The false resilience vs accountability debate

RESILIENCE science is a brand-new field that has engaged both social and natural scientists. Resilience scientists define resilience as the ability of a system to cope with disturbances, to retain the same identity. It does not imply the inability to change and evolve, but rather refers to the ability to self-organize, recalibrate and evolve even as it retains its overall structure, function and feedback mechanisms.

The literature on resilience, which draws from findings of many empirical and theoretical studies conducted on social and ecological systems, point to several characteristics that a resilient system should necessarily possess. These include the diversity and heterogeneity of system elements, its openness and porosity to the emergence and departure of ideas, a robust feedback system, the separability or modularity of its composite parts, the prevalence of a culture of learning and innovation, and a robust sense of social capital or the ability to act collectively to obtain a common goal.