David Chandler’s analysis of resilience-thinking and political realism in international relations

Abstract

Resilience is an increasingly popular concept used to explore how systems respond to various challenges. It has been actively used in International Relations. Here, resilience has been analyzed in predominantly postmodernist terms. Yet, I take resilience-thinking, as explored by one of its leading scholars, David Chandler, and show that it has some affinities with political realism, understood, contra stereotypes, as a complex tradition of political reflection. I also apply the insights gained to the recent overarching turn to resilience in the EU’s external action. The article demonstrates that the novel stress of resilience-thinking on the complexity of the contemporary world is very important, but that it is useful to contextualize it and relate it, if in part, to the age-old concerns of the realist tradition, and to identify similar strengths and problems in both approaches. Both resilience-thinking and realism have drawn our attention to the plural aspect of politics. However, they may face problems concerning elements of relativism, a claim to know the ‘reality’ best, the use of fixed categories, irresponsibility, and the reification of an understanding of reality as a permanent crisis. All these strengths and problems will likely play out in the EU’s external action and even its internal development.