Marie-Christine Therrien

Resilience Factors Reconciled with Complexity: The Dynamics of Order and Disorder

One of the main challenges in crisis management is to assess, ahead of time, the resilience of a system before a crisis erupts (pandemic, computer bug with large‐scale effects, cascade effects in critical infrastructure, etc.). In this article, we propose to reconcile the multiple and sometimes divergent definition of resilience by explaining the complementarity of stability and adaptability inherent to the concept. Also, we integrate a new dimension to the assessment of resilience by analysing the dynamics of negentropy (order, stability) and entropy (disorder, change) between factors. Until now, the evaluation of organizational and interorganizational resilience focused on analysing the presence or absence of resilience factors. With this new dimension, we show the complementarity and interdependence of resilience factors. Finally, we demonstrate how resilience is based on both favourable order and favourable disorder which create diversity and conformity in the system, while vulnerability relies on unfavourable order and unfavourable disorder.

Interorganizational networks and decision making in technological disasters

Abstract Organizations responding to disasters must coordinate their actions in order to be efficient. Interorganizational networks are put in place to respond to a disaster. Uncertainty and turbulence in the organizational environment pose a special problem in the coordination and decision making of disaster management. This paper presents the importance of interorganizational coordination in disasters. Two technological disasters are presented as case studies. The analysis of the two disasters is based on two typologies: the typology of problems developped for the study of a PCB fire (Saint-Basile-Le-Grand, Quebec) and a typology of interorganizational networks. An analytical comparison of the two disasters is also presented to better understand decisions in each case. The two events present a relative similarity in their origin (technology), but the different focalisation of issues led to a different response. This article is based on an exploratory methodology.

Fundamental determinants of urban resilience: A search for indicators applied to public health crisis

We analysed 26 studies of the use of public health resilience indicators (PHRIs) in an urban setting in western countries, provinces and states. We selected 279 PHRIs in these studies, of which 270 (97%) are used only once or twice. The analysis of the studies thus reveals a lack of consensus not only on the conceptual framework and the approach favoured, but also on the selection and optimal number of indicators. First, by performing different classifications and categorisations of PHRI we identify problems inherent in territorial practices that use PHRI. Second, we argue that the lack of consensus in several steps of the creation of PHRI stems notably from the ambiguity in the definitions of urban public health resilience, objectives for the use of such indicators, the selection method and the accessibility of data. Third, we propose a selection strategy for PHRI through which we demonstrate the need to adopt a parsimonious list of PHRI covering the urban resilience components and their constituent categories as broadly as possible while minimising the number of indicators retained. The result is a concise and less redundant list of indicators that are less sectoral and more integrative, which has the advantage of encompassing the integrated dimensions of urban resilience.

Urban resilience implementation: A policy challenge and research agenda for the 21st century

Resilience has risen rapidly over the last decade to become one of the key terms in international policy and academic discussions associated with civil contingencies and crisis management. As governments and institutions confront threats such as environmental hazards, technological accidents, climate change, and terrorist attacks, they recognise that resilience can serve as a key policy response. Many organisations including the United Nations, the European Union, the World Bank, International Monetary Fund, government agencies and departments, international non-governmental organisations and community groups promote resilience. However, with the rapid rise of resilience has come uncertainty as to how it should be built and how different practices and approaches should come together to operationalise it (Chandler & Coaffee, 2016). Whilst there is a variety of different interpretations given to resilience from practitioners and an open debate about resilience principles and characteristics in academia, we adopt the crisis and disaster management definition of “the capacity of a social system to proactively adapt to and recover from disturbances that are perceived within the system to fall outside the range of normal and expected disturbances” (Boin, Comfort, & Demchak, 2010; p. 9). By developing resilience, a system becomes capable of reducing the impact of shocks and resuming normal functioning more quickly following a disaster and better equipped to meet population needs and minimise economic losses caused by crises (Lagadec, 2009; Meerow, Newell, & Stults, 2016). However, it should be noted that this definition fails to capture preexisting socio-economic inequities within society and that in many countries “negotiated resilience” may be desirable (Ziervogel et al., 2017). Moreover, in the rapidly emerging policy discourse of resilience, cities and urban areas have become a key focus of action where rapid urbanisation and greater global connectedness present unprecedented challenges. Such increased urbanisation also concentrates risk in cities making them increasingly vulnerable to an array of shocks and stresses. Under such circumstances, city managers are increasingly seeking to enhance urban resilience by addressing underlying risk factors, and by reducing the exposure and vulnerability of people and assets to a range of current and future threats. In this sense urban resilience provides different frameworks for reducing the multiple risks faced by cities and communities, ensuring there are appropriate levels of resources and capacities to mitigate, prepare for, respond to, and recover from a range of shocks and stresses (Coaffee & Lee, 2016). Many initiatives organised through global governance networks promote the importance of city-based resilience whilst a range of private sector and philanthropic organisations have advanced programmes of work and frameworks by which cities might develop the capacities to become more resilient. Most notably, major cities throughout the world have joined the 100 Resilient Cities programme (http://www. 100resilientcities.org/) (Rockefeller Foundation & Arup, 2015), pioneered by the Rockefeller Foundation, to develop resilience strategies to face disruptive events and address vulnerabilities that amplify crises and erode coping abilities (e.g., inequality, ageing infrastructure, environmental degradation) (100 Resilient Cities, 2016). Organisations of the United Nations are also urging the development of operational frameworks for dealing with integrated risks management, as the UN Habitat City Resilience Profiling Programme, enhancing resilient communities building in relation to Sustainable Development Goals and the Sendai Framework on Disaster Risk Reduction 2015-2030 (UN, 2015) that followed the Hyogo Framework for Action 2005-2015: Building the Resilience of Nations and Communities to Disasters (ISDR, 2005). However, empirical studies show that despite the popularity of resilience, its implementation sometimes lead to business as usual approaches neglecting social justice (Anguelovski et al., 2016; Ziervogel et al., 2017), or lock-in the development path through unsustainable trajectories, and thus resulting in a complex and underestimated set of trade-offs across spatial and temporal scales (Chelleri, Waters, Olazabal, & Minucci, 2015). This implementation gap (Coaffee & Clarke, 2015) remains between resilience as ambitious objective and the “demonstrated capacity to govern resilience in practice” at the urban level (Wagenaar & Wilkinson, 2015; p. 1265). The implementation of resilience challenges the normal functioning of public administrations (Bourgon, 2009; Duit, 2016) by highlighting the need to replace silos with horizontal management (Matyas & Pelling, 2015), take interdependence with external partners into account (Henstra, 2012; McConnell & Drennan, 2006; Valiquette L’Heureux & Therrien, 2013), and encourage flexible and adaptive processes rather than regular routines that maintain the status quo (Pelling & Manuel-Navarrete, 2011; Stark, 2014). Whilst from a governance perspective we can readily acknowledge that “the building of urban resilience will be most effective when it involves a mutual and accountable network of civic institutions, agencies and individual citizens working in partnership towards common goals within a common strategy” (Coaffee, Murakami-Wood, & Rogers, 2008), municipal authorities are undoubtedly struggling to do so. In seeking to identify the different knowledge gaps and future research questions regarding the implementation of urban resilience we ran a 3-day intensive knowledge-brokering workshop on Co-constructing Knowledge for Urban Resilience Implementation at the Ecole nationale DOI: 10.1111/1468-5973.12233

ÉquiNanos: innovative team for nanoparticle risk management

UNLABELLED Interactions between nanoparticles (NP), humans and the environment are not fully understood yet. Moreover, frameworks aiming at protecting human health have not been adapted to NP but are nonetheless applied to NP-related activities. Consequently, business organizations currently have to deal with NP-related risks despite the lack of a proven effective method of risk-management. To respond to these concerns and fulfill the needs of populations and industries, ÉquiNanos was created as a largely interdisciplinary provincial research team in Canada. ÉquiNanos consists of eight platforms with different areas of action, from adaptive decision-aid tool to public and legal governance, while including biological monitoring. ÉquiNanos resources aim at responding to the concerns of the Quebec nanotechnology industry and public health authorities. Our mandate is to understand the impact of NP on human health in order to protect the population against all potential risks emerging from these high-priority and rapidly expanding innovative technologies. FROM THE CLINICAL EDITOR In this paper by Canadian authors an important framework is discussed with the goal of acquiring more detailed information and establishing an infrastructure to evaluate the interaction between nanoparticles and living organisms, with the ultimate goal of safety and risk management of the rapidly growing fields of nanotechnology-based biological applications.

The Definition of Urban Resilience: A Transformation Path Towards Collaborative Urban Risk Governance

Resilience as a theoretical concept and policy proposition is constantly being redefined and clarified. But when it comes to implementation, public managers and bureaucrats have to take ownership of resilience and translate it into practical forms that make sense to them intellectually and operationally. In this chapter, we first explain how resilience is presented in the literature as, variously, a paradigm change, a governance model to better manage complex issues, and a destination to reach. Second, we analyse how public managers and bureaucrats responsible for implementation in London and Montreal have interpreted and used resilience. Finally, we discuss how paradigm change, governance transformation and goal attainment perspectives end up converging into a relatively similar meaning in both cities. What these cities are lacking to take the next step toward urban resilience is the strategic endorsement of political authorities to support this important transformation.

Tightly coupled governance for loosely coupled wicked problems: the train explosion in Lac-Mégantic case

Risk management is based on a network of actors, interdependent of each other where the decisions will impact the actions of the others. One danger is then loosely coupled governance where the lack of coordination, overlaps and discontinuities create vulnerabilities leading to crisis situations. The analysis of the train derailment in Lac-Megantic shows how the complexity of wicked problems led to the crisis. To analyse the complexity and interdependence of actors and issues three narratives are used: network governance, sensemaking and risk regulation regime. Finally, strategies are proposed to reflect on unlocking opportunities for action.

PROTECTING CANADA AND THE U.S. AGAINST TERRORISM: A COMMON SECURITY PERIMETER?

We argue that national security is a public good and its production can be analyzed in a strategic context. We first present the context of the border between Canada and the United States. Next, we discuss the options of status quo and adoption of a common security perimeter relative to sovereignty and security. We show that efficient border policies could require cooperation among countries but motivating such collaboration may be difficult since joint border security policies may involve a prisoners’ dilemma problem. On the other hand, we show that the likelihood of joint increased security will be higher if there are country-specific benefits for a country improving security at its border. If this is the case, we demonstrate it is possible to reach optimal security using independent border policies.