New paradigm or old wine? Uncovering the contested meaning of resilience in internal European Union governance

Over the last years, resilience has become a central concept in social science research of societal transitions and governance dynamics. In the context of European Union politics, resilience has, for instance, already been studied as a contested policy paradigm for EU external relations (Joseph & Juncos 2019). At the same time, a comparable analysis of what resilience ‘means’ as a policy norm for EU internal governance is still due. Recently, however, the Covid-19 pandemic has further stipulated the need for such stock-taking. The European Union’s policy response embodied an ideational reconfiguration within the overall EU governance architecture and sectoral strategies. Most noteworthy, the concept of resilience has become relatively more visible as a norm within the policy discourse as opposed to norms relating to competitiveness and growth (see Felder & Stockmann, forthcoming). This exploration leads to asking whether this reconfiguration entails a paradigmatic shift or if neoliberal benchmarks of EU governance are perpetuated in ‘new bottles’ with the label of resilience. In this contribution, we respond to this question with a qualitative-interpretative assessment of the meaning of resilience in internal EU governance. To situate this study, we review the conceptual, political science literature on resilience and carve out links to the area of internal EU policymaking and governance. Taking this operationalization as a baseline, we present results from an analysis of expert interviews with EU officials and core EU policy documents. We demonstrate that different knowledge reservoirs and conceptual understandings exist regarding resilience between different EU actors and within organizational fields. This effectuates a contested usage and meaning of the concept within EU strategies. Therefore, we conclude that resilience must be understood as an ‘empty’ concept in which practical usage is subject to political power dynamics and regulation.