Rethinking Socio-Ecological Resilience: Lessons from the COVID-19 Pandemic and the Degrowth Donut Model

Dr. Branko Ančić, researcher at the Institute for Social Research in Zagreb, together with co-authors Jelena Puđak, Mladen Domazet, and Tomislav Cik, has published the scholarly article “Rethinking Socio-Ecological Resilience: Lessons from the COVID-19 and the Degrowth Donut Model” in the journal Sociologija i prostor, 63 (2).

Abstract:
The article develops a socio-ecological understanding of societal resilience by situating responses to the COVID-19 pandemic within broader configurations of cultural orientations, social foundations, and socio-metabolic pressures. The authors argue that resilience cannot be reduced to simple “bounce-back” capacity or institutional preparedness, as societies may remain resilient in undesirable and unsustainable states. The study applies a degrowth-based socio-ecological donut framework to map relationships between social foundations, cultural orientations, and biophysical limits.
The analytical framework builds on research conducted within the project The Social Resilience of Croatian Society in the Midst and Aftermath of the COVID-19 Pandemic (SOCRES) at the Institute for Social Research in Zagreb.
Using a theory-driven comparative design, the analysis examines five European countries—Austria, Croatia, Germany, Italy, and Spain—and shows that variation in pandemic performance aligns most clearly with cultural and social foundation indicators, while stronger short-term crisis performance often coincides with greater biophysical overshoot. The findings highlight a structural paradox at the core of contemporary resilience debates and point toward the need for transformative approaches to socio-ecological resilience.

The article is available at:
https://doi.org/10.5673/sip.63.2.7