Regardless of which political party wins, every inauguration brings with it new hope, new possibilities, and renewed calls for unity and civility, along with a dose of skepticism and displeasure from those among the losing party. The proportion of hope to skepticism and/or outright resentment may vary from administration to administration, but these are…
On April Fool’s Day of 1998, we launched the Institute for Civility in Government by walking the halls of Congress and introducing ourselves and the newly-formed organization we had been planning since the previous fall. We were met with laughter, puzzlement, bemusement, confusion, politeness, and in some offices – real interest. While some people who…
The Institute, its founders, and its definition of civility were all featured last week in the Estes Park Trail-Gazette, a weekly newspaper out of Estes Park, Colorado. In an opinion piece titled “Civility Matters. Civility Works,” town administrator Frank Lancaster frames the question of civility in terms of sport. Why, he asks, do we tolerate…
