The project has developed an innovative theoretical framework that lays out how societal resilience can prevent ALS/CO from deteriorating into governance breakdown and violent conflict (Figure 1). Societal resilience is a society’s adaptive and transformative capacity to successfully cope with and recover from crises. The project theorizes the concept of societal resilience in an empirically applicable way and avoids the state-centrism that is often prevalent in studies on ALS/CO. By considering ALS/CO as default conditions in the EU neighbourhood, EU-LISTCO offers a new perspective for EU foreign and security policy.
The project’s main findings overall are that societal resilience is a key mechanism to prevent governance breakdown and violent conflict in the EU’s neighbourhood. There are three primary sources of resilience: Social trust within societies and communities, legitimacy of (state and non-state) governance actors, as well as effective, fair, and inclusive governance institutions. These three sources can increase the likelihood that societies are able to deal with diverse risks and are able to peacefully adapt to them. Lastly, external actors seeking to foster resilience need to factor in long-time horizons, in-depth local knowledge, and a clearly designed strategy. Assessing the EU’s resilience-building strategies with these criteria, it becomes evident that the EU has a mixed record of success.
EU-LISTCO undertook several approaches to its study of resilience. The project developed cutting-edge quantitative and qualitative empirical methods for risk-scanning, foresight and forecasting. This included large-scale statistical prediction of conflict as well as development of in-depth qualitative risk scenarios. EU-LISTCO identified six risk clusters: (1) geopolitical rivalry and risks of major armed conflict; (2) unconventional security risks; (3) biological and environmental risks; (4) demography and uncontrolled migration; (5) global financial and other systemic economic risks, and; (6) technology-driven disruption.
The project ultimately found that there are three types of tipping points at which ALS/CO may deteriorate into governance breakdown or violent conflict: 1. One-time catastrophic events (the sudden demise of key political leader, a geological disaster, or an unexpected external attack with large-scale impact); 2. Cascading factors (extreme weather, water scarcity, and uncontrolled migration); 3. Layered factors (rapid urbanization, climate vulnerability and sharp economic downturn; or violent extremism, pandemic and migration). Being aware of these pathways might allow EU policy planners to be more effectively prepared for potential governance breakdown or violent conflict in ALS/CO.
EU-LISTCO conducted large-scale comparative case studies in the Eastern and the Southern neighbourhood, emphasizing five focus countries: Libya, Mali, Tunisia, Georgia and Ukraine. Looking at local, regional, and international dynamics across these countries, the studies suggested a strong reciprocal relationship between ALS and CO. In the Eastern neighbourhood, CO have largely created ALS, whereas in the Southern neighbourhood, ALS have invited CO.
The project also studied the EU and select member states’ preparedness in anticipating, preventing, and responding to threats of violent conflict and governance breakdown in these countries and evaluated the resilience-building record of their policies. It found that the objective of fostering resilience has been successfully integrated at the level of policy goals and discourse. However, several difficulties or limitations remain when it comes to policy design, the mobilization of policy resources, and policy implementation.
To inform policy-makers, academia, and the public about its research findings, EU-LISTCO engaged in wide array of dissemination activities. Through the project’s website, working paper series, policy brief series, academic articles, newsletters, and targeted mailings as well as its Twitter and Facebook presences, it disseminated its research widely.
