A capacity approach to territorial resilience: the case of European regions

Regional resilience is a new paradigm to explain the local system ability to cope with a negative event, tolerating the effect produced by the perturbing action. The first objective of the paper is to analyze the complex concept of regional resilience, adopting a systemic and holistic approach. Using a multidimensional methodology, regional resilience is described by outcome and driver variables, with focus on sustainability of local systems, broken down into the three pillars of economy, society and environment, whereby the holistic approach means that each dimension of territorial sustainable development is partly determined by its relations with the other dimensions. The second aim of the paper is then to test the relations between determinants and outcome of regional resilience. This framework is different compared to previous empirical studies, which primarily focus on economic performance in terms of income or employment dynamics. The model is applied to the case of European regions, to get a map of regional resilience in its different dimensions.