SOCIETAL RESILIENCE OF DEMOCRATIC SOCIETY IN TIMES OF WAR: CONCEPTUAL FOUNDATIONS, FUNCTIONAL ARCHITECTURE, AND DEVELOPMENT TRAJECTORIES

Abstract

This article examines the evolution of the concept of societal resilience and its transformation in the context of contemporary armed conflicts. Drawing on an analysis of the current scholarly literature, it demonstrates the shift from understanding societal resilience primarily as the capacity to respond to crises towards interpreting it as an integral characteristic of a democratic political system that ensures the continuity of the functioning of the state, civil society, and social institutions under conditions of war. The article highlights the complementary nature of the capacity-based and process-based approaches to societal resilience and proposes an integrated framework that combines both perspectives. The study develops an original definition of democratic societal resilience, identifies the fundamental principles underlying its functioning, and proposes a functional architecture comprising political-institutional, social, civic, security, economic, information and communication, and value-identity components. It is argued that societal resilience emerges through the interaction between the state, civil society, and citizens and cannot be reduced to a mere aggregation of individual resources or institutions. Particular attention is devoted to analysing the impact of war on the trajectories of political development. The article proposes a conceptual distinction between democratic and authoritarian models of societal resilience, demonstrating that they differ in their mechanisms of mobilisation, patterns of state–society interaction, sources of legitimacy, and long-term implications for political development. It concludes that democratic societal resilience should be understood not only as a mechanism for ensuring the functioning of the state during wartime but also as a prerequisite for post-war democratic consolidation and institutional development. Keywords: societal resilience, democratic societal resilience, democratic transformation, civil society, democratic governance, social capital, war, Russo-Ukrainian War, democratic consolidation, authoritarian resilience.