https://orcid.org/0000-0002-7768-0214
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ABSTRACT
To what extent does societal resilience help to prevent governance breakdown? The EU’s southern neighbourhood has been troubled by multiple security risks in recent years. The security situation of many citizens is uncertain and local populations frequently feel insecure, an indication of governance breakdown. Resilience has become a new focus in preventing a breakdown of governance. Yet, the extent to which resilience can help prevent governance breakdown remains unclear. Building on original survey data from Libya and Tunisia this study contributes empirical evidence to the debate. The article shows that limited statehood and order contestation do not necessarily lead to a breakdown of governance. Although both risks affect Tunisia and Libya to different degrees none of them are strongly correlated with the security perceptions of local populations. Additionally, resilience is key in preventing governance breakdown. Social trust and the legitimacy of governance actors are two main sources of resilience helping to prevent a breakdown of governance. Moreover, resilience has divergent effects on different dimensions of security governance breakdown. While resilience has stronger effects on national security perceptions, local security considerations are partly driven by other factors such as individuals’ economic resources.
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No potential conflict of interest was reported by the author(s).
Notes
1 Boubekeur, “Islamists, Secularists and Old Regime Elites in Tunisia”; Schumacher and Schraeder, “The Evolving Impact of Violent Non-state Actors on North African Foreign Policies”.
2 Chandler, “Resilience and Human Security”; Juncos, “Resilience as the New EU Foreign Policy Paradigm”.
3 Korosteleva, “Reclaiming Resilience Back”; Pospisil and Kühn, “The Resilient State”; Tocci, “Resilience and the Role of the European Union”.
4 High Representative of the Union for Foreign Affairs and Security Policy, “Shared Vision, Common Action”.
5 Tocci, “Resilience and the Role of the European Union”; Stollenwerk, Börzel, and Risse, “Theorizing Resilience-Building in the EU's Neighbourhood”, Bargués and Morrilas, “From democratization to fostering resilience”.
6 See Rotberg, When States Fail.
7 Börzel, Risse and Draude, “Governance in Areas of Limited Statehood”; Schmelzle and Stollenwerk, “Virtuous or Vicious Circle?”.
8 See e.g. Korosteleva, “Reclaiming Resilience Back”; Tocci, “Resilience and the Role of the European Union”; Stollenwerk, Börzel, and Risse, “Theorizing Resilience-Building in the EU's Neighbourhood”.
9 Glawion, The Security Arena in Africa; Stollenwerk “Securing Legitimacy”.
10 Börzel, Risse, and Draude, “Governance in Areas of Limited Statehood”.
11 Dupont, Grabosky, and Shearing, “The Governance of Security in Weak and Failing States”; see also Schröder, “Security”.
12 Sirkeci, “War in Iraq”.
13 Glawion, The Security Arena in Africa.
14 See e.g. Chandler, “Resilience and Human Security”; Glawion, The Security Arena in Africa.
15 Stollenwerk, Börzel, and Risse, “Theorizing Resilience-Building in the EU's Neighbourhood”; Chandler, “Resilience and Human Security”; Korosteleva, “Reclaiming Resilience Back”; Burnell and Calvert “The Resilience of Democracy”.
16 See Stollenwerk, Börzel, and Risse, “Theorizing Resilience-Building in the EU's Neighbourhood” a graphical illustration of the conceptual framework guiding this article and the entire special issue.
17 Draude, Hölck, and Stolle, “Social Trust”, 354.
18 Draude, Hölck, and Stolle, “Social Trust”; Stollenwerk, Börzel, and Risse, “Theorizing Resilience-Building in the EU's Neighbourhood”.
19 Börzel and Risse, “Dysfunctional State Institutions”; Ostrom, Governing the Commons.
20 Gilley, The Right to Rule; Risse and Stollenwerk, “Legitimacy in Areas of Limited Statehood”.
21 Schmelzle, Politische Legitimität und zerfallene Staatlichkeit; Schmelzle and Stollenwerk, “Virtuous or Vicious Circle?”.
22 Levi, Sacks, and Tyler, “Conceptualizing Legitimacy”; Schmelzle and Stollenwerk, “Virtuous or Vicious Circle?”.
23 See e.g. Nickerson, “Confirmation Bias”.
24 See Krasner and Risse, “External Actors, State-Building, and Service Provision in Areas of Limited Statehood”; Schmelzle and Stollenwerk, “Virtuous or Vicious Circle?”.
25 Dandashly, “EU Democracy Promotion”; Gaub, “The EU and Libya”.
26 See Korosteleva, “Reclaiming Resilience Back”; Tocci, “Resilience and the Role of the European Union”; Stollenwerk, Börzel, and Risse, “Theorizing Resilience-Building in the EU's Neighbourhood”.
27 See cellular subscriptions (per 100 people) – Libya, Tunisia | Data (worldbank.org).
28 The list of Shabiyas in Libya is based on the Shabiya limits of 2007. As reforms of administrative units in Libya after 2007 have only partly been implemented and violent fighting has put the relevance of the new Shabiya limits for local populations in doubt, the 2007 Shabiya limits are considered more relevant. Due to an insufficient number of respondents the multilevel analysis includes 21 Shabiyas for Libya.
29 See Firchow and Mac Ginty, “Including Hard-to-Access Populations”.
30 Przeworski and Teune, The Logic of Comparative Social Inquiry.
31 Gilley, The Right to Rule; von Haldenwang, “Measuring Legitimacy”.
32 See e.g. Knack and Keefer, “Does Social Capital Have an Economic Payoff?”.
33 Raleigh et al., “Introducing ACLED”.
34 Bratton, “Citizen Perceptions of Local Government Responsiveness”; Chu et al., “Public Opinion”.
35 Levi, Sacks, and Tyler, “Conceptualizing Legitimacy”; Tyler, Why People Obey the Law.
36 Lee, Walter-Drop, and Wiesel, “Taking the State (Back) Out?”.
37 Abrahamsen and Williams, “Securing the City”; Landmann and Schönteich, “Urban Fortresses”.
38 Hox, Multilevel Analysis; Wenzelburger, Jäckle, and König, Weiterführende Statistische Methoden.
39 See also O’Brien, “The Primacy of Political Security”.
40 See also Cross and Sorens, “Arab Spring Constitution-making”.
41 See e.g. Lefèvre, “The pitfalls of Russia's growing influence in Libya”.
42 Dandashly, “EU Democracy Promotion”; Gaub, “The EU and Libya”.
43 Abrahamsen and Williams, “Securing the City”; Landmann and Schönteich, “Urban Fortresses”.
44 See e.g. Korosteleva, “Reclaiming Resilience Back”; Tocci, “Resilience and the Role of the European Union”; Stollenwerk, Börzel, and Risse, “Theorizing Resilience-Building in the EU's Neighbourhood”.
45 Rotberg, When States Fail.
46 Börzel, Risse and Draude, “Governance in Areas of Limited Statehood”; Schmelzle and Stollenwerk, “Virtuous or Vicious Circle?”.
47 Glawion, The Security Arena in Africa; Stollenwerk “Securing Legitimacy”.
48 Joseph, “The EU in the Horn of Africa”; Natali, “Syria's Spillover on Iraq”; Kakachia, Legucka, and Lebanidze, “Can the EU's new global strategy make a difference?”; Ozcurumez, “The EU's effectiveness in the Eastern Mediterranean migration quandary”.
49 Owen, “Measuring Human Security”; Sherrieb, Norris, and Galea, “Measuring Capacities for Community Resilience”.
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Eric Stollenwerk
Eric Stollenwerk is a Research Fellow at the German Institute for Global and Area Studies (GIGA) in Hamburg, Germany. He is also an Affiliated Senior Researcher at the Peace Research Institute Oslo (PRIO), Norway. He obtained his PhD from the Freie Universität Berlin, Germany and has been a guest researcher at Stanford University and the Peace Research Institute Oslo. His work lies at the intersection of international relations, comparative politics, and peace and conflict studies. His current research focuses on the legitimacy of state and non-state actors, security perceptions of local populations, and societal resilience. He has published his work among others in the Annual Review of Political Science, the Journal of Intervention and Statebuilding, Terrorism and Political Violence, and Daedalus.