Learning from Global Democratic Challenges and Innovations Mini-Conference II: What Is Democratic Resilience? Defining and Applying a Novel Concept

Session Submission Type: Roundtable

Part of Mini-Conference

• Learning from Global Democratic Challenges and Innovations Mini-Conference II

Session Description

As democracies face increasing threats from a variety of directions, the concept of democratic resilience has achieved sudden prominence, as reflected in the number of recent articles with the concept in their title. Perhaps not surprisingly for such a novel concept, there is so far no consensus concerning its meaning. It is tempting to borrow from the way resilience is treated in disciplines such as ecology, psychology or even engineering where the idea is more entrenched, but that risks failing to do justice to the particular circumstances of democracy, including the contested nature of what constitutes the essence of democracy. Alternatively, democratic resilience can repackage familiar ideas concerning how democracy may flourish, persists, or retreat. This roundtable will examine diverse definitions and applications of democratic resilience, with the view to advancing the conversation concerning what a distinctively democratic and distinctively resilient conceptualization of democratic resilience will look like. The contributions will draw on both political theory and comparative empirical inquiry concerning how democracies have responded to a variety of threats, The shocks in question might involve civil unrest, ethnic conflict, invasion, assassination, economic crash, violent attacks, ecological collapse, attempted coup, or the rise of authoritarian leaders and extremist parties. The roundtable participants are all prominent among political scientists who have used the concept of democratic resilience in their recent work.

Sub Unit

• Theme Panel

Chair

• Selen A. Ercan University of Canberra

Presenters

• John S. Dryzek University of Canberra

• Jennifer McCoy Georgia State University

• Cassandra V. Emmons International Foundation for Electoral Systems

• Petra R. Guasti Charles University

• JK Sass Australian National University