Lately, the European Union (EU) has faced multiple internal and external challenges. The conceptual response of EU institutions was “A Global Strategy for the European Union’s Foreign and Security Policy” (June 2016). At the core of the understanding of what was happening, as well as of the prospects of overcoming those crises, sat the concept of “resilience.” It has been some time since this concept appeared in the discourses of international organizations and its meaning remains volatile, situational and dependent on the scope of application, the relevant context and the authorship.

The purpose of this study is to examine the specificity of use of the concept of resilience in the discourses of the EU and various international organizations, as well as the interrelation between those uses. The sample encompasses organizations of particular importance to the European integration project and to global and regional governance, including the Council of Europe, the North Atlantic Treaty Organization (NATO), the Organization for Security and Co-operation in Europe (OSCE), the Organisation for Economic Co-operation and Development (OECD) and those which comprise the United Nations system (the International Monetary Fund (IMF), the World Bank, etc.). Since the empirical material consists mostly of official texts produced by international organizations, the preferred method of study is discourse analysis.

The analysis examines the Brussels-advanced notion of resilience from a more distant perspective, namely, within the coordinate system of global and regional governance represented by Western-dominated multilateral institutions. The study identifies channels and agents responsible for the concept’s penetration into the discourses of the EU and other international organizations. Conclusions are drawn regarding similarities and divergences in the articulations of resilience. Particular focus is put on the interrelation between the concept and the neo-liberal approach to risk management and security.