MARKETS and RESILIENCE :
A contradiction or a potential?
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Introduction: Reasons for addressing resilience
Resilience: A few conceptual issues
Instances: Madagascar, Senegal, Côte d’Ivoire
Markets: Resilient system or source of vulnerability
Conclusion : Regulation for what and how ?
Jean-Luc Dubois, IRD, IRU Resilience
Alliances to fight poverty seminar
Marseille, 2nd October 2014, 10h15-10h45
1. Reasons for addressing resilience
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A globalized and well-informed world where financial
markets impose their ways of functioning,
Volatility (markets), flexibility (agents), precariat …
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This generates uncertainties due to regular changes
vulnerability (the risk of falling) et fragility (risk of breakingup) implies reasoning in terms of trajectories et randomness
Confronted to serious shock (generating trauma):
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Is it possible to adjust or to overcome the trauma
(resilience)? With what conditions (requires observation and
assessment)?
What can be done after a shock (ex-post) or even in a
preventive way (ex-ante) in order to allow resilience?
2. Resilience : Conceptual issues
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Origin and multi-topics history
Definition and formalization
What to observe and measure ?
Ex-post public action vs. ex-ante policies
Origin and multi-topics history
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Elements for a common definition of resilience are
emerging from various scientific domains
Initially metal physics (torsion, shock)
Then psychology being centred on the individuals:
Werner (Hawai), Masten (‘magic’), Cyrulnik …
Socio-ecosystems: a systemic approach (Holling,
Adger, Gunderson, Berkès, …), ‘panarchy’ schemes
For social resilience: groups, institutions, towns…
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Searching for a joint definition related to previous research
Resilience as a ‘capacity’ (individual and collective) and a
‘process’ managed through various steps (linked to agency)
Input of social sciences: role of inter-action and collective
Definition and formalisation
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Resilience can be seen as a capability i.e. effective and
observable, potential leading to freedom (Sen)
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Introduces the distinction between shock and breakdown
and therefore between ex-ante and ex-post situations:
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« The ability of a person, a social group, a system to bounce /
restart / reborn after a traumatic shock that destroyed all or
part of its integrity" »
What kind of shock? Duration and intensity (vulnerability)
A breakdown of the system? Introduces ‘fragility’
Raises the issue of resilience as a process ex-post
including various steps calling for agency :
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Distinguishing between quantitative adaptation and
qualitative resilience as the consequence of a shock
With various steps to go through for bouncing (with a leap):
adaptation, resistance, rebellion, breakdown, renaissance, ...
A conceptual scheme
What to observe and measure?
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What will we observe and measure? (distinctions)
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An application of the capability approach
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Effective capacity of resilience observed (descriptive
indicator) and potential freedom (inductive variable)
Can we find a unique and universal indicator?
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The capability to bounce of whom? for what?
The steps of a resilience process through agency?
A resilience threshold?
A set of indicators (multidimensional)
Objective measurement or subjective based on perceptions
Indicators of gap (quantitative) and leap (qualitative):
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Quantitative indicator for adaptive capacity (vulnerability)
Qualitative indicator to express a break (fragility)
Ex-post public action vs ex-ante policies
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Two distinctions : ex-ante and ex-post situations; public
actions vs public policies
Ex-post public actions (curative)
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Ex-ante public policies (preventive)
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After a shock and a breakdown, important role of NGOs
Role of agency (empowerment) and effective capabilities
Follow-up of the resilience process (various steps)
Aim of policies is to anticipate a shock, a crisis (breakdown)
Risk management, human development, infrastructure …
To reinforce the potential dimension of resilience capability
A remaining question: resilience of whom? for what?
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Famines and food security, naturel disasters (hurricane,
typhoon, earthquake), armed conflicts and civil wars
3. Some instances
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Madagascar
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Senegal
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Socio-political blockages lead to regular government change
GDP decreasing trend, alternative phases of renewed growth
Markets adaptation but lack of social redistribution
Fragility of marine and coastal ecosystems
A human decision: a breach in Senegal estuary
Change in markets : from food and vegetable to salt
Côte d’Ivoire
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Strong structural inequalities between North and South
A socio-political crisis due to the presidential election
Beginning of a civil war that generates population trauma
Market ‘resilience’ and use for economic ‘emergence’
Madagascar GDP per capita and political
regimes since 1971
A breach in Senegal coastal estuary
4. Markets: Resilient system
or source of vulnerability
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A particular resilient system able to adjust to the
socio-economic environment and to rebound in the
case of crisis through its internal mechanism (supply
demand, exchange, price)… being a resilience factor
However, due to its volatility, a permanent source of
vulnerability for all actors : can this be corrected by
insurance processes (derived products)?
Markets to remain source of sustainable growth
(danger of precariat, periphery classes) requires
regulation : insurance, taxes, subsidies
5. Conclusion : Regulation for what, for
whom and how ?
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The objective is to prevent crises (i.e. subprime) by
controlling excess in terms of social and economic
justice while promoting freedom initiatives
A history of taxation on exchanges : mercantilist,
physiocrat, industrial product, service, finance…
Markets could be a relevant instrument for
redistribution based on a precise analysis of supply
and demand (products and actors)
Can be adjusted through negotiation, planning,
incentive taxation (value added tax) and subsidies
Recent references
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Ballet J., D. Bazin, J.-L. Dubois, F.-R. Mahieu, 2013, Freedom,
Responsibility and Economics of the Person, London, Routledge
Châtaignier J.-M., 2014, Fragilités et résilience : nouvelles
frontières de la mondialisation, Paris, Karthala
Fontaine L., 2014, Le marché. Histoire et usages d’une
conquête sociale, NRF Essais, Paris, Gallimard
Ibrahim S. and Tiwari M. (eds.), 2014, The Capability
Approach: From Theory to Practice, London, Palgrave
Koffi J.-M., Ballet J., 2014, « Resilience et sociétés », numéro
special, Ethics and Economics Vol.11 No. 1
UNDP, 2014, Sustaining Human Progress: Reducing
vulnerabilities and Building Resilience, HDR 2014, New York