In the context of the Nordic Region, psychological resilience refers to an individual’s or community’s self-initiated and self-organising adaptation to changing circumstances or crises. The concept is shaped within everyday circumstances, but it has emerged in an era of crisis-thinking in the region in which the everyday becomes a site for security thinking. While related to other resilience terminology, psychological resilience emphasises relational networks oriented around various purposes or interests (e.g., civic, cultural, religious, educational, communicative, sports) and where qualities such as social capital, trust, and societal values are developed and practiced as a result. While established in the Finnish security context, the concept exists—either implicitly or through alternative terminology—within and beyond the Nordic countries. However, its expression in the Nordic countries may be unique due to the geopolitical history, culture, governance structures, and social organisation of these communities.
Situated within all-of-society security strategies, the idea of building a resilient society is important to both state and private actors within the Nordic countries, as well as for the Nordic Region as a whole, especially as the region faces shared threats such as geopolitical tension, climate change, and deepening social divisions. The research points to several scales of resilience—that of specific individuals and communities within Nordic countries, that of the individual Nordic states, and finally, the resilience of the Nordic Region (or even Nordic-Baltic Region) as a whole—with psychological resilience as a building block at the community level.
But how do Nordic countries determine if they are psychologically resilient, and to what degree? The ability to measure psychological resilience could aid public actors in learning how psychological resilience is developed in practice, determining priorities for intervention, identifying blind spots in social cohesion, and enabling the work to remain institutionally relevant. However, identifying potential indicators for measuring resilience work is difficult, partly because many of its essential qualities are not visible. According to Raisio et al. (2025), some aspects of resilience only emerge in a moment of crisis, when “capability, enthusiasm, and willingness to help and defend” surface among individuals and communities. Some interviewees among the case studies considered things like trust, participation, readiness, social cohesion, and perceived safety as key elements for measuring resilience, but they also note the challenges—both of capturing such metrics through representative indicators as well as making an accurate interpretation of them, especially at larger scales. Our research suggests that, if such a concept is to be measured, the work of selecting indicators that point to successes or limitations of psychological resilience would best be developed across sectors and levels of governance as well as alongside other public and non-government actors.
Among the case studies, interviewees highlighted that resilience-related activities often reach only part of the community and tap into members who were already active or interested in community participation, volunteer work, or preparedness efforts. However, understanding how psychological resilience plays out across different communities and associations reveals the potential for local actors to help make resilience and preparedness more accessible to a greater portion of the population. Local-level actors can act as important mediators in organic and strategic ways. They may also aid in raising awareness of resilience and preparedness efforts among people outside of the specific activities.
As seen from the case studies, local and regional-level communities play a crucial role for enabling social cohesion. Nevertheless, support in the form of guidance and clarity from national and other public actors is important. At the same time, too much prescription from state authorities can hamper the development of trust and a natural sense of participation, particularly if actions are forced upon citizens from above without clarity or understanding of a community’s unique needs and capacities. There are both benefits and constraints of centralised guidance and delegation of responsibility, and grassroots efforts are also essential for establishing community networks as well as initiating resilience and preparedness responsibilities according to their own capabilities.
While enabling psychological, as well as other forms of, resilience is strategically important in the Nordic Region, it also poses some concerns. For example, while stability is necessary for thriving societies, it can also introduce or produce rigidity. When crises loom or strike, resilient societies may be at risk of responding with defiance, or adapting in ways that maintain systems which, in reality, require comprehensive transformation. It is important to achieve some balance of stability without rigidity when developing psychological resilience (Norström et al., 2025).
Threats and vulnerabilities also help societies understand their shared values and build up social unity that sustains such values. However, it is worth mentioning the fine line between social cohesion and its sour twin of ideological nationalism, which can lead to exclusion, fragmentation, or unjust racial or ethnic pride. It is more straightforward to identify the critical functions of society such as supplies or infrastructure, for example, while values often remain less explicit. In some cases, these may be values of democracy, but resilience is not an inherent good, and communities with harmful or dangerous underlying motives can also have high degrees of psychological resilience bent towards alternative visions which run counter to one another or to democratically defined goals. Actors at all levels may need to consider: Which values are referred to in national societal security discourse? What is it, specifically, that citizens, communities, civil society organisations, and government agencies are building trust towards or a shared identity around? Are there specific “Nordic” values, common to all communities, which are worth protecting? These questions, among others related to measuring psychological resilience and the willingness to prepare for crises, remain for future exploration. Nevertheless, our research highlights the significance of civil society organisations, volunteer organisations, and cultural initiatives in strengthening resilience alongside public actors through practices of everyday activities—before, during, and after crises.