The Dartmouth Conference is the longest continuous bilateral dialogue between citizens of the Soviet Union, now Russia, and the United States. It has been an attempt to create Sustained Dialogue on the changing nature of the relationship between the two countries for the purpose of preventing nuclear war. Furthermore, strengthening the relationship between these two powers has incredible implications for world peace and development. In mid-2015, a total of 142 three-day discussions have taken place as part of the original Dartmouth Conference.

Following the success of the Dartmouth Conference, a team of Russians and Americans sought to use the same dialogue paradigm to help the people of Tajikistan resolve what, by 1993, was a vicious civil war. Several participants in the discussions went on to be part of the U.N.-sponsored team for peace negotiations. Following the signing of a U.N.-mediated peace agreement in 1997, the dialogue continued with a focus initially on facilitating national reconciliation, moving next to strengthening the foundations of democracy, then to using Sustained Dialogue to enable fifteen poor, divided communities to come together to create and implement local economic development projects. Next, we trained local moderators to use Sustained Dialogue to enable communities throughout the country to openly discuss the appeals and challenges of Islamic extremism.

In 2003, Teddy Nemeroff, the founder of Sustained Dialogue at Princeton University and the Sustained Dialogue Campus Network, began work with the Institute for Democracy in Africa (Idasa). The goal was to integrate dialogue into Idasa’s work to address challenges related to economic development, reconciliation, race relations, and violence prevention in South Africa and Zimbabwe. One successful dialogue project sought to transform a deep community conflict at the Greentree Interchange, a marketplace and train station. Communication fostered relationships between impoverished sellers at the market and the local authorities responsible for overseeing the activities.

Following the events of Sept. 11, 2001, non-government leaders with interests in Middle Eastern democracy from Egypt, Jordan, Lebanon and Palestine and citizens from the U.S., U.K., France, Germany, Italy and Spain decided to engage in dialogue to combat stereotypes and keep building relationships in the face of armed conflict. Over the next four years, the group convened 10 times to discuss the Israeli-Palestinian conflict and democracy in the Arab world. The group focused on how news stories and articles should showcase the potential for dialogue and the practical impacts on Westerners and Arabs.