Conceptual politics and resilience-at-work in the European Union

International crises, most recently the Covid-19 pandemic and Russia’s invasion of Ukraine, often radically change our view of the world and our place within it. The European Union (EU) has been particularly impacted by these developments because these crises have accentuated some of its ontological and epistemological uncertainties and insecurities. Amidst this context, the EU’s
resilience turn aimed at strengthening the EU’s ability to prepare and recover from external shocks and crises. However, the concept of resilience has also evolved since it was first adopted in the EU’s Global Strategy in 2016. In recent years, we have seen the EU turning back in on itself and abandoning the radical aspects of resilience. Hence a paradox has emerged – the more complex the
problems faced by the EU, the more it turns away from the logics of complexity present in the idea of resilience. In this paper, we examine this conceptual shift through the lenses of concepts in action and the way these have reflected changes in the external context, but also power coalitions and institutional path dependencies. This argument will be explored by examining the recently adopted Strategic Compass and the EU’s Recovery and Resilience Facility (RRF).