksdag.

“This cooperation is working very well and ensures that we reach everyone who might be interested in participating. It also means that we have had a good cross-section of participants, which will be important in the long run to be able to study any effects on polarisation,” says Karen Brounéus.

Polarisation a threat to the democratic conversation

Over the past decade, polarisation has increased, between politicians as well as between people in general, and stark polarisation is a threat to democratic conversation. It is a big challenge to reverse that trend, but practising mindfulness can be a useful tool. Studies show that mindfulness – being in the present moment, with intention, without judging – can help to reduce affective polarisation.

Karen Brounéus says that her research is fundamentally a peace effort, and she hopes that the research will lead to better health and well-being for the politicians.

“Parliamentarians live under extreme pressure; they have to make difficult trade-offs while also being targets for threats and hatred. For me, it’s a sort of peace effort to try to facilitate increased well-being and cooperation across political divides. The challenges we face require that we find solutions that are bigger than just ourselves, and if we are to be able to bring about such a profound social transformation sustainability, all of us, including politicians, need to work in a sustainable way,” says Karen Brounéus.

‘Wicked problems’ a big challenge

Today’s politicians also face major challenges that can in many instances be described as ‘wicked problems’ – complex social problems that are difficult to define precisely and that do not have any clear solutions. It’s about a different type of challenge. These are problems that have many different stakeholders with a range of perspectives, that are difficult to define well, change over time, and where every attempt at a solution has an impact on the problem itself.

This has the consequence that political decisions must bridge differing political ideologies and extend across nations – but it is difficult to argue that in politics because politicians also want to be re-elected in order to be able to pursue their policies. What voters ‘want to hear’ is not always compatible with what is needed in a longer term perspective. Karen Brounéus describes this as a major conflict of objectives.

“Members of Sweden’s Riksdag pursue important issues in accordance with the convictions of their political parties and want to be re-elected in order to be able to continue that work. At the same time, the problems the world is facing are extremely complex. War and environmental and climate issues need to be addressed not only at the national level but also globally, and not just for a term of office in politics but for generations. We hope that the project can help to increase bridge-building and cooperation between parliamentarians, and perhaps even contribute to more bipartisan, transgenerational policy. That would help our chances of being able to tackle these ‘wicked problems’,” says Karen Brounéus.

University course and prison project

Karen Brounéus teaches the evidence-based 8-week Mindfulness-Based Stress Reduction (MBSR) programme at Uppsala University. It is the core of the Mindfulness-Based Stress Management course, whose aim is to improve knowledge about how to use mindfulness to manage stress, and for better health and sustainability.

Together with colleagues from the Karolinska Institutet and the Swedish Prison and Probation Service, she will be starting a research project in the spring at a prison for men, because research from other countries has shown that the 8-week programme can improve health and emotional regulation among inmates, and also reduce the risk of recidivism following the inmates’ release from prison.

Karen practices mindfulness herself daily and says that you can’t teach mindfulness without practising it yourself.

“My own practice lies at the heart of my teaching,” she concludes.

Erica Magnusson