ABSTRACT
This chapter seeks to C. S. Holling’s early resilience research at the International Institute of Applied Systems Analysis (IIASA) to show how ecological resilience theory was embedded in the production of new arts of government from its inception, with broad influence on the field of systems analysis much earlier than its mainstreaming in the 1990s. It argues that ecological resilience was embedded in the production of new arts of government from its inception – what Egle Rindzeviciute has called a ‘systems-cybernetic governmentality.’ The chapter discusses historicizing resilience in the context of ecological and environmental concern in the 1960s and 1970s. Strengthening the interdisciplinary applications of resilience was a key focus of Holling’s work at IIASA. Holling’s experience at IIASA demonstrates that resilience, rather than simply an ecological theory subsequently expanded to accommodate social dynamics, was influential to new arts of government informed by systems and complexity sciences from its inception.
