Publication

This paper looks at the two ways 'resilience' - widely viewed as a desirable feature for systems that could be exposed to threats or disturbance - is expressed: a 'bounce back' to a pre-disturbance state or adaptation to a new state. The authors look at how the ‘bounce back’ approach has been used and is understood in five core disciplines: engineering/technical, psychological (individual), business/economic, ecological, and community (hazards/disaster research). They explain the typology of resilience further and apply it to the 2005 power outage in Switzerland. The paper concludes with a discussion of the relevance of the ‘bounce back’ approach for policy making in Switzerland.