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Tyler R. Giannini & Ayoung Kim, Building Governance Resiliency: Lessons from the United States, in Climate Refugees: Global, Local and Critical Approaches (Simon Behrman & Avidan Kent eds., 2022).


Abstract: Using climate-induced displacement in the United States as an example, this chapter puts forth ideas that climate change resiliency, which has primarily focused on impacts to social-ecological systems, should be expanded to include ‘governance resiliency’ – the resilience of governance itself, or the processes through which impacts and effects are managed. Climate change governance has largely focused on spatial relationships, including vertical, multi-layered ones from the local to international levels, and horizontal relationships among various governmental and non-governmental actors. With effects as prevalent, long-lasting, and regressive as those arising from climate change, however, this spatial approach lacks two governance dimensions: the temporal, and the more imperceptible structural dimension, which is connected to systemic marginalisation commonly associated with inequality, poverty, and discrimination. The chapter analyses the spatial, temporal, and structural dimensions together through five fact scenarios that consider sudden and gradual changes as well as decisions not to govern. In considering such multidimensional governance and the scenarios, this chapter argues that transformative governance, or what we refer to as transformative resiliency, is required to address systemic inequities and to achieve sustainable governance resiliency.