Civic Duty: A Booster for Resilience?

Abstract

The IJPH series "Young Researcher Editorial" is a training project of the Swiss School of Public Health.Though the COVID-19 pandemic has taken centre stage in our lives, climate change, conflict, and economic recession still threaten our systems and societies. The capacity of systems and societies to absorb, adapt, and transform when exposed to a shock and still retain their core functions is called resilience. Building resilience is one way of managing such crises. One important driver of resilience may be social capital [1], which plays an important role during times of crisis and calm [2]. A component of social capital is civic capital. Civic capital comprises values that support cooperation for the common good and civic engagement. We argue that civic capital is a key ingredient in resilience and that communities, health systems, and governments require civic capital to effectively manage and recover from current and future crises.Communities with more trust, civic engagement, and tighter networks, can recover better than more fragmented counterparts after a crisis. Civic capital increases trust among community members, leads to more sharing of critical information and cooperative partnerships, which seems to be a foundation for resilience [3]. The role of civic capital in the recovery process is evident in the aftermath of three major disasters: the Kobe Earthquake, Hurricane Katrina, and the Indian Ocean Tsunami. Proxy indicators to measure the strength of civic capital were levels of trust in fellow citizens and government institutions, time and energy spent on civic duties, and the ability of citizens to mobilize cooperatively. Despite drastic differences in income levels, people in Kobe and India had more civic capital than people in New Orleans, mirroring the efficiency and sustainability of their recoveries [3].The social contract that promotes civic capital may be shaped by the definition of a "successful" response to a crisis like the COVID-19 pandemic. Many governments responded to COVID-19 by prioritizing goals like suppressing transmission or "flattening the curve" and used metrics like number of cases, reproductive rate, and occupancy rate of intensive care beds as indicators of progress and success. In some cases, stringent interventions like lockdowns and cancellation of routine healthcare appointments took a heavy toll on the health of non-COVID patients. For example, it marginalized cancer care and reduced support for other chronic conditions [4]. Countries that took a top-down authoritarian approach may have successfully suppressed transmission over the short term at the expense of community ownership, eroding the vital precondition of trust that legitimizes resilient systems [5].Another example of civic capital is that of South Korea, one of the few countries that neither introduced a formal lockdown nor closed its borders. Instead, South Korea focused on meticulous contact tracing and strict, consistently applied quarantine rules. In combination with active civic engagement, these strategi...

Evidence of health system resilience in Myanmar during Cyclone Nargis: a qualitative analysis

“…Social capital may in fact play a more important role in providing relief from the cyclone, just as it had been reported as being more vital in mitigating the spread of the Ebola virus than any donor-driven short-term interventions 13. The pivotal role social capital plays in building community resilience have been well documented by other studies in the context of both natural and man-made disasters 36–40. When communities themselves start carrying out critical health system functions, this collective momentum for community resilience prompts what Barker et al 11 calls a ‘fortuitous cycle’ of increased trust, improved communication and continued meaningful community engagement, all of which are crucial preconditions for enabling health system resilience.…”

“…13 The pivotal role social capital plays in building community resilience have been well documented by other studies in the context of both natural and man-made disasters. [36][37][38][39][40] When communities themselves start carrying out critical health system functions, this collective momentum for community resilience prompts what Barker et al 11 calls a 'fortuitous cycle' of increased trust, improved communication and continued meaningful community engagement, all of which are crucial preconditions for enabling health system resilience. Second, Myanmar's historical legacy of prolonged military rule and a lack of long-term investments posed as major barriers to achieving resilience.…”

What makes health systems resilient? A qualitative analysis of the perspectives of Swiss NGOs

“…Participatory political processes reinforce resilience of the state by offering collectively agreed strategies to deal with shocks [ 12 ]. Furthermore, communities that cooperate for a common good to exercise their civic duty, which is an indication of a higher civic capital, are proven to be more resilient to crises and recover faster than their fragmented counterparts [ 29 ]. Hence, the everyday practice of governance may be equally influential in the achievement of equity and thereafter resilience [ 30 ].…”