Crisis response, choice and resilience: insights from complexity thinking

The recent global economic crisis has illuminated the need to open up the 'black box' which surrounds our understanding of the adaptive capacities of regional actors in the face of recessionary crises and how these relate to economic resilience. This paper contributes to this endeavour by developing a complex adaptive systems (CAS) framework for understanding who has agency within regional economies, how agency functions, and specifically what shapes how agents adapt, respond and react to crises. Using the case study of Wales, we draw on insights from CAS thinking to highlight the importance of conceptualising this agency in relation to the opportunities and capacity for action, and the co-evolutionary behaviour of agents within their regional contexts.