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Revisiting Institutional Resilience as a Tool in Crisis Management
Author(s) -
Hills Alice
Publication year - 2000
Publication title -
journal of contingencies and crisis management
Language(s) - English
Resource type - Journals
SCImago Journal Rank - 1.007
H-Index - 51
eISSN - 1468-5973
pISSN - 0966-0879
DOI - 10.1111/1468-5973.00130
Subject(s) - resilience (materials science) , hierarchy , institution , crisis management , function (biology) , government (linguistics) , psychological resilience , value (mathematics) , political science , subject (documents) , economic system , business , public relations , psychology , social psychology , economics , computer science , law , linguistics , philosophy , physics , evolutionary biology , machine learning , biology , library science , thermodynamics
Although institutional resilience is generally considered a desirable attribute in crisis management, many of our assumptions about its value are culturally based. The subject should be revisited because the most adaptive institutions tend to be those associated with statist coercive systems, especially in the developing world. The characteristics of resilient institutions and the factors promoting resilience are addressed here by reference to police systems in sub‐Saharan Africa. The conclusion drawn from the resultant discussion is that there is no simple hierarchy of values or goals in crisis management, that institutional manageability is only partly related to the skills and goals of the participants, and that the most significant factor facilitating resilience is an institution's fulfilment of a function or role considered useful by a government or regime.