The Link between Resilience and Complexity - Essay Example

The link between resilience and complexity Term Paper due: 3,577 words Resilience is looked like a form of governmentality in this particular paper. It shows how resilience is closer to a form of governance emphasizing on an individual’s responsibility. To better understand resilience along this line, a range of documents are and policy statements are examined. For instance, the Anglo-Saxon understanding of resilience, best understood as a neoliberal form of governmentality is looked into, and emphasis put on the individual adaptability. Moreover, theorists will be critically analysed in this paper in regard to the topic under discussion. In the present world, changes are ever occurring, many of which come with difficulties of adapting to. Various difficulties in life have forced people to bounce back to their normal living styles even after the complexities of life. The bouncing back provides a definition of the resilience concept. In this paper, discussion is made on the inter-relation of resilience and complexity. Resilience thinking is elaborated to show its broad areas of application and the how it is taken in the social, as well as the political scenarios. Thus, resilience thinking is the solution to the problem of governance in this complex world. Introduction Resilience is a principal concept in regard to government policy understandings. Currently, resilience is viewed as the ideal policy. It is, therefore, evident that resilience is a key facet on governance; as it shapes thinking. This complex world is in dire need of a new approach of governing. It is vital to note that the world is viewed as complex. Thus, without complexity, there would be no need of resilience. This is based on the fact that resilience thinking is involved with risks as well as complex aspects that influence the life of man. The synergy between resilience thinking in regard to governance and the complexity of the world will be under analysis. Resilience has come to be recognized as central to international and domestic policy-making. It has come to be seen as the guiding principle of policy governance and a key political category of our time. For sustainable development, resilience has become a top priority, and an international development aid agenda, which is key to international security concerns since it is vital for disaster risk reduction. Resilience affects the way politics is conducted both at the domestic and international levels1. In this discussion, a range of issues and questions will be analysed in terms of resilience frameworks, from educational training in schools to the global ethics and from responses to thrilling catastrophes2. Resilience will also be discussed in terms of international policies towards the promotion of peace and development. Resilience as a concept has a number of meanings but in this particular perspective, resilience will be looked as a policy response to policy problems as they are increasingly perceived today.3 Critical analysis of resilience will be done so as to establish how the rise of resilience-thinking provides a reflection on the understanding of governance. Resilience thinking operates at a much broader level of political thinking about governance than that covered in policy documents. The key aspects defining resilience approaches to policy-making are methodological assumptions about the nature of the world, complex problem governance, as well as the policy processes suitable to governing this complexity.4 With the problematizing of the liberal modernist understanding of politics, and the decline of politics of the Left and Right and the rise of globalisation, states seemed to lose their ability of ruling in the old ways and governmental practices became increasingly attuned to the nonlinear outcomes of a world of complexity. Rise of resilience-thinking can be understood as the rise of non-linearity of our awareness of contingency and complexity. Complexity and non-linearity seem to encourage resilience-thinking and resilience-thinking indicates that non-linearity can be used as an agenda for governance, drawing upon classical positive connotations of resilience as a non-linear process of generation of positive outcomes. Resilience approaches tend to understand the world as a complex set of overlapping emerging processes in which all subject-objects are embedded. In the age of complexity, politics has to be sensitive in that; we are no longer living in a linear or binary world of liberal and modernist certainties. Therefore, in this current age of complexity, politics is constructed in terms of complex adaptive systems. The rise of resilience-thinking plays an imperative role in this process of reworking the problematic of governance in the age of complexity. Complex life Complex life refers to a generative of self-governing order precisely because it is constantly interactively adapting, communicating and exchanging with the environment or the surroundings. This implies that complex life is interactive, meaning not closed off to the world or merely adapting to its environment on the basis of its initial conditions. Thus, interaction between complex life and governing intervention is open and full of immanent possibilities. To solve the problem of governing complexity, resilience thinking understands itself to be a radical alternative to the modernist ontology of life. However, the modernist approach is identified negatively today, often under the problematic rubrics of reductionism, rationalism, mechanical materialism or Cartesianism. The modernist ontology tries to understand life at the level of fixed relations between objects with fixed properties, subject to universal laws and understanding. Complex problems need to be broken down into many parts and then reassembled, beginning with the knowledge of the simplest parts and then building up to the most complex. This is according to Rene Descartes, who is often considered as the founder of modern philosophy5. Governing complexity Resilience is a subject which must permanently struggle to accommodate itself to the world. Resilience accommodates the fact that the world is already dangerous due to complexities. It embraces the fact that this world is dangerous. This is not only politically catastrophic but also fundamentally nihilistic. Moreover, the world is so complex today, and such a world requires a new approach of requirement for resilience. At its core, resilience is about risk and complexity, things that affect us all. The universe is so complex, and anyone with a stake in the management of some aspects of such a world will benefit from a richer comprehension of resilience as well as its implications. Moreover, understanding complexity has a lot of heavy-lifting for resilience-thinking since it plays a key role in critiquing metaphysical assumptions of truth and justice. Liberal approaches to governance substantiate new approaches to governance based on the understanding that life is complex. Complex life demands the governance through other non-linear and non-reductionist approaches. Complex life can be governed but on a very different basis than liberal life.6 If life was less arbitrary and chaotic, there would be no much emphasis of it in terms of governance. Complex life is governable but not in a similar way as life in liberal modernity. The main reason as to why complex life is governable is because the complex life is neither ordered nor chaotic. Complex life is, therefore, constantly interactively adapting, communicating and exchanging with its environment or surroundings. Complex life brings order out of chaos through a mechanism of interactive adaptation. Complex life is also interactive and open-ended, meaning it is not enclosed off to the world and also, it is not just adapting to its environment on the basis of its initial conditions like an autopoietic system would. Complex life interacts with governance in an open way, full of immanent possibilities. As a solution to the problem of governing complexity, resilience-thinking understands itself to be a radical alternative to the modernist ontology of life, which had been dominant since the Enlightenment in the seventeenth century. The modernist ontology tried to get an understanding of life at the level of fixed relations existing between objects with fixed properties, subject to universal laws and understanding. However, understanding of complex life goes beyond the study of its parts or properties7. Living dangerously Due to the current complexities of life, we have to admit that we are living dangerously. Policy makers and ideologues want us to abandon the dream of ever enjoying security and instead, embrace danger. We should no longer be reasoning in terms of evading the possibility of traumatic experiences. This is because we cannot evade catastrophic events, but we can learn from the experiences which will enable us to grow and prosper, collectively and individually. For human existence, vulnerability to a threat, injury and loss form the order of the day. These are risks we have to contend with in our daily living, meaning we have to learn to cope with them.8 The belief in the necessity and positivity of human exposure to danger forms a fundamental part in the new doctrine of resilience. The discourse of resilience has been deployed since the 1970s and gives a description of the capacities of non-human living systems to embrace the dangers which would otherwise threaten their catastrophic failure. Crawford Stanley described resilience as the measure of the ability of ecosystems to absorb changes and still go on living. Resilience goes beyond the description of mere capacities of species to persist. In addition, it talks of how living things develop immunity to be able to survive in an otherwise hostile world. It promotes adaptability, allowing life to go on living despite the fact that some of its elements may be destroyed. Danger is, therefore, a necessity for the development of the humankind, from the apparent reality that management of our exposure to dangers gives us hope of a better future9. Vulnerability can, therefore, be understood as a subject of resilience. To become resilient, one must accept the fact that he/she is fundamentally vulnerable. One is vulnerable and therefore prone to the catastrophic attacks of the world as a result of complexities of life. However, vulnerability can be checked through mechanisms such as reduction of exposure to the vulnerability, distribution of risks among several individuals where each gets cushioned against heavy impacts of catastrophes and also standing ready to overcome the catastrophes. Since vulnerabilities cannot be completely avoided, the individuals will still need to embrace resilience by fighting all odds and ensuring restoration to their former selves. Politically debasing the reduction of resistance to resilience forms a very significant feature here.10 Resistance in this case refers to the avoidance of consequences of complexities of life. The complexities beyond human control will eventually occur, forcing the person to be resilient. Resilience as a subject, therefore, accepts the complexities of life which sometimes make life very unbearable, leaving people without a choice, but to just accept resilience by facing the threats and to moving on even after calamities occur. There however exist some resilient subjects who after understanding there is no way difficulties of life can be avoided, they have developed ways of living with it and ever remained fearless. This means they have to live with the complexities of life of any magnitude. I this case, the complexity is not seen as a threat for survival but instead, it is looked as a way of attaining freedom from a life of fear and sufferings.11 Abandoning security Security is meant to protect the subjects from dangers. However, facing the reality of life, which threats will always be there, resilient subjects have reduced dependence on security instruments meant to safeguard them from the ubiquitous dangers. The main reason for them to abandon security is that resilience tends to ignore the dangers and help the subjects to cope with life even after the dangers have taken place. With the advance in technology, governments, meant to provide security to the citizens, often face the challenge of containing the highly sophisticated weaponry used especially by terrorists. From what appears as a failure by the governments in their mandate of providing security, has led to resilient subjects learning to cope with the complex life, forcing them to face the reality of life. The resilient subjects have; as a result, stopped blaming insecurity on the governments since they have come to understand that life will always remain complex. Instead of always looking upon the government agencies to offer them security, the securities have learnt to take precautionary measures against the complexity. However, the occurrence of the calamities does not put an end to life. A perfect example is the 9/11 attack on the Twin Tower in the USA resulted to death of many, but the survivors had to accept the danger and brace themselves for the future, despite the traumatic experience.12 Living without death For all living things, death is inevitable. However, taking precautions can reduce death rates but cannot completely rule it out. In most cases, governments are solely charged with the role of ensuring their subjects are free from dangers which may lead to deaths. As a wake-up call, resilient-people have been advocating a self-awareness aimed facing the reality of life’s complexities and taking care of own self. Terrorism for instance, is a problem which will always be there, posing a risk to people, as a result of vulnerability. Other difficulties of life may be related to human nature like the issue of divorce or natural complexities like adverse weather conditions. The political insists on resistance to the complexities of life and the desired need for changing life such that security is guaranteed for everyone. Resilience, on the other hand, encourages people to face life as it is, giving room for the dangers, instead of making the impossible assumption that life is smooth. Apart from encouraging us to learn from violence of catastrophic events so that we may become responsive to further catastrophes in the future, resilience also promotes our adaptability so that we are also less of a threat politically. Unlike the political notion, the truth is that life will always be full of catastrophes and complexities, thus concurring with the resilience notion. The resilience notion in this case sounds more realistic than the political notion. Resilience notion gives us the mentality that we should live freely without worrying much about the dangers of life.13 Complex systems such as economic systems and large organisations are also faced with difficulties such as stiff-neck competition in their operations. To counter-act this, the management of such institutions need to embrace resilience and persevere the difficulties for survival of the institutions in a highly competitive world. In a Pamphlet by Demos, concept of resilience is described as a process of learning, adapting and renewal. Resilience can also be understood as the way in which a system withstands shock and recovers from the shock. Ability to tolerate the shock will vary from one system to another, according to World Resources Institute. The ability of any system to deal with the shock is dependent on the planning, learning as well as the reorganization adapted by the system planning or reorganization. Based on this, resilience can also be defined as the capacity of a system or a living thing to thrive in the face of a challenge. The challenge here refers to a complex of life.14 Resilience paints the world as complex and also unpredictable. To survive in such a world, people need to come to the complete acceptance that the world is rough, and develop proper survival skills which mean acquiring behaviours which are adaptive to the complexities of life in general. It is encouraging that societies are now facing this reality, and avoiding the political notion that the world can be made safer for everyone. Out of this, the members of the society have developed these survival skills in the pursuit of their interests of the determination to reach shape their destinies. Zebrowski15  in his view defined resilience as the way of indicating how the structure of organisations can be changed so as to fit in the real world of difficulties. On his part, O’Malley defined resilience as a means of creating flexible subjects who can easily adapt to the inevitable changes in life. This definition was an improvement of the common understanding of resilience as a model of teaching people how to restore their lives after calamities16. Resilience puts the world as a place where things are rapidly changing, something which is beyond the human control. Inability to change the world however doesn’t mean that we lack the chance to enjoy life. Instead, we should use every moment well by adapting to the ever occurring changes. Resilience in this case puts a lot of emphasis on the need for adaptation. Such adaptation will guarantee us freedom from the fear of losses or grieve. Contributing on freedom, Chandler defined it as the ability to reach informed decisions and proper handling of external influence. Some people have however not yet embraced this freedom making it difficult to engage in meaningful tasks such as in nation-building and related development projects which call for determined and free people. Such freedom will be obtained when people embrace the notion of resilience.17 Resilience also takes the definition of inability to positively embrace external influence or threats18. Chandler believes resilient is a subject which can be understood as active and can achieve self-transformation19. Resilience as governmentality Based on the context of new discourses of governance, one of the key effects of the discourse is to conceal the continuing reproduction of hierarchical power relations. The discourse can be critically examined by looking at it through governmentality. Foucault’s approach provides details necessary for understanding how the concept such as resilience plays a role in constructing governable spaces. In the Anglo-Saxon concept, the new discourse of responsibility is in agreement with the old discourse of discourse of rights. As Tony Blair once noted, there are no responsibilities without rights. The rights may however be heavily compromised20. Changes such as demographic will trigger other effects such as changes in power and rule, according to the discussion by Foucault, who attributed certain shifts in discourses to changes in development of capitalism. This may have the effect of prompting disciplinary powers in the governmentality to act to the changes by offering supervision and monitoring. To understand governmentality, Foucault’s developed a concept which highlighted liberal practices. Shifting focus on liberal forms of governance, he attempted to understand how population relates to development of capitalism especially in some Western countries21.  Out of this, he emphasised on the need for the liberal governance to adapt freedom of economic processes and respect it through measures such as self-limiting of government. Liberal rule in this case is concerned with looking into the private sphere and civil society with the aim of ensuring freedom and imposing market discipline. Due to the increasing complexities of the current world, the US National Strategy for Homeland Security has talked of increased unpredictability, challenging and complex environments, and the need for a high level organization and efficiency among multiple actors. Conclusion Drawing conclusions from the discussion, it can be seen that resilience lacks a deeper meaning in relation to human understanding. Complexity, on the other hand, emerges from the ever changing trends of the world, something which makes people to brace for the difficulties emanating from the complexities. People have to bounce back to life even after going through difficult and trying moments in life. The concept of resilience is, therefore, concerned with the long-term survival of populations and eco-system, making resilient appear as a risk management, concerned with the day-to-day activities of individuals and communities. Resilience is both a shallow and shifting concept. As it has been discussed, resilience takes different definitions, especially when it comes to the context of neoliberal governmentality. In the context of rolling out neoliberal governmentality resilience varies in meaning depending on the place and level where it is being applied and also the aims and objects of governance. The limits to resilience are real. Resilience comes to prominence in an uneven world where hegemonic discourses reflect real-world power politics. The current world is characterized by all sorts of complexities which mostly emanate from the changes that are always taking place. As the people living on it, we have the sole responsibility of taking care of ourselves, without relying on political. When faced with the complexities, we can only bounce back to our former lives and move on with life, the concept of resilience. The complexity of life is, therefore, directly linked to resilience. Bibliography Chandler, David C. Empire in denial: the politics of state-building. Pluto, 2006. Chandler, David. "Resilience and human security: The post-interventionist paradigm." Security Dialogue 43, no. 3 (2012): Christopher Zebrowski, “Governing the Network Society: A Biopolitical Critique of Resilience,” Political Perspectives 3, no. 1(2008): David Chandler, Resilience: The Governance of Complexity. Critical Issues in Global Politics. Routledge, 2014 Descartes, René, John Veitch, and René Descartes. Discourse on the method and the Meditations. New York: Cosimo. 2008. Evans, Brad, and Julian Reid. "Dangerously exposed: the life and death of the resilient subject." Resilience 1, no. 2 (2013): Folke, Carl, Steve Carpenter, Thomas Elmqvist, Lance Gunderson, Crawford S. Holling, and Brian Walker. "Resilience and sustainable development: building adaptive capacity in a world of transformations." AMBIO: A journal of the human environment 31, no. 5 (2002): Joseph, Jonathan. "Resilience as embedded neoliberalism: a governmentality approach." Resilience 1, no. 1 (2013): Michel Foucault, The Birth of Biopolitics (Palgrave: Basingstoke, 2008 Pat O’Malley, Resilient Subjects: Uncertainty, Warfare and Liberalism, Economy and Society 39, no. 4(2010): Read More