Resilience: International Policies, Practices and Discourses
Volume 2, Issue 2, 2014
http://www.tandfonline.com/toc/resi20/current#.U3im6SjDU1w

The promise of security: resilience, surprise and epistemic politics
Claudia Aradaua*
DOI: 10.1080/21693293.2014.914765
pages 73-87
Published online: 13 May 201
Abstract
Over the past decade, resilience has become a quasi-universal answer to problems of security and governance, from climate change to children’s education, from indigenous history to disaster response, and from development to terrorism. This article places the proliferation of resilience in relation to the earlier proliferation of security discourse and practice. Why resilience today? It answers this question by unpacking the epistemic regimes that underpin the move to resilience. Rather than tracing the differences between protection, prevention, pre-emption and resilience, the article argues that the political transformation that resilience entails becomes explicit in relation to the promise of security. Although the language of ‘promise’ and ‘promising’ has been widely used in relation to security, its political implications have remained unexplored. Underpinned by an epistemology of surprising events, resilience discourses reconfigure the promise of security. Through an empirical engagement with the turn to resilience in DFID’s humanitarian policy in the UK and a theoretical reconsideration of Hannah Arendt’s conceptualisation of the promise, I offer a critical vantage point on the transformation that resilience portends for our contemporary condition.

Resilience, rights and results in Swedish development cooperation
Ian Christoplosa*
DOI: 10.1080/21693293.2014.914767
pages 88-99
Abstract
Resilience is an amorphous concept for a development agency. This article, reflecting on the findings of a review of how resilience to natural hazards is addressed within Swedish development cooperation, looks at how resilience has been conceptualised and the implications of the emergence of attention to ‘resilience’ as both a new catchword and perhaps a new perspective on development. A key factor is the interplay of human rights and resilience goals in the relations between vulnerable people and duty bearers. In addition, the implications are considered of resilience in relation to the incentives and monitoring and evaluation frameworks that steer today’s results-based management systems for development cooperation. A conclusion is that resilience is a problematic concept in development cooperation, but may provide added value if it is tied to greater understanding of vulnerability, struggles over resources and recognition of the complexity and uncertainty of the development enterprise.