Civic ecosystem responses to compound crises: evidence from Syria

Abstract

Compound crises have attracted growing interest from scholars and policymakers in recent years. Little attention, however, has been directed to the social relations that emerge from and respond to such phenomena. This paper closes the gap by investigating the emergence, impact, and limitations of the civic ecosystem that responded to the earthquakes in northwest Syria in 2023, an area already affected by protracted armed conflict, mass displacement, and humanitarian emergency. We combine ideas from complex adaptive systems theory, civic ecosystems scholarship, and the literature on compound crises to analyse primary data and evidence collected through key informant interviews, a focus group discussion, and participatory observation. The paper contends that compound crises present distinctive challenges and opportunities that civic ecosystems are particularly adept at addressing and exploiting. We show how they evolve through adaptive cycles of learning and innovation across multiple co-occurring shocks. One implication of the argument is the need to apply systems theory to understand how systems can tackle, rather than only produce, complex social problems such as compound crises.