Resilience is increasingly discussed as a key concept across many fields of international policymaking from sustainable development and climate change, insecurity, conflict and terrorism to urban and rural planning, international aid provision and the prevention of and responses to natural and man-made disasters. Edited by leading academic authorities from a number of disciplines, this is the first handbook to deal with resilience as a new conceptual approach to understanding and addressing a range of interdependent global challenges. The Handbook is divided (...) into nine sections: Introduction: contested paradigms of resilience; the challenges of resilience; governing uncertainty; resilience and neoliberalism; environmental concerns and climate change adaptation; urban planning; disaster risk reduction and response; international security and insecurity; the policy and practices of international development. Highlighting how resilience-thinking is increasingly transforming international policy-making and government and institutional practices, this book will be an indispensable source of information for students, academics and the wider public interested in resilience, international relations and international security. (shrink)

Since 9/11 the conceptualisation of terrorism and how governments should respond to the dangers it poses have undergone significant changes. This paper argues that the way in which terrorism is framed, academically and in policy terms, has significant implications for how counterterrorism strategies are developed and applied. It is asserted that the search for appropriate counterterrorism solutions has led to a new synthesis of several academic and practitioner traditions as policy makers and emergency professionals attempt to construct more holistic notions (...) of security. It is further argued that in this effort specialists adopt a new vocabulary—centred on resilience—which is at once proactive and reactive, with an in-built adaptability to the fluid nature of the new security threats challenging states and their urban areas in “the age of terrorism.” It is widely agreed that the world has entered into a new age in which everything will be different: “the age of terror”. Undoubtedly 9/11 will hold a prominent place in the annals of terrorism, though we should think carefully about why this is the case. Anyone familiar with past and current history knows that the reason is not, regrettably, the scale of the crimes; rather the choice of innocent victims. What the consequences will depend substantially on how the rich and powerful interpret this dramatic demonstration that they are no longer immune from atrocities of the kind they routinely inflict upon others, and how they chose to react.1. (shrink)

Since the 1970s Western governments have sought to defend selective urban areas from terrorist attack through a plethora of measures aimed at territorially controlling space both physically and technologically where the disruption to the orderly flow of commerce, or other activities, is minimized. Drawing on recent historical accounts, this paper seeks to track the changes to the landscape of Britain’s financial heart, the City of London, from the 1990s to the current day, as its leaders and security agents have sought (...) to defend the area from terrorist attack through the construction of what is commonly referred to as the “ring of steel.”. (shrink)

Urban areas are prime targets for international terrorists given the array of valuable physical and social infrastructure they contain. Whereas traditionally governmental, financial, critical infrastructure or military targets have been attacked, increasingly terrorism is targeted at everyday crowded urban spaces which are by their very nature difficult to defend. Subsequently this has led to a wave of pre-emptive and anticipatory counter-terrorism policy in the West in an attempt to secure the defence of the future city. In such policy-making urban terror (...) attacks are viewed as inevitable and unavoidable, but the nature of such attacks is seen as fluid. Notably, recent commando-style attacks against non-western cities — in Mumbai and Lahore in late 2008 and early 2009 respectively — and against soft, unprotected targets has led to a reassessment of western urban security strategies and an assumption that such terrorist modus operandi will migrate to western cities. Such an uncritical reading, as exemplified by the western bias in media reporting in the aftermath of these events, highlights the need for scholars and policy-makers to engage with alternative readings of these events and illuminate the contextual factors underlying terrorism and its tactics, and target selection in particular locations. In developing a more rounded and reflexive understanding of terrorism as a method, planners and policy-makers might be in a better position to progress more nuanced security strategies that aim to tackle the underlying causes of terrorism rather than simply reacting through militarizing an increasing array of urban spaces. (shrink)