Disaster and Political Resilience

Previous studies of disaster or crisis has paid little attention to resilience, instead focusing on physical devastation and recovery. This study seeks to explain the variations in post-disaster recovery by focusing on the role of social and political resilience. We argue that communities respond differently to similar disturbances because of variations in political resilience, defined by the amount of disturbance the political system can absorb without changing regime. In this paper, we give full meaning to the notion of political resilience, then suggest indicators that can be employed to “measure” it. We suggest three cluster variables of governance, international cooperation, and social capital to measure political resilience.