Analytical material by Serhii Dembitskyi, Doctor of Sociological Sciences: “A model of national resilience in the space of social configurations: essays”

The website of the Institute of Sociology of the NAS of Ukraine has published an analytical material by Serhii Dembitskyi, Doctor of Sociological Sciences, "A model of national resilience in the space of social configurations: essays"

According to the conception of securing a national system of resilience approved by Decree of the President of Ukraine No. 479/2021 of 27 September 2021 (President of Ukraine, 2021), national resilience is “the ability of the state and society to counter effectively threats of any origin and character, to adapt to changes in the security environment, to maintain stable functioning and to recover quickly to the desired equilibrium after crisis situations”. Even this definition makes clear how justified it is to emphasise social configurations when considering national resilience.

The problem here is that the notion of social configurations is as unsettled as that of national resilience. The existence of a rich tradition of configurational analysis applied in historical, anthropological and social research does not simplify the situation. Different lines of enquiry offer their own interpretations of the configurations that arise and change as a result of interaction between social actors. But this study does not set out to compare those approaches. It will be enough for us to choose a starting point for theorising that matches our needs. That starting point is Norbert Elias's figurational sociology, or figurational research.

The full material is here