ABSTRACT
This chapter seeks to outline and then explain the rapid rise of the idea of resilience among policy makers. By looking at the UK’s Department for International Development (DFID) we have the opportunity to examine an area of policy making where the resilience approach is particularly prominent, as well as a government body from a country that is leading the way in developing an understanding of resilience. Here we attempt to understand why resilience has become so popular in policy making in the field of emergency aid and development and in the UK in particular. This is done first by looking at various policy documents and strategy papers, then by deploying a particular conceptual approach that draws on Foucault’s arguments about governmentality.
