Paper/Speech Details of Conference Program for the 29th NISPAcee Annual Conference Program Overview Main Conference Theme Author(s) Rasa Bortkevičiūtė University of Vilnius Vilnius Lithuania Nakrosis Vitalis, Title Resilience building during the management of the COVID-19 crisis in Lithuania: major breakthroughs and incremental change File Paper files are available only for conference participants, please login first. Presenter Rasa Bortkevičiūtė Abstract Modern societies are facing an increasing number of transboundary systemic threats. The sudden spread of the COVID-19 pandemic has once again highlighted concerns about governments’ capacity to deal with disruptions that go beyond routine crises and stressed the need for more resilient crisis management. However, the latter emerges from the operational decisions or strategical investments into greater preparedness for future shocks that were made during the crisis management. Building on ideas of the new institutionalism, more specifically, the normative logic of appropriateness and the rational logic of consequentiality, we examine how different mechanisms and processes in changing political, policy and governance contexts lead to different types of resilience building. Based on the analysis of the Lithuanian case of COVID-19 crisis management in 2020, we argue that in environments where the logic of consequentiality was dominant, resilience was mostly strengthened as a result of major breakthroughs, stemming from coercive pressures, political level decision-making as well as top-down policy action from the center of government. In contrast, more incremental developments contributed to resilience building through normative or mimetic pressures, professionalization, network-based and bottom-up practices in environments, where the logic of appropriateness prevailed. We argue that, while the logic of consequentiality helps to strengthen resilience in the context of the turbulence at the time, the logic of appropriateness is especially important for ensuring its sustainability.
